Raith Against The Machine

Neither Vaughan or Stanton is getting anywhere near close enough to Isma. Last week worked so well because he was working off, and giving back, short passes. We're back to asking him to work wonders 30 yards out by himself again.

We'd gotten slightly better in possession in the last five minutes, but we've still been defending like a bunch of guys who've never met before. I don't think you could say "the goal's been coming" because I think that's the first real shot at goal, but we'd certainly given Accies a lot of encouragement. There's only one side here that looks like it's had to rejig twice already.

We've not settled well at all yet. Neither Brown or Spencer has managed two consecutive touches.

Aye. Don't want to get all Old Firm about it but it does seem daft that some fans have been locked out of this when there are entire sections free.

Can't be many games this season where we've had two (arguably three, although it's not an argument I'd make) legitimate attacking options on the bench.

That penalty I have absolutely no idea what the referee even thinks he's seen. It would've taken some touch from Easton to shift the ball away from himself at a right angle as the tackle comes in. Ridiculous. If that was at a pivotal moment in a big game, you'd lose your mind.

Gourlay's made a fantastic save there, if it's any consolation!

Pretty much, aye. I can only think of one Gourlay making one stop, with his feet. Other than that, they've all gone in. Apart from the first goal, this hasn't been a car crash performance from Cove Rangers, at all. Instead, they look like a collection of reasonably technically sound players, just absolutely nowhere near Championship level.

That's never, ever a penalty. An absolutely brilliant tackle.

This is a game that Murray hasn't really had before, where everything you touch goes in and you get to actually enjoy some football for a while. We've had to work so hard for every goal we've scored before today, but this has been a completely different story.

INTERNAZIONALE

We need to get the opposition to give Isma a free run at goal five minutes into every game. He's like a changed man. Not only tidy in possession and holding the ball up well, he's also hitting the byline covering back.

Stanton and Easton are both coming off the flanks and just going wherever the space is. Cove are struggling to cope with the movement at times, but it's also leaving a huge amount of space in front of McGill. But, I agree, a second goal kills this is a contest. Oh, we've scored a second Oh well, let's see if I live to regret that!

I dunno, Fox might not be so bad. McGill looks a little positionally suspect. Early days, of course, and he'll need time to adjust, but he's been gone past twice already. Also, I don't mean to be cruel, but I think it speaks volumes that Connor McBride went from the starting line up to not being in the squad at all, and not only has nobody in this thread mentioned him yet, I didn't even realise until I noticed him taking his seat with the other injured players.

I'd be surprised if it's anything other than our usual 4-2-3-1, with Sam Stanton square-pegging it as one of the wide men, possibly swapping sides every now and again.

I can't see it being a three. I don't know who the left wing-back would be. Most straightforward interpretation would be McGill at right back to cover for Masson's injury.

Enjoy my posts while you can, there'll be a lot fewer once I start my job with the SPFL's new Scottish Football Marketing initiative.

It would be nice to win this after two 3-0 losses, but I don't think it really matters. We went through weeks and weeks of "this is a season defining game" where a win would've pushed us up into playoff contention and a loss would've dragged us down, but we drew them all. Even if we have a terrible run in, there's no way two of Cove, Arbroath and Hamilton overhaul a ten point gap. Conversely, if we're brilliant between now and the end of the season, we still need three of the five teams above us to be pretty abject, and there just aren't enough teams in the league. Pretty much every week teams we're trying to overtake are going to be playing each other. Someone's going to end up putting points on the board. So it's really just a case of going out today, putting a shift in, probably getting another draw, looking forward to next weekend's cup final and then turning attention to planning for next season.

Let's call that roadblock J Sim. No, that's too obvious. John S.

I am stunned to find that John Sim, "the most arrogant man I've ever met", is a difficult man to negotiate with.

As long as the WiFi is on when we get to the ground...

I think that's probably about as good an outcome as we could've reasonably asked for today, and it was much better than I expected/feared. This Rovers side isn't really suited to playing without the ball, or on the break. Ian Murray said before the game that - with an obvious acknowledgement of the gulf in quality - we're actually fairly similar to Rangers in how we approach the game. Much more at home getting bodies around the edge of the box and probing for openings, but that was never likely to happen today. Taking that and adding in that we didn't have any defensive midfielders, had to start a teenager at right back, and could only put two non-teenagers on the bench, both of whom are on the way back from injuries, and it was the longest of shots to take anything today. The players who were out there, though, acquitted themselves well. There's only so many crosses and corners you can face before one or two inevitably find their way into the goal, and so it proved. You can point fingers at people losing runners or a miskicked block, but these things happen. We saw glimpses in the second half of where we might've been able to forge a solid game plan if we'd had fully fit Ethan Ross and Lewis Vaughan, although we'd probably also have needed at least one more striker. Rangers were fine. They were awfully ponderous in the first half, slowly manufacturing space for their wing-backs, but then spent far too long before delivering crosses, letting the Rovers' back four set themselves. If they hadn't found the goal before half time, I'm absolutely certain there would've been a significant step up after the break. As it was, they could continue in more or less the same vein and win comfortably. I don't know that we necessarily learned anything about this Rovers squad today. It was more of a reinforcement of what we already knew. On the positive side, the work rate and attitude throughout the squad is exemplary. The shortcomings that we have are more down to a lack of specific types of players, rather than glaring weaknesses in the individuals we do have.

We don't have a kitchen sink. We've got two loose taps and a plastic basin, but they're already on.