Raith Against The Machine

Yes but with more subjugation and theft of priceless artefacts.

"RRFC Empire Biscuit"

He doesn't look like a centre half, and we never used him there, despite 60% of our squad having to fill in at one point or another. As above, he got a couple of brief goes at left wing, but never made any sort of impression. I don't think you could reasonably expect to get much mileage out of him anywhere other than left back.

Perfectly adequate left back at this level. Didn't set the heather alight, but didn't look out of place either. I wondered if we might've gone back for him as cover once the loan market really started rolling.

"The enemy team"

Yeah, and it basically makes next Saturday a must-win, for both sides. The winner of that game has a good chance at progression, but the loser has almost no chance.

It's objectively true that Masson has given away at least two fouls in dangerous areas by shoving Nathan Austin in the back.

Easton doing a good job as the 8 here, giving much more support to Sam Stanton than he had first half against Kelty. East Fife very well organised so far, really limiting what we can do in the final third.

Dinnae be daft min

His only flaw is that he tries too hard? With a write-up like that, the guy should be playing at the fucking World Cup!

I think it's a fair comment. If you look at the full-time teams around us, there haven't been a huge number of central defenders moving around. I might've missed one or two who I don't recognise, but with a tip of the hat to Narey's Toepoker, I think you're looking at: - George Stanger at Ayr Utd - Kevin Holt at Dundee United - Sam Fisher and Ewan Otoo at Dunfermline - Kirk Broadfoot at Morton - Wasiri Williams at Thistle Dropping into League One you've got Tom Lang and Lee Kilday joining Falkirk and Hamilton respectively. It's not exactly a saturated market. Across 12 or 13 full-time teams you've only had six or seven centre halfs moving in. Morton had to delve into the Lowland League for Broadfoot and Thistle have taken that Premier League U23 gamble. When you think that we've already got a veteran and two teenagers and that we probably want someone in their mid-to-late 20s to balance out experience with mobility, it narrows the market even further.

From the outside looking in, I think you're all reading far too much into it. He "should" be with you until 2025 but you never know in football, he could be snapped up by a Saudi megaclub or decide to retire next summer after a bad injury.

The Bairns will be spared the ordeal of watching club-footed centre half Dave McKay lumbering around at right back, he's signed for Alloa.

No, I think Willis Furtado has retired.

Here, those pies are the berries. That's a bigger coup than bringing in Jack Hamilton.

Ethan Ross is coming off an injury hit season last year too. He barely played, and when he did it was clear he was still struggling with something. He's definitely way down the pecking order (and hasn't featured yet in pre-season due to some sort of injury, whether that's minor or otherwise) but we paid a fair bit to get him, so I think we'd be looking for a big chunk of cash to let him go to a direct rival. The fact that we've already got him means he's worth keeping around to see if he can reach his previous heights (and go beyond them) again, but I really don't think it'd be worth the gamble for you.

Multiple strikers in this division using Ayr United to get contract extensions at their current club. Very funny IMO.

Shane Sutherland is coming off the back of a couple of surgeries, I believe. He's thrown a fair bit of snash at Caley Thistle for not supporting him properly. I've no idea how close he is to actually being fit again, I suspect its a fair while, and even then he'd be a gamble for a team at this level. Danny Mullen is an interesting one, though. Didn't get a huge amount of game time at Thistle but did still chip in with a few goals. If he's happy to come in and be part of an overall forward unit again, as opposed to being a guaranteed starter, he's about as good as you'll get at this level.

He has retired.

It feels a little harsh to be too critical of Ethan Ross's injury record when there's fairly widespread agreement that it's at least in part been caused and/or exacerbated by mismanagement within the football club.

@HibeeJibee and his Fife Cup megathread is your best bet for all that.

I really don't think you can make any kind of judgement on Corr based on that second half. I could've played at centre back and wouldn't have looked defensively out of place.

Lewis "Van", always delivers.

In one of his recent interviews, Ian Murray spoke about a home game against Dundee where they made a raft of changed at half time when we couldn't, and it turned the game in their favour. It was in response to a question about the incoming forwards and a possible selection headache, and I took from it that he's planning to be very freewheeling in that regard, and it makes sense. You can quite easily see a situation where he starts a game with Mullin, Vaughan and Easton buzzing about behind the striker, and shortly after half time he replaces them with Connolly, Ross and Smith. You could make the argument that that's not a particularly weaker three, and it's certainly good enough to cause a lot of bother to a defence that's already put a shift in. You'd still have Stanton and McGill in reserve, too. The problem, as alluded to above, is that while we can do that in triplicate (and more) in the attacking midfield, we basically can't do it at all anywhere else. Pick any other player in our starting eleven and the first choice replacement is a marked downgrade, with the possible exception of Ross Matthews coming in for Scott Brown as the combative holding midfielder. Now, obviously, we can't expect to have two starting-quality players for every position with our budget, and I'm not advocating for that, but I am highlighting these singular points of failure. We've got incredible depth in the one area of the park where we can probably afford to carry someone a little. We're playing three 'tens'. But we've only got one number nine in Jack Hamilton. Gullan wears the jersey but he's not a proper lone striker, we've evidence enough to make that judgement now. We've only (currently) got one body for each full-back position, and neither of them are worldbeaters. We've got one centre half over the age of 18. This post comes across incredibly negatively, mostly because of all the negative things I just wrote, and I don't really mean that. I'm not down on this team, and I don't think they'll do badly over the course of the season. But I do think there are still significant points of weakness, and some paper thin barriers between being fine and being out at sea again, like we were for large parts of last season. You can play all the nice football you like, but lynchpins get that name for a reason. If you could guarantee right now that Jack Hamilton, Scott Brown and Keith Watson will play every game this season, I'd put good money on us reaching a playoff place. But with the squad we've got now, I think losing even one of those could significantly compromise the whole operation.