R.R.FC

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Euan Valentine away on loan to Berwick Rangers. Good move for his development, will be interesting to see how he gets on.

McGlynn’s pre match interview on the website pretty much confirms Tony Dingwall will sign shortly now his release from Ross County has been sorted.

I think Crawford will do a decent job, was warming to the idea of him getting the Rovers job when he was linked. However, still think Petrie would have been the better option, he has worked wonders at Montrose and is a Pars legend. Is it possible there was no money after sacking AJ to pay compensation to another club? If so, Crawford seems the sensible choice in those circumstances. Hopefully his new manager bounce is all used up after Saturday!

2 year extension for Vaughan? That is sensational business. Hopefully the two operations have cleared up his issues and he can get a real run of games under his belt. He’d be nowhere near this level without injuries.

TOB is great business. Best centre half in the league and will cope with the step up next season quite comfortably you’d imagine.

I think it’ll just be the straight swap from Saturday, Duggan in for Nisbet. McGlynn rarely changes a winning team. I think Buchanan’s anger was directed at Armstrong rather than the bench. Armstrong was too greedy when he should have cut it back to Buchanan for a shot and I’d imagine goal from around 6 yards. He was going mental at Armstrong then turned round to see his number go up confirming it was his last chance for a goal. Been underwhelmed by Duggan in the glimpses i’ve seen so far but Saturday was much better. Can’t disagree with anything he said in his post match interview, the stop start nature of his season so far will have made things difficult. Hopefully with a run of games under his belt we start to see the best of him.

McGlynn’s preference was a permanent goalkeeper to free up the 4 loans for outfield players but from his most recent interview it seems that nobody of the appropriate standard was available as he was discussing a loan goalkeeper again. I would be happy with Ross back, he’ll have learnt from his time at Hibs and he showed flashes with us (mainly at Easter Road funnily enough) that he could develop into a decent ‘keeper.

There was a time in his first spell where Spence looked like he could develop into a very good Championship/lower level Premier League striker. Pretty sure it was just after Brian Graham left us. Unfortunately, he went backwards from that point and never developed the way we’d all hoped. When we got him back last year I thought with the goals scored elsewhere we’d be getting an improved more mature player. Despite a drop in division from his last spell, all the same flaws were still there. Wouldn’t take him back at the Rovers and he’s clearly not good enough for the Championship. However, as you say his record with part time teams in this league is good so he’s probably worth a punt. In his defence, it can’t have been much fun playing as a striker in our team last year.

Andy Ryan would be a great signing, miles better than somebody like Spence who has also been mentioned.

Exactly this, he’d have been slaughtered if he made any changes after Arbroath. Looking for consistency in results needs consistency in the selection which is what he was trying. Before Saturday we’d won 5 out of the last 6. He was correct to choose the same team on Saturday. People saying the inconsistency in performances and players not being bothered are a fault of McGlynn is only partly true. Any manager would struggle working with someone else’s players. In the top 3 leagues in Scotland; Dundee, St Mirren, Dundee United, Partick, Morton, Falkirk, Airdrie, Dumbarton, Brechin and Stenny have all changed their managers during the season. Not one has made massive improvements under the new manager (barring possibly Airdrie) and all are waiting on the January window to shape their season. The difficulties in working with someone else’s (extremely unbalanced) squad are severely underestimated. Even someone like Jack Ross struggled at St Mirren until he got a transfer window. He had some very good players already but needed to shape it to what suited his style. He got rid of Hardie and Shankland and replaced them with Loy which sounds fucking nuts now but they weren’t pulling their weight or performing for him. People are entitled to be let down after Saturday and ask certain questions but we won’t have any idea whether McGlynn Mark II will be a success until the window has closed then will be the correct time to start judging.

Would agree it has not gone exactly the way we’d all hoped under McGlynn but let’s see how we look after January when has been able to make a few changes. Let’s not forget this side had already scraped draws against Montrose and East Fife at home and lost against Cove Rangers and Cowdenbeath before he had taken over. He inherited a squad with no full backs, one winger and no creativity in central midfield. If we’re being honest, none of us were confident we’d assembled a league winning squad pre season with many thinking Dumbarton and Arbroath looked stronger. He had less than a week to address these weaknesses before the loan window shut and then his only option was free agents who were still available 4 months into the season. His signings so far Crane, Armstrong and Hendry are very encouraging and if he can bring anything close to the same quality in January then things will start to look up. With regards to the Vaughan substitution, I thought it was fairly obvious one to make. We had no creativity in the middle of the park and when you’re 2 nil down at half time at home, you should get as many match winners on as possible to turn it around. If he’d made a like for like change with Flanagan or Buchanan he’d have been hounded.

