The New Raith Rovers Thread

[RRFC_Liam]

3 hours ago, SirJimmyofNic said:

So it looks like Q1 & Q2, teams dont know how to handle us, and is it by the time Q3/Q4 start they've changed how their formation is set up to face us, whereas we seem to stick with the same formation come hell and high water, which was understandable during the McGlynn years as he never seemed to have a plan B, although he seldom shoehorned square pegs into round holes, I thought better of Murray but it seems hes just as culpable, as shown in 3 games already this season against his apprentice who knows exactly how Murray sets up his team to play   

Anyhow theres not much we can do about it except hope that the players themselves can turn it around       

At the game at HT was in the smoking area and someone called Murray McGlynn 2.0 

[Ro Sham Bo]

I think having more players available is actually a hindrance for us, because Murray seems to have no idea how to accommodate everyone. 

It could be a long second half of the season and I wouldn't be surprised to see us limp home in 3rd place. 

[Wacky]

53 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I think having more players available is actually a hindrance for us, because Murray seems to have no idea how to accommodate everyone.

When any manager finds their best/winning eleven the rest of the team can’t argue if they keep getting results. If I was the manager I’d point that out to anyone whinging and tell them they’ll have to wait for their chance to prove themselves. A pro player should know that. 

[TheScarf]

1 hour ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I think having more players available is actually a hindrance for us, because Murray seems to have no idea how to accommodate everyone. 

It could be a long second half of the season and I wouldn't be surprised to see us limp home in 3rd place. 

You've got far too many attacking midfielders, and Murray seems hell bent on playing them all in this weird 361 formation.  Someone at the game on Saturday said he'd never seen a side play 4 centre mids before and on more than one occasion two of them ran into each other.

[Michael W]

The bigger problem was that there was absolutely no need to play 3-6-1. We did it previously when we had to due to injured defenders, but there were enough options on Saturday to play a proper back 4. 

A back 3 typically also consists of 3 CBs. We had one on the pitch, supported by two full backs. Moreover, that back three is often supplemented with wing backs - we did not do this. So we went with a back three consisting of one player in his natural position and no defensive cover down the flanks to mitigate for the shortcomings in defence. That's madness, frankly. We played this formation previously when we were short on numbers (and it did work against Dunfermline), but to do so as an active choice is baffling.

[R.R.FC]

The hard thing for Murray is there are so many key players off form at the moment. Byrne and Easton were two of our standout players up until 5-6 weeks ago. Likewise Euan Murray was excellent up until he started struggling with injuries. Do you drop them for players that aren’t as good but possibly in better form? Or keep playing them in the hope they play themselves into form? He has done the latter with Byrne and the former with Easton and neither have worked.

Saturday needs to be a line in the sand where we say that’s as bad as it gets and go back to basics. Murray’s interview was encouraging from that perspective even mentioning two big centre backs (although it should be noted we lost 5 goals in 2 home games against Partick and Arbroath with two proper centre backs so it isn’t some silver bullet that will fix everything).

For the Airdrie game, I would go with:

Dabrowski 

Millen     
Watson     
Murray    
Dick

Matthews    
Brown

Mullin     
Vaughan       
Easton

Hamilton

If Dabrowski isn’t fit then McNeil has to play but I think he is, just needs games to get his confidence and rhythm back.

In defence, Millen, Dick and Murray don’t deserve to play on recent form but I really don’t think playing both McGill and Hannah at full back improves anything. We need a settled back 4 and on paper that is our best defence, let’s try and keep it for a few weeks and see if things improve. Full backs and at least one centre back need to be top of the shopping list in the summer for me though. And if Euan Murray doesn’t return to form, Corr should get a chance, albeit I think Corr is currently becoming a better player in everyone’s eyes with each week he doesn’t play.

In midfield, I really like Byrne but I think this is a good opportunity to give Matthews a run and see where he’s at. Byrne and Brown haven’t worked in 2 games against Airdrie so would mix it up here and Brown and Matthews should give us plenty dig and a bit more stability in there.

The attacking 3 behind the striker is hardest position. Vaughan must start but hopefully Stanton is fit for some time off the bench. The wide positions we have nobody in form. Callum Smith and Josh Mullin have the excuse of being out of position in recent weeks. Easton doesn’t deserve to start, he’s been really poor since Tannadice and I thought he was dreadful off the bench on Saturday but ultimately we know how good he can be. We need to find a way of getting him back to his best. Mullin and Connolly is a coin toss for me. Connolly looks like he’s really missed pre season, nowhere near his best all season. I like Mullin, even just for his delivery and workrate he adds a lot to the team but I appreciate I’m probably in minority and can’t say he has done enough at any point to guarantee himself a start.

