The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Raith Against The Machine]

Good first involvement from out new (and only) number 99. Lovely control on the chest and then a wee one-two, followed by a lovely crossfield pass. 

And now he's scored! Mostly down to good work from Vaughan, who just never stops being a delight to watch. 

[roverthemoon]

Who doesn’t love a 99?

[TxRover]

3 minutes ago, Raith Against The Machine said:

Good first involvement from out new (and only) number 99. Lovely control on the chest and then a wee one-two, followed by a lovely crossfield pass. 

And now he's scored! Mostly down to good work from Vaughan, who just never stops being a delight to watch. 

And that headless chicken of a trialist (16) has some vision for turning attackers loose! There might be something there, would love to see him some more after getting a little more time with the team. Meanwhile, Poppy is clearly exceeding early expectations.

[embow]

5 minutes ago, roverthemoon said:

Who doesn’t love a 99?

As long he's not as 'flakey: as some of the others on today's on showing

[TxRover]

BTW, really taken by those Queen’s Park away tops…hate the orange shorts, but those tops are natty!

[roverthemoon]

5 minutes ago, TxRover said:

And that headless chicken of a trialist (16) has some vision for turning attackers loose! There might be something there, would love to see him some more after getting a little more time with the team. Meanwhile, Poppy is clearly exceeding early expectations.

To be fair he’s settled down and played a couple of great passes. My poor rush to judgement 

[grumswall]

Poppy

Please don't.

[TxRover]

3 minutes ago, grumswall said:

Please don't.

 

Couldn’t resist.

[Raith_Raver]

Queen's Park well worth the draw. Once they started to take the game to us we became a bit scrappy. Still, Dunfermline could beat neither Spartans nor Civil Service Strollers.

[Zaltan]

41 minutes ago, Raith Against The Machine said:

Zanatta entirely failing to track back there leaving the right back with about thirty yards of clean air to deliver his cross from. The young left back had come inside to track the winger and Zanatta was back at the halfway line instead of filling in. 

You would think with Berra and Benedictus that we'd be susceptible in a couple of ways but the one thing you'd think we'd be able to cope with is cross balls and headers! 

Do not think that it was zanatta as he was pressing the ball up front and ended up on the right

[Raithie]

MacDonald to Bene to Berra then hoof. Repeat ad nauseam. In fact I fail to see what positives Berra has brought to the team thus far. We've swapped one aging defender for another. Zanatta looks woeful also. 

Thank f**k this was only a friendly but we're not exactly playing with any flow or overly exciting football in comparison to last season. Trialists aren't worth taking on permanently either. 

[baillieinleeds]

Queen’s Park were brilliant at times. Pressed us hard and played football. Most of the time we were chasing shadows. Vaughan if he stays injury free will be the difference this season. His work rate was brilliant. Just hope that rubs off on the rest as he can’t do it all. Berra imo Is finished, whether you agree or not. 

[renton]

The Good:

Poplatnik looked good. Direct, held his defender off well, was clever with his passing and reacted well to score.

Spencer was dominant in the first half. 

Vaughan as noted earlier is a pleasure to watch 

Coulson looking every bit someone who should be in the first team.

The Bad:

Zanatta - poor at tracking his man, and got turned ridiculously easily for the first goal, about a minute after not commiting to a challenge that had he bothered to try and win would have put us in a promising position. Looks every inch a shitehawk so far.

Berra was simply humping the ball all day long.

That 4-4-2 is poison. I hope it's because we only have two fit CMs at the minute but it's encouraging us to fire long diagonals that sees us giving up the ball, also giving Berra the excuse to hump it long. Leaves us weak on the left hand side as well.

The Ugly:

Connolly - not convinced with much of his play outside the box, yet he gets into good positions in the box and caused a lot of problems for QP in front of goal alongside his scoring.

No16 - we looked a lot worse when Spencer went off, yet as the game wore on I thought he played a few nice incisive passes alongside a couple of pointless chips. I dunno, unlike the other milquetoast 16 from last week, I wouldnt mind seeing him given some time.

Edited July 3, 2021 by renton

[CALDERON]

Other than the first 15 minutes of the 2nd half that was decent enough.  Totally bossed the first half anyway.  The soft nature of the goals is a tad concerning.  

Central midfield is the huge area of absolute urgency however.  The trialist ended up having some nice touches, but didn't see enough to suggest he is the answer.  The loan striker at least showed he should give us something a bit different. 

Anyway, it's a friendly. Mckinnons team got beat by East Fife in a friendly in 2015, people lost their shit, and it was all fine in the end. Also see 2010/11 where we got an absolute doing by Hearts. 

