Raith Against The Machine

Whoever the manager is, I think the market for players just got even tougher. Another team who can offer higher wages than we can and Championship football, in addition to the clubs in the league below who might be able to outbid us.

Oaft, serious shades of "she's an ugly cow anyway", whilst going round her house at night and sitting in the car outside quietly weeping.

That was an exceedingly soft penalty, and frankly it shouldn't have been awarded solely on the nick of the striker's hair.

Aye, it's one of those stock phrases that makes its way into these kinds of statements. It's like when managers (and loads of other people, in fairness) say "myself" rather than "me" because they think it sounds more professional and business-like when actually it just sounds weird. "It's been a really tough season for myself", stuff like that. These are daft things that stick out and annoy me personally, but I'm in no way equating these stylistic choices with the fundamental communication issues coming from the Rovers that we've all discussed at length over the past few months.

It's a really, really minor thing but "The Club will make no further comment at this time" really bugs me, when any club does it. Yeah no shit, it's a written statement. I know you're not making any further comment when I get to the end of it. I didn't think there was a "PTO" and it continued overleaf.

What we should really do is get to the Champions League group stage.

Hey, at least people put their names to your club statements.

I'd be surprised if this was anything more than, at this stage, Thomson maybe being the "lead" candidate but there'll still be interviews to come and budget discussions that'll have a bit part to play. I think Thomson is the right kind of profile though. He's well thought of, and although he's been working in League Two, you'd think he'd have a decent idea of the quality in the Championship given Kelty's budget. I have a real fear that we bring in a manager who doesn't know the Championship well enough and makes a hash of retaining our existing players, let alone bringing in new ones. I'd still like to see a Director of Football type role created too. The nature of a manager like Thomson (and pretty much all managers now, really) is that they'll be around for three years max. Either he'll be shite and he'll get binned or he'll succeed and move on. He doesn't even need to be that successful to be poached by the likes of a St Mirren or a St Johnstone, given how often jobs at that level open up. What we need is some form of continuity and the ability to plan for the medium term. We can't be caught in this position again where more or less the entire football department (two blokes) leaves.

Low on specifics but high on confidence from the Courier.

Harsh on TxRover IMO.

Scott Brown wants Steven Whittaker to be his assistant wherever he goes, according to the Courier article that linked him to the Rovers vacancy. I don't know if that makes him more or less attractive/likely for the Pars gig.

Germans, eh? All makes sense now.

It doesn't need to be Dunfermline being discussed.

Benedictus' best spell with us was under McKinnon, to be fair. Him and Lewis Toshney were a brilliant partnership.

It is possible to warn someone about something that they aren't responsible for and can't control. I don't think any Rovers fans were labouring under the impression that you could do anything about it, I think it was more of a "brace yourselves, because we've seen this show before".

After he relegated us, he went into the dressing room at full time and told all the players that they could f**k off and find new clubs. The chairman had to then come in and remind Hughes that he wasn't under contract for next season, that he'd be fucking off, and that half of the squad were under contract.

Bye and large the Pars fans I know are good eggs, and I feel for them, but Yogi Hughes can absolutely fucking swivel. Try and avoid taking any responsibility for this one, c**t!

AN EIGHTEEN MONTH DEAL

I'm pretty sure his "academy" is just doing some one-to-one tuition with kids whose parents have got a couple of quid. I can't imagine he's producing Championship quality footballers.

The new manager will also, of course, have to do his own scouting for youth players now that FEFA has disbanded.

They took it down last night as well, along with the Hibs manager market. I wouldn't read anything into it.

If he was that highly rated, I'm sure East Fife would've appointed him when their managerial role was vacant less than 6 months ago.