SanStarko
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Posts posted by SanStarko
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While it won't help with this season I'm quite hopeful that they already have a few plans in the works for defenders for next season. Given that Potter has made comments about how they plan ahead, not just for the current or next transfer window but beyond, combined with all of our defenders outwith Murray and Hannah being out of contract at the end of this season, then add on the fact we only offered O'Reilly a six month deal. All that makes me think (hope) that they have already have a few things in place for next season.
If they announced that Millen, Dick and Watson weren't going to be offered new contracts, would anybody be all that bothered? Heck, at this point if they announced Murray was going to be allowed to leave I wouldn't be that bothered about that either. We've done a lot of good work on the midfield and forwards the season, a fair chunk of whom are signed beyond this season. For next season we really need to rip that entire defence up and start again.
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49 minutes ago, Michael W said:
The defending at the goal was shocking. Where the hell were Murray and Dick? Easton was briefly marking Todorov and then ran away from him. You can't just give an opposition striker and almost unlimited amount of time and space in the box like that.
It wasn’t even like Airdrie caught us with a quick counter where you could maybe give a bit of leeway for the defence being all over the place. As Airdrie come forward Dick is in the middle of our box, as the Airdrie boy realises he can just run to the byline as he’s up against Murray who has zero pace. Then Dick follows the Airdrie boy who was unmarked which is fair enough. But then he just paid no attention to what was going on around him. Easton sprints back but is so concentrated on the ball I don’t even think he notices Todorov run past him.
The pic below, that’s our left back and right back standing next to each other without a care in the world as Todorov is just chilling completely unmarked.
To have four experienced defenders playing and f**k up like that is crazy.
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Just now, Been going too long said:
We scored at starks against them and drew 1-1, not that it’s anything to shout about
Yeah, had it in my mind that finished 0-0. Clearly that game made some impression on me.
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23 minutes ago, Shooter McGavin said:
Why? They haven't beat us yet this season.
Haven't even scored against you. We've scored in every single game we've played this season, except when we've played Airdrie. And really, other than the first game where Stanton hit the post we haven't ever looked like scoring against them.
Scrap that, totally thought the draw at Stark's was 0-0
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When I got to the ground and seen the lineup I actually thought we were going to be going for a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1. Then we kicked off and we were playing whatever the hell that was. Turner didn't seem to have a clue what he was meant to be doing or where he was meant to be, sometimes he was out wide right, then he was in the centre, but regardless whenever he did get the ball he just seemed to waste it. Easton was off doing his own thing and I'm really struggling to see why Murray keeps playing Easton and Smith against Airdrie, the Airdrie players quite clearly know the two of them inside out so you're going into the game with hand tied behind your back already.
The whole team looks to have lost confidence and any belief they can turn things around when we concede (which is often now). Easton's confidence is completely and utterly shot, you always see him at the start of a game or after coming on as a sub, the first thing he tries to do is go at his defender. If he skips past them then that's usually him with his confidence up and good for the rest of the game, if he fails though then that seems to be him done.
Stanton coming back is big, but it's not going to turn it around with how low the confidence is now. Really need something like a fluke last minute winner or something to help get the confidence back, not likely to happen given we play Utd next. I genuinely think if Gullan's free kick against Queen's Park had went in off the bar that would got the confidence and belief going again and we'd be a much better position. Instead it bounced out off the bar and we've went on to lose the next three games and now look a complete shell of the team from earlier in the season.
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Well that was utterly fucking awful.
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Line up looks good, back to a standard back four with defenders in their actual positions.
Can’t wait till we kick off and it turns out it’s actually a back three of Murray, Dick and Millen with Watson being utilised as a big man up front.
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If we do sell more stand or stadium naming rights can we just make sure they put the signs on central this time, unlike the Craiglea Timber Frames one. Mind you, putting it on off centre might have had the desired effect as that's probably the first company I think off now when I think of those who sponsor the club.
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Well that update is going to be a tad upsetting for all the "Rovers are throwing money at it and gambling on promotion" people.
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2 hours ago, grumswall said:
Millen doesn't offer enough defensively for me. He can't header a ball and there was an instance yesterday where he had all the time in the world to head it clear and put it right between our pen spot and the edge of the box, which anyone who has watched the mighty ducks 3 will tell you, is a suicide way to defend
We seem to do this a lot, and not just Millen. Keepers are always told if you can't hold it, then get it out to the sides and away from danger and big Kev does do that. But the rest of the team always seems to clear it right back into the danger area or go to clear the ball but never get any distance on it. Really need a big old fashioned CB who just hoofs the ball out the pitch when needed to allow everybody to reset.
