CallumPar

Yeah. Both defensive injuries seemed like a great opportunity to do that, but McPake would rather stick with a system/game plan that wasn’t working. It’s really strange.

Fair, can’t disagree with that one. We should have tried to flip the momentum, but the idiots just kept throwing more smoke bombs onto the park. Honestly, worst part of covid was having to listen to them. I know they’re apparently volunteers, but they’re so bad at what they do. Raith TV is miles ahead of what we offer. In fact, 3 years ago, Raith TV was miles ahead of what we offer now. I actually feel sorry for you, having to watch that on ParsTV. Although, the result obviously would have made it worthwhile!

What? I’d have said we scored against the run of play. We certainly weren’t well on top. Thought we started quite brightly for the first 10 minutes, then conceded a goal and fell apart until we got an equaliser. I’m genuinely confused that anyone would think we were ‘well on top’ when we scored.

You’re not wrong. But I questioned/criticised McGlynn after at least 3 of the games and praised McPake for his tactics. But McPake now seems incapable of changing it up to win the game against certain teams and will just set us up to play the exact same way every week, regardless of the opposition.

Put it in the match thread, but thought it was worth having a discussion on here too. How frustrating is this team? A lot has been put down to injuries this season, but if the players/manager can’t spot that a one-legged keeper is a weakness for the opponents and seeing that players should be shooting on sight (particularly to the keeper’s right), when he couldn’t dive to his right or run, that’s really concerning. Balls in behind the Raith defence should have been an obvious tactic too, since the keeper couldn’t run and the defenders didn’t want to play it back to him, since he couldn’t kick the ball at all. Thats not solely on the manager/coaching staff. One of the players also should have been able to work that out and pointed it out to teammates. But it’s really poor that absolutely nobody could work out a really obvious tactic. Instead we just set up and tried to do the exact same thing that’s now got us 2 points from 4 games.

Lost 5/9 at home (plus, obviously the hammering in the cup). No wonder the atmosphere is flat again at East End. There’s nothing at all to get excited about, it’s really poor and we need to improve the squad in January. But I’m just not convinced McPake can see the issues. He’s too loyal to his League 1 winners and doesn’t seem to see the weaknesses in our team - or opponents! I’m sure McPake will claim we were unlucky to lose and deserved a point. Also moan about injuries. But he won’t acknowledge the repeated issues with players switching off/losing really soft goals. Also won’t acknowledge the fact that when we needed a goal we created absolutely nothing in the last 10 mins and passed the ball about the back for 30 seconds, to let Raith players reset, before slowly moving forward with the ball. The fact we seem to lose every 50/50 in big games is an issue, but he just seems to accept that and claim we played well anyway.

Honestly, I’m questioning him. The derbies this year, we’ve looked like McGlynn’s Falkirk side up against us last season. It’s frustrating, because we set up with the tactic of ‘just win’ in those games last season. But seem to have no idea how to win games this season. Not saying it’s time for him to go. But he’s struggling tactically, regardless of the injury situation. There hasn’t been much between the teams in the (league) games this season. But we’ve been undone and out-thought every time. Murray is clearly a much better manager, there’s no doubt about that. I just can’t understand how a professional football manager doesn’t have the team shooting on sight against a one-legged keeper. Not even that, we didn’t try and test/exploit him at all with balls into the box. Just set up to do the exact same thing that has got us 0 wins in 4 games now. We’re just setting up the exact same and have the exact same game plan/tactics, regardless of opponents. It’s really poor.

Our goalkeeping issue is different, to be fair. We had 2 keepers on the bench that are deemed worse than the clown we have signed up for the next 2 and a half years. Dabrowski clearly shouldn’t have been playing. If we had a one-legged keeper, I’m sure you’d have hammered us. Guys like Vaughan and Easton would be exploiting it at every opportunity.

Play up against Mehmet… I can’t work out whether they’ll make Mehmet look good in training, or if he makes the attacking players look decent. We switch off far too much defensively and aren’t clinical at all when we have the ball in the attacking third. Both of these were issues last season too, but we haven’t plugged any of the gaps/deficiencies we had because they weren’t a major issue at League 1 level.

100% this. Rovers are a good championship team, they set up to win games, no matter what it takes. They’ve obviously done that very well so far too. We just looked totally lost late on and, as I say, couldn’t exploit the obvious weakness, up against a one-legged keeper. Players should have been shooting on sight, to the keeper’s right. Balls into the box should have been on top of him, since he clearly wasn’t wanting to come and catch the ball. But none of the coaches or players can even spot that really obvious weakness.

Beaten by the better team, again. Raith deserved that one. We need to sort out the defence/goalkeeper situation, desperately! Frustrating how stupid our players are though. Dabrowski couldn’t kick the ball and couldn’t dive to his right. But we didn’t hit anything (other than the equaliser) to that side. Also didn’t even come up with the really obvious tactic of playing the ball in behind the Raith defence/high into the box, where Dabrowski couldn’t come and catch the ball. Honestly should have been really obvious to anyone out there. There was the one that rolled towards the goal late on and the keeper struggled to get there. Anything half-decent to that side of him was going to go past him and our players somehow couldn’t see that.

