The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Raith Against The Machine]

31 minutes ago, Raithie said:

 

Lewis "Van", always delivers. 

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

1 minute ago, Raith Against The Machine said:

Lewis "Van", always delivers. 

Does he have a black & white cat?

[Rover the Moon]

1 hour ago, raith1974 said:

Not for me, at 36 hes too old. We need a bear at the back, a 6ft 4 CH who will win everything in the air

You think Andy Considine would not be good enough for Rovers? Have a word.

[raith1974]

40 minutes ago, Rover the Moon said:

You think Andy Considine would not be good enough for Rovers? Have a word.

I'm not keen on our CH partnership having a combined age of 70. Yes we need experience at the back but we also need mobility. 

[CountryBumpkin]

9 hours ago, raith1974 said:

Not for me, at 36 hes too old. We need a bear at the back, a 6ft 4 CH who will win everything in the air

Such as?

[Ro Sham Bo]

Have to agree that pairing Watson with Considine would be a big mistake. 

[raith1974]

1 hour ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Such as?

That's why the club have IM, John Potter and links with agents. Partick just signed a 23 Yr old big CH. 

[Stardog_champion]

The second season in a row we are struggling for defenders, yet we are told to be patient. The whole debate during last season was the need to strengthen defence and attack. Yes we’ve strengthened up top. But Murray as a defender in his playing days just can’t seem to identify what’s  required for those positions. We have two kids a centre half that can’t run and Liam Dick who isn’t very good in any defensive capacity. We might score a few more goals ( hopefully). But we’ll lose just as many if we don’t get what’s required. Defence should’ve been the priority at the beginning. Not trying to be negative, but those predicting we’ll finish in the top 4 are deluding themselves. It’ll be another season where defence lets us down. 

[Ebanda's Handyman Services]

3 minutes ago, Stardog_champion said:

The second season in a row we are struggling for defenders, yet we are told to be patient. The whole debate during last season was the need to strengthen defence and attack. Yes we’ve strengthened up top. But Murray as a defender in his playing days just can’t seem to identify what’s  required for those positions. We have two kids a centre half that can’t run and Liam Dick who isn’t very good in any defensive capacity. We might score a few more goals ( hopefully). But we’ll lose just as many if we don’t get what’s required. Defence should’ve been the priority at the beginning. Not trying to be negative, but those predicting we’ll finish in the top 4 are deluding themselves. It’ll be another season where defence lets us down. 

Very harsh on Liam Dick who is more than capable at both CH and LB.

Considine would be an excellent signing if true. 

[Stardog_champion]

Just now, Ebanda's Handyman Services said:

Very harsh on Liam Dick who is more than capable at both CH and LB.

Considine would be an excellent signing if true. 

Yea. It seems I was a little harsh. He had to deal with Lang’s rash tackles. Set pieces were our undoing. The goals we lost against Kelty were reminiscent of the failures of last season where they all blamed each other. 

[Ro Sham Bo]

The goals we lost yesterday were nothing like the goals we lost last season. 

 

[CALDERON]

Ah, people losing the rag after a pre season friendly.  Good to know the good vibe lasted long.

All we need is an experienced, but not too experienced, young but not too young 8ft tall centre back that nobody else knows about.

[Broken Algorithms]

There's an absolute dearth of decent centre halves at this level nowadays. 15 years ago you'd have had a queue of them waiting to get signed up, while we couldn't find a technical midfielder to face ourselves. The games done a complete 180 for us.

[CALDERON]

 

39 minutes ago, Stardog_champion said:

The second season in a row we are struggling for defenders, yet we are told to be patient. The whole debate during last season was the need to strengthen defence and attack. Yes we’ve strengthened up top. But Murray as a defender in his playing days just can’t seem to identify what’s  required for those positions. We have two kids a centre half that can’t run and Liam Dick who isn’t very good in any defensive capacity. We might score a few more goals ( hopefully). But we’ll lose just as many if we don’t get what’s required. Defence should’ve been the priority at the beginning. Not trying to be negative, but those predicting we’ll finish in the top 4 are deluding themselves. It’ll be another season where defence lets us down. 

