R.R.FC
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Posts posted by R.R.FC
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I’m not sure a complete rebuild is necessary nor will it be possible with the number of players we have signed up already. Those signed up would appear to be the higher earners so there isn’t going to be the cash available to add 7/8 players who are an improvement on what we have signed up currently.
Recruitment in the summer will obviously be crucial and we have got it badly wrong the last 3 summers. However, I think 3/4 good quality signings in key areas, defence being the main one, would be enough to see us challenging.
I would caveat that by saying we would need a lot of luck with injuries to key players like most teams.
Anybody know at what point Vaughan will be available next season? A fully fit Lewis Vaughan in this league can cover a multitude of sins as we saw last season, we were verging on a one man team at times. His fitness will be key and if we have him fit for the full season it could make a massive difference. It can’t be underestimated the effect he has on the team and he has only completed the 90 minutes in the league 3 times this season. We won two of those 5-1.
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7 minutes ago, Brashy's Boots said:
Just watched McGlynn interview and find his honesty a relief, if not exactly pleasing. A manager admitting on camera we're just not good enough and that it will take a summer of recruitment to fix it is quite something, and who knows how that will affect the players in these last 7 games? As I said before, he's culpable for not addressing defensive problems and extending powderpuff Flanagan, but as I also said, he can't make all the sub standard players good ones. There are too many of them. I think he deserves the summer to put a squad together, although that seems a tough gig given our current finance and status, and after that there's no excuses. Anyone got the contract details and know who we'll definitely be keeping in summer?
Agree with this. Think the public acknowledgement of not being good enough is just a last resort for some sort of reaction from the players. Week after week he has defended them to no avail.
I’ve seen a few people criticise JM for renewing Flanagan’s contract but I think that’s really harsh. Yes, I’d probably release him at the end of the season now if we could have. However, at the time of his extension he was one of our best players and it was thoroughly deserved. I certainly don’t recall many questioning it at the time.
I actually think extending Bene’s contract was the bigger mistake. We all know how good he can be but I can count on one hand the amount of time he’s been anywhere near that in the last year.
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8 hours ago, Gordon EF said:
Always thought baillieinleeds was a reasonably well balanced poster.
Stunned by this.
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Anyone go to watch the reserves play? How has McKay been playing? The results don’t suggest he is knocking down the door for a first team place but I obviously don’t know what standard the rest of the back 4 or team are. He may still be standing out.
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Just now, Troy the gardner said:
If Crane is in a better position, why doesnt he get across to stop the move?
Bene loses the header, then lets his man run off him and Davo switches off and lets the ball bounce, all on the left side of the pitch.
Murray gets across at the same time as Crane, having had further to travel, having been properly positioned for marking his opponent and space.
The fault lies squarely with Bene and Davo, no-one else, not Crane, not Murray; possibly McGlynn for not dropping one or other of the CB's.
Because your back 4 should be compact and only be covering predominantly one side of the pitch when defending a long punt goal kick. In this instance it was the left hand side. Your right back doesn’t stay on the right touchline in that defensive situation.
I’m not a big fan of Crane so far but he’s in entirely the correct position. That’s not the left backs area for him to cover he’d need to totally vacate the left back area and also cross the two centre backs.
For Murray to cover he’d just be tucked in to where you’d expect when defending that type of goal kick. There’s about 20 yards between him and the centre backs when Bene goes for the header which at 1-0 with 5 minutes to go from defending a goal kick is criminal.
As highlighted above Murray is unsure whether to watch the winger out wide or tuck in to a more natural position. I think there is uncertainty due to us playing the diamond in midfield and Forfar pushing their wingers and full backs on late in the game.
It’s a very minor detail and I’m not saying in anyway he is the man at fault for the goal as you say it’s clearly Bene/Davo. If either of them don’t make simple mistakes Murray positioning is irrelevant. I just think there’s a slight shape issue which will hopefully be worked if we stick with the new formation.
I don’t expect everyone(anyone) to agree. I was always a centre back when I used to play football so I guess I always look to pass some share of the blame elsewhere!
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15 minutes ago, WSDR 88 said:
Aye not sure if you/anyone else noticed also that when Davo does make a mistake he roars like f**k at anyone else except himself, most likely why Robbie has been bitched and lost all confidence where as Lyness looked solid and didn’t seem to let it phase him and roared back a few times to put him in his place.
