Raith Against The Machine

Certainly everyone around me in the South Stand thought the ref was just pointing for a corner. Not complaining, mind you!

She's fine thanks.

Some squad Murray's building. Isma, Willy, Lang? Not for me to say.

The old Zak Rudden? Well, we'll see...

Oh aye, of course. In the giddiness of having Scott Brown available I forgot all our other problems existed. Haste ye back, Hammer!

I've not checked the graphic myself, but presumably that's only showing the North Stand at the moment? There's additional capacity in the Railway Stand that'll be available if you sell out behind the goals. I'm really looking forward to this. I think I'm right in saying it's the first Scottish Cup game where we've welcomed top flight opposition since January 2017 when Declan McManus scored in the last minute to draw with Ian Cathro's Hearts and he lost all power of speech in his post-match interview. This doesn't feel too dissimilar, in as much as it's a Premiership side who are low on confidence and look severely dysfunctional. It'll still take a huge performance. There are bigger gaps between the leagues than people like to imagine sometimes, and we're not exactly confidently swatting teams aside every weekend ourselves. You'd have to imagine that Calum Butcher will go someway towards mitigating some of Motherwell's biggest issues, too. Ordinarily, I think you'd look at this as one of those "keep it tight, get to half time, and then let the fans get on the backs of the opposition", but I don't know that we've got the legs after Wednesday night to rely on a strategy that needs a real step-up in the last twenty minutes. I'm not sure it's really Murray's style, either. I think we'll do our usual, if we win the toss, and shoot the 'wrong' way. Try to fly out the traps and get right into Motherwell's faces. If I was a betting man, I'd have Scott Brown to be booked before half time as a near certainty. Easton and Connolly will, obviously, come back into the starting line up. It'll be very interesting to see if either Gullan or Vaughan make it back, and to what extent. Murray sounded confident at the start of the week that he'd have Gullan, but given Akio's goal, and particularly his direct running in the second half, I wouldn't be astonished to see him get the first hour. Over the piece, I expect Motherwell will have too much for us, but it's one we can go into with no fear, and a realistic (if not probable) chance of an upset. And if we do go out, it'll be a more enjoyable occasion than our usual defeat away at Almondvale or Celtic Park.

This is indeed very funny. Ostensibly trying to calm Robinson down is great patter. "You always change your mind. Don't change your mind! Just don't shit yourself!"

"Ooooooo that's a short run up!"

Some shift from those boys tonight, especially guys like McBride who haven't had much football at all recently. A huge ask to go and play 120 minutes but they've done really well. Didn't see this coming when Dundee's second went in.

Some hairstyle on the boy too. I think they call that a Shetland ponytail.

When we get to the fifth striker to play in this role and struggle to get into the game, I think we have to start considering that it might not be entirely down to the individual.

Brown getting through (presumably) unscathed is a huge positive. I think he's one Murray would've rested if he had any other option. Resting players was one thing, but changing shape too was just a gamble too far from Murray. I'm not particularly laying that as a criticism, more of an observation. Even if he'd stuck with the 4-2-3-1 and asked Millen to mirror Ngwenya with Masson in the back four, I don't think we'd have been so out of sorts at the beginning. But ultimately it makes no real difference. All eyes on Saturday.

Absolutely what you'd expect from a defender with a solid grounding, but who has played fewer than 50 games. Solid for the most part, benefits from having someone talk him through a fame, makes the odd critical error. Doesn't look out of place in the Championship, and will improve with more game time.

Incredibly apparent that not only have we not used a back five before, we've never even contemplated putting Millen in the middle of it. I imagine we'll still ship three or four without return, but at least reverting to our usual shape should bring some sort of balance.

Playing Masson at wing back and Millen at centre half seems... odd. I understand he's trying to move the ostensible weak spot further away from the goal, but you're not really giving either of them the best chance to succeed. No real complaints from me though. It's very much a case of getting home again without any injuries, and if we can learn some stuff in the process, that's a nice bonus.

Nevermind Murray certainly looks to be prioritising Saturday. It looks like Masson is coming in for Lang for his first senior appearance at centre half, and Kieran Ngwenya is presumably playing left wing? No Jamie MacDonald either. I can only hope Lang is just being rested, but not even being on the bench is a worry. Hopefully nothing major, he'd be a massive loss.

McBookie have got us at 4/1 which, arthritic manager playing in midfield notwithstanding, feels overpriced. I don't think we'll win tonight, particularly if Robinson is back for Dundee, but I'm not seeing them as odds-on-by-a-fair-bit favourites.

I'd rather see Mickey.

There's Hearts "doing a Killie" and announcing that Scott McGill is getting punted at the end of his contract. Gives him some motivation to do well before the end of the season, I suppose.

Aye, if it came to I'd rather have Brown and no strikers than a striker and no Brown. Really could make all the difference.

I'd have Stanton as most likely to be asked to sit in the midfield, with Easton as the 10 and Ngwenya on the left. At least McBride is coming into it on the back of a goal, but I'm not sure he'd managed a shot on target prior to that, so expecting him to make a real impact in a lone striker role against Premiership opposition feels like several bridges too far.

Who's there?

Especially when he hasn't had a proper pre-season. Obviously we hope it's nothing serious, and with that caveat I don't think a few weeks out for Vaughan is the worst thing. Gives him some recovery time, mentally as much as anything, and hopefully lets him get a clear run through to the end of the season. I think we'll really see him back to his best at the start of next season, once he's had a proper summer and pre-season schedule behind him.

Git doon.

Connor McBride? Are you sure?