Raith Against The Machine

There is not a chance we bring in another centre half. We've got five already. Even with Dave McKay being injured, we can still play the back three with one spare. And even then, if we lose two more, we'll just move to a back four.

Those early corners are a promising sign. There won't be many teams who'll relish coming up against Nando, Davo, Bene and Manny Duku all at once. I really like the 3-5-2, and that's one of the big benefits. Set pieces at both ends should become a real strong point. You also see in the early highlights just how much it brings Macdonald and Tumilty into it. I could be getting myself confused, but I think Michael Miller might've scored a goal almost identical to Tumilty's in the very early parts of last season too. Astonished to see Greig Spence calmly finish a one-on-one. These are truly strange times we live in. For the second, Jack Smith might lose the ball, but he's 50 yards from goal when he does. The defence breaks in an odd fashion, with Nando going to close the cross and Kieran Macdonald going into the middle, but he ends up marking the same space as Benedictus, while Davidson takes the striker, leaving a man free. That kind of organisational stuff will improve, I imagine. Good technique from Duku for the equaliser. He looks very technically accomplished, going by these highlights. Some really nice touches and some decent ball control. I'm sure he's got weaknesses, but right now there's no reason not to be optimistic. I think the referee is maybe a little kind not to give a foul against the goalkeeper for Anderson's first, but it's Duku really forcing the error. Armstrong's goal is a brilliant strike with his left, and his cross for Anderson's second is perfect from his right. It's a big season for him. I still don't think we've really seen the best of him, but he needs to make himself undroppable for a couple of months and really show what he can do. He looks to have the capability to be a very good Championship player, if he can put it all together at once. Finally, a much kinder set of highlights for Nando. Winning some big headers and making a couple of key blocks. You'd have to imagine he's still the fourth choice centre back - even behind an unseen Frankie Musonda - but maybe all is not lost just yet.

He is. "The kind of injury you'd expect after a long lay-off" alongside Vaughan, Davo (who's returned tonight) and possibly one other I can't remember now.

Four goals in the first 30 minutes. Our friendlies are never this interesting!

Thomson; Davidson, Mendy, Benedictus; Tumilty, Tait, Hendry, Matthews, MacDonald; Ugwu, Duku. Intrigued but not surprised to see McGlynn give the 3-5-2 another run out. Put Jamie MacDonald in goal and swap Musonda for Mendy, and that could well be our strongest eleven, particularly if Vaughan is slow to get up to speed.

That's the Q&A with John Sim up on the website. Looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

That's certainly what should happen, but when it comes to John McGlynn and goalkeepers, I'm taking nothing for granted!

Looking at the end of the highlights, it looks like Thomson, Tumilty, Mendy, Benedictus, Matthews and possibly Tait all played the full game.

So it would appear the first trialist is Aaron Arnott from Fife Elite. Created one decent chance and had one gifted to us before the goal, so not entirely doom and gloom. Decent composure from Coulson too. It does look like the line-up I'd guessed at earlier, with Coulson taking up the wide left position in the attacking midfield three. It looks like he'll be going into that wide midfielder bucket alongside Anderson and Armstrong, but we could still do with someone else in there. Mendy's positioning is hugely suspect for the first. Benedictus has to take a lot of the responsibility for committing himself at the halfway line, but Mendy seems to spot the danger initially and covers Dowds' run... and then gives up just before the cross is delivered. Not great. No arguments about either penalty. No intent in it, but Bene's hand is up in a daft place. Gomis then gets played by Hendry's movement. A little naive for a player of his experience. Falkirk's third - you want to credit the striker for getting there first, but there's real rustiness from Thomson. If he's going to come, he needs to get there first. The fourth - it's a counter attack and there are a few things that could've been done better, but again Mendy doesn't cover himself in glory. I don't think you can even call it a cutback or a dummy, Connolly just vaguely waves his foot near the ball and Mendy breezes by, ending up six or seven yards away when his only job is blocking the shot. There's some good running from Duku in there, and Smith is really unlucky with his diving header. Not particularly encouraged that the highlights then show three free Falkirk headers in a row, culminating with the fifth goal. Benedictus selling his defence short for one of them, but again - that's to be expected after six months away. He's also not used to only having Mendy for company. Speaking of, it's Mendy's man who puts in the header from the corner. Jings. By the last goal, Bene and Nando both just look out on their feet. The movement from Falkirk does them both all ends up. Ultimately it's still only a minor indication of how things might go, and you really can't read too much into it. The fact that Thomson played the whole game tells you how much McGlynn saw it as fitness rather than setting up his first choice eleven, but I'm not seeing anything to convince me that Nando is going to be a particularly integral part of a Championship squad this year. The big question at the back, for me, is whether Musonda is in a position to usurp Davidson, and obviously there was no evidence for that today either way. It's all pretty much a known quantity in the midfield, and the other unknown is how much of an impact Duku and Ugwu can have. Not much light shed on that one (based on the highlights) either.