I liked the team on Saturday, and Davo did make a few shockers during the 90 but the fault lies with Bene for the goal.Would agree regarding the shape of the team, would like to see us stick with that for a few of games. We looked a lot more solid defensively but no formation can account for individual errors like the goal.
I think both centre backs half to take their share of the blame for the goal both make mistakes and don’t cover themselves in glory. I would also, perhaps harshly, question Murray’s positioning. From a goal kick coming down the left hand side of the pitch I think he should be tucked in much further.
He should drop off and tuck in with the rest of the back 4 when Bene goes for the header. However, he seems to expect Bene to win it and as a result is caught too far across and high up the pitch and as a result is unable to cover the space left by Bene. Look at the positioning of Crane throughout that move if Murray had taken that sort of position on the other side he could have helped clear.
That may seem very harsh given the main blame in clearly with the centre backs but I think an experienced natural right back helps out there.
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The width of a post thing annoys me. Yes, if it went the other side we’d be champions but that game wasn’t some hard luck story nor was our season.
We played our usual punt after punt and I can’t remember thinking at any point that a goal was coming.
The bigger factor in us missing out on the league was our inability to take more than 2 points from a possible 12 away to a very poor Forfar (at the time) and Albion Rovers. Add that to the fact we only won 1 out of 4 against Ayr (including 2 drubbings).
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53 minutes ago, Michael W said:
Is McGlynn the man to take us up? Genuinely not sure. We'll be facing at least one other full time team if we do our usual in the play-offs, and either one/ both will outspend us with ease.
Falkirk/Partick/Morton/Dunfermline coming down would be a bit of a disaster for us assuming as you say we do our usual in the play offs.
However, there’s no guarantee we’ll be facing at least 1 other full time side next year. It’s still entirely possible, although looking unlikely at the moment, that Alloa are the ones relegated automatically.
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5 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:
I'm happy to give McGlynn the benefit of the doubt on a lot of it. He's certainly let down by a lot of players who failed to produce consistently. We've got two defensive midfielders in the middle, but keep getting picked off on counter attacks. One thing which I found hugely frustrating was the number of times we had everyone near the penalty box at a corner, only for the ball to bounce about and end up at the edge of the area with two red shirts waiting to clear it.
We've got a horrendous imbalance in our team. Dingwall looked solid enough in the first half on Saturday, but was very quiet in the second. Flanagan has gone completely off the boil since he signed a new contract, and we'll ideally drop him for McGuffie. Losing Vaughan doesn't help the situation. But defensively, something needs to change. I'd be happy to see Lyness come in, and for us to shuffle things up at the back. Sadly, for whatever reason McKay keeps getting overlooked even if we're looking at potential injuries (where Watson seems to get brought on).
McGlynn will get us in the right direction. He's nowhere near as bad as Smith as you say. At least we're making an effort under McGlynn away from home. The final game at Somerset last season was the epitome of how Smith was directionless for us. 2-0 down and we still played Furtado up top on his own.
Yeah, I would agree with all of that. I’m still 100% behind McGlynn and think given time he will sort the problems and get us where we want to go. It’s just a shame he didn’t have last summer to build the team he wanted. Smith building his team and then leaving 5 games in has really hampered us.
Totally agree also regarding the balance, I think a James Craigen type wide midfielder who can tuck inside when defending would really help with that rather than two out and out wingers.
I’d give Lyness a shot on Saturday and I’d be tempted to try Wedderburn at CB in place of Davo. Forfar is the only home game I’ve missed but by all accounts he was solid there for that game. Would then put Matthews in midfield to replace Nat which would give us a bit more energy and pace in there. Would also replace Flanagan with McGuffie.
JM has tended to change personnel after a defeat and get a positive immediate response but then the same failures repeat themselves not too far down the line. I think a more fundamental change in terms of our set up is required to sustain any kind of turnaround in form.
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14 minutes ago, Frank conner said:
Not going by Saturday's performance.
What about the Saturday before? Barry Smith masterminded a 3-0 defeat to Peterhead, and 2-0 defeats against Cove Rangers and Cowdenbeath as well as a couple of 3-0 demolitions at Somerset. I’ve not seen anything nearly that bad from JM yet.
The Barry Smith revisionism is hilarious. Last season has been done to death but even this season we lost to Cove, Cowdenbeath and failed to beat East Fife and Stranraer. We were incredibly lucky to draw with East Fife and even luckier to win at Airdrie where any other day we’d have suffered the 3-1 defeat we deserved. And that was all before he left at the start of September!
