CallumPar

Not seen his interview. Does he seriously claim it’s not a penalty? I understand he’s obviously looking at it from an Airdrie perspective, but to argue that’s not a penalty is just daft. Keeper gets nowhere near the ball and clearly catches Wighton. Did Wighton make the most of it? Absolutely. But there was a clear foul and the keeper/Airdrie can have no complaints about the decision.

Yeah. I thought the ref got the triple booking right. Regarding the header, to be honest, others will have had a better view than me. But I did think that it must have been close, but I didn’t think it had gone in. Was between the keeper and the goal, but he looked about a yard or so off his line and was able to reach back and get it.

He grabbed the ball and stopped the players getting it, in an attempt to delay the restart. Usually goes unpunished, but most keepers also release the ball without much fight, rather than throwing himself into the net clutching onto it as if his life depends on it. If you’re that obvious about it, you can’t complain about the yellow. He’d also just been warned about time wasting.

He’d scored one in a row. He’s now missed 2 of his last 3. Having said that, for some reason I just had a feeling he wasn’t scoring. The long delay, he didn’t look as confident as usual and Hutton probably feels he has something to prove at East End, since he’s regarded as one of our worst keepers in recent times.

Josh Rae had another very good game today, I thought. But that’s 2 weeks in a row he picked up a stupid first booking, then made a big error that should have been a second yellow last week and got one this week. Genuine question, is he that reckless every week? No doubting his ability, but he can’t be risking red cards every week.

You know it was 1-1 before the red card, and we were on top by that point? Honestly, Airdrie fans like to make up some nonsense. The red card didn’t benefit us at all and actually hinders our title bid.

I’d have accepted that after an hour. But you’ve played us 3 times, got a total of 0 wins. Thrown away a 3 goal lead to us last week and were lucky to get a point in the end today. We may be pish. But at least we’re not as pish as Airdrie!

Draw probably fair on the balance of play. But that’s 2 points dropped. We should have won that. Once again, Airdrie the better team for the first hour or so. McCann and Todorov completely changed the game and Airdrie couldn’t cope with them. Once we equalised, we should have gone onto win. Keeper getting sent off should have sealed that. Not sure what the defender was doing trying to play it back like that. Good awareness from Wighton to run into the ball though. Not much keeper could have done, but an obvious second booking. Then Benedictus hits a penalty that’s the ideal height/placement for a keeper. It’s David Hutton, put it in a corner and he can’t get there. He nearly spilled two other harmless shots into his net. Falkirk will cruise to victory next week against him. That referee was horrendous. Understood the frustration from both benches/sets of fans. Missed glaringly obvious things and gave lots of fouls/throw ins for the wrong team. It’s never a good sign when both benches have coaches carded for abusing him. He looked young/inexperienced. Hopefully he’s not back at this level until he’s ready.

Can definitely understand the thinking behind that lineup. Switched to back 4, which makes sense. Midfield full of players that will be able to offer options for the defenders. Reckon Mochrie, KRH and Todd will all come deep for the ball (as well as Hamilton), so take pressure off defenders when Airdrie press high - that was an issue last week. Airdrie’s defence couldn’t cope when we ran at them. Likewise, their midfield didn’t track runners. So Mahon, Todd, Mochrie and KRH running at them all game makes sense too.

Don’t think so. Shame, as I’d probably subscribe if they did. If they do, it’s not advertised at all.

Rated highly. Played v Dundee in the challenge cup recently and, by all accounts, played well. Went off at 1-1, so certainly can’t be blamed for the other 3 we conceded! Hope he does well for you and gets valuable experience. Still a kid (just turned 17), so imagine he’ll be quite a ‘raw’ talent and have a few mistakes in him. But hopefully the positives outweigh that.

Yeah. I like Paul Allan, think he’s a decent midfielder. He has a great range of passing and can be more physical than Chalmers. However, it concerns me that he seems to be injured more often than he’s available - this must be the 3rd/4th season in a row that we’ve had these injury issues.

Imagine we played them in a double header, which could win us the title. Every chance, at that stage, 4 points or 6 points from the 2 games could seal the title for us.

BBC reporting both John Hughes and James McPake being considered. Definitely sounds like a case of people just shouting random names. If they’re even considering giving it to Hughes, they should just forfeit the rest of the season.

Don’t think McPake would leave right now. It’s a job that’s not even half done. He’ll know himself that he hasn’t actually achieved anything here yet. If he left us now and then was a flop at Motherwell, he’d probably struggle to get another job at a full time club for a while. Having said that, money talks. As does the chance to manager at a higher level. He also seems to be the kind of man that would back himself to succeed wherever he goes. His reaction at full time on Saturday and his passion in the dugout/on the touch line suggests his heart is fully committed to his role here. He’s given new contracts to players and has spoken about trying to recruit for next season already. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s going to jump ship at the first opportunity. However, I could be wrong.

Smith will be suspended, so expecting a 5/6-0 home win. No, in all seriousness I’d expect a close game again. Hopefully we can get the first goal this time. It seems like Airdrie struggle in games once they’ve conceded a goal.

