Raith Against The Machine

That's a bizarre policy, is it not? I know Arbroath were getting some grief for not having a cash gate, but at least if you were turned away you could buy a ticket on your phone there and then.

This is fundamentally untrue.

What time do you think Willie Collum will make his Monday morning apology call to Tommy Wright?

Oh, that's weird. Ignore that...

It won't happen, but if we let Frankie Musonda go through choice and then end up playing Dave McKay at right back, I'll throw my season ticket onto the pitch in a fit of rage. There'll be tears and snotters everywhere.

Absolutely. He's had to fit in at different parts of the pitch and in different roles and never been anything less than a 7/10. And last season he showed just how good he is at centre half when he gets a run of games. Even Bene can't get into that position at the moment, so it's no reflection on Frankie Musonda. Unless he's desperate to get back down south, it's a no-brainer to get him signed on again. I'd go further than just the end of the season, I'd give him another 18 months. He's only 24 (today - happy birthday Frankie!) and he's a class act. He'll only get better with experience.

Peter Grant giving the fans a wee clap as they roasted him immediately preceded the mad Dunfermline statement calling out their supporters. I hope we get a similar Killie statement today. As for the penalty, McGlynn's clarified his comments a wee bit in his Courier interview this morning. I enjoy the diplomacy in his subtle switch from "I told Tommy..." to "their bench have jumped...". Stops short of actively calling Tommy Wright a haver, although he clearly is one.

Well, at least this turned out to be nonsense. It definitely hits the defender's hand, and it's definitely sticking out away from his body. You can argue all day about the ins and outs of the handball rule and whether it should be deliberate or not, but that's not the obvious miscarriage of justice that Tommy Wright seems to be looking for.

Think there's some overreacting going on. You could read just as much into his body language before kick off, when he was first one out the tunnel and applauding the support as he crossed the park.

Tam Lang is fast becoming my favourite player. If he's not heidering everything in sight or crashing through people on the touchline, he's waltzing through the opposition midfield. He had to be patient to get his chance in the side, but he's absolutely grabbed it with both hands. I'm sure Ricky Little and Tam O'Brien would want a fight about it (and boy is that a fight I would watch), but Berra and Lang are surely the best defensive partnership in the division on current form.

Build the statue a hundred feet high. OzyMcGlynndias. Behold, ye mighty, and despair!

That definitely hit an outstretched hand, but I have to tell you, I thought it was Varian's...

Much better start to the half. A better five minutes than we had at any point before half time.

We've had a couple of wee spells where you can see that we're a decent side, but we've not translated that into much. You can see why McGlynn wanted Scott Robinson in the summer. He's got that busyness and guile that would suit out system. Agree that Oli Shaw should've scored. He's had a long time to think about it and although MacDonald got a touch on it, it was going over anyway. Alston probably should've done better with the loose ball in the box that he only stabbed at the keeper too. Not having an alternative to the likes of Zanatta shines through on games like this. He's not doing anything particularly badly, he's just not really getting himself involved. Maybe someone would have more luck, but we just don't have a replacement. Tam Lang continues to be excellent, and gorgeous. I hope we can get the John McGlynn statue done by whoever chiselled that jawline.

Can we swap our corners for throw-ins mid way towards the halfway line? We're legitimately more threatening building from deep than we are whipping in set pieces.

Nothing says confidence in an appointment like announcing it at 11pm on a Friday night. Interesting to see how it turns out though. You'd have to assume he doesn't have a tremendous pedigree, because with all due respect, he wouldn't be rocking up in League One if he did. But it's a departure from the usual suspects, and that's to be commended. Going for someone like Brian Rice is a lazy/easy pick, and it's the process that leads to folk like Jim Duffy and Gus McPherson still kicking about in the Championship in 2021.

I'd be really surprised if there was any real truth behind this Musonda rumour. Since coming back from injury he's had a fair bit of game time. I don't see that he's going to get a better gig somewhere else at this point of this season.

St Mirren were seconds away from signing him at the close of the window, you'd have to think they'd still be keen to get him. He'd be a tremendous signing, though. More technical ability than anyone else in this division, hands down. Incidentally, I hadn't heard much about Nathan Cooney so assumed he was back at Dundee United, doing nothing. But he's been at Elgin City since August... doing nothing. Fewer than 450 minutes of football.

