Raith Against The Machine

Mullin has done enough to justify his inclusion and I'm not sure playing Masson for either of them would've been a net benefit, but you're spot on in that it's exactly the kind of goal you don't concede with two full time defenders in there. Just a wee bit too much space in behind Mullin but it's an absolutely brilliant pass into that area and then a great finish. Frustrating because we've been in almost complete control of the midfield, but we haven't really converted that into clear chances and, as we well know, you're always running a risk when you've only got a single goal lead.

Liam Dick, a teenager, a midfielder, a winger. Some back four. Some laugh.

Two big questions that will determine the line-up, as I see it: - Who's available in defence? - How does Ian Murray want to use Kyle Turner? You answer the first one and work forwards, there's really no other way. If you've got Murray, it's him and Brown and then probably McGill. But if you don't have Murray and you go with Brown and Corr, do you want more solidity in there so instead it's Masson? For the second question, Turner hasn't come in to sit on the bench, so assuming he's fit to play, you start with him and then populate the rest of the midfield and attack around him. He's at his best in the middle and with an attacking brief, so for me he goes in at 10. That means you're moving Vaughan, either to the bench or up front. For me, he's got to start and so does Hamilton, so I'm already looking at a 4-1-3-2. Byrne sits and you've just got to pick any two wide players. The acid test is then whether Turner offers enough defensively/without the ball (a la Sam Stanton).

Grass pitches should be banned in the second tier IMO.

"Well, here's your problem..."

Prioritising one signing over another. Hardly the actions of a club 'overstretching the budget', is it?

We were outbid for our own defender by Partick Thistle literally 24 hours ago.

Thanks for reading, Gaffer x

Right then @RandomGuy. ya big sexy dork, let's see the pinwheels for Kyle Turner. Deliver some good news for a change! (And if his for this season isn't that good, sticking to last year is fine.)

We also brought Josh Mullin in based on exactly the same dynamic.

O'Reilly (and, more pertinently, his agent) hold all the cards. There's no incentive for them to commit so quickly. They've got the whole of January to leverage five (!) parties against one another. You'd have to think, all things being equal, that we'd be favourites to keep him. If another club wants to tip that balance by throwing money at him, then fair play to them, and to him.

Broxburn.

He has changed it, to be fair. With Stanton available (and for the remainder of the Ayr game and Arbroath at home) we were playing a 4-1-3-2 and he's since moved to a 4-2-3-1, with Brown into the midfield to cover a lot of Stanton's work alongside Byrne. There are further or other changes that could be made, but it's not true to say that Murray hasn't tried to adapt to Stanton's absence.

It's also worth noting that Airdrie were winning for the bulk of the game. The onus was on the Rovers to create chances. They, broadly speaking, didn't.

One that particularly annoys me is when a new player or manager comes in, and after four or five games you get fans saying "he just gets it". It's amazing how many of the individuals in question happen to "just get it" after also winning lots of those games. Nobody's ever brought in a new manager, watched him lose four games on the bounce, and still noted that he "gets it", despite results presumably being a separate thing from whatever nebulous concept of club culture people have imagined for themselves.

This sounds like a criticism or a dig and I really don't mean it as one, but I wouldn't have said Airdrie's bettering of us has anything to do with "better football", at least not in the way that most people would think of it. I'd go as far as saying what Airdrie have done with the ball, in all of the games, has been fairly unspectacular. However, where McCabe has been lightyears ahead of Murray is what Airdrie do when they don't have the ball. There's not another team in the division that are better organised or more disciplined when they're defending. Any time the Rovers had the ball, Airdrie dropped into their shape and stuck to it. It completely nullified the Rovers. I'm worried that I sound like I'm damning Airdrie with faint praise, because I really don't mean to be. It's not negative, it's incredibly clever. This Rovers team thrives in the spaces that teams leave when they start to close us down, and Airdrie basically don't. They'll let us have the ball and just close off all the outballs. How often did you see Byrne or Brown turning the ball across to Dick or Millen, only to get it back again? Without Sam Stanton to drive through the middle, we were relying on an inch perfect through pass for Vaughan or Smith to run onto (who's supplying that?) or for Easton or Mullin to beat their man. It's not really Mullin's game, and Easton was up against the excellent Megwa. I thought before the game that Aidan Connolly would've been a better option than Josh Mullin for this one and I stand by that, and Jack Hamilton might've given us another dimension up front, but regardless, Airdrie absolutely won that game by playing to their strengths and nullifying ours. With forwards like Todorov and McGill you're always (a) going to have an out ball and (b) going to be a threat, and so it proved.

This seems particularly harsh on Deniz Mehmet, yet it's hard to argue with.

Would any right minded football player join Dunfermline at the moment? It'd be like volunteering for the Vietnam draft.

Dan O'Reilly is in the latter photo with the rest of the squad.

When I wrote this, I was under the mistaken impression that Keith Watson had signed a two year deal. That his contract runs out in the summer makes an O'Reilly deal a no-brainer for me. It's not that Keith Watson isn't decent, he was very, very good in the early portion of the season, but Dan O'Reilly is 28. Murray, O'Reilly and Watson is a brilliant senior stable of centre halfs for this year, and then you go into the summer knowing you've got Murray and O'Reilly tied down, and you've got a nice simple "Can we do better than Keith?" dynamic in the window.

@virginton you'll be wanting to come in with the GIF of the old boy from The Office here, pal.

With all due respect to Keith Watson, there's more longevity in Dan O'Reilly too. Murray and O'Reilly is a partnership that could conceivably run for years. If you prioritise Watson over O'Reilly now, you're going to be looking for another O'Reilly by next summer, at the very latest.

"You care too much about football! I don't care at all!" My brothers in Christ, we all have thousands of posts on this interminable website all about the football, there's no point pretending it doesn't matter to you. Embrace it.

This is ludicrous.

Otoo going into the defence has given the Pars a bit of a foothold in the game because he's not afraid to step into midfield and it's giving them numbers on that flank. He is leaving space behind but we haven't been able to exploit it. That said, the period between the goals was as dominant as any point in the 3-0 game. Dunfermline barely crossed the halfway line and the Rovers were knocking it about with ease. But it only takes one lapse, particularly when your goalkeeper is visibly hurt. He's clearly struggling, and that's all the encouragement Summers needed for that dig. It's a good hit, but not a great one, and I think a fully fit keeper gets a lot closer to it. If we re-group and get back to what we were doing in the middle of that half, we should be strong enough, but any lead we can establish is always going to feel pretty fragile.