Raith Against The Machine

I've maybe not explained my position too well. I'm by no means blaming the Trust for anything or absolving the board. Just that there was clearly some sort of canvassing and there wasn't a "that's a dreadful idea, don't do that" from the Trust, rather the opposite. To be perfectly honest, I'd have probably given the same feedback if they'd asked me. I didn't quite get the furore when the tickets were announced. There certainly could've been more done "for the fans" but I wasn't expecting anything.

Number 21 is the same young left back filling in for Liam Dick who played 90 minutes (I think?) midweek but isn't here for the second Saturday in a row. Number 18 is the same winger who came on against Stranraer and Clyde and didn't have much of an impact. Number 16 isn't Leo Donnellan who played the last two friendlies. No idea who this new guy is, don't recognise him.

Meanwhile, Poplatnik has taken number 99. What a boy.

Leo Donnellan appears to have been given the elbow, there's a different trialist wearing his number this afternoon.

I think the club might have been sold a bit of a dummy by the Trust on this one. This statement from the Trust suggests that they were consulted, and gave the club the green light on this season's pricing. Particularly this section: "It’s great to reward fans for their loyalty, but most of them will be loyal regardless – giving them something extra may be a more meaningful way of saying thank you than giving them a discount." Looking at the uptake of refunds the season before (which the Trust underwrote, it should be noted) I can see where that view would come from. I do also think, though, that the offer of a partial refund would have been a bit of a free hit, PR wise. If they'd come out and said "Everyone can have £50 back, or it'll go into the transfer kitty", I can't imagine many (other than those who need it) would've taken that up. This is not to give the club a pass, or to start throwing stones at the Trust, but I think it is a partial mitigation from the club. They've not just unilaterally made a decision, they have consulted with others, albeit they've still ended up with an outcome that could have been better.

I'm not even sure it's the pandemic depressing the market, there just seems to be a real dearth of exciting talent, for some reason. That reads like a "things were better in the old days!" but I don't think that's what it is. There's not a Gretna hoovering up all the talent by offering huge wages, and I'm not aware of a huge exodus of talent down south or abroad. Footballers have got to go somewhere, and generally they'll settle at the level where the supply meets the demand, for the wages on offer at that level. If there are hundreds of great players around you'll see decent ones in the Championship, if there are hardly any you won't. I think it's particularly evident when you look at strikers in this division. Other than Partick Thistle, who've come up with Brian Graham and Zak Rudden as two known quantities you'd expect to get goals, there really aren't many strikers who you'd look at and say "Yup, good solid Championship forward". Morton have taken Ugwu from us, after a fair-to-middling season. We've basically done a swap with Caley Thistle, trading two average strikers, each club hoping they'll be able to sustain better form. Ayr have just gone the Duku route and signed a boy from down south. Dunfermline have Wighton and O'Hara who've both looked good and terrible at different times in this division, and Todorov who's had a good end to last year but not shown too much prior to that. Killie have Innes Cameron who looked alright for Alloa, and Scott Robinson who should do well. The less said about Queens the better. It's a really difficult market. I don't envy any of the managers trying to build squads at the moment. You'll see the same complaints from this thread echoed in a lot of the others, but the obvious picks just don't seem to be there at the moment.

This feels like more pessimism than your norm, renton. While we've not necessarily gone out and made any marquee signings, nobody else has either. Setting aside Kilmarnock, who look pretty decent, is there another club in the division who have done objectively good business? Hamilton are going to be a bit of an unknown quantity, Caley look alright, so do Thistle. The Pars have been slow at building their squad but the likes of Pybus won't have many quaking in their boots. I'm by no means saying we'll finish above all these sides, but based on last season and who's moved since, I'd say we've got a better squad than Ayr, Queens, Morton and Arbroath as things stand. There's still plenty time for things to change before the league begins, nevermind a full season to play through, but looking around I don't think things are half as bad as some seem to think.

With the option to recall (detailed in Livi's statement, not the Rovers').

Good stuff, thank you. McGlynn seems to be putting a lot of faith in the healing hands of his medical team this year, we've brought in a couple already who missed a lot of last season with injury. Poplatnik seems to have an excellent scoring record when he's playing in the city of Kranj. Let's hope Kirkcaldy has something that reminds him of home.

What's he like? I know he scored against us in the cup last year, but doesn't appear to have done a huge amount beyond that. A year long loan at 28 years old suggests Livi have written him off at Premiership level.

There's absolutely no chance we go into the season without at least one more "senior" striker.

John McGlynn gets paid in hats.

Name them.

What was the higher profile website? Breitbart?

I feel like it's relevant to the discussion to point out that Tex is literally the only Rovers supporter who would have kept King. Given you've only had the two of us offering an opinion, it'd be reasonable to assume that the Rovers support were split on him. We absolutely weren't. (Now, of course, that's no guarantee of anything, but it would take quite the summer of development for Adam King to look capable of replacing Stevie Hetherington.)

Adam King is one of these players who carries a reputation but doesn't seem to have done much, in terms of first team football, to earn it. He's 25 and he's only played in something like 65 league games, at a number of different levels. Other than a spell at Crewe Alexandra in 2015, he hasn't played more than about ten games in a season. There's obviously something that managers see in him. Some keep signing him, and others keep taking him on loan, but he just doesn't seem to make an impact. In his spell at the Rovers last season he came in and was really anonymous. He wasn't actively bad in a way that some players can be, but he just didn't impose himself on games. He's like a 5/10 at everything, but that adds up to nothing. Not a great passer, not a great runner, doesn't really tackle or shoot. Just shuffles the ball around. His career from here can really go one of two ways. Either he drops to a level (which could be League One or could be lower...) where his skill level leaves him above the average player and he starts to look half decent, or his particular skillset proves to be ineffectual at any level and he just drops out of the game completely. We've seen it happen with other players who had promising youth careers and got a big move early on, and I wouldn't bet against it with King.

That's quite the graphic. Really makes me want to get a burrito, rather than a football jersey, though.

Don't make me tap the sign.

Shameless strategy by RaithTV to get their YouTube views up IMO.

The starting trialist is Leo Donnellan from the weekend. There are two trialists on the bench according to the Twitter graphic, wearing the same numbers as the left back and the substitute winger from Saturday, and I'd expect it's the same two.

If Gregory Tadé is fit enough to play football, we should have a contract in front of him. I'll hear nothing to the contrary.

He was electric on his debut for us at Tynecastle, and had some very good moments after that too, but by the final third of the season it was quite clear that teams had worked out how to handle him, as opposed to earlier when he was an unknown quantity and had things a bit more his own way.

It might look better once they get it on somebody in the right size.

"Heart of our Homeland"

I'm just mischief making based on something (totally out of context) that I overheard on Saturday, and this tweet: