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The New Raith Rovers Thread


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28 minutes ago, renton said:

I'm just an early adopter.

I get that it's an over reaction, and between holidays and lockdown I've really got f**k all to do except be irrationally angry about a football result. C'est la vie.

On the other hand you look at the fixtures: Dunfermline, Dundee, ICT and Hearts x2 before February. There is a reasonable worst case scenario where we pick up 0 from that. Hand on heart, I couldn't pick one of those I thought we had a decent shot at winning, let alone being favourites.

Tuesday was not an isolated incident. We had the same collective throwing up of hands as we ran out of ideas up at ICT as well, large spells of the game at Dundee, and even the cup game at Cowden. 

The Alloa game was almost a freak in so far as we scored a couple from open play. For all our nice football, we had little real penetration against Dunfermline, Ayr and now Queens.

As I said, you are right, an over reaction to only our second league defeat. Yet I think there are other signs out there that suggests we need to shift something about, otherwise a sticky patch becomes a bad run...

Yeah, I understand it. You may well be proved to be correct and if your worst case scenario emerges I will certainly be panicking by the end of January.

It is a tough run of games and 0 points is a reasonable worst case scenario but I honestly don’t think it would be a complete shock if we picked up a couple of wins. The Hearts games are a free hit and I am fairly certain we will get 0 points from those (although they haven’t been dismantling teams away from home the way they have at Tynecastle).

Dundee are on a good run but Charlie Adam aside they looked nothing special at Dens and we didn’t have to play particularly well to pick up a point. Inverness are the best team I have seen us play this season but they haven’t won in their last 3 and have 1 win away from home in all competitions. It’s hardly a stretch to think we could pick up some points in those games.

We haven’t been brilliant every week but that is going to be the way with our style of play. We rely on quick sharp passing through the team, if we are slack (or unable to complete the most basic of 5 yards passed as was the case on Tuesday) we will be in trouble. However, for the most part this has served us well.

People are entitled to believe we have been found out and this is the start of a long winless run and they could be correct but I don’t see it. As I said in another post, every team in the league uses video analysis and has full match videos of future opponents, so ahead of every game they would know exactly how we play. It wouldn’t take till the end of the first round of fixtures for them to work that out.

I don’t think we need to rip up this style of play because of one bad result. However, I think we could do with one or two fresh faces in the attacking third to give us some extra options for when the likes or Arsmstrong/Ross/Tait are off it which we don’t currently have. I agree regarding goals from open play too but set pieces are a big part of the game at any level and with the physical players we have, as long as get good delivery we will continue to be a threat from them. I see that as one of the major positives of this season that we have found a threat from set pieces again which has been lacking in recent times. 

We were 3rd in the table before Tuesday night. Do we have the 3rd best team in the league? Absolutely not. We have been performing above ourselves and everyone’s expectations so far. Tuesday night was our first (negative) shock result of the season. I expect there may be a few more over the course of the season but I have enjoyed watching us this season and if someone had told me at the start of the season we would finish 8th or higher whilst playing entertaining football I would have grabbed it with both hands. I am still absolutely certain we will achieve that but it won’t all best as positive as the first 8 games.

 

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I think our early season form has probably raised a few in our supports expectations for this season. Our objective this season is to establish ourselves back in the championship and as long as we do that then we can have few complaints. In saying that we do have a squad that is capable of being in and around the promotion playoffs although we lack depth.

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4 hours ago, grumswall said:

I think our early season form has probably raised a few in our supports expectations for this season. Our objective this season is to establish ourselves back in the championship and as long as we do that then we can have few complaints. In saying that we do have a squad that is capable of being in and around the promotion playoffs although we lack depth.

Same

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On 31/12/2020 at 09:32, grumswall said:

I think our early season form has probably raised a few in our supports expectations for this season. Our objective this season is to establish ourselves back in the championship and as long as we do that then we can have few complaints. In saying that we do have a squad that is capable of being in and around the promotion playoffs although we lack depth.

The 15 points so far has done much to help solidify our chances of survival, in the same way it has, as noted, raised expectations. It’s strange to have to say we lack depth, but it’s correct in a few particulars...although we also lack some diversity. Looking at our roster, we are heavily overweight at CF and woefully light n the wings. Keeper is likely our best position, with midfield being a close second. However, the worst problem we have is too few defenders, in my mind.

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The 15 points so far has done much to help solidify our chances of survival, in the same way it has, as noted, raised expectations. It’s strange to have to say we lack depth, but it’s correct in a few particulars...although we also lack some diversity. Looking at our roster, we are heavily overweight at CF and woefully light n the wings. Keeper is likely our best position, with midfield being a close second. However, the worst problem we have is too few defenders, in my mind.
Keeper our best position? One very good, one I've never had confidence in and one who can never recapture the sheer majesty of his reign.
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1 hour ago, Brashy's Boots said:
6 hours ago, TxRover said:
The 15 points so far has done much to help solidify our chances of survival, in the same way it has, as noted, raised expectations. It’s strange to have to say we lack depth, but it’s correct in a few particulars...although we also lack some diversity. Looking at our roster, we are heavily overweight at CF and woefully light n the wings. Keeper is likely our best position, with midfield being a close second. However, the worst problem we have is too few defenders, in my mind.

Keeper our best position? One very good, one I've never had confidence in and one who can never recapture the sheer majesty of his reign.

Or to put it another way one very, very good keeper, one who's a good 2nd choice back up and one we can call on instead of relying on an outfield play in an emergency.

My take on things is that yes we are light on the wing but I feel we are lighter still defensivley especially in the fullback position, We manage fine for additional width when the full backs can bomb forward but that cant happen without the back-door being 100% secure. Get the first choice of Mus and Bene in the middle for security giving Macca and Tumilty the confidence to get forward. 

At the end of the day certain games may require sacrifices, 2 wingers on Tuesday was a luxury when they were being starved of supply, another gritty central midfielder instead of a winger may have made a difference, especially if Macca had been an option to also bomb forward providing optional width.

No cash to bring in an extra body, pity I'd like to see another left back who can play centre half or left wing.......a Kieran McDonald clone would actually be ideal!

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14 hours ago, Scottydog said:

Or to put it another way one very, very good keeper, one who's a good 2nd choice back up and one we can call on instead of relying on an outfield play in an emergency.

A starter on almost any team in the League, a player who helped us win the League last year, a young lad and an old, emergency, choice.

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No cash to bring in an extra body, pity I'd like to see another left back who can play centre half or left wing.......a Kieran McDonald clone would actually be ideal!

Has that been confirmed somewhere Scotty? I’d be disappointed if that was the case. Was hoping for at least a loanee!
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25 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Lokotsch will go back to Livingston when his deal ends on the 17th. Would like to think that will free up a wage to let us get someone else in.

Then again he might not. The way Livi are progressing I doubt he'll be getting any game time whereas he gets some with us. Livi may be more than happy to leave him where he is for this curtailed season. I'd like to hope Aberdeen think similarly regarding the length of season aspect over Ethan Ross.

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1 minute ago, embow said:

Then again he might not. The way Livi are progressing I doubt he'll be getting any game time whereas he gets some with us. Livi may be more than happy to leave him where he is for this curtailed season. I'd like to hope Aberdeen think similarly regarding the length of season aspect over Ethan Ross.

I think Ross is already set to stay here until May.

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