Barry Smith left when he did because he knew he couldn’t keep that team near the top so got out while his stock was at its highest. The football under him was horrendous. The results haven’t been what we hoped or expected for under McGlynn but I certainly enjoy watching us at Stark’s a lot more now.
Should McGlynn be doing better? Probably. Would Smith be doing better? No chance.
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11 hours ago, ayrmad said:
I'd blame your board, you're side were nowhere near a league winning side last season regardless of league positions and points totals, as such they should have punted Smith immediately after the playoffs and allowed someone to build their own team, easy for me to say but I do believe your board and some of your fans let league positions cloud their judgement on exactly where Rovers were as a team last season.
While we were playing well within ourselves for most of the season it did become apparent that Deadeye Dick was building a side capable of winning League One, I thought they'd stroll the playoffs until Goodwin decided to hand all his players a huge pair.
While he doesn't play the style I want to see I've no doubt McGlynn will build a team that gets to the Championship, who knows Dick used to play the same football, McGlynn might even build a side that does play my sort of football down the line.
Anyway all the best for the rest of the season and hopefully wee McGuffie finds his mojo at Starks and helps turn you into a playoff winning team, this Championship ain't as great as some like to think, Arbroath will compete with most next season unless all the sides improve drastically.
Agree with all of this regarding Smith and last season. However, this McGlynn side is totally different to the sides you played against previously. When we are on form we are very easy on the eye and we have played some good attacking football this season.
However, this has meant we can be extremely open at times particularly away from home. We don’t have that gritty, ruthless streak that used to be JM’s signature. We are incredibly soft centred. We need to try and find the right balance quickly but we don’t have the personnel to play the McGlynn Mark 1 way currently.
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35 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:
The only way he’d ever get ready is to play. It’s not like we’re doing anything anyway. It’s not like the people playing full-back are doing much and they are supposedly ready.
People were saying Bates wasn’t ready when he was here. They seem to forget that the likes of Raith Rovers is where these players develop and get ‘ready’.
Saying that, Bates looked a player from his first appearances in the first team. He was just unfortunate that we had a good defence at the time.
People also said Reece Donaldson, Lee Bryce and Colin Wilson should be getting more game time and look where they are now. You assume playing a young player every week will automatically make them better, that is not the case. Exposing players to a level they’re clearly not ready for does absolutely nothing for their development.
Watson would benefit greatly from a spell away on loan at a lower level where he can get regular games and develop at a level he is ready for. Hopefully if we get a right back in he is allowed to do that.
In saying that and going against popular opinion, I actually think Murray has been fine at right back in recent weeks. He’s clearly not the long term solution but I think he has actually been the better of our two full backs recently. Crane has been nowhere near as good as I was expecting.
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48 minutes ago, Frank conner said:
I'd like to see Watson and McKay given a chance if it doesn't work fair enough but to not even give it a go us wrong. The defending has been really poor especially yesterday something has to change but it looks like Mcglynns stubbornness hasn't.
Watson has been given plenty chances this season and he’s shown he’s clearly not ready. Would agree on McKay though.
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Good interview with Lewis Vaughan up on the website discussing his Rovers career so far. My hearing must be going because I can swear he said Joe Hamill is the best player he has ever played with.
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3 minutes ago, Tony Stark(s Park) said:
As great a result was yesterday still some big problems in Davo, thought he played honking yesterday again. We have nae clue what’s happening with Armstrong either
Would disagree with this thought we were pretty solid at the back yesterday. Bene in particular but everyone played their part.
For all the possession they had Thomson only really made one save so credit has to go to the defence for that even though the Pars were toothless. Davo had his moments but gets automatic passmarks for that block in the second half at 0-0 which was just as important as Thomson’s save though it’s been overlooked.
Stll have concerns about Davo going forward but he was fine for the most part yesterday.
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22 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:
If the Railway stand is out of commission then there's nowhere else to put them if they sell out their existing allocation.
I assume that’s what they mean when saying a decision on a cash gate has been delayed due to the levels of current demand.
I’d imagine if the Pars sell out their allocation there won’t be a cash gate to ensure they don’t try to turn up in the Rovers end on the day.