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43 minutes ago, Stardog_champion said:
Murray get your fucking finger out yer arse. But wait I better not say any more. I have the right to complain about this lack of defensive cover. Whether we like it or not Keith Watson will never be the answer. We gifted a mediocre team three points AGAIN. awaits the clapping seals disapproval though.
Is having more defensive cover going to help if Murray keeps doing weird shit with the defence and playing people out of position? As I said on the match chat, I don't have any issue with us signing Rudden if we're waiting for a CB to sign. I do have a problem with whatever the hell Murray is doing with our defence in the meantime though as he's just making the problem bigger by the game.
It's almost like building this strong squad (minus the defence currently) has ended up with Murray tying himself in knots with his insistence of trying to get his best players on the pitch instead of just dealing with the elephant in the room and going back to basics. Play your RB at RB, play your LB at LB and then play two actual CBs at CB. At least give the team a vague chance of maybe keeping a clean sheet one day.
Separate to all that, up to the Dundee Utd game the players always looked like they had no doubt that they'd score if we went behind, that belief seems to have gone currently. It seems much more of a panic towards the end of games when we're looking for a goal now.
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Looks like Easton is coming on. I’ve zero issue with us signing Rudden while we wait for a CB. But at least play your actual defenders in their proper positions to give us a chance till this CB signs.
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5 hours ago, TxRover said:
O’Reilly was signed the week before Corr was cleared to play again, what does that say? Then O’Reilly was also let go, and I understand we didn’t want to lock up the pay packet beyond June, but that should have been quickly clear and there should have been a plan to replace him then. It seems currently there isn’t one. We can talk about top level loanees not occurring until later in January, but surely the brain trust had/have a plan other than gambling on plugging in midfielders and sitting Masson and Corr on the bench for “depth” until the calvary comes riding over the hill?
How do you know there's no plan?
We're not going to be paying transfer fees, and even if we were, the amount to get a quality defender is beyond us. So just going out and buying a player to fix the issue isn't going to happen.That leaves players out of contract or loans. Yeah we managed to get O'Reilly on a free but there clearly isn't a lot of out of contract defenders who are actually decent, and we're sure as hell not the only team looking for one so if there was we'd probably know about them.
So now you're left with the loan market, and you can have all the plans you like but you're fully reliant on when the other team decides they want to let the player go. Derek Adams decided to declare his entire side pish so getting Turner early in the window was easy but I'd imagine other teams without an idiot in charge are probably going to be waiting till nearer the end of the window to decide which of their decent players they want to let go out of loan. If you had the option of getting a poor player in on loan but getting him right now, or a quality player in on loan but you can't get him till the end of the window, which would you pick? I'd got for the latter every time.
The poor run since the Dundee Utd game is annoying and it's annoying that the defence is the glaring issue in the team, moreso now that we've lost a bit of the spark going forward. But we've still got a week and a half of the window left, if we get to the Airdrie game and we're reliant on a patched up Murray and hoping that Watson can make it to the end of the season without getting injured again then that would be concerning. But a lot can happen in the next week and a half.
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2 hours ago, Scary Bear said:
The forwards and midfielders need a boot up the arse too. Never mind last minute goals, a few more goals at any time would do. That would help our under-strength defence out somewhat.
The same midfield and forwards that have bailed out the defence time and time again this season?
I think we’ve kept a grand total of 7 clean sheets in all league and cup games this season. We’re pretty much going into games knowing that we need to score at least 2 goals to even have a chance of getting something out of a game. That’s not really sustainable in any shape or form.
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Out of these three games, this was the one I would have been least upset about losing. The game against ICT is in the league so need to get things back on track there. The Airdrie game, not so much for the cup, but losing to them again could play into the next league game against them mentally.
Hopefully we go with the idea of actual defenders playing in their proper positions next week. I get Murray’s idea about wanting his forward thinking players on the pitch and it was working when earlier in the season. The defence was still making mistakes but the attackers were bailing them out. Now we’re not taking our chances as much so we need the defence to bail the attackers out, but there is no defence to do that.
Can understand the thought process of not playing Watson and Murray today though, the league is the important thing so an extra week of recovery is probably better for them.
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Just now, TxRover said:
That’s perplexing unless Corr is injured…unless IM just doesn’t rate him, which makes no sense based upon his play.
Edited to add: That wastes Millen’s crossing ability.
Could also be Murray playing games. Wouldn't be the first time he's had the defence warm up one way then the game starts and we're actually playing a different formation.0 -
Just now, TxRover said:
Maybe the 3-6-1 or a 3-5-2, it’s “interesting”.
I mean it could just as easily be something mental like 4 at the back with Dick alongside Brown at CB and Connolly randomly playing at LB.
It's Murrayball, anything goes.0 -
1 hour ago, RoversNProud said:
From what I’ve seen of the laddie Corr(who is 20 btw not 18) I like. He’s quick, aggressive and can play. I’d like to see him partnered with a Murray or Watson and see how it goes. It can’t be any worse than what we’ve had.