Up front it has to be Hamilton who is in great form. However, if he is any less than 100% after the weekend I would obviously play Rudden. I thought Rudden looked promising but frustrating in equal measure on Saturday. Really bright start but then kind of faded out of things and a bit frantic on the ball but to be expected given he’d just joined. Looks like he will definitely offer us something.

I appreciate nobody is reading all of that but unfortunately, there isn’t one simple fix to our issues right now. Murray has tried big changes, now I think he needs to go back to basics, simplify things and try to get a settled line up. Some consistency in formation and line up will hopefully eventually lead to consistency in performances and results.

 

Edited January 29 by R.R.FC

[Been going too long]

52 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

The hard thing for Murray is there are so many key players off form at the moment. Byrne and Easton were two of our standout players up until 5-6 weeks ago. Likewise Euan Murray was excellent up until he started struggling with injuries. Do you drop them for players that aren’t as good but possibly in better form? Or keep playing them in the hope they play themselves into form? He has done the latter with Byrne and the former with Easton and neither have worked.

Saturday needs to be a line in the sand where we say that’s as bad as it gets and go back to basics. Murray’s interview was encouraging from that perspective even mentioning two big centre backs (although it should be noted we lost 5 goals in 2 home games against Partick and Arbroath with two proper centre backs so it isn’t some silver bullet that will fix everything).

For the Airdrie game, I would go with:

Dabrowski 

Millen     
Watson     
Murray    
Dick

Matthews    
Brown

Mullin     
Vaughan       
Easton

Hamilton

If Dabrowski isn’t fit then McNeil has to play but I think he is, just needs games to get his confidence and rhythm back.

In defence, Millen, Dick and Murray don’t deserve to play on recent form but I really don’t think playing both McGill and Hannah at full back improves anything. We need a settled back 4 and on paper that is our best defence, let’s try and keep it for a few weeks and see if things improve. Full backs and at least one centre back need to be top of the shopping list in the summer for me though. And if Euan Murray doesn’t return to form, Corr should get a chance, albeit I think Corr is currently becoming a better player in everyone’s eyes with each week he doesn’t play.

In midfield, I really like Byrne but I think this is a good opportunity to give Matthews a run and see where he’s at. Byrne and Brown haven’t worked in 2 games against Airdrie so would mix it up here and Brown and Matthews should give us plenty dig and a bit more stability in there.

The attacking 3 behind the striker is hardest position. Vaughan must start but hopefully Stanton is fit for some time off the bench. The wide positions we have nobody in form. Callum Smith and Josh Mullin have the excuse of being out of position in recent weeks. Easton doesn’t deserve to start, he’s been really poor since Tannadice and I thought he was dreadful off the bench on Saturday but ultimately we know how good he can be. We need to find a way of getting him back to his best. Mullin and Connolly is a coin toss for me. Connolly looks like he’s really missed pre season, nowhere near his best all season. I like Mullin, even just for his delivery and workrate he adds a lot to the team but I appreciate I’m probably in minority and can’t say he has done enough at any point to guarantee himself a start.

Up front it has to be Hamilton who is in great form. However, if he is any less than 100% after the weekend I would obviously play Rudden. I thought Rudden looked promising but frustrating in equal measure on Saturday. Really bright start but then kind of faded out of things and a bit frantic on the ball but to be expected given he’d just joined. Looks like he will definitely offer us something.

I appreciate nobody is reading all of that but unfortunately, there isn’t one simple fix to our issues right now. Murray has tried big changes, now I think he needs to go back to basics, simplify things and try to get a settled line up. Some consistency in formation and line up will hopefully eventually lead to consistency in performances and results.

 

Agree with this and makes you wonder why we signed Kyle turner, decent player but somebody at the club needs to say to Murray you have enough midfielders, sign a defender or play the ones you actually have eg corr . 

[Rammit Bawdeep]

3 hours ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I think having more players available is actually a hindrance for us, because Murray seems to have no idea how to accommodate everyone. 

It could be a long second half of the season and I wouldn't be surprised to see us limp home in 3rd place. 

wow

[R.R.FC]

1 hour ago, Been going too long said:

Agree with this and makes you wonder why we signed Kyle turner, decent player but somebody at the club needs to say to Murray you have enough midfielders, sign a defender or play the ones you actually have eg corr . 

Yeah, the Turner signing only really made sense if Stanton was out for a significant period of time in my opinion. We’ve definitely not seen the best of him yet but I do think he has plenty to offer so can see why Murray went for him.