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17 minutes ago, Scottydog said:
I'd certainly agree to bringing in another right back but for me it'd be a huge no to then go putting Murray and Bene in the middle! Every time I've seen them in the mix together they've been awful, Bayview being a perfect example. The defence isn't great at the best of times but Bene /Davo, Murray/Davo, Bene/Mckay or Davo/McKay all seemed to work to some degree but my recollection of Bene & Murray is that when they play together they 're generally all over the place.
I think creative midfielder to replace Hendry is nailed on, as is another winger and that will be the call. I think we may only see a right-back come in if we are offered someone that McGlynn thinks is a better defensive option than Murray.
I had blocked Bayview from my mind to be fair! Couldn’t remember them playing together. Can understand why they wouldn’t work as a partnership though, they are both very similar types of player. Usually in a partnership each player brings different qualities.
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30 minutes ago, Scottydog said:
I think if we get the Dean Lyness deal over the line then the gaffer will have 3 loan slot options before the end of the month. I expect we'll see some business on that front once the keeper situation is sorted and Armstrong's agent deigns to inform the club what he's doing.
On this note, where do we think we need to strengthen with the loans? One will be a winger to replace Armstrong. That leaves 2 available.
I’d still like to see a natural RB brought in. Murray has settled into a game there recently but it’s clearly not his natural position. If JM isn’t going to give McKay a chance I’d be happy with a Murray and Bene centre back partnership.
I would hazard a guess we may also be in for a creative central midfielder. We’re pretty strong in there with Gillespie, Wedderburn and Matthews but probably lack a bit of creativity. The fact we were looking to extend Hendry’s deal before the news about his injury suggests we may try to add someone else.
Obviously just because we have 3 loans free doesn’t mean we’ll use them but McGlynn tends to use the loan market and has made reference to freeing up his loans by sending the 2 keepers back.
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16 minutes ago, Raith Against The Machine said:
So what do we reckon - in as a starter or as backup to Thomson?
I had assumed any keeper we got in would be back up to Thomson but Lyness seemed to do pretty well at St Mirren and was playing ahead of Danny Rogers. Can’t see him dropping 2 divisions to be back up.
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Dean Lyness any good? Local journo reporting he is about to sign for us.
I had assumed the goalkeeper we signed would be back up to Robbie Thomson but I thought Lyness was decent for you? Can’t imagine him signing to be back up in League 1.
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39 minutes ago, Tony Stark(s Park) said:
Apparently signing a goal keeper according to Matty Elder. Played both sides of the border should be about lunch time if all is well
I’d imagine it’ll just be some jobber back up goalkeeper. My guess would be someone like Leo Fasan from Falkirk. Hopefully it’s someone on a permanent deal to the end of the season to free up a couple of loans.
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Jeezo, the tannoy announcer and now the highlights guy? What is it with Alloa and having, what appear to be, complete zoomers involved with their club? Strange considering all the Alloa posters not involved with the club come across as a very decent bunch.
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19 minutes ago, renton said:
Quite possibly, but McGlynn did say he wanted two wingers, ideally Armstrong to re-sign and A.N.Other (Tony Kirkcaldy, there) so that he had competition for the wide/number 10 spot. I still think Milne will be off. it's just not really happened for him.
By the way, did I read that right - until the end of 19/20? We're just taking big 'ol risks on players not working out now...
Also, nice to have a ginger back in the side.
Good point, that’s 6 players signed up next year already isn’t it? From my memory we have: Nisbet, Flanagan, Vaughan, Benedictus, Dingwall and Gillespie already contracted for next season.
The basis of a decent squad but I’d imagine if we stay down we’ll be going to a FT/PT hybrid, so we’d probably be unlikely to see too many full time players added to those currently retained.
ETA: Just checked and Thomson, Murray and Watson all appear to be signed up next year also. Can’t ever remember us handing out so many two year deals.
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I think he’s been signed as a wide player. JM said he wanted to add a wide player to the squad and 2 if Armstrong leaves.
I imagine if Armstrong was going to stay he’d have signed up by now unfortunately. Would expect him to leave after the Pars game and wouldn’t be surprised if there was something to the Anthony McDonald rumour coming in on loan to replace him.
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The New Raith Rovers Thread
in Scottish Championship General Chatter
Posted
Yeah, you would think so. As far as I can see Lyness is the only one where it is publicly stated there is a promotion clause but I’d imagine there will be a few others.
I think your list is correct regarding the senior players. Not sure about the youngsters apart from Jamie Watson. He signed a two year deal last summer but I can’t see him being a regular starter.