Corr got unlucky getting injured early on. Fully expect that if he'd been fit then he would have played alongside Murray after Watson got injured. As it was Brown got moved in there and given the run we went on since then you can't really blame Murray for sticking with it.
But think about it, if Corr had been fit or Murray had went with Masson at CB then more than likely we'd have still played with Byrne and Brown as two holding midfielders. Instead Murray was almost forced to switch the formation and it seems to have worked out pretty well so far.0 -
15 minutes ago, Rovers2017 said:
I take full responsibility for yesterday's loss boys. I brought a couple of Rangers supporting family members along to the game as they have a soft spot for Rovers and wanted to watch us.
They loved our donner pies though.
I blame them playing Geordie Munro when the teams came out instead of playing Can't Stop. As soon as that happened I had a bad feeling, I'm not a superstitious person until it comes to football then I'm stupidly superstitious. I thought the Ayr and Arbroath games were my fault as I didn't bother buying a programme for those games as I had no change on me.0 -
Some amount of over reactions on here. Joint top of the league, only lost 3 games all season, and some amazing moments sofar this season. But one bad spell and suddenly people start losing their shit.
The amount of people who seem to think we signed Turner instead of signing a defender is baffling. Just because we signed Turner doesn't mean we're not looking for defenders, it's just that he arrived sooner. We're reliant on when other teams will let their players go during this window. I'm sure Potter would love to tell Dundee to just give us Ashcroft right now and that we don't care that they want to get cover first, but that's not how it works.
We offered O'Reilly a deal, he chose to goto Partick as they offered him a longer deal, it happens. If we end this transfer window with the same defence as we have now, then you can you start throwing your toys out of the pram.
We're having a bad spell and we've not coped at all with being top of the league. But pretty confident we'll have a much stronger looking defence come the end of this transfer window and be in a good place to get the form back on track. Plus I'd much rather have a bad spell now, and be on form going into the Play Offs, than do what Queen's Park did last season and have your bad spell at the end of the season and end up getting thumped in the Play Offs as a result.
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1 minute ago, TxRover said:
Easton and Vaughan both need a spell starting on the bench. Easton isn't quite on it, and Vaughan is trying to do too much. Both are pets of IM, and it shows when he plays them too much.
Mullin is no RB, that was a mistake by IM. It then left Brown exposed with players driving in from the attacking left. The same wasn't happened from the defensive left, where Dick did what Mullin couldn't do. That being said, Mullin was necessary today, but should have been playing RM, not RB.
Turner looks just fine, his vision is good, and for a guy with a practice or two under the belt, he hit plenty of sweet passes. Would have liked a couple of pops from him, but can't complain.
If Corr doesn't get a run of matches, we have no hope of re-signing him for next season, which would be unfortunate. He looks a talented young CB, and we could use that.
Masson is done at the Rovers. IM has made it clear he won't get to play or a loan, so his deciding at agree to re-sign last year was a mistake he won't repeat.
Matthews and Watson, I just don't know...what happened?
Millen, well, what can you say. We can't really afford to sit him to send a message, we have no cover that 1) IM is willing to use and 2) can do the job.
The Rovers 4-1-3-2 has been solved by the league, it's time to be a bit more conventional. 4-3-3 or 4-4-2. If the cup match against Livi wasn't so damn winnable/valuable, I'd say roll out McGill/Masson/Corr/Hannah at the back, because Dick could use a rest.
To be fair, Brown was doing his share of leaving people exposed today. Not sure if it's because he's having to adjust to being back at CB after playing a few games in his usual position but he kept chasing players and ending up way out of position. He did it at one point in the second half and ended up away out on the right hand touchline, leaving a massive gap at the centre of defence, so Dick had to drop in to cover meaning we had no left back and Queen's Park promptly stuck the ball over there to take advantage.1 -
29 minutes ago, SirJimmyofNic said:
It's not been good since the 16th dec, with the exception of the Pars match
I'm sure it was after that game Murray made a comment about how well we'd done as the team chasing and he was looking to see how we would cope with being the team being chased. Turns out the answer to that question was 'horrendously'.
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Driving along thinking that the best response to Utds late win last night would be to get a resounding victory today. Even though we’ve not won a league game by more than a goal.
Then I got here and seen what our defence is going to be. f**k.
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The New Raith Rovers Thread
in Scottish Championship General Chatter
Posted · Edited by SanStarko
Obviously Utd might come back. But at the moment it's very considerate of Utd that despite our recent horrendous form they haven't bothered to take advantage of it. Kinda mental that despite losing 3 league games in a row and 5 games in total, we could still be going into the the game a week on Friday knowing a win puts us back clear at the top.