Zing!

Having seen the camera jerking around on Hearts' highlights last night and then seeing similar as I glanced onto Stenny's Facebook page there, is this the new Pixellot system in action? Might be a wee earner in club-branded neck braces before the season kicks off.

Line-up for Falkirk is some approximation of: Thomson; Tumility, Mendy, Benedictus, MacDonald; Hendry, Matthews; Anderson, Tait, Coulson; Ugwu Subs: MacDonald, Armstrong, Duku, Smith, Mahady, Trialist, Trialist. Definitely a "friendly" line-up, getting some minutes into the legs of the squad. Would be surprised if there was much substance to the trialists at this stage, but looking forward to the hive-mind Sherlock work that'll go into identifying them.

He was exactly that. We either got him from or he left to go to Brechin. He was just completely passive. I'm amazed he played as many as 43 games, but he just did nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad. He just existed in central midfield, filling a jersey, causing no effect.

I'm not being self-important, I'm being you-important. Specifically, it's important that you stop being so thick.

This is a staggeringly bad post. Managing to display so much idiocy in so few words is a real achievement.

You've signed Lewis Allan. Before anyone else comes charging in making assumptions, I'd like to get ahead of it. He started last season playing a lot of football for us, and then disappeared. John McGlynn made a comment that was essentially "It's not a physical injury, but I won't say anything more about it". There was no insinuation they there was a falling out or any hard feelings, but equally he didn't appear at any of the club events at the end of the season. Ultimately, there's been no publicly available information to say what's happened, and speculation is unhelpful at best and damaging at worst. In terms of his football, he wasn't a standout at League One, but neither did he look out of place. He's not the quickest, but he's big, and he's technically sound. I'd expect him to do very well in the Lowland League.

This should appear as a PSA any time a new user registers.

@Roath Raver Hello - Has there been any update that you can give on the possibility of live streamed friendlies?

Mine arrived on Thursday. They're obviously sorting out the superfans first, which is understandable. (I imagine it's one person stuffing the 900+ envelopes, I'd give it at least a week before starting to worry.)

I understand that expanding/filling the club shop ties up a reasonable amount of money in stock, but if you buy a job lot of Rovers scarves, you'll sell them all eventually. I can't imagine you're ever going to have to take a loss on that kind of stock. Would one of the local business owners who pop up to fund daft Skacel-esque signings underwrite that kind of enterprise?

I was (and still am) hoping that moving to Joma will improve the merchandise offering, but the fact that we're several months into that contract and there's nothing on offer doesn't fill me with confidence.

36 comments (and counting) of people saying "Can I have one?" despite clear instructions to email Bill Harvey. Despite regularly browsing this thread, I'm still amazed at the capacity of some elements of the Rovers support to be absolute eejits.

Slightly more detail in the FFP, just to say that both Clark and Sim acknowledge that the reason for leaving is "confidential between the club and [Clark]" and that no more will be said. Not much that you can read into that beyond what's already been said, so I suppose it's just a case of buckling in and seeing what the future holds.

That's confirmation that Bill Clark has stepped down, with immediate effect, but with no reasons offered. I wonder if Bill might utilise his new pals in the media to offer an explanation. I wouldn't be at all surprised, however, if it is as alluded to above. It can't have been easy being the lightning rod for everything that's gone on recently, and with it all finally settled, now might be the right time for him to step away. John Sim in as interim chairman, too. He really does hold a lot of cards.

Matt Elder reckons Bill Clark had jacked it. That's, um, unexpected. Much more context required before we can come up with any real reaction, I would've thought.