Raith Against The Machine

I mean... you can't do much about that, but f**k sake.

Surely that's a red card?

Varian getting the nod over Keatings is interesting. I wonder if there's still a fitness issue there.

His haircut?

Well, we're getting the ball in the final third. Other than catching that comfortable header from Connolly, I'm not sure Ridgers has had a huge amount to do. You can see how much creative control we lose swapping Spencer and Vaughan for Lang and Matthews. Both good players, but we've not got anything like the passing and movement of last week. We're relying much more on individual quality rather than the collective effort. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but someone's going to have to step up a little more than they have up til now if we're to make a breakthrough.

My kingdom for someone who can take corner kicks.

It feels at the moment like if we're going to do something it'll be from Poplatnik OR Zanatta OR Connolly rather than any combination of the three. They're not quite connecting without Vaughan in there too.

If you go to the Settings menu in the bottom left, take the "Quality" off automatic and set it to the best quality that doesn't keep buffering. You'll get a much steadier stream. Same thing works for pretty much all the streams in this division.

Without Vaughan and with Matthews available, the 3-4-3 becomes the natural choice. Interesting to see how it plays out. I don't think anyone's being asked to do a role they're not suited to, but you're looking for big games from the wide players, particularly if Poplatnik doesn't suddenly turn into an out and out number nine.

No Vaughan

Watching Raith Rovers play Inverness Caledonian Thistle is akin to watching Die Hard as a big Hans Gruber fan. It doesn't matter how many times you see it and how much of an upper hand he seems to have at times, you know in the end he'll still plummet to his death.

Billy Dodds could play himself in goal today and we'd still get gubbed.

While I don't think that this will happen, and certainly not tomorrow, I don't think it's necessarily the most wild shout. McGlynn is obviously at least considering the 3-4-3 and that necessitates either Vaughan or Poplatnik dropping out to allow the additional central defender. Simply put, I think the burgeoning relationship between Vaughan and Poplatnik is the only thing that might stop him going 3-4-3 tomorrow. You'd probably need Matthews to really act as the anchor, but I could see a world where Poplatnik drops back and is the more progressive of the two in midfield, and continues to link with Vaughan and the two wingers. It's a very attacking set up, though. Although you've got your three at the back, with that midfield set up they're going to be dealing with multiple runners all game.

They should consider themselves fucking lucky.

This is big Krusty the Clown energy. We'll lose. We always lose. We'd be as well saving the diesel and taking a 3-0 forfeit. We go again against Aberdeen.

Not to mention the club "accepted the decision of the panel in full".

I agree that the obvious and only move is to bring BRS into the midfield in Inverness. Whether or not that also involves a move to a 3-4-3 is up for grabs, but he's the one who'll come in for Spencer. He certainly did look good against Livingston, and he absolutely looked out of his depth against Hamilton. I'm sure his actual ability level lies somewhere inbetween. I don't think he'll be regularly outperforming Premiership midfields, but there were some very good Championship players who also looked completely lost once the tide turned in that last 20 minutes on Saturday. It'd be folly to write him off on that evidence alone, certainly with some of the wild alternatives that have been thrown around. Christophe Berra just pips Davie Hancock in the "most unsuited to a holding midfield role" stakes. With all due respect to the leisure centres of Eastern Spain, he's going to need to acclimatise to this level of football. You'd normally be looking at about a quarter of a season's worth of cameos and cup appearances to get up to speed, but he's had his baptism of fire now and it'll be swiftly followed being thrown in at the deep end against Caley, Aberdeen and the Pars. We just have to hope he's well equipped to deal with such awful mixed metaphors.

I think you mean African American circles, Michael.

To be fair, it's the FFP who've got the broken foot story this morning rather than the Courier, going by their online content. I'm not sure about any print editions. The Courier have been lightyears ahead of the FFP recently though, there's no doubt about that. Alan Temple doing excellent work covering multiple clubs in the region.

Honestly, I don't retract that. I'm still struggling to process. Deary, deary me.

Passed up three gilt edged one on ones. But that's what happens when you're replacing senior pros with boys who don't have any real first team experience. Varion, Fotheringham and Riley-Snow not to blame for that, but absolutely not what you need to see out a lead. As soon as the tide started to turn they looked lost.

I literally do not believe.

I literally can't believe what I'm seeing. The extent to which we've dominated this game is unreal. How on earth we've contrived to throw away three goals (and counting) I don't know.

That definitely should've been five!