Kuma Power

Aye, nothing particularly surprising in that article. Huge respect to Frederiksen for uprooting his life and coming to a new country to try to progress his career (especially after recovering from a brain tumour), by all accounts he seemed a nice guy and a good ambassador for the club off the pitch. Definite parallels to Nando Mendy in that regard. Ultimately though, it didn't work out and we simply don't have the space or time to give him a run out in the hope he might eventually get up to speed, so this is best for all parties. Quite a few of the Scandinavian leagues start in the spring, including the Faroese league, so hopefully the timing of us releasing Big John gives him a chance to find a club closer to home soon.

If it wasn't already, the writing was definitely on the wall for Frederiksen when Akio was named in the squad and then brought on as a sub vs Inverness despite having been announced literally hours before. Still, by keeping Big John on the books until Monday, we at least managed to achieve some sort of bizarre milestone by naming three full internationals in our matchday squad for the Inverness game - Ngwenya (Malawi), Frederiksen (Faroe Islands) and Akio (South Sudan). When did that last happen for the Rovers?

Given some of the dire forecasts that were in the press a few weeks back, I'll also be quite happy if we close this January window without any of our regular first-team players leaving on the last day.

On the pitch at least, I'm left with the distinct feeling this is turning into a repeat of the second half of last season for us with a massive number of draws - albeit the performances are easier on the eye, and as above you at least feel there's maybe something for us to build on. A clear positive is another goal for Lewis Vaughan, and another game unbeaten. But that's six league games in a row we've scored first, and yet have only managed one win and one clean sheet. It's another game where you come away thinking 'in isolation, that's not a bad result for us' or 'I'd have taken that before kick-off' but over the piece it just adds up to a very frustrating run of results.

We sent Ross Callachan out on loan to Musselburgh Athletic for a couple of months early on in his career (I won't lie, I had vague recollections of him going out on loan somewhere but had to Google the details ). He then became a first-team regular for us in subsequent seasons before going on to progress his career at a higher level. Not sure how much or how well he played while at Musselburgh, though.

I doubt Silverbear or Peter Chun will be too impressed either if that's actually what has happened here. I'm not an investment expert, but I'm pretty sure you don't go around saying you've got serious financial backing from someone on the basis of a phone call you have with someone in your mate's restaurant. Still, it's not our problem any more - thank god for that.

For what it's worth, it's also worth remembering that the squad and manager has changed significantly since before Vaughan was injured, especially given that he only managed a handful of games in '21-22 before his fourth ACL. With Matthews out, of our regular starters there's only Gullan, Spencer and MacDonald left who Vaughan has played with for any significant period of time. Granted he'll have been training with the current squad and working with the manager while he's been recovering from injury, but it's maybe something else to factor in as he gets back up to speed. Just delighted to see Lewis back and playing regardless though.

Hang on...if you stretch the definitions of 'star' and 'top club' far enough, if he plays tonight would this not make Kyle Connell a 'free agent loan star from a top Premier League club' ?

Was thinking this too. Gordon Smith was in the papers saying that they'd be looking to invest in another club very soon if the Rovers deal fell through, but I can't see any club in Scotland being willing to entertain these jokers after the kind of coverage they've received this week.

And "a loan star from “one of the top clubs in world football”" would likely be just an U23 player from an English Premier League team, if that - and I'm sure we're all old enough to remember how well Timmy Abraham worked out for us...

Not much to add to the above, can't complain with a draw. Reminded me a bit of how we played in the second half of last season, where we'd somehow race into an early lead before throwing it away and ending up with a point. Fair play to Morton though, who I didn't realise are on such a long unbeaten run. What is a bit concerning is that five full games have passed since any Raith Rovers player other than Aidan Connolly has scored for Raith in the league, assuming that our first yesterday went down as a Morton own goal. Delighted that Connolly is having a great season, of course, but you have to go back to Hamilton on 5 November when Liam Dick and Dylan Easton scored to find a game when one of our own players other than Connolly scored for us (and if you include cup games too, then only Lewis Vaughan is the only person who isn't Connolly to find the net since then in any game). The fact our two best chances in the second half were shots by Spencer from outside the box is a pretty good indication of where our main weakness lies.

