The New Raith Rovers Thread

[baillieinleeds]

2 hours ago, Dalziel8 said:

Yawn that it’s been done to death. Those in charge made a mistake, owned their mistake and have paid a hefty price. At what point do we stop going on about it and move on?

When the c***s involved actually f**k off, that’d be nice

[baillieinleeds]

3 hours ago, Dalziel8 said:

Yawn that it’s been done to death. Those in charge made a mistake, owned their mistake and have paid a hefty price. At what point do we stop going on about it and move on?

In addition, the board owned f**k all, the price was paid by losing major sponsors we WILL never get back. Until those involved are removed, then, maybe then we will recover…….slightly. 

[Dalziel8]

I’d say we already have recovered more than slightly… much to the annoyance of some it would seem. 

[Enigma]

5 minutes ago, Dalziel8 said:

I’d say we already have recovered more than slightly… much to the annoyance of some it would seem. 

A quick look of the accounts, or the empty sponsorship boards, or the lack of anybody not already connected with the club sponsoring a game says not so much.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Enigma

[Brashy's Boots]

1 hour ago, baillieinleeds said:

In addition, the board owned f**k all, the price was paid by losing major sponsors we WILL never get back. Until those involved are removed, then, maybe then we will recover…….slightly. 

You realise they can't really be removed, don't you? They can to all intents stay as long as they like.

Are you including John Sim in your "needs removed" list? John Sim who is brokering the new blood and investment? We may not all agree with all his actions or decisions but the most recent interview was met almost universally positively. 

A wee dash of realism would go a long way.

[Dunning1874]

16 hours ago, TxRover said:

More players overall, no modern apprentices, twice as many international players, I’d say they’re paying more.

Hamilton have the smallest budget in the division by a mile.

It's a fair guess that Morton and Raith aren't far away from each other for second lowest, with Morton's post-August free agents and January taking us closer to Raith from the Hamilton level budget we started the season with. Although the outstanding long term deals inherited from McGlynn for the likes of Ross are probably more than either club has been handing out this season, not that that means Murray had much to spend himself with the possible exception of Easton.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Dunning1874

[Paco]

I think our squad ends up like this in June:

Under contract: McNeil, Millen, Matthews, Arnott, Stanton, Brown, Easton, Ross, Gullan, Vaughan 

Out of contract: MacDonald, Thomson, Dick, Nolan, Lang, Masson, Young, Spencer, Connolly, McBride, Mahady, Mitchell 

End of loan: Ngwenya, McGill, Akio, Isma

10 staying, 11 out of contract and 4 loanees who I don’t think we’ll be bothered to lose. 

Really annoyingly we’re stuck with the small attacking types - Vaughan, Gullan, Ross and Easton remain. All good players individually but as an attacking unit we haven’t been good enough over the last two seasons, particularly this year. With that in mind… do we keep Connolly? Seems a ludicrous question, he’s been our best player this season, but does he just fit our failing 4-2-3-1? Is his (and Easton’s) insistence on slowing things down, cutting inside and looking for one-twos in the final third part of what holds us back? If we kept him we’ve got five of our wingers/strikers signed so room for the mythical number nine and maybe another winger is all we’d have? 

Spencer is another who’s been our best player at times for his four years here. I really like him but this has probably been his weakest season.. did he suit McGlynn’s teams more than Ian Murray? Do we draw a line under it with best wishes all round? 

Tom Lang.. Marvin Andrews reborn, or rash and unpredictable? Somewhere in the middle for me. Nolan an average Joe, or do we gamble that he’ll get better? Liam Dick probably in the same boat. 

Jamie MacDonald is probably the only out of contract player I’d 100% keep with zero thought. There’s a risk of letting too many go but I can’t fucking face another season of constant 4-2-3-1, dominating possession and struggling to break teams down and put the ball in the net, while being undone by counter attacks and set pieces at the other end. 

[CALDERON]

19 minutes ago, Paco said:

I think our squad ends up like this in June:

Under contract: McNeil, Millen, Matthews, Arnott, Stanton, Brown, Easton, Ross, Gullan, Vaughan 

Out of contract: MacDonald, Thomson, Dick, Nolan, Lang, Masson, Young, Spencer, Connolly, McBride, Mahady, Mitchell 

End of loan: Ngwenya, McGill, Akio, Isma

10 staying, 11 out of contract and 4 loanees who I don’t think we’ll be bothered to lose. 