 

 

[Zaltan]

people having a go at Zanatta for not tracking his man on the second goal, he was no where near that play as he had pressed the cb and was on the right

[Been going too long]

15 minutes ago, renton said:

The Good:

Poplatnik looked good. Direct, held his defender off well, was clever with his passing and reacted well to score.

Spencer was dominant in the first half. 

Vaughan as noted earlier is a pleasure to watch 

Coulson looking every bit someone who should be in the first team.

The Bad:

Zanatta - poor at tracking his man, and got turned ridiculously easily for the first goal, about a minute after not commiting to a challenge that had he bothered to try and win would have put us in a promising position. Looks every inch a shitehawk so far.

Berra was simply humping the ball all day long.

That 4-4-2 is poison. I hope it's because we only have two fit CMs at the minute but it's encouraging us to fire long diagonals that sees us giving up the ball, also giving Berra the excuse to hump it long. Leaves us weak on the left hand side as well.

The Ugly:

Connolly - not convinced with much of his play outside the box, yet he gets into good positions in the box and caused a lot of problems for QP in front of goal alongside his scoring.

No16 - we looked a lot worse when Spencer went off, yet as the game wore on I thought he played a few nice incisive passes alongside a couple of pointless chips. I dunno, unlike the other milquetoast 16 from last week, I wouldnt mind seeing him given some time.

Agree with most of this but biggest disappointment for me so far has been keatings, hopefully he will come good but matej did more in 5 mins today than I saw from 3 appearances from keatings.  I hate 442 and zanatta is still lazy, early days and the number 16 deserves another run out as he got better and more effective the game went on 

[roverthemoon]

Thought there were decent, encouraging bits of play and link-up today. As before, it’s a pre-season friendly and we are definitely a work in progress. There are enough quality players in the squad and the Slovenia striker looks a great addition. Those who have already written off Berra, Zanatta etc are seeing what they see in friendly games to justify their opinions I think.  Judge them on competitive games.

Edited July 3, 2021 by roverthemoon

[grumswall]

16 played a couple of nice passes as well as a few aimless ones. He didn't look like he was up to much based on that showing. We looked more promising when poplatnik came on, he was linking play well and was in the right spot for his goal. Berra and Benedictus don't look like a partnership that could work against championship teams yet. There's something really weird seing bene playing on the right of cb, he himself was trying to move into positions berra should have been a couple of times. Maybe just take a while to get out of that habit with him. Thought Connolly and tumilty linked up better today. Zannata looks like a player low on confidence but him failing to track the runners can't be put down to that. He's always been lazy defensively. I like keatings but I do feel him and Vaughan are too similar in where they want to be playing.

[Been going too long]

9 minutes ago, grumswall said:

16 played a couple of nice passes as well as a few aimless ones. He didn't look like he was up to much based on that showing. We looked more promising when poplatnik came on, he was linking play well and was in the right spot for his goal. Berra and Benedictus don't look like a partnership that could work against championship teams yet. There's something really weird seing bene playing on the right of cb, he himself was trying to move into positions berra should have been a couple of times. Maybe just take a while to get out of that habit with him. Thought Connolly and tumilty linked up better today. Zannata looks like a player low on confidence but him failing to track the runners can't be put down to that. He's always been lazy defensively. I like keatings but I do feel him and Vaughan are too similar in where they want to be playing.

I think 16 would do better in a midfield 3 and bring some muscle to that area and he played a couple of decent passes. Zanatta I just don’t rate but hope John can get something out of him. matej was excellent when he came on and think he can have a positive impact for us this season. Keatings we aren’t getting the best out of yet but hopefully it will come

[Broken Algorithms]

First time getting back to Stark's to see a game. I know it sounds daft, but it was great to be able to get back to watching a game unfold without having delays in streams. First half we were excellent. The trialist at left back from Fife Elite did well going forward. Longridge against Tumilty was an entertaining enough battle on its own. I felt Berra was absolutely fine: he had a decent understanding with Benedictus and looks far more comfortable on the ball than Davidson or Mendy. He's unlikely to be first choice ahead of Musonda but he's a better option than what we had last year. I'm unsure of why people feel he's 'finished'. 

Going forwards, Vaughan stands out in terms of his quality. Poplatnik showed some excellent bits of technique and was excellent at bringing others into play. We ended the game on the front foot with a lot of the youngsters on the pitch which was good. The main difference in the match came with Spencer coming off for us and Gillespie coming on for Queens Park. The dynamic in midfield totally shifted. Genuinely couldn't care less if we're winning or losing games like today: fitness is going to be the most important thing. It wouldn't surprise me if we bring in an extra body before next weekend.