Raith Against The Machine

Best bit of football in the entire game, but we're not really a "get one chance and take it" kind of team. If we can do that four or five more times, we might score one.

Home time please.

Alright Rovers, I'm not going to lie to you. There's a good chance you can beat Rangers. You just need to visualise how you're gonna win.

Hahaha! The same midfield and defence that were run all over by Partick Thistle but with the added bonus of a teenage centre half playing right back instead of Ross Millen. This is going to be an absolute doing.

Getting through the day without having a drum stolen would be enough for me.

Any hot tips on where to park?

How many kilos of conservatory were you looking to buy?

That's more like the opposite of what I'm saying. If you're building a small squad, and Murray has no other choice, two specialist destructive midfielders is broadly fine. Three would be excessive. But if they're both missing, tough totties. You can do all the midfield jangling you want (including a narrow diamond with Easton and Connolly as the transition men which would go... badly) and you'll still likely get overrun by half-decent opposition. If, in training this week, Ross Millen and Adam Masson run into each other and break their legs, we're going to have to pick a name out of a tombola and stick that unlucky sod at right back. And at Ibrox on Sunday, they'll focus on that weakness and repeatedly tear us apart down that side. That's the scenario we're in. Just because we've got other nominal "central midfielders", we don't have someone available who can do what Brown and Matthews do. No amount of contingency planning or formation rotation will entirely address that.

Fundamentally, it's incredibly difficult to play without a proper defensive midfielder. You only have to look at Dundee United in the division above to see that. If you go through their squad man-by-man and compare it to other teams in the bottom six of the Premiership, they're comfortably better off. But the whole thing is entirely undermined by their failure to bring in a destructive midfielder in the last two windows. They get dragged about all over the place, their defence is constantly being run at and can't cope, and their decent creative midfielders like Dylan Levitt look like shit because they're having to try and cover positions and roles that they're not suited to. It's not a question of changing the formation, in isolation. You can't just load a bunch of attacking midfielders and forwards on the pitch and hope that making them stand in a diamond they'll be fine. If you're playing a midfield two, three or four (with whatever configuration behind and ahead of them), someone needs to be tasked with doing the dirty work. It's not just about tackling, it's about covering runs, marking space, filling in behind full-backs when they leave gaps. I said before kick off on Saturday that Brad Spencer was the only real candidate for that, and he was. You can see from the way he plays normally that he understands the game, and understands which elements of 'midfielding' he usually has responsibility for, and what Scott Brown does. But there's a huge difference between understanding what someone else does, and having the aptitude and ability to do it well. In a bigger squad with more options, you'd also be able to look to senior centre halfs or full backs to see if they can plug the gap, but we don't have any central defenders spare, so the only real alternative is asking Liam Dick to come in and sit, and play Ngwenya at left back. Given he's never played in midfield before (to my knowledge), I'm not convinced. You maybe get more defensive nous and positioning sense than we got from Spencer, but you're not getting anywhere near the capability to move the ball forwards once you've got it. There was some chat in the stand on Saturday about going to a back three, but that presents the same issue. You're still not engaging the opposition midfield, all you've got is an extra defender in the last line trying to hold off 90 minutes of pressure 18 yards from goal. Dundee United have tried that one a fair bit. Look at their GA column for an idea of how it's going. It's obviously nowhere near as drastic, but playing without a natural defensive midfielder is like playing without a goalkeeper. It's a fundamental role, and you can do all the shuffling around with 4-3-3s and 4-4-2s that you want, you've still got a massive glaring issue to contend with. Even a side like Celtic who can blow away most sides they face by just throwing down any random assortment of their midfielders and forwards have Callum McGregor in as an almost ever-present. We've been exceptionally fortunate that, with Matthews' long term injury, this is the first time we've had to do without Brown. It's the risk you take with a small squad. We've only got one senior right back. We've only got two dedicated senior centre halfs. We've got two defensive midfielders, but they're both missing. You try to cover and make do, but if you come up against a decent team who don't have an off day, you'll be up against it.

Craig Cairns writing that there's an "outside chance" he'll play at Ibrox. On the one hand, I wouldn't be inclined to risk him, but on the other, we'll be absolutely overrun without him.

