The New Raith Rovers Thread

[CALDERON]

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that he was the first one sounded out and initially declined the job.  We won't know, and can't say I'm overly arsed whether he was first choice or not.

Time will tell how good an appointment it is, but on the face of it it's interesting and away from the usual lists.

[Ro Sham Bo]

6 hours ago, NlGHTMARE said:

Excitement is something you won’t be feeling much of, until he’s been sacked, so I’d make the most it if I was you, it’s boredom for a while for you lot, if he’s true to form, you’ll win games and have know idea how, he’s the luckiest head coach we’ve ever had. We missed a penalty last year, and some of us celebrated like we’d scored, because he had a shot and didn’t pass it backwards.

The situation you guys were in sounds very like us under Murray. 

A team that were winning matches they shouldn't have and then when results started to tail off the trigger was pulled. A sacking that made little sense to those on the outside but was more reasonable to those who watched the team every week. 

Anyway, hopefully it works for us. 

[ganainm85]

 

This mornings commute listening. 

[Scary Bear]

It’s difficult to know what to expect from the new manager. Hard to be excited or disappointed about his arrival. 

The pessimist in me, does have the fear that this will go wrong and the season will unravel. It has that whiff of a disaster season about it. Luckily the squad is quality so if we can get them fit and playing the new manager would really have to f**k it up massively to not at least finish top half.

[Scary Bear]

1 hour ago, Broken Algorithms said:

I'm not particularly worried about this. I don't feel like this is an instance of a club like Arbroath last season where the squad is littered with poor quality imports from down south. 

The squad itself is stronger than last season with the additions of Hanlon, Stevenson, Fordyce and Gibson. The main issue has been getting everyone fit. It's a squad which did very well last season but hasn't performed near where we'd hope in 2024. 

It's not been a secret that whoever came in would still have a bit of budget to play with. So there's still time for us to add an excess centre forward and Megwa on loan.

That ’in 2024’ patter is just nonsense. I did a quick tally and it was something like 28 points from January last season until season end, and that’s with us losing 5 games in a row (2 were cup games) in January. That’s play-off form most years. Then we made the play-off final. The sacking after one game is still mental behaviour, but what’s done is done.

One of the benefits of the new manager spending most of his career down south may be that he has some good leads for forwards?

There don’t appear to be many options up here in the land that’s forgotten how to produce decent strikers.

Edited September 4 by Scary Bear

[Stardog_champion]

I can tell you League 1 is cut throat. In my time down south Leeds, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Millwall etal who are massive clubs all struggled to get out of that league. Especially Leeds United, I worked in a pub not far from Elland Road, the faces of doom and gloom at full time because they’d been beaten by Southend was funny and sad at the same time. How low can you go. The truth is Leeds were an absolute shambles back then.

[pub car king]

The jump from the American second division or whatever it is to League 1 in England would have been sizeable and a steep lift in expectations as well. 

He's been away from Scottish football for close to 2 decades so he'll need to adjust back to that. I think the structure we have in place will actually be of benefit to him. From the interview another man that John Potter has stalked until he relented. 

[Enigma]

Just now, pub car king said:

He's been away from Scottish football for close to 2 decades so he'll need to adjust back to that. I think the structure we have in place will actually be of benefit to him. From the interview another man that John Potter has stalked until he relented. 

I think what’s interesting/good is that John Potter (as a coach himself) would appear to have seen the man in action coaching himself. I wonder if that was the case with the last few appointments or was it just a case of John Sim or Eric Drysdale picking a name out of a hat?

[Ebanda's Handyman Services]

7 hours ago, NlGHTMARE said:

Excitement is something you won’t be feeling much of, until he’s been sacked, so I’d make the most it if I was you, it’s boredom for a while for you lot, if he’s true to form, you’ll win games and have know idea how, he’s the luckiest head coach we’ve ever had. We missed a penalty last year, and some of us celebrated like we’d scored, because he had a shot and didn’t pass it backwards.

Enough of this negativity. 

