Airdrie’s pitch

[Monkey Watcher]

4 hours ago, tiger Rudi said:

Yes I saw that too. His first touch was sublime, a normal "grass" bounce would have seen us talking about that goal and finish for a long long time. 

The finish? Their goalkeeper saved it and it bounced back off Vargas and in! The pass and the touch on the other hand were great. 
 

As for those blaming the pitch for Halketts injury, was it not away to Dundee Utd (on grass) where he had his last bad injury? 😂 The guy is unfortunately made of chocolate as said elsewhere. 

[Lord Beni of Gorgie]

Did Dundee Uniteds astro contribute to Halketts injury last season? Pure guesswork and entirely wrong to assume so

[Lord Beni of Gorgie]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Watcher said:

The finish? Their goalkeeper saved it and it bounced back off Vargas and in! The pass and the touch on the other hand were great. 
 

As for those blaming the pitch for Halketts injury, was it not away to Dundee Utd (on grass) where he had his last bad injury? 😂 The guy is unfortunately made of chocolate as said elsewhere. 

Beat me to it!

[tiger Rudi]

19 minutes ago, Monkey Watcher said:

The finish? Their goalkeeper saved it and it bounced back off Vargas and in! The pass and the touch on the other hand were great. 
 

As for those blaming the pitch for Halketts injury, was it not away to Dundee Utd (on grass) where he had his last bad injury? 😂 The guy is unfortunately made of chocolate as said elsewhere. 

Yes, the "poor" finish was nothing to do with a lack of control, it was due to the weird bounce the ball took. I think Vargas would have calmly chipped the keeper if it was a normal "as expected" bounce. Goal would have had a very different look to it and Vargas would have been rightly credited with a superb finish. Who really cares though, the ball ended up in the back of the net. 

[RustyRightPeg]

16 minutes ago, Lord Beni of Gorgie said:

Did Dundee Uniteds astro contribute to Halketts injury last season? Pure guesswork and entirely wrong to assume so

 

And the fact we regularly train inside at the Oriam on yep, you guessed it...astro. 

[Selkirkhmfc1874]

Looked a really good astro yesterday 

[Hearts_fan]

1 hour ago, I P Knightley said:

Good observation. The ball appeared to accelerate when it hit the ground. 

 

Mind you, as others have said, if it had been on a freshly ploughed field at Cappielow, who know where it might have gone? 

There's a combination of factors and it's widely accepted that playing on a synthetic pitch does nobody's knees any favours. The outdoors one at Oriam (where I believe they trained last week) is alright but doesn't look as good as Airdrie's. 

 

If he were to train and play on only grass surfaces until the end of the season, you remove one risk factor and give him a greater chance of a full and lasting recovery. 

 

Also, if he is carrying more weight than is ideal, surely the club should be looking at the decision to have played him. They can measure that easily and will know what the risk to his knees is of carrying that extra timber. If it's the case that he's overweight, then, whatever the surface, he shouldn't be on the park; not when there's adequate replacements. It would be another risk taken unnecessarily.

100% 👍🏼

[Monkey Watcher]

1 hour ago, tiger Rudi said:

Yes, the "poor" finish was nothing to do with a lack of control, it was due to the weird bounce the ball took. I think Vargas would have calmly chipped the keeper if it was a normal "as expected" bounce. Goal would have had a very different look to it and Vargas would have been rightly credited with a superb finish. Who really cares though, the ball ended up in the back of the net. 

I see what you mean, I guess we won’t know - and obviously no grass pitch is the same, it was wet etc. lots of differing factors that may or may not come into play. Your last point is right! A goals a goal. The focus should be on Halketts pass anyway. 
 

I think Airdries pitch is excellent for what it is, my biggest thing with astro though is teams generally play on it for far more than they should (1st team, training, B teams, woman’s team, community hire etc) and don’t replace it when recommended. Which means they all end up matted and looking sh1t… and that’s when the ball really doesn’t bounce true etc. However the cost of replacing is obviously a lot and prohibitive. Airdries is (relatively) new so looks the part - the last one they had, not so much. 

[Hungry hippo]

5 hours ago, tiger Rudi said:

Yes, the "poor" finish was nothing to do with a lack of control, it was due to the weird bounce the ball took. I think Vargas would have calmly chipped the keeper if it was a normal "as expected" bounce. Goal would have had a very different look to it and Vargas would have been rightly credited with a superb finish. Who really cares though, the ball ended up in the back of the net. 

 

Vargas' first touch was about 17 yards out, the ball landed at about 10 yards (at the most) from goal and then his second touch was about 7 yards out.

 

I've just watched it back a few times and the bounce was very standard and Vargas' touch was OK but could have been better.

 

I'm only pointing out the above to back up the point that good astro pitches are easily available and the Livi and Killie ones are unacceptable and not the norm.