I was of the view McGlynn had made a mistake in signing a left back when Murray was solid there last season and we didn't know how he'd be at right back which was the glaring missing link in the squad. Although I understood the logic of him being right footed allowing a fairly easy transition. However, Murray has been poor at left back since he went back there and if we didn't have Crane I'd be saying we need a right back and left back.

Am I the only one that would have Bene out the team before Davo? Granted neither have been great this season so it’s a bit of a toss up but I think Bene gets way more slack because of the player he was. Can count the number of impressive games he’s had since his injury on one hand. I really like him and would love him to return to his pre injury form but I’m starting to doubt that player still exists.

Just checked back over the last 2 and a half seasons to see just how bad our away form is. We have won 16 of our last 59 away games in all competitions. 2 of those wins were against highland league teams. However, we did also manage to lose to Highland League opposition this season. If we’re just calculating our results against league teams it is 14 wins from our last 56. So a win percentage of 25%, no matter how good our home form is we’re going nowhere until the away form is sorted.

I think so, he can start putting together his team for next season in January. Gives them half a season to gel so we can hit the ground running next year. Who knows, if the additions are really good, they might even be enough to win us the play offs...okay too far.

We have been ahead in all 3 of our away defeats and lost the winning goal in the last 10 minutes. We’re just not solid enough at the back. You never get the feeling when we get our noses in front that we will see it out. We have actually been in front in every single away game this season and have only won 3 out of 8. That’s not acceptable. I’ve said before, the hallmark of McGlynns teams previously were solid defence, hard work and unbelievable fitness. However, at the moment we look frail at the back and seem to lose as many late goals as we score. There doesn’t appear to be any obvious fitness advantage over other teams. Hopefully he’s given the funds to perhaps move on a couple of players and bring in a few to really put his stamp on the team for the second half of the season. Only one McGlynn signing playing today and he scored and has been our best player the last few weeks.

Seen it posted elsewhere but it really is as simple as this on the grass vs astroturf debate: Good grass pitch>good astroturf pitch>bad grass pitch>bad astroturf pitch Unfortuantely, due to various different issues we haven’t really had a good grass pitch for quite a while so I think the astroturf is beneficial to us in that respect. It will also hopefully help cut down postponements with a bad winter, although I acknowledge quite a few astroturf pitches suffered postponements with frost last season. Further to all of this, an astroturf pitch can allow the first team, youth teams and women’s team all the train at the same place. Fairly crucial when you’re looking to be a community club and also eliminates the cost of expensive training facilities. Once we’re in a position to rent out the use of the pitch we will then be able to generate income from the stadium 5/6 days a week as opposed to twice a month. I understand there will be costs to go along with that but from a cash flow point of view that is a big help, particularly in the summer or recently where we’ve only had 2 home games in 6 weeks. Obviously the pitch is great just now because it is new. As rightly pointed out, the true test will come when it gets a bit older. Ensuring it is replaced at the correct time and replaced properly. However, the extra investment the club put into the initial installation should stand us in good stead.

Delighted to have Flanagan signed and for 2 years too, obviously all players are going to say it’s great working for the manager but the extensions of Nesbit and Flanagan along with recent performances prove that the team are really buying into what McGlynn and Smith are doing. Was thinking the same as you mention regarding a fit team the other day. Would be nice for McGlynn to have a positive selection dilemma for a change. Would be a welcome change thinking which good players to leave out the team compared to barely scraping a team together from 11 fit players as we’ve done a few times this season. I think our best midfield and strikers would be Flanagan and Armstrong wide with Gillespie (although I’d also be happy to see him continue at RB) and Hendry in the middle. Vaughan and Nesbit would be up front. That would leave out Wedderburn, Matthews and Buchanan who have all been excellent in recent weeks and also Duggan. Would be a nice problem to have but we all know, they’ll never all be fit at once.

Part and parcel of football unfortunately it’s fair enough tactics from Campbell. They were up against arguably the best player in the league on his day and our biggest creative force I’d expect Arbroath to do whatever they could to keep him quiet. Kicking lumps out of him is probably the most effective way to do that. If we resort to that approach against Linn in a couple of weeks and it keeps him quiet and we win then I’d be delighted.

Not sure if it’s been mentioned before but loving the irony of Falkirk’s player of the month being sponsored by Top Class Recruitment.