The Rovers juggernaut has a driver. Onwards to the Scottish Premiership!

[NlGHTMARE]

1 hour ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

The situation you guys were in sounds very like us under Murray. 

A team that were winning matches they shouldn't have and then when results started to tail off the trigger was pulled. A sacking that made little sense to those on the outside but was more reasonable to those who watched the team every week. 

Anyway, hopefully it works for us. 

Absolutely spot on

[McGuigan1978]

It's interesting reading the Barnsley forum, where they essentially had the same discussion as ourselves around whether or not it was the correct decision to dismiss a manager who had for all intents and purposes guided the club to a good position, and at a strange time too. 

The common consensus is that the football his Barnsley side played wasn't particularly easy on the eye, that it was slow and pretty drab, although they did seem to score a load of goals while chucking them in at an alarming rate at the other end, which sounds like a good laugh to me. 

It reads like he had to replace a pretty decent backline with some jobbers though, so that would probably mitigate their poor defensive record to a degree. 

Like almost every other name that had been mentioned in relation to the role, it's hard to know what to think, as none of us know too much about him, but his CV seems...fine?

I'm still a little concerned with the squad's dynamic, and while playing a lot better on Saturday was encouraging, we still didn't really press Livi's 'keeper into action on too many occasions, except a couple of well struck shouts that were straight at him.

However, if the injury list clears and one or two come in on loan, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to be suggesting that anything other than the playoffs would be pretty underwhelming. 

Good luck to him, I'm just glad it's over and done with at last!

[NlGHTMARE]

5 minutes ago, McGuigan1978 said:

It's interesting reading the Barnsley forum, where they essentially had the same discussion as ourselves around whether or not it was the correct decision to dismiss a manager who had for all intents and purposes guided the club to a good position, and at a strange time too. 

The common consensus is that the football his Barnsley side played wasn't particularly easy on the eye, that it was slow and pretty drab, although they did seem to score a load of goals while chucking them in at an alarming rate at the other end, which sounds like a good laugh to me. 

It reads like he had to replace a pretty decent backline with some jobbers though, so that would probably mitigate their poor defensive record to a degree. 

Like almost every other name that had been mentioned in relation to the role, it's hard to know what to think, as none of us know too much about him, but his CV seems...fine?

I'm still a little concerned with the squad's dynamic, and while playing a lot better on Saturday was encouraging, we still didn't really press Livi's 'keeper into action on too many occasions, except a couple of well struck shouts that were straight at him.

However, if the injury list clears and one or two come in on loan, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to be suggesting that anything other than the playoffs would be pretty underwhelming. 

Good luck to him, I'm just glad it's over and done with at last!

We go through an head coach every season, it’s a new man every 12 months ish, and I’ve got be be honest, I’m not sure how he did so well with us, I’ve never known a head coach win as many matches he shouldn’t have, by the time he got sacked it was time, because he’d hit a patch where we was getting beat, and never looked like turning around, but we should’ve been getting beat every week, but some how we wasn’t. 

[invergowrie arab]

59 minutes ago, Stardog_champion said:

I can tell you League 1 is cut throat. In my time down south Leeds, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Millwall etal who are massive clubs all struggled to get out of that league. Especially Leeds United, I worked in a pub not far from Elland Road, the faces of doom and gloom at full time because they’d been beaten by Southend was funny and sad at the same time. How low can you go. The truth is Leeds were an absolute shambles back then.

 

Football genius Gary Caldwell currently has Exeter City top half of L1 with superstars of sport Ilmari Niskanen, Josh Maggenis, Jack MacMillan, Ross Aitchison and Jack Fitzwater. 

[raith1974]

1 hour ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

The situation you guys were in sounds very like us under Murray. 

A team that were winning matches they shouldn't have and then when results started to tail off the trigger was pulled. A sacking that made little sense to those on the outside but was more reasonable to those who watched the team every week. 

Anyway, hopefully it works for us. 

Seems strange as you were 2nd top scorer in the league last season with something like 82 goals.

