Kevin Nisbet snatches late Aberdeen winner after VAR dramas against Ross County

Posted Sunday, September 01, 2024 by PA

VAR was the major talking point from a match between Ross County and Aberdeen that ended in a 1-0 win for the visitors in Dingwall.

Both sides thought they had taken the lead, only for the technology to show otherwise, with County also awarded a penalty after review only for Ronan Hale’s effort to be saved.

However, it was a stoppage-time finish from summer arrival Kevin Nisbet that proved decisive, leaving the Staggies no time to respond.

A frantic start to the game saw the visitors pin their opponents back for large spells without truly threatening Ross Laidlaw’s goal.

The Staggies stopper needed to show off his reflexes at one stage, diving low to his right to prevent Topi Keskinen sneaking an effort past him at the near post to break the deadlock.

County thought they had gone one better when George Harmon played a nice ball into the channel for Eamonn Brophy, who tried to find a team-mate in the middle. His cutback was only half-cleared into the path of Josh Nisbet, whose shot was blocked but came off Hale before trickling over the goal line.

The celebrations were cut short, though, when VAR Kevin Clancy ruled that Hale was in an offside position, and so the match remained goalless.

Shortly after the restart, there was an element of deja vu as Aberdeen thought they had taken the lead only for VAR to disallow it for offside.

It was initially Vicente Besuijen’s free-kick that crashed down off the crossbar, prompting claims the ball had gone over the line, and Slobodan Rubezic followed it up with a header that also hit the woodwork before being judged to have crossed the line.

As the Dons celebrated though, play was pulled back as Clancy ruled that the defender was in an offside position.

There was more drama involving the video referee as George Harmon’s shot was blocked by Nicky Devlin’s hand – not spotted in real time by referee Euan Anderson.

Hale stepped up to take the eventual spot-kick, only to see his low effort into the bottom left corner superbly saved by Dimitar Mitov.

There would be one late twist in the tale as deep into nine minutes of stoppage time Kevin Nisbet got on the end of Shayden Morris’ cutback and picked out the bottom corner to win it for Aberdeen.