I don’t think we would get away with that kind of tactic in most circumstances. We were up against 10 men, who were camped out in their own box and showed no attacking intent. However, players like Mahon, Mochrie and Todd seemed to thrive at the opportunity to get forward and show what they can do. I also thought McCann played very well on the left. I’d hope that we can find a way to utilise the ability of these guys running at opponents with the ball. Theres no doubt that we can play better in an attacking sense than we’ve shown most weeks. But, for whatever reason, we’ve rarely seen it - and only tend to see it once we go behind in a game. I don’t think the defence have looked as solid the last few weeks and Saturday was a culmination of that. So I do wonder if it’s time to shift the mentality to trying to score more, rather than trying to concede less. But it’s a risk to change the mindset when we’ve still only lost 1/23 playing the way we have been.

Looking back at Saturday, I think that result/performance answers a few questions that have been asked of us. A number of fans, of various clubs, have commented on the fact it’s our defence that win us games/points and we aren’t great going forward. On Saturday, on a rare off day for the defence, our attacking players stepped up and bailed them out. That’s what happens in a good team. The defence have bailed outright attackers out, when they’ve been guilty of poor performances/finishing/not creating chances many times this season. But it’s good to see that we can score goals and play some very good attacking football when required. The management team will be assessing what went wrong in the first half and trying to find ways to make sure there’s not a repeat of that on Saturday. They’ll have enjoyed the win, but they won’t want to have to rely on that sort of comeback again!

Also, can I just add - aside from the handball incident, that was the best goalkeeping performance I’ve seen all season. Josh Rae was excellent, which is probably a big factor in us being so frustrated that he could/should have been sent off. Off the top of my head, saves from McCann, Mochrie and Wighton (from point blank range) were fantastic.

On the keeper’s handball. The crucial moment that I think makes it a booking, is when he looks down, sees it’s gone out the box and scoops it back in with his hand. If he’d let go of it and/or tried to swipe it away with his legs at that point, I don’t think I’d be arguing for a booking. One thing this thread has proven is that regardless of technology available, there will always be differing opinions in football. I enjoy a lot of the discussions and trying to listen to/see other sides of things. There are a few things that are pretty certain though. Gavin Duncan is an awful referee. Airdrie deserved their 3 goal lead when they had it. Really good play for their goals and some very slack play/defending from us. I still can’t understand why a winger getting sent off seemed to have such an impact on Airdrie’s defensive performance/mentality though. But there was a clear shift in attitude/momentum from that penalty. Their assistant manager/captain was in their defence and he showed no leadership and actually contributed to the capitulation. Their manager was in midfield, then came out after the game complaining about the midfield not doing their job in the second half. This isn’t the first time they have collapsed like this and I think McCabe/Fordyce need to either focus on playing or coaching/managing.

But it’s not. Every week, all over the world, officials in each game referee games differently. Particularly when it comes to pushes/contact between players. They usually ‘set the standard’ early on. Before that incident and afterwards, the referee deemed similar levels of contact to not be enough for a foul throughout the game. The way he refereed similar incidents throughout the rest of the game is 100% relevant to the discussion here. If it’s not enough contact to be deemed a foul in another scenario in the same match, it’s not enough to disallow a goal. Gavin Duncan is an absolutely terrible referee and I’m sure it’s not a surprise to anyone that he’s a big talking point after the game. But the penalty/red card is the only big decision that went in our favour. Despite what the Airdrie fans are bizarrely claiming. Based on the way he refereed the game, it is a controversial decision to disallow Wighton’s goal. It’s also a very poor decision to give a free kick for the keeper handling it outside the box and not give him a second yellow for it. His speed/momentum carried him out of the box with the ball in his hands, if he hadn’t been going at that speed, Wighton could have got to the ball ahead of him. It’s nobody’s fault but Rae’s that he had the ball in his hands outside of the box and there’s no doubt he deliberately had the ball in his hands. Deliberate handball is a yellow card.

Funny you say that. Did you watch the highlights? There are 2 or 3 clearer pushes in the middle of the park from Airdrie defenders, that are shown in the highlights, that weren’t deemed fouls. If you’re not going to give fouls for similar challenges in the middle of the park, you can’t be disallowing goals for it. Simple as that. When you add in Rae’s handball and lack of a second yellow, it’s hard to take anyone seriously when they’re trying to argue Airdrie were hard done by with refereeing decisions yesterday.

But his intent was to prevent Wighton getting a goal scoring opportunity. You understand that, yes? Or did he just knock it away with his hands for a laugh?

Smith deliberately pushed it out of the path of a striker, who was trying to get to the ball in the middle of the goal about 7 yards out. If he didn’t think Wighton had a chance of getting to that and scoring, he wouldn’t have done it. The intention was obviously to prevent Wighton scoring. Are you seriously trying to argue otherwise?

Denial of a clear goal scoring opportunity. Wighton had the ball/was running onto the ball in the middle of the goal 7/8 yards out when Smith used his hands to push it away from him. Easy decision. I honestly don’t know how you can’t understand that. edit to add - the yellow card for deliberate handball is more relevant for when your keeper handled it outside the box. That should have been a (second) yellow.