Given the stories we've had in the last week or so in the press, I'd assume one of those four may well be Raith... https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/sport/football/raith-rovers-foreign-investors-linked-with-move-to-buy-kirkcaldy-club-3959673

Even if we did want to sign Poplatnik, presumably we'd have to go through the whole rigmarole of work permits etc like we did for Frederiksen? So even setting aside arguments over budget and over the value he'd add, I can't imagine he'd be available for us any time soon.

It's occurred to me that our last three league games have been against the teams that are currently top three in the table, and we've been outclassed and out-thought in each. Perhaps a bit of a reality check as to where we stand right now. Also notable that today and to a lesser extent against Queen's Park is one of the first times this season we've had a fairly strong bench of subs available (no disrespect to the youths/apprentices intended when I say that). I'd like to think/hope the manager would be able to use these options to change things up a bit when we're struggling to get back into games, although appreciate this doesn't solve our lack of a striker able to put chances away.

Regardless of the manner of the goals conceded, it's also a bit worrying that what had for a few weeks looked like a very solid Raith defence has now let in 8 goals in the last 3 games.

...and that, if I remember rightly, was the result of a defensive howler by Partick.

Worth noting too we've now scored three goals in each of our last four home games. Given our well-documented lack of a striker and some of the frustration we've had with not putting chances away, that's really good going.

Same here. With the exception of a few years in the 2010s where their kits were mediocre (albeit not terrible), Japan have like you say had consistently brilliant kits for the last 30 years or so. One of the quirks is that although Adidas have been making the Japan kits for the last couple of decades, the Japan Football Association designed their kits themselves in the early 1990s and alternated the production rights annually between Asics, Mizuno and Adidas before finally settling on Adidas. Good wee write-up of the history here: https://www.footyheadlines.com/2019/11/full-japan-home-kit-history-from-1936-until-2020.html A few of my Japan favourites are the current World Cup one, the 100 year special edition shirt Adidas did in 2021, and the goalie tops with the flames from World Cup 1998.

Just to add to the above - maybe I'm missing something, but the fact Coulson was sent on for Connell yesterday rather than McBride doesn't exactly seem like a ringing endorsement of McBride (I mean no disrespect to Coulson when I say that either, who I thought didn't look at all out of place in the few minutes he was on the pitch). Also - we're certainly struggling to put chances away, but how many times have we hit the woodwork in recent weeks? I count two yesterday, albeit one led to a goal, once against Arbroath, once against Morton... Fine margins and all that...

Result aside, really have to feel for Jamie Gullan. Every time he looks like he's getting confidence and starting to get a few goals he seems to pick up an injury. Wasn't at the game so didn't see what happened (heard on the radio that he went down off the ball with nobody around which sounds...not good if so). Just hope it isn't serious and he's back before too long.

That's how I understand it too. The visa is the bit that takes time and where things can go wrong, and we've got that now. Pretty sure the international clearance bit is just a bureaucratic process where the club/the SFA have to get confirmation from where the player was last registered (in this case Austria?)

A couple of things that have me a wee bit worried as we approach the end of the first quarter: -we’ve managed one clean sheet in the league so far. For one of the lower-scoring teams in the league, that’s making it even harder for us to get results; -it’s early doors yet, but looking at the table and Saturday’s results, the Championship seems to be starting to split into a clearly-defined top five and bottom five like it did last season – and we may be on the wrong side of the fence. If that’s the case, then the next three games are crucial for putting a bit of clear air between us and those behind us and starting to look up the table. Having said that, given where we were as a team at the end of last season and start of this season, if you told me we’d be sixth after eight games I’d have taken it. It may yet be a frustrating season, but this is far from the worst Rovers side I’ve seen in my lifetime.

If I understand rightly, if Frederiksen hasn't been issued with a work permit then we can't employ him in the sense of paying him wages or asking him to do anything that might constitute 'working' (i.e. playing in games). That wouldn't stop us from putting him up in digs or offering him use of our training facilities and equipment in the meantime, hence why we might have seen him travelling with the team up to Cove. Happy to be corrected by those who know more about how these things work for football specifically, though. Presumably we'll also need to get international clearance given that his last club was in Austria, although I'm not sure at what stage of the process that happens or how long it takes.

Ah sorry - was a reference to the posts before it on our potential new striker John Frederiksen being spotted at the Cove game in Rovers training gear. But I can see now that a couple of other posts came in while I was typing my comment during the game, so it appeared a bit out of context!

Love to see it. Hopefully the fact he's been issued with club gear and is travelling with the team means the paperwork is making progress and we can see him in action before too long...