Raith Against The Machine

Yeah, me too. I think I'm right in saying that should only apply to people in England?

I'm led to believe that submitting CVs is no longer the done thing.

Saying Yogi "failed to keep Rovers in the Championship" is like saying Marwan al-Shehhi "failed to safely land an aircraft". Hughes took Gary Locke's side and actively made them worse. We probably would've been relegated under Gary Locke. Hughes removed all doubt. He was successes on his CV but he also had abject failures. He'd be a huge risk for a situation like this where you need turned around.

Always with the bedsheets, you guys.

Are there post-match quotes anywhere? I've got some Office screengrabs crying out for captions.

My "hatred" of him outside of CH is based entirely on all the available evidence of him playing outside of CH. Abysmally.

I don't think it's particularly fair to judge Keatings on that, he came on when it was already starting to be eleven defenders versus nine forwards, he was just feeding on the same second balls as everyone else. The one proper chance I think he had he was off balance and on his bad foot. That said, I'd hoped we'd have seen more from him by this point in the season. That he's behind a 19 year old loanee in the pecking order doesn't speak particularly highly of either his fitness or his performances in training. He might well get a proper run out against Morton, now, right enough. Certainly I think we need to try another attacking set up to see what can be shaken loose.

Of course, if you remove Hopkin from the equation...

He can't run (other than in a straight line), he can't pass (other than sideways or backwards), and he can't cross (other than to the keeper or into the stand). I really like him as a centre half. He heads well, reads the game well and tackles well. But I'd rather have pretty much anyone else in the squad on as an auxiliary wingback in a game like today.

We were lacking a clinical finisher and a creative player in the middle. Unfortunately, Vaughan is both. You can't fault them for effort, and they did create some chances, but there's just not the quality in certain areas. One of those games where the substitutions made us worse, too. I think the change at half time was a fair one, but putting on McKay went exactly as you'd expect. I don't know why McGlynn thought that was the best of all his options. Queens had no intention of coming out second half (and rightly so, as evidenced by the result), we didn't need to introduce a centre half. Mitchell would've been a better bet just for knowing how to attack. We need much, much more out of Dick. When you see the positions that Tumilty gets into, he's not pulling his weight. If we were going to score today, it was going to be Zanatta creating it and probably finishing it too. Once they let Johnson go and play with his trains and got Gibson to cover Dario instead, we didn't have a second route to goal. Very, very frustrating. The lack of guile and spark we have is largely because of injuries, and the loan market is very hit and miss, but it really feels like we need an extra body for the final third.

Never, ever do I want to see McKay at right back again. He's a fine centre half. He's not a full back, never will be.

Since Tumilty was moved up the wing he's been absolutely out the game, whereas McKay is getting the space and not getting involved. That was a wild change.

Tait has been brutal.

It does feel like that but there's still quite a bit of time left. It just feels like it's the last five minutes.

Oh good, Dave McKay at right back, because what I really needed was to be increasingly annoyed.

The rule for blood checks has only been in place for about fifteen fucking years. Some folk making an absolute embarrassment of themselves in the South Stand.

I'm not sure Poplatnik has touched the ball.

Gibson has dropped back as a second right back so Zanatta isn't getting the same freedom. Dick needs to do more to get beyond him. I'm really not sold on Liam Dick. He's solid enough but I'm not sure he ever does anything more than a 6/10 Championship left back would do.

Psyche.

Simple switch to the 4-4-2, as I suspected (although I thought McGlynn would give it another ten or fifteen minutes). Ceding some middle ground to try and get more traction further up the park. Incidentally, Gibson is going to score this freekick.

Sorry, I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. As you say, Queens are playing good football. But that long ball that got Spencer his booking was one of the very few times you got out towards the end of the half.

A big bowl of P45 please, waiter.

Everything except a goal there, really. I'm not pessimistic about the second half. A good few sliding tackles and diving blocks inside the box for Queens, there's only so long you can hold out with that kind of defending. As above, Zanatta is getting a lot of change out of his man, and Fotheringham is flickering in and out of the game. That said, Queens look dangerous when they do venture forward. They were probably worth a goal from that early spell of domination, but from the 25 minute mark or so they've only really escaped with punts up the park. I do wonder if Poplatnik might give us a little more guile in the middle of the park. We're being forced wide quite a lot at the moment.

Queens making a few last ditch tackles in the last ten minutes, and then Brynn making a really good save. If it wasn't for the goal we'd be pretty happy with how this half has gone, as stupid as that is to say. We're creating chances and dominating possession now.