Elbow to the head to knock Fisher out and Vaughan wasn’t even booked? Pathetic from the ref.

Hamilton, Otoo and Breen all starting. Great news for us. Looks like Paul Allan’s injured though… Otoo in midfield should be much better than we’ve seen recently.

Doubt it. We’ll have organised catering and police/stewards based on what sections are currently open. There’s a chance we might be able to open east wing of main stand, but no chance regarding the NE.

Think there’s roughly 150 seats per row, certainly down the front 5/6 rows. So unless you’re down to just those rows left, I think your maths is wrong. Looks closer to 600 or so available to me. Still a pretty decent effort, don’t get me wrong.

At least (I think?) we’ll only have 1 keeper on the bench today. Sharp’s loan was only until January, wasn’t it? Also assuming we haven’t been able to add to the squad, since we’d have heard by now. Hopefully at least one of Hamilton and Otoo are back. Ticket sales look decent. Only about 100 left in the Norrie, with the main stand (including the wing stand) and NW sold out. Hopefully put on a performance like the sold out Falkirk game last year.

I’m sure the message will be adhered to… Will be the same as always, despite the delays at turnstiles due to these ‘searches’ there will be multiple flares/pyro on the pitch from both ends. Main question is whether some Neanderthal in the away end will hit their own fans with a flare again, like they did in the cup game?

Taylor Sutherland’s been recalled, so it’s another option, although still not really a senior player. Main concern is Raith’s energy in midfield/behind the strikers and our distinct lack of energetic players there. It’s really not the game for the Allan/Chalmers partnership, but we still don’t have any other option. Ideally, we’d have at least one of Hamilton/Otoo in midfield. Hopefully McPake has some sort of plan to at least score a goal in this one. Even if that does involve Max Little making his first team debut, coming on for Jakubiak/Wighton.

Em… did you forget your last visit? Again, I honestly can’t see McPake allowing a repeat of that, but there definitely is such a thing as an easy game at East End. For some reason, I think we might get a draw tomorrow. The players have to want some sort of revenge/want to make amends for the cup game. Agree with the first part, Murray comes across well, I’ve said before that I like him and I think he’ll go on to be a very good manager at a higher level. McPake certainly didn’t come across well after your last minute winner at Starks. Generally, McPake has been pretty honest in his interviews, but that was clearly a lot easier when we strolled to the league 1 title than it’s been this year. Also, our social media is terrible. There would be no response to what you guys have done at all. If we won, the goals would be up at midnight with “This one’s for you Pars fans” and they’d post celebration pics the next morning with something like “That derby winning feeling”. But that’s about it. I like your social media output, it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to - getting people talking about Raith Rovers. It’s all just harmless banter. Just don’t like that we seem to give you so much to take the piss out of!

Happy new year everyone. Hope it’s a good one for you and your families.

But why did you respond to/quote a post that didn’t mention injuries at all and just said you played better than us last week, to have this rant? Really strange behaviour. Also, we’ve had 2 keepers on the bench every game and have named 3/4 kids on the bench that have never played a professional game. Plus we had 3 important players pick up injuries yesterday. As of full time yesterday, we had 9 fit outfield players that have ever started a game of professional football. It’s hardly ridiculous to be saying that’s concerning, particularly ahead of a derby. I’ll be honest, I’ve not seen anyone claiming we have it worse than you, can you point me in the direction of someone who has? Right now, you just seem to be looking for something to be offended about. Again, I’ll point out that your rant was in response to my post saying that you played better than us last week. Do you really think this has been a rational response to that?

What? Sorry, but this is a terrible case of wee man syndrome from you. My post was clearly saying that you played better than us when we played you last week, at least until your players started fighting each other. It had absolutely nothing to do with injuries. How on earth have you taken that as an insult? At no point did I say our injury troubles are worse than anyone else and the post I quoted didn’t mention injuries either. What an odd rant.

We were a lot worse than Arbroath last weekend. Particularly before their players started fighting with each other.

What warning signs? Genuine question, as I don’t see anything to suggest we’ll win this one.

Not sure O’Halloran and KRH would both be in first choice 11 - would think it would be 1 or the other. But agree with your general point. All of our injuries are important first team players. But, with a squad this size, I guess almost everyone falls into that category. I’m honestly struggling to name a starting 11. Think we’ll have to go 4-4-2, or potentially a 4-3-3 with Jakubiak out wide? Mehmet Comrie Fisher Hamilton Edwards Moffat Chalmers Allan Summers Wighton Jakubiak Our bench would just be 2 GKs and any youngsters that are available. No outfielders that have ever started a professional game though. Hoping Todd and Otoo’s injuries aren’t too bad, but it’s concerning we got no real information on them. If McCann’s out for 6 weeks or so, we might have to look at recalling Taylor Sutherland when the window opens.