Really annoyingly we’re stuck with the small attacking types - Vaughan, Gullan, Ross and Easton remain. All good players individually but as an attacking unit we haven’t been good enough over the last two seasons, particularly this year. With that in mind… do we keep Connolly? Seems a ludicrous question, he’s been our best player this season, but does he just fit our failing 4-2-3-1? Is his (and Easton’s) insistence on slowing things down, cutting inside and looking for one-twos in the final third part of what holds us back? If we kept him we’ve got five of our wingers/strikers signed so room for the mythical number nine and maybe another winger is all we’d have? 

Spencer is another who’s been our best player at times for his four years here. I really like him but this has probably been his weakest season.. did he suit McGlynn’s teams more than Ian Murray? Do we draw a line under it with best wishes all round? 

Tom Lang.. Marvin Andrews reborn, or rash and unpredictable? Somewhere in the middle for me. Nolan an average Joe, or do we gamble that he’ll get better? Liam Dick probably in the same boat. 

Jamie MacDonald is probably the only out of contract player I’d 100% keep with zero thought. There’s a risk of letting too many go but I can’t fucking face another season of constant 4-2-3-1, dominating possession and struggling to break teams down and put the ball in the net, while being undone by counter attacks and set pieces at the other end. 

I think in all honesty, we can only attempt to keep Connolly if one or more of the contracted attacking players move on.

[roverthemoon]

For me, the main thing we need to fix is the defence. Consistently not good enough and the least said about how they deal with set pieces the better. Appreciate MacDonald is one of the higher earners at the club, but if we lose him then that’s a worry as it’ll weaken our back line even further. 

[Michael W]

So, our entire defence with the exception of Millen are out of contract. Not really sure exactly who I would/wouldn't keep as of yet, but I certainly wouldn't be offering contracts to all of them, that's for sure. At a minimum, we need to bring in a new CB. 

The other problem we have is that it is inevitable we will not be able to hold onto everyone that we would like to keep. You would imagine that Spencer and Connolly in particular amongst the out of contract players will probably get other offers. 

I am also open to letting a couple of under contract players leave, should another club be interested, on grounds that have nothing to do with ability. Gullan, Ross, Vaughan and Matthews are probably amongst the club's higher earners and they have not been available enough for us. Given the way our budget is, we simply cannot be having four players that are invariably injured for extended periods of time. You can argue bad luck plays its part, but these injuries also come with the added problem that their lack of availability means money needs to be spent, often in haste, to compensate for it. We need to make better use of our available funds, unfortunately. 

[Ro Sham Bo]

I can't see Vaughan leaving with it being his testimonial season, but, should a certain someone be stupid enough to pay whatever nominal fee may be required to persuade us to part with Ross and/or Gullan,  I would be happy to let either of them go. Connolly will be away, but given we have others in the squad who aren't unlike him, that needn't be a disaster. I feel we badly need a wide option that offers some pace rather than just skill and trickery. 

I reckon Spencer will also leave but I think we have the players to mitigate that loss. The big fear I have in midfield is Stanton moving on.

Defence is tricky, as individually they all have reasonable cases for a new deal but I agree that collectively they just don't work. I would keep Dick and probably Lang but I have a feeling Lang may have offers elsewhere so may move on anyway. If that was the case, I wouldn't be against Nolan staying. Despite what was said in Sim's interview, I feel we are crying out for a bit of experience at centre back but it sounds unlikely we'll get that type in. 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Ro Sham Bo

[Raith Against The Machine]

I'd definitely be looking to keep Lang. He's still young, he's carried our defence at times this year, and I don't see where we're going to get an upgrade from. 

I'd also offer Nolan a new deal. He still needs more games, but he's got potential. I'd really want to bring in another central defender who probably knocks Nolan into third choice, but I wouldn't be devastated if we went into next season with the same pairing as this year. 