Liam Dick is absolutely fine, and we probably looked our best defensively last season when he played centre half along side a "kid".

The goals we lost yesterday we absolutely nothing like the main defensive problems from last season.  If you are going to lose the rag after a pre season friendly, at least watch it. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by CALDERON

[Stardog_champion]

It’s mere rumours at this point about Andy Considine, anyone that says he wouldn’t be the answer is kidding themselves. Why is there such a dearth in Defenders these days

[CALDERON]

A lot of the issues yesterday were caused by not having a holding midfielder, or a centre forward.  We have proven player(s) at this level in both of those areas that didn't feature.

A competent striker for example, would see that game out of sight.  

It does, however, push an inordinate amount of pressure on those areas of the pitch.  We are asking 2 players who haven't made it through all of pre season, to effectively be available the entire season. 

Its still early days though - I'm really keen to in particular to see Hamilton get some minutes.

Edited July 2, 2023 by CALDERON

[HIT THE CHANNEL]

For me we need 2 defenders minimum (one a starting centre half) and a central midfielder. Having just Brown and Mathews to play the classic/deep CM role is far too light for the season. 
 

Murray will know this, and it may be these players are loans rather than signings. So we may be light going through July and August. For that reason, Brown being injured is a massive pain.  
 

 

[CountryBumpkin]

1 hour ago, raith1974 said:

That's why the club have IM, John Potter and links with agents. Partick just signed a 23 Yr old big CH. 

The boy from Swansea? He's an unknown entity, could be a Nolan or an O'Riordan at this point. 

28 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

A lot of the issues yesterday were caused by not having a holding midfielder, or a centre forward.  We have proven player(s) at this level in both of those areas that didn't feature.

A competent striker for example, would see that game out of sight.  

It does, however, push an inordinate amount of pressure on those areas of the pitch.  We are asking 2 players who haven't made it through all of pre season, to effectively be available the entire season. 

Its still early days though - I'm really keen to in particular to see Hamilton get some minutes.

Game should have been out of sight regardless. Goals should be shared amongst the side, our starting wide players plus Mullin, Easton and Stanton should all be targeting 10 goals each this season. Only Connolly really managed that last season, that has to improve instead of pinning hopes on a young striker who's not featured yet and probably won't be match fit until after the cup games. 

Still not convinced we've got the right setup on the pitch with 2 strikers though. The setup is just far too easy to get in behind if our press doesn't work, as evidenced yesterday, there is a lot of pressure on our back 4 and one holding midfielder.

Edited July 2, 2023 by CountryBumpkin

[mealsonwheels]

1 hour ago, Stardog_champion said:

The second season in a row we are struggling for defenders, yet we are told to be patient. The whole debate during last season was the need to strengthen defence and attack. Yes we’ve strengthened up top. But Murray as a defender in his playing days just can’t seem to identify what’s  required for those positions. We have two kids a centre half that can’t run and Liam Dick who isn’t very good in any defensive capacity. We might score a few more goals ( hopefully). But we’ll lose just as many if we don’t get what’s required. Defence should’ve been the priority at the beginning. Not trying to be negative, but those predicting we’ll finish in the top 4 are deluding themselves. It’ll be another season where defence lets us down. 

What part of pre season don't people understand. We have done our business very very early but christ we have loads of time to add to our squad.

Would you just chill out and let the team get up to speed, work on gelling together and leave IM to experiment so he can find his preferred options!

[Ro Sham Bo]

41 minutes ago, CountryBumpkin said:

 

Still not convinced we've got the right setup on the pitch with 2 strikers though. The setup is just far too easy to get in behind if our press doesn't work, as evidenced yesterday, there is a lot of pressure on our back 4 and one holding midfielder.

It's for this reason that I wouldn't be keen on us signing another defender in his mid 30s. Murray seems set on the 4-1-3-2 for this season with the full backs pushing on, which puts a lot of pressure on the two centre halves and the holding midfielder. Having a couple of centre halves who are as slow as a week on jail just won't work.