Raith Against The Machine

This must be setting records for longest yet most underwhelming unbeaten runs. Is that 14 or 15 games now? We've been properly good in about two of them.

Nobody deserves a goal here, to be fair.

Absolutely no point stationing Isma forty or fifty yards from goal. He'd be better off just standing on the edge of the D and waiting for the game to come to him. By the time he's gone twenty yards he's shattered.

Imagine fielding a number 77 in the Scottish Championship. What a riddy.

Saved!

Stupid, stupid defending.

Both teams are doing wee cone based warm ups, so I've no idea what the blowhards in our support will complain about if we concede early in the second half this week.

Aye, twice Spencer had the ball in a promising position in the middle (the first due to his own excellent industry, to be fair) and just didn't see the two or three possible passes and ended up eventually making poor decisions. Really unlike him. Overall, we've passed the ball better, but Ayr are getting slightly more change from their long balls. Akinyemi has done us a huge turn by stumbling over the ball three or four times when he might've done something dangerous. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see it end up 1-0 either way, probably from a penalty for a soft handball that the defender doesn't know anything about.

I'd have had good money on it being a Rovers player who ended up bodying this ref, but fair play.

Also, the referee was absolutely brutal. There are two categories of bad referees; those who get decisions wrong, and those who get the majority correct but can't manage a game. Craig Napier (I think? Might be naming the wrong guy there) is absolutely the latter. The penalty aside, which did look like a foul but may or may not have been outside the box, I don't think he actually got much wrong. Certainly not much of any consequence. But the game was all the poorer for his involvement. Just rattling around, getting in the way, delivering lectures to all and sundry, infuriating everyone. No sense of what a game of football should be, and how a referee can best facilitate that.

I didn't expect the somersault, so that was nice. And I'd have taken a point before the game, so that's nice too. I only saw the headline, but I believe Ian Murray said beforehand something like "We need to win to start reeling in the likes of Queen's Park" and ultimately that's true. But it's also probably not really what we're aiming for, with the season we've had. We're shooting for fourth, and a point away at the league leaders isn't a bad result with that in mind, by any stretch. We probably should've done more in the first half. We had a lot of the ball in Queens' half but never quite managed to turn that into proper chances. Easton in particular seemed to be able to beat two men whenever he got the ball, but there was always a third there to stop him. Second half, Queens still looked a bit sluggish until the goal, but that really turned the game around. Shields took it really well, and then they're tails were up and while proper chances were still relatively rare, a second goal for Queens looked more likely than an equaliser. Akio did well to follow in on a fairly weak penalty, and all that matters is that the ball ended up in the net. Agree wholeheartedly that he and Goncalves look like upgrades on Connell and Frederiksen. I really like the look of Isma, he's got a presence of mind that we just haven't seen in the box before now this season. If we were title contenders, that's the kind of game we would've won. But we're not, and we drew it, which is a fair reflection on the game, and our season as a whole.

Credit Queens for turning it up, but we've gone to shit since the goal.

Agreed. Looked like he decided against the header, which is madness.

Ach, pish man. I think we've been the better side, particularly going middle-to-front, but the final ball has been painfully lacking. Can't keep passing up the chance to create chances and not expect to be punished eventually.

I'd obviously like us to win tonight, but whatever the result I'll be overjoyed that I'll never have to see that Simon Murray goal jpeg that Queens were using on Twitter. I don't know what it is specifically, but the way his tongue is hanging out of his daft mouth is grotesque. I celebrated his sale to Ross County like a Rovers goal in a cup final. Significantly improved my quality of life.

I feel like Isma is going to be really interesting. All of the number nines we've used this season (Gullan, Connell, Akio, Vaughan, even Frederiksen) have been of a similar profile. Busy workers who'll drop deep and go wide and do a lot of running to get involved. If there's one thing the Livi fans all agree on, it's that we'll not get much running from Goncalves. That might just be what we need, though. A proper focal point for the rest of our attack to buzz around. And with ready made replacements for pretty much all of those attacking roles, there's a real chance that teams find it very difficult to handle, when we turn it on and it clicks. I don't expect that'll happen every week, or even more weeks than not, but there's a better variety - and balance - to the attack now than there's been at any other point of the season. Isma doesn't actually need to be individually brilliant, I think he'll being a whole new dimension just with his particular style.

Not the draw I'd have chosen, but you take it on the chin, look forward to chance of a major upset, and use the additional income to table contract extensions for Aiden Connolly and Tom Lang first thing tomorrow morning.

A fundraiser for a replacement has already reached its goal. It's nice when people can come together in the face of other people being c***s.

I think you'll probably find over the course of the evening someone's going to pop up and make a case for just about every Rovers player to be man of the match, but a special mention for Ryan Nolan. I thought he was imperious. In the first couple of minutes you could see that Jon Obika had targeted him rather than Tom Lang (which, to be fair, is the correct choice) and I thought he'd be in for a really tough game, but he stuck to Obika like glue. Almost to a fault, at one point streaming past Van Veen - who had the ball and Lang in tow - to track Obika's run! But he handled Obika really well, totally nullified him and it's a credit to Nolan that he was withdrawn at half time. The big fella has really grown into his position after a shaky start. As good as O'Riordan was as an individual, I think you can see the impact that Lang has on Nolan and on the defence as a whole. As talented as he is gorgeous.

Wheesht.

I can't promise I'd be this generous had we gone on to lose, but I was really impressed with the Motherwell fans today. They might not have been behind the manager, but they were well behind the team for the start of the second half and were right up for it after Van Veen's goal. I don't think you'd get many supports that would've responded like that to such a terrible first half. Aye they all disappeared after the third, but that's understandable. A proper support, sadly not provided with a proper team. Out-thought, out-fought and out-classed by the Rovers today.

Storm weathered.

Momentum only heading in one direction, we're absolutely under siege. We really just need to weather this storm and see where we are in ten minutes.

It appears that not playing Van Veen as a winger might be the change Motherwell required.

Any thoughts on a foul on the keeper for the second? Kelly looked to have fumbled it a wee bit but I was still surprised that the ref gave the goal. It's probably not quite been a 2-0 game, Motherwell came into it much more after the first, albeit without really threatening MacDonald. They're not handling the game well at all, though. Just daft stuff like not picking up men at throw-ins, they're not taking the opportunity to dial up any kind of pressure. Time and again the Rovers are using the break of a loose ball to spring forward. We're far from home and hosed, it's going to take a huge effort to keep this level of physical and mental effort up for the rest of the game, but Motherwell are going to need a major rethink to get back into this.