Timmy Abraham, Adam King and Nathan Cooney It's a miracle we finished as high up as we did last season.

January is certainly going to be interesting. I think shelling out for Ethan Ross should defray any accusations of a lack of ambition from the board. They've shown they're willing to put money on the table, so it'll be a case of whether the right options are out there. It's been mentioned, but the real issue we've got is that we don't just need two midfielders, we really need two starting midfielders. That's not going to be an easy, or cheap, thing to do. We've got December to get through first, with Tait in situ, so there's a chance for someone to grab a jersey. We know Musonda has class, but can he transform defensive solidity into an all-round midfield role? I'm hopeful but not confident. Not because he lacks ability, but because it's just a further stretch. Have we really pulled a guy out of Luton Reserves who can perform at Championship level at right back, left back, central defence and as a box to box midfielder? There's no reason why Aaron Arnott can't become a first team fixture in exactly the same way that Dylan Tait did, but with it being a level up and a higher pressure environment, again you'd have to say it's unlikely. He's much more likely to need a gradual introduction, as he's been getting so far, rather than suddenly getting 90 minutes every week. And Blaise Riley-Snow, for all his endeavour, looks the least likely of the three. Stranger things have happened, but he's had plenty game time this season and has largely looked off the pace. He's not really had a run of games and it's a level of football that's alien to him, but I'd be stunned if he does enough to warrant a new deal as a back up option, let alone makes himself a first pick. McGlynn will, I'm sure, have someone lined up on the first of January. I wouldn't be surprised if it's Stephen Kelly, although there's likely to be bottom half Premiership clubs keen on him too. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the 'second' arrival isn't delayed until the back end of the month, for two reasons. Firstly, there'll naturally be a temptation to see if Hibs really want to keep Tait for the rest of the season. Since they signed Tait, Josh Campbell has broken into the first team and their midfield landscape has changed, so I think that's completely up in the air. With Tait training at Hibs already, I imagine Jack Ross has a fair idea of what he wants to do, but he's not going to commit to that before he has to. And secondly, we're at Banks o' Dee on 22 January. The result of that game, and any subsequent draw, might well dictate a further stretching of the budget to a more marquee option, although I've no idea who that could be. Interesting times ahead.

Kennedy, for me, is too one-note. When he first pitched up at Caley last season he was on fire, but nobody knew how to handle him. When he came to the Rovers, he was phenomenal on his debut at Tynecastle and in the few games after that, but by the third round of fixtures he was being routinely marked out of games. This season, I think, has just been a continuation of that. Particularly because the Pars haven't exactly had a multitude of other threats to keep defenders occupied. He's still got plenty time to develop his game, and he might be better suited to playing in a team that has a lot of the ball and carries threats all over the park. When we had Barrie McKay on loan from Rangers he looked useless at 0-0 or 1-0 either way, but you sensed that if you went 3-0 up he'd come alive and be able to make it 4 or 5. His only good game for us was away at Stirling Albion in the cup. Never in a million years did he look like he'd go on to have any kind of career at Championship level or above. He went back to Ibrox and looked excellent the following season. There's also the issue that most - not all - of the loanees that come out of Murray Park don't fancy it when the chips are down. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kennedy re-appear at Kilmarnock in January and look half decent in a number of games and outstanding in a couple before the end of the season.

I'm under the impression it'll be at least double that.

Broken leg for Brad Spencer.

It does seem remarkable that Killie are struggling for goals. I know Scott Robinson hasn't always been fit and Callum Hendry arrived late, but John McGlynn was quite openly interested in both and I'm sure most, if not all, Championship managers would be the same. And that's without mentioning one of the best young strikers in Europe... I said after the game at Rugby Park that Kilmarnock reminded me of Barry Smith's League One Rovers side. No discernible identity or strategy, just a collection of players who are individually among the most talented in the league, and a manager content to stick out eleven of them and wait for that quality to bring the points in. It's not necessarily a completely terrible way to go about things, from a pure results point of view. Smith came within the width of a post of winning League One and Killie have picked up plenty points so far, but it's horribly frustrating to watch. It only takes a couple of your 'stars' to have an off day and the entire team look like they've never met before.