[pub car king]

Looking at the squad rationally when they are all fit and available. (just suspend your disbelief for a minute)

Keeper despite his moments of madness is very good and improving.

The defence is as good as anyone's in this league. Stevenson and Hanlon in particular should be nowhere near playing for us. We could use some cover/another option at RB but Matthews is capable. 

Midfield has a load of players that can be used in a number of different permutations and roles. We have holding players, number 10s, wingers. Scott Brown will take the ball forward 10- 20 yards with ease, Easton can create chaos and has done well playing centrally when he's had to, Stanton is still one of the best in the league. What we do lack is a bit of real speed. 

Forwards is where we have issues. We've never got the best out of Hamilton in part due to injuries. Smith is a sort of hybrid winger/forward he's not an out and out striker (but I personally like him). Vaughan is our best forward but needs to be manged carefully. Jamieson looks to have a bit about him but don't see him being a prolific poacher.

This is the area that needs most work to find a system that suits who we already have and we also need an extra body in there which is easier said than done. 

 

So in an ideal world 3 players needed but I can't see us using up our loan quota yet when we still have the harsh winter to come. 

This will be about the new man working with what is a decent squad and getting them to tick as there's no major surgery needed. 

[NlGHTMARE]

3 minutes ago, raith1974 said:

Seems strange as you were 2nd top scorer in the league last season with something like 82 goals.

We conceded 64 goals, that’s one less than relegated Cheltenham, and more than 14 other teams, and it should’ve been a lot worse, fortunately most teams in league one are shïte at putting the ball in the net. 

[Double Jack D]

Glad we have someone in post and really like the sound of Collins in the interview.

I do feel that we have spent 30 days and a whole lot of stress replacing Ian Murray with someone who appears very very similar in specification. Time will tell if it has all been worth it.

[Raith Against The Machine]

5 minutes ago, raith1974 said:

Seems strange as you were 2nd top scorer in the league last season with something like 82 goals.

From the outside, it looks a little bit like last season's Dundee United. On their day, capable of blowing some teams away (I think Collins won his first game 7-0) and racking up a big goal difference in the process, but also struggling more weekends than they should given the expectations of the club. 

There were plenty moments last season, including very late on, where Dundee United were either too or just off it, and had by far the biggest goal difference, but the fans wanted him emptied. 

Looking at how they've started the new season it seems the board were right to stick with Goodwin, but I don't think there would've been many raised eyebrows if he had gone. 

With Collins it looks similar. The expectations are as relevant as the actual results themselves (and I don't think that's a bad or a wrong thing.) 

[Raithie]

Positives: he's a manager and he's officially signed.

Negatives: well there isn't any....yet.

We haven't a scooby how things will pan out, he could be fantastic he could be a damp squib. Like players some managers just fit certain clubs, hopefully we're a club he can flourish at. I'm not overly concerned that he's inheriting Murray's squad either. We've a good set of players and if he can't get a tune out of them then I'll worry. Hopefully his first bit of business is trying to see about some loanees to bolster the team a bit, particularly up front. He's coming in at a good time being able to see us in a 'a somewhat semi competitive' diddy cup game against the league leaders followed by a derby match. I was encouraged by our performance last Saturday and with players coming back from injury, possibly some new additions, a new manager at the helm then I'm crossing my fingers we can start climbing up the league. 

[AllanJM]

My main feeling just now is relief that we've finally got someone.  

Collins is something a bit different and only time will tell if he's the right man for the job.

Do I believe he was our top choice....not really sure but I also don't care.  For what it's worth, my first thought is that he initially turned us down and we've gone back to offer more money after Healy said no.  It's a big thing for him to move his family up here (especially with 4 kids likely of school age) so a little more money may have helped with that.

His record is decent and I take criticism from fans of former clubs with a pinch of salt.  I'm sure there are plenty of Bristol City fans who would tell you that Derek McInnes is a dud but (most) Aberdeen, St Johnstone and Kilmarnock fans would probably disagree.

I'll get right behind him and the team from the start and see where the journey takes us.