There’s plenty to be unhappy about for Dundee at Ross County.
Saturday’s clash ended with a 2-0 defeat to the Staggies and it wasn’t a good performance from Tony Docherty’s side.
But they also came out on the wrong end of a ridiculous VAR decision that proved pivotal.
There is plenty to ponder for the Dee boss ahead of a big cup tie away to Rangers, no doubt.
The main thing will be tightening things up at the back.
Again, two goals conceded and pretty cheap ones at that.
Defending
The first goal coming from a set-piece will annoy the Dundee manager.
Akil Wright got above Ethan Ingram too easily to open the scoring.
Sometimes you’re at the mercy of luck when the wind is like that and no doubt that played a part.
But the Dundee man got under the ball. We know how strong he is in the air but he couldn’t get the feet going to get a proper leap.
I know how that feels!
In that CIS Cup Final for United against Rangers the exact same thing happened to me for Kris Boyd’s goal.
I just got under the ball and could not for the life of me get my feet moving and couldn’t jump.
It can be tough sometimes.
After shooting into the wind, I think Docherty and Dundee would have been OK with going in at the break 1-0 down.
Ridiculous
But then came the ridiculous penalty decision right before half-time.
It was very, very harsh.
There is a bit of contact but the ball had been cleared by Ingram.
These sort of incidents happen all the time – it is supposed to be a physical game.
Not every bit of contact is a foul.
I think Ingram is falling awkwardly and just grabs White because he’s falling backwards.
It isn’t a foul and I have no idea why VAR decide to get involved.
Then the referee agrees. I just think the officials are scared to go against the video assistants when they are sent to the monitor.
It shouldn’t be like that.
Players going down
And I think VAR is having a detrimental effect on the way players behave as well.
Everyone now is going down at the slightest bit of contact.
We saw that with Cyriel Dessers for Rangers at Dundee United on Sunday.
He knows what he’s doing and it’s because there’s a chance VAR does him a favour.
I just get so frustrated with the whole thing.
Rangers
But Dundee needed to play better than they did, they can’t just follow my lead and grumble about VAR all week.
They’ve got a huge cup tie at Rangers on Saturday.
It’s one I think Dundee can be confident they can hurt the Gers in, as long as they defend better than they have been doing.
It’s all about how they start the game – make it really difficult and the home crowd will get frustrated, it could get nervy.
Equally, though, concede early and the crowd becomes a huge plus for the home side.
It’s a massive game.
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