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R.R.FC

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Posts posted by R.R.FC

  1. 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. 7 minutes ago, Raithie said:

    It does indeed.

    Does he drop Flanagan again and play Vaughan out wide with Duggan and Buchanan up front?

    Does he have the baws to drop Buchanan, who looked particularly raging at being subbed against Stenny, meaning Flanagan out wide and Vaughan and Duggan up front?

    Or does he shoe horn Buchanan into the team alongside either Vaughan or Duggan?

    Also, pardon my ignorance and I appreciate McGlynn maybe touched on this in his pre/post match interviews but I canny be ersed watching them, where was Matthews on Saturday?

    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.

  3. 35 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

    Apparently Ross Laidlaw is on the look out for a new club.

    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.

  4. 28 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

     

    Wont be Andy Ryan I don't think... Spence has scored over 100 career goals at 26, cant be many strikers who have done that. Mcallister is only one I can think of off the top of my head, think he's on 150 odd but he's 32 too.

    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.

  5. 3 hours ago, Paco said:

    What was McGlynn meant to do on Saturday? Change things from the team that beat Arbroath 2-0?

    I would probably have made changes from the Dumbarton game but he didn’t and it worked fine at Arbroath. Didn’t hear any complaints last week.
     

    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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

     

  10. 2 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

    Is there much point though in adding in Jan? League is gone and we will comfortably finish 2nd.  

    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. 

  11. 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.

     

     

  12. 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.

     

  13. 8 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:

    Thinking on it, if we had everyone fit we'd have a midfield with a choice of Flanagan, Hendry, Wedderburn/Gillespie and Armstrong with Nisbet and Vaughan up top. That's a disgustingly good, yet injury prone, set of players for attacking options. It's great we've got Flanagan signed, but I'd be a bit disappointed if Armstrong goes. I know he'll look to play at the highest level possible, and might well get offers, but I'd love to see a full strength team with that squad.

    We'd probably still scrape draws in Angus....

    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. 

     

  14. 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.

  15. Tbf the sell on clause with Bates wasn’t the issue, although it’s clearly ridiculous if one wasn’t included. As far as I’m aware he left Rangers at the end of his contract so they’ll have received nothing anyway so a sell on clause wouldn’t have helped us.

    The problem was letting him go for no fee and 2 loan players for 6 months.

  16. 2 minutes ago, renton said:

    Yeah, we need Flanagan and Armstrong tied down quickly. As much as their support might look down on it, I imagine McKinnon might see two wingers with freedom of contract who can actually hold their own at least at top end of league 1 as a pretty decent deal, given he'll be looking to pretty much build a whole new squad at Falkirk.

     

    Agreed though Armstrong was also available with freedom of contract 2 weeks ago and seemed to have no other offers. Obviously his performances have been great and will hopefully continue but at this point I’m not sure it will have been enough to have teams knocking down the door to get him.

    I think Cardle heading back north may also help us on that front. I’d imagine he’d be looked at ahead of Flanagan or Armstrong (at the moment) as an established winger for any championship side looking to add in that position. 

    Thats my hopelessly optimistic view on it though. How great would it be to have Gillespie, Hendry, Vaughan, Armstrong, Flanagan and Nisbet all available at once!?

    Anyway, fantastic news on Nisbet, didn’t think that would be possible, as others have said who’d have thought missing out on Loy and getting him would be the best thing to happen to us in the summer.

     

  17. Looking back at our record this season, one thing stuck out to me. We’ve dropped points in 7 games so far, we have been in winning positions in 5 of those.That seems like an awful lot, particularly for a full time team in a part time league.

    To put that into perspective we only dropped points in 5 games from a winning position in the whole of last season.

    We need to improve defensively and start seeing games out when we get in front. If we do that we might just be able to grind out enough points to keep in touch till the injuries ease off, if they ever do!

  18. 4 minutes ago, tigger said:

    Beg to differ. Hendry did a lot of backtracking as did Gillespie so gave defence a little bit of cover. Vaughan as well

    Not saying they aren’t good defensively. Gillespie in particular is but is he much better defensively than Matthews or Wedderburn? I’d say that’s a pretty defensive central midfield which in fairness may be part of the issue.

    The players returning will add an attacking threat which should in theory ensure we have to defend less which should help but they’re not going to solve all our problems. Anyone who thinks that is extremely optimistic or totally naive. 

    I think a new right back is essential. McGlynn’s interview was spot on yesterday, he knows where the issues are and I have faith he’ll solve it given more time to work with the players and add a few more of his own.

    Tight defence and fitness/scoring late goals were the hallmark of McGlynns teams last time around so the current issues will frustrate him more than anyone.

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