Kmcalpin

Could it be worse than that?

Yes, its a catch all. "A recognised football body, club, official, Team Official, other member of Team Staff, player, match official or other person under the jurisdiction of the Scottish FA shall, at all times, act in the best interests of Association Football." Now if the SFA is going to continue applying that in games we can expect a deluge of such cases. Many every weekend in fact. How about investigating all such cases since the turn of the year or even since the start of the season? Cheating by shirt pulling Cheating by stealing yards at throw ins and free kicks Harassing a referee Cheating by simulation Managers openly wanting their players to dive to win penalties. Cheating by committing off the ball fouls A referee treating players with disrespect The list is endless. How often do you hear pundits in the media saying "he had to take one for the team"? A phrase I detest. You're right Bobby. Mr Slattery will have to be cleaner than clean in future.

Slattery was apparently found guilty by the Compliance Officer some weeks ago. A panel, comprising God knows who, was then convened and met today. It was these unknown individuals who settled on a 4 game suspension. Where is the transparency and accountability in that?

A good point made by Ropy on P & B and I quote " I look forward to other players being suspended for the officials getting it wrong. "

So, how is a referee to know why a player dives or feigns injury? Should that apply to every over reaction that could lead to the "offender" being carded? Could Slattery have said "I only ever meant to get him yellow carded". As I said, this has opened a can of worms.

Does anyone know who was on the disciplinary panel?

Sorry, double post.

A ridiculous decision, which opens up a mega sized can of worms. Others have made good points. So many angles to this. * How far back will the SFA go to look at retrospective action? 1 month perhaps 2 months or even 3? What is the benchmark? * Had Slattery rightly been disciplined at the time it would have been a yellow card. Why not a yellow card now? Thwe fact that he wasn't yellow carded was down to the referee. * Is this now a benchmark? Will we see a spate of retrospective punishments or is a 4 match ban now the norm for simulation? * A related issue - what about players harassing the ref to have an opponent red carded? We see plenty of that. I just hope MFC holds them to account.

But, is that what we want? SOD is a good squad player now, but at his age, has lost a bit of energy. Tom Sparrow is a decent midfielder but is never a full back.

As always he's theirs for the taking if A) the rumour is true and B) they meet our valuation. Otherwise they should do one.

Given the league table at present, Falkirk will want to win and that puts pressure on them. They'll know that if they do what they did before, in our 2 previous games, that will probably be sufficient to earn them a draw. However that would come at the cost of deserting their normal game to nullify us.

Will Manwhanise and Just be fit enough to start after their international travels? I can see this game being a repeat of last Saturday unless we can produce a rabbit out of the hat and surprise Falkirk with an unexpected game plan.

It transpires that Elijah Just suffered a bloody nose when he was injured yesterday. Surely that constitutes a head knock? All the odder therefore that David Dickinson ignored him for quite some time.

Not me! My lowly ancestors came across the Channel with William the Conquerer!

Comonplace now in games and we saw it most recently when Dundee United players were harassing the ref. As for Nicky Cadden, he was very lucky to stay on the pitch, but in reality wasn't even yellow carded. He put in a late tackle on SOD (worse than Sparrow's yellow card tackle) and was warned by the ref. Then as you say, he went head to head with SOD, lifted his hands and pushed him aggressively in the chest (not merely pushing him away). Still no yellow card. After that he put in another bookable late tackle and wasn't even warned.

A fair summing up Joe. I thought JBA made some mistakes today with his line up and appraoch. It looked to be an overly cautious approach designed to ensure we didn't lose. Longelo was a huge loss, the midfield looked congested and we lacked venom up front. The early plan of shelling long balls over the top for JT to run onto was fine in theory but the execution was very poor and was rightly stopped. For most of the game we lacked any penetration up front and Hibs were happy to soak it up and their keeper was larlely unemployed. Ward was slightly busier but again didn't have much to do. Not sure why Priestman was taken off as he was our most industrious midfielder. I thought we were too late in making changes. Our chalked off goal was very tight and certainly not clear or obvious. Thought David Dickinson had a poor game. Both Cadden and Suto were very lucky to escape 2 yellow cards each with the latter being substituted to save him. In my view, if you lift your hands to someone. Not quite sure how the 4 minus additional time was calculated. 7 second half subs @ 30 seconds each; blatant timewasting and several 2 protracted injuries. Overall, 2 points dropped. A slight blip is now gradually turning into a bit of slump. Other teams seem to have sussed us out. A change in plan now required for remaining games? Some positives though: another shut out and a 9,300 attendance. 2 asides. The media now needs to starts to start calling out cynical thuggery when teams target Eli Just (but it won't for fear of offending old boys) and the POD was an accident waiting to happen at half time (queues down the stairs for the kiosk, those wanting to visit hospitlaity and those wanting the toilet).

We're currently 6 points above Hibs with a 13 goal advantage. That seems a fairly safe cushion. However, before the break we face Falkirk at home and Hearts away. I reckon we'll take 1 point from those games. Hibs have Killie at home and Aberdeen away. They should be good for 4 points from those games. IF, and it is an if, it pans out like that, then our lead is cut to 3 points. That then takes us post split and we'll be due Hearts and Celtic at home. Maybe one point from those games? We'll play Hibs at Easter Road and they'll fancy their chances. On top of that, our record against current top 6 sides isn't great nor is our away form. We might well secure 4th spot, but it will be very tight and the game at Easter Road will be crucial. Yesterday, was defintiely 2 points dropped. In short, a 50/50 chance is realistic.

Thats what it looks like to me. Falkirk will change their approach and they might not win, but they'll be good enough to nullify us. We've taken one solitary point from them in 2 attempts and at the moment, we've gone off the boil.

We were weak in both full back positions today with no surging runs. Longelo was a huge miss. Likewise, Sparrow doesn't convince me at FB.

Agreed. I think though that our starting line up was a bit cautious but it could be argued that it did its job as we shut out Hibs.

Top 3 is way beyond us but in fairness it was never on. I'd say 4th spot is now 50/50. We'll go into the break maybe 2 points above Hibs.

Oscar Priestman was my MOTM by a country mile. Can only assume he was subbed because of injury or tiredness.

I can't see us just releasing the Ox, as he still has a year left on his contract. He's highly rated at Dunfermline and they, seemingly, have money to burn (whose money is another question). A loan deal - maybe?

The March review shows mjust how big a problem refereeing/VAR actually is. Totally inconsistent. I don't get the comment about Callum Slattery. Are they looking at footage from the St Mirren game? If so, thats downright ridiculous. If we're going to review decisions from a month ago how far back do they go? If so, that should open the floodgates.

Pretty much agree with that although I'd also try to move Callum Hendry on , if at all possible. Jordan McGhee seems to be out of favour and I wouldn't be surprised if we try to move him on. .