It will not take three guesses to find the big talking point among supporters following Aberdeen’s 3-1 loss at Hibernian on Saturday.
With Aberdeen leading 1-0, referee David Dickinson pointed to the spot to award Hibs a penalty after a clash between Ryan Porteous and Dons defender Liam Scales, who was sent off.
Speaking after the game furious Dons boss Jim Goodwin accused Porteous of blatant cheating, claiming the home defender “grabs Scales in a headlock and drags him to the ground.”
Not surprisingly, Aberdeen fans had much to say about the matter.
Porteous takes down scales. scales gets sent off. the cinch refereeing at its finest
— Stephen Woodhouse (@StephenWoodho18) September 17, 2022
That’s one of the worst penalty decisions I’ve ever seen.
— Stephen🥉 (@tweedy151) September 17, 2022
Oh well lost 3 points today but don't stand a chance when playing against Referees poor decisions. Disappointed but move on to next Game in hope that we have a decent ref chance would be a fine thing always anti Aberdeen
— JIM MCKAY (@SMILEYJIMMCKAY) September 17, 2022
The sentiment was the same on Facebook.
Scott McLennan wrote: “Ref was out of his depth. Porteous blatantly cheated. We were poor but ref changed the game. Same guy against Peterhead and he was poor then too.”
Ally MacMillan added: “Shocking decision by the ref has cost us the game.
“Ironic thing is that if the second yellow is rescinded on appeal, we have still lost that goal from the penalty and ultimately lost the game because of that.”
Penalty incident should not mask poor Dons display in the capital
While Hibs capitalised on their numerical advantage in the second half to run out comfortable winners, Dons fans were scathing in their assessment of their team’s performance at Easter Road.
Craig Robb wrote: “We did the opposite of everything you need to do when playing with 10. In fact arguably the worst example of it I’ve seen.
“Ten men or not has much really changed from last season?
“The bigger concern for me is that Ross McCrorie was moved back instead of bringing on (Jack) Milne which basically allowed Hibs to walk right through the midfield as though it wasn’t there.
“Is that the plan for next match? If so then the lack of defensive cover has been exposed again.”
Taking Duk off for Polvara didn’t make sense. Going defensive and still conceding 3 didn’t make sense. Other teams can go down to 10 and still find a way to win – we never looked like even getting a draw.Also, Ramirez back on the bench, but remained unused when needing a goal?
— Gary Fowler (@GinoF1981) September 17, 2022
Clark Brechin wrote: “We can blame the ref all we like but the fact is Hibs were the better team and deserved to win. Even when it was 11 v 11. It’s not been a bad start to the season but it has been very unconvincing.”
Can he give us his tactics and why we keep conceding Sunday league standard goals when the defence was easy to sort and why he keeps taking McCrorie out the midfield?
— miller mckay (@MillerMckay06) September 17, 2022