One for folk who love shouting about "no wantin it enough" and "giein them too much respect". If you're without your only midfielders who can tackle, your more mercurial forwards have an off day, and you're playing a team that's half decent, you'll get beat. It's okay. You don't need to launch an enquiry or give yourself palpitations. Murray can take some lessons from it, and ultimately we're at Ibrox next week so we'll get pumped regardless, but as soon as we knew Brown was missing it was clear that today would be an uphill battle.

Folk losing the heid over missing a penalty in the last minute of a game we're losing 3-0 How are these people allowed out the house?

We'd still have lost with him (or, at best, drawn 0-0). We've not offered anything like enough going forward. It's not anything new. We really need both wingers and our number 10 to be on form to create chances because we can't ever get anything out of our strikers, but Connolly and Easton have been massively off it today, and McBride isn't good enough. Brown, however, would've at least ensured that we were making tackles before Thistle got within 18 yards of our goal. For next season, Murray needs to either find a Brian Graham, or come up with a completely different attacking set up. We can't persist with this lack of input from our lead striker. We must be up to six or seven number 9s this season and none of them have managed to contribute in anything more than flashes.

At least most of the torn faced b*****ds in our support left at 3-0.

Hahaha! You'll never see a goal that better epitomises a team without a defensive midfielder. Lawless starts that move being tackled by two Rovers players at the same time and just ambles away with the ball.

Millen hasn't had a worse game than this, for us.

We're playing without a defensive midfielder, and with a 10 and a 9 who aren't good enough to be starting in the Championship. Unsurprisingly, we've not been very good. The couple of half decent things we've managed have been accompanied by the linesman's flag. Beyond that, Connolly and Millen have gotten down the right hand side a couple of times, but barring McBride being allowed to run clean through early doors, we've not threatened at all. Akio, in common with every other member of our cavalcade of lone strikers this season, looks lost. Thistle haven't looked as ragged as us, but haven't created too much either. Mostly because they spent the first 20 minutes trying to go over our weakened midfield rather than taking the game to them. They've not given MacDonald much to do, but it wouldn't have been a huge surprise if they'd managed a second before half time, given the fragility in our defence. Nolan must've been having flashbacks to the last time we were here as he hesitated under a long ball and was caught out again. Lucy to get away with it.

Certainly looked to me like Milne had run that out of play again but Connolly has got to play to the whistle and make a proper challenge.

Exactly the same as the one we did concede in the last minute at Cappielow. Defender touch tight to the striker so he just tips himself forwards. Literally, we've seen them given.

Is Harry Milne steaming? He's usually brilliant but so far he's run the ball out of play twice, left Connolly in acres of space for a free cross, and then run right past the ball to let McBride clean through on goal.

That would certainly be 'high risk, high reward', but he's stuck with the 4-2-3-1. Stanton alongside Spencer, as predicted.

As for Thistle, I was once in a pub at the same time as "Manpreet", and had to listen to a barman very slowly and carefully explain to him that Sea Salted and Ready Salted crisps are the same thing. On that basis, intae this shite Rovers!

Said it before when we thought he might miss the Motherwell game, but I think Brown is the single most integral player we currently have. He's probably not the best player, but he's the most irreplaceable. Huge onus on Brad Spencer to (symbolically) shift across and fulfil that more controlled, conservative role in the base of the midfield. I'm a huge Spencer fan and he's definitely got the footballing intelligence to know how to do it, but it's not his natural game. Presumably he'll have Stanton to help him out, but we'll miss Sam at 10. McBride hasn't looked as completely lost recently, but he's undeniably a downgrade on Stanton.

"Raith Rovers nil" have failed to score once in their last 14 games.

In hindsight, I think we'd have gotten on better with Goncalves in the first half and Akio running behind once the game had stretched later on, but that's not a criticism of Murray. I'd have started Akio too. Goncalves isn't going to contribute if you're not getting the ball to him in and around the box. He gamely tried to beat a couple of men around about the halfway line, but even if he beats them, he's not going to go fifty yards and put the ball in the net.