However, the squad would be much better balanced with genuine competition/improvement at full back than Turner given the options we already have in midfield. I think we still have the budget for a centre back so I don’t think it has affected that (hopefully anyway!).

As always we probably have to wait until our business is concluded to know for sure (we may still add a centre back and full back) but it does seem an unnecessary signing at the moment.

[SirJimmyofNic]

Regarding Turner and Rudden, is it possible that they've both been signed on loan with a view to being made permanent for next season.

[Been going too long]

12 minutes ago, SirJimmyofNic said:

Regarding Turner and Rudden, is it possible that they've both been signed on loan with a view to being made permanent for next season.

Possibly ,turner just seems overkill at the moment unless someone leaves before end of the window and another defender would have helped. He is a good player though and I’m sure will show it when he gets settled 

[pub car king]

In fairness to any new signing loan or otherwise they have arrived at the worst possible time in terms or results and (lack off) performances. 

[Broken Algorithms]

Rudden looks like a good addition based off last Saturday. He can drive the play forward in a way which Gullan didn't really offer, and can let either Hamilton or Vaughan focus on finishing.

Turner is the type of signing who you make regardless of whether he's an immediate need or not. He's not had a great start and he'll know that himself, but he's the type of player who can offer so much to a team on his day.

Much like the rest of the squad, it's just about getting them back to their best and away from this mentality which seems to has hit us over the last month where we're leaking goals and looking soft. 

 

Edited January 29 by Broken Algorithms

[SirJimmyofNic]

It used to be the clocks changing that put us in a slump now it seems to have moved to the xmas/new year period, I'm at a loss to the reasons why, even if it had been WLWL it wouldn't have looked so bad,  but 4 defeats on the bounce is really concerning, the curse of manager of the month has went on long enough

[TheScarf]

13 minutes ago, SirJimmyofNic said:

It used to be the clocks changing that put us in a slump now it seems to have moved to the xmas/new year period, I'm at a loss to the reasons why, even if it had been WLWL it wouldn't have looked so bad,  but 4 defeats on the bounce is really concerning, the curse of manager of the month has went on long enough

I just think teams have sussed you out.  I don't think there's anything other than that.

[Rammit Bawdeep]

1 hour ago, Been going too long said:

Possibly ,turner just seems overkill at the moment unless someone leaves before end of the window and another defender would have helped. He is a good player though and I’m sure will show it when he gets settled 

When Easton goes to Dundee or St Johnstone

[Heid_The_Baw]

On 27/01/2024 at 20:44, Zen Archer (Raconteur) said:

Thank f**k Veganuary is nearly over.

Yea.  Im getting a bot sick of the sight of so much meat.  Making sure that the fad dieters efforts mean nothing.... 

[Halbeath Raith Rover]

38 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

I just think teams have sussed you out.  I don't think there's anything other than that.

To an extent this is true, it's a really tight league and we won a good few games with late goals when there's been little between the teams. 

However there's been enough headscratching moments to ponder over the last 6 weeks:

1 holding midfielder after Stanton injured. 

3 at the back with 1/0 CB and no wingback cover.

Taking off Byrne for a bonus striker and then wondering why we're not getting the ball up to the strikers.

Trying to attacking shoehorn players in week after week.

If our formation and lineup was similar week to week I think we'd mostly accept that some teams would take more points from us than they did up to Christmas.

 

Edited January 29 by Halbeath Raith Rover

[SirJimmyofNic]

36 minutes ago, Rammit Bawdeep said:

When Easton goes to Dundee or St Johnstone

Many a true word spoken in jest, I'll get pelters for this, but it maybe no a bad thing if he did get a move 

[Michael W]

44 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

I just think teams have sussed you out.  I don't think there's anything other than that.

The amount of goals conceded, coupled with the number of them from outside the box recently, backs this up. We leave far too much space to our opponents. Without wanting to try and pin this down as a single point of failure, it's been this way since Stanton got injured. Saying that, the goal we conceded about 10mins before his injury was another where space was simply granted in bucket loads, giving McGeady plenty of time to do what he wanted. But teams have realised this and are exploiting it, whilst we have not been able to counter it effectively. 

There are deficiencies in our defensive play, but I am not convinced that a new defender actually solves them. There will still be lots of space granted in midfield unless Murray moves to a more compact set-up. Saying that, a new defender is necessary because we seem prone to our CBs getting injured. Keith Watson has been out for ages and has taken a long time to be fit enough for the bench again and Euan Murray has had some injuries too. Pretty sure he has also played through an injury at some point, which is not a good place to be. 

 

Edited January 29 by Michael W