Raith Against The Machine

Ro Sham Bo buys t-shirts off Facebook.

Gonnae just f**k up, mate?

Well, y'see, we won yesterday, and that really nullifies his raison d'etre when it comes to our threads.

That's brilliant business.

Absolutely. The temptation to put on Victoria instead must've been massive, but the switch to 4-4-2 with Bowie and Smith playing as out-and-out strikers moved the game 15 yards closer to Dumbarton's goal and really gave us a much better grip on the game.

Question for the group - if Lewis Vaughan was to return to fitness tomorrow, how would you slot him back into the team? Dingwall, presumably, could go into the current preferred formation in place of either Bowie or Anderson, but Vaughan's "number ten" role doesn't currently exist. Do you retain the current midfield three and put Vaughan in instead of Allan, using him as more of a false nine, bringing Anderson and Bowie into the game even more? Does a midfield diamond with Vaughan at the tip mean you're not getting the most out of Hendry? Or do you straight-swap Vaughan for Spencer or Matthews and ask him to exercise a little more midfield discipline?

Just try your best sweeties x

Nevermind. I have my answer.

Are you drunk, or are you just really thick?

There's a direct correlation between misusing apostrophes and overreacting to pre-season defeats.

Agree with this. Our overall play hasn't been completely dreadful, but we're so fragile. The sort of half chances that naturally occur become incredibly dangerous far too easily. That defence is pulled apart like tissue paper. Really need to hope Miller is back for next week, we can't afford to carry Watson. Still not overly impressed by Allan, either. I'd be much more comfortable if we had an alternative number 9, even if just to take some of the pressure off him.

Benedictus looks completely out of sorts.

For f...

Rovers turned over the ball in their own box, and Mendy broke up the right hand side. The ball was shuttled back to Watson, who gave Mendy a terrible pass right on the touchline. In a panic to avoid the throw-in, Mendy stabbed the ball back towards the keeper... right into the zone of the defence where he would normally be! A striker was lurking, classic intercepted passback goal ensued. Other than that, he actually showed some of the dominant traits that we'd expected from him. Made a few blocks, won a few headers. Difficult to judge against that Peterhead attack though. I think the goal might've been their only shot on target.

Somebody please tell John Greer that he's got a microphone, he doesn't need to shout! I'm going corned beef here.

I'm not claiming entire vindication of my "play a fucking full back at full back" campaign but our natural right back has just gone marauding down the wing, overlapped his midfielder, and ripped the ball into the top corner.

Miller can play right back, and he's also been comfortably our weakest central midfielder so far. Seems like a straightforward fix.

We looked worse against Dundee. I think that's a positive. But the only conceivable reason for packing the field with centre halfs is if it makes you defensively solid. But this is a fucking long way from Catenaccio, Mr McGlynn. We're losing the kind of goals you'd expect from a team using fullbacks in the centre, not the other way around. We might well keep on losing these goals. But let's at least lose one of the defenders who isn't stopping them and get another midfielder onto the pitch to try and make something happen the other way. And for the love of God, can we PLEASE field a fucking right back at right back!? Having said all that - today probably wasn't as bad as 4-1 sounds. We never looked like winning the game, but we had some decent spells. Much like the Dundee game, you'd expect Caley to be better than anyone else we'll play in the league. But I fear that if we don't address these defensive structural issues, we'll keep on repeating the same mistakes. We might not go down 4-1 every week, but we'll drop a lot of points.

"When Regan Hendry's not on the ball, all of the other players should be asking, 'Where's Regan?'." Our season in microcosm.

I'd leave him out of the game at Inverness, then give him 180 minutes against Cove and Peterhead. From there, decide whether or not to keep him in the starting line up, or whether it's better to start with two of the more established centre halfs and let him win his place back with continuous development at training.

Just need "cuck" for a full house.

At least you're not overreacting.

All I'm saying is don't write him off on this half alone. We'll have a truer idea of his actual ability in a few months time once we've seen him against some of the other sides in our division. We'll not be playing Dundee every week.

Okay, maybe throwing Mendy in against Dundee wasn't the best idea. Painfully naive defending inside his own box to concede a stonewall penalty there. It's very clear he hasn't played football at this level before. He's taken to his baptism of fire like a font full of kerosene. Take him off at half time, give him some more game time against sides that won't be quite so clinical in punishing his mistakes, and see how he's getting on in a few months time.

He's off the pace of the game by a long way. He'll adapt, I'm sure, it's football in a new country and at a totally different level than he's used to, but right now he's expecting much more time than he's getting. Also, we're fifteen minutes into the season and heads are gone all over the shop. John McGlynn's, chiefly.