I'd let Dick go. He's fine for the Championship, but absolutely no more than that. If we released him today, would a Morton or an Ayr even bother looking to pick him up? I'm not convinced. He'd be better off going to an Airdrie and having a good season in the top half of League One. If we want to push on, we need a left back who can offer more going forward than just sheer endeavour. 

[basher brash]

Connolly 5th best scorer in the league a must keep for me

 Gullan and Ross I would get rid if possible played more games in the physio room than on the pitch and both will be on a decent wage

Vaughan is getting better by each game IMO and a decent pre season will see him progress further mentally and physically 

Defensively not fussed who stays or goes because we definitely have issues defending set pieces

Brad spencer I feel is going stale and may need a fresh challenge as this has been his poorest season in a Rovers shirt 

We definitely need 2 strikers hopefully a true number 9 which will bring a bit of physicality / threat along with 2 centre halves another winger and full back

Is Nathan Austin not out of contract ? And there is also McGill and Gallagher from Airdrie certainly would be an upgrade on who we have at the moment 

[Kuma Power]

Just to add to what's been said above about the defence, I had a wee look at our results and as far as I can see, nobody has managed fewer clean sheets in the league than us. I make it that we've kept 5 clean sheets, same as Hamilton and Cove.

At the same time, we've only managed to recover 4 points (and score 5 goals) from situations in league games where we've gone behind. We've also dropped 18 points (6 draws and 2 defeats) in games where we score first.

Granted some of this is inevitably going to happen when you have a small squad, and it isn't entirely on the defence. But for a team that can struggle to score and to get back into games, we're still giving ourselves a lot of extra work to do to get points on the board.

Not sure what the answer to this is. If you look at Arbroath or even to a lesser extent ICT, there's something to be said for keeping a consistent back line season after season, even if they aren't individually world-beaters. At the same time though, there's a danger we end up doing the exact same thing next season simply because everyone has done okay on an individual basis. Ideally I'd like to see us bring in a central defender with a wee bit of experience at this level - again, it doesn't need to be a world-beater, just someone who can steady the ship, get us organised at set pieces, and help the likes of Nolan to develop. Appreciate that needs budget which may not be there, though.

[kev23]

17 hours ago, TxRover said:

Absolutely MacDonald is likely our top salary…Gullan and Ross, not so much, more reclamation projects, Spencer will be pretty decent and Stanton would be an unknown, but probably decent.

Stanton and Ross are two of our highest earners. 

[Heid_The_Baw]

Have to laugh at those comparing McGlynn with Murray.

McGlynn went stale.  Made very serious signing errors.  Had to go.

Murray has come in, had his hands tied budget wise because of said McGlynn errors.  In a very small pot of players available that are championship level, we couldnt touch most due to the fact we pull crowds of 1500 at home.  Murray had no option but to take risks as it was obvious we had to get in a striker and a centre back.  What we could afford was obviously rank.  

Its not the managers, its the apathy of the Kirkcaldy people towards their club.  

Incidentally, got a gut feeling that McGlynn will sign Connoly for Falkirk.......

[baillieinleeds]

I’ve been reading about who to keep and let go. Don’t lose your collective shit. But…..because we have poor crowds, why don’t we return to a Hybrid team. Keep the core of the full timers still contracted. Sign MacDonald as a must. I can see Connolly leaving, or he would’ve signed already. If Airdrie lose out on promotion, we need to plunder their forward line. We as a club should be able to convince decent part timers to take a chance. Finally the perma crocks really need to go. All of them are on a decent wedge. But spend way too long on the infirmary table. 

[Beachbum]

16 minutes ago, baillieinleeds said:

I’ve been reading about who to keep and let go. Don’t lose your collective shit. But…..because we have poor crowds, why don’t we return to a Hybrid team. Keep the core of the full timers still contracted. Sign MacDonald as a must. I can see Connolly leaving, or he would’ve signed already. If Airdrie lose out on promotion, we need to plunder their forward line. We as a club should be able to convince decent part timers to take a chance. Finally the perma crocks really need to go. All of them are on a decent wedge. But spend way too long on the infirmary table. 

Are contracts only one -sided?

[baillieinleeds]

1 minute ago, Beachbum said:

Are contracts only one -sided?

Time we let go

[Beachbum]

33 minutes ago, baillieinleeds said:

Time we let go

How?