stevoraith

The replacement of the word ‘I’ with the letter ‘a’ in a written format is the most baffling thing.

He can only be our best ever signing if he's black. Another cult figure in the Rougier / Marv / Tade mould would be just braw.

What are they singing about? And who is supposed to stick that in their pipe?

That would be better than the status quo, but imagine how good it would be going back to the old division one we had for so many years in the 90's when it was us, Dunfermline, Falkirk and Dundee. Four really good, well supported sides within a few miles of each other battling it out for the league. Those were the days....

Fuckin hell, some folk just really dinnae like the Rovers eh? Never mind.

In fact, if you break down the performance of the top three into quarters of the season, you can see exactly where it was won and lost. Quarter 1 2 3 4 Arbroath 21 24 15 10 Forfar 9 15 22 17 Raith 17 18 9 16 Forfar had a phenomenal 3rd quarter, on a par with the performance of Arbroath in the first two quarters, but their shite 1st quarter left them with too much to do. Had their 1st quarter performance been on a par with even their worst of the other three then the title goes down to the wire. Raith were relatively consistent, with the exception of a shite 3rd quarter. If they'd returned the same points in that quarter as in the other three then the title goes to the wire. Arbroath won it in the first two quarters. The third was mediocre and the fourth was downright poor, although you could argue they wrapped up the title with a few games to play so took their foot off the gas.

The point was Arbroath got 20 points less in the second half of the season than they did in the first. 10 points less than we'd managed in the first half, and most folk said we had a shite first half to the season. So if we hadn't been so monumentally shite in the second half of the season (the exact same haul of points that Arbroath had) then it would have been a much closer title race. And in the exact same manner, Forfar had a far superior second half of the season and had they collected more than their relatively poor 24 points in the first half of the season they would have been genuine title contenders too.

That table proves what I thought but couldn’t be arsed to work out. The general perception is that Arbroath were so good all season that there’s nothing Raith could have done to catch them. Pish. As Rovers fans we all wanted an Arbroath collapse in the second half of the season and we actually got it, we just didn’t realise it because we were too pish. As inconsistent as Rovers were in the first half of the season, if we’d managed to return the same points haul in the 2nd half we’d have been joint top.

“Let’s get right behind the Rovers” will become “Letsh get right intae these minky b*****d Methil c***s Rovers......ahhhhh!”

This is epic. More please #statto

Some clubs never learn eh?

Wouldn’t be surprised if Dave McKay signs a new contract now Murray is away. Was maybe hedging his bets trying to decide if he was likely to get a game and that will definitely have bumped him up the pecking order.

It’s not often I disagree with your opinion mate. If McGlynn has replacement/s lined up then maybe it’s not such a blow. Like I said above, if the figure was somewhere around £30-40k or so then I think that would be fair enough as we could get another player in with the fee as well as a replacement with Murray’s freed up wages. Not suggesting he’s actually worth that much but anything less and we’d have been better keeping him in my opinion.

Paul McManus wasn’t it? Paraded as our player then changed his mind and signed for East Fife?

You know a five figure sum could be ten thousand pounds right? Ok, so it’s better than the old boards habit of letting contracted players go for nothing but that’s not a “very, very good deal” for someone like Murray in my opinion. I’d rather keep him unless the fee was enough to pay for another player for a year.

Yep, long-term deals have got to work both ways. Security for the player and security for the club knowing that they can keep their best players or at least get something out of it if they let them go.

You kind of proved my point there Stevo. We had the biggest attendances and budget in the league and finished third. Using the same criteria to automatically suggest Falkirk will skoosh the league is probably flawed. Of course if they use that budget wisely and sign a better standard of player than the rest of the league then the favourites tag will be justified. That’s what we didn’t do last year and we don’t know yet if Falkirk will pull it off.

Interesting to see almost everyone have Falkirk as clear favourites. What is that based on? They seem to be a club in turmoil both on and off the park which doesn't seem like the strongest foundations for a bounce-back promotion. As we have proved (crowd-w**k alert) you can't assume the club with the highest attendance/ biggest budget/ full-time squad will walk the league. It's probably wishful thinking but I'm not sure I'd put Falkirk as such clear favourites- although to be fair as has been pointed out numerous times already we have no idea what the majority of the squads will look like yet so it's far too early to be predicting anything.

The rumour I heard was he was going to Kelty Hearts!

It's a shame he's away, a fit Vaughan and Nisbet in the same team in league 1 would have been frightening. Lets just hope League 1 proves to be his level and he struggles in the Championship.

based on the fact we've clearly got a better pitch I think we should be promoted.

As long as he’s not played as a right-winger [emoji849]

Hat, gloves and the winter jacket last Tuesday, shirt sleeves tonight. Buzzing for this now! Not too confident that we’ll get through over the two legs but with the Rovers you never know what could happen!

Felt a bit sorry for McKay last night, he looked totally lost being asked to play right wing-back. Not sure if he maybe wasn’t helped by Davo as when we were defending it looked as though the two of them wanted to occupy the same area but neither were willing to put in a challenge. Then going forward there was no help from the midfield to give him an out-ball. The Murray-Crane partnership on the left was much more successful. Two brilliant saves from Lyness I thought which makes it harsh to give him pelters for almost getting to a rocket into the postage stamp corner. Also interesting to hear Forfar supporters claiming we were hatchet men when from a Raith point of vie I thought Forfar were very cynical with some heavy challenges and were fortunate not to pick up more bookings.

Yeah he was at Hearts, followed Csaba Laszlo to Belgium when he went there after he left Hearts. He worked under Paul Hartley at Alloa, Dundee and Falkirk I think too. Certainly been around, he’s a good guy though and highly rated for getting the players fit.