The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Raith Against The Machine]

I think we suffer slightly because Mullin and Millen share a similarity in approach as much as they do a similarity in surnames. Both can deliver truly excellent crosses, but both prefer to do so from a deeper position, and ideally from wherever they receive the ball. Neither is immobile, by any means, and both can go beyond if need be, but it's not their first instinct. If you could mirror image Josh Mullin and put him on the other side, I think we'd be better off. 

We saw similar in the first quarter of last season where Aidan Connolly was going for his most natural choice of cutting back to deliver on his left, and he was finding himself toe-to-toe with Ross Millen who was already an option to cross from there. That understanding developed fairly quickly, and the lack of consistent selection is probably slowing that process this season. 

And I know I'm back on my same old bullshit again, but if we're playing with two holding midfielders (and we are), we need more out of our fullbacks. There are trade-offs elsewhere, but for anyone who was at Airdrie yesterday, swap Millen (crosses from deep, rarely goes beyond his winger, particularly when it's Josh Mullin) and Dick (gets forward out of a sense of duty rather than any sort of natural desire or ability) with two natural running full-backs like Kieran MacDonald and Reghan Tumilty. That's a totally different proposition, and a totally different game. 

We're set up well to accommodate adventurous fullbacks - Brown and Byrne can easily drop in on either side - but we don't actually have the fullbacks to do anything about it. 

[CountryBumpkin]

27 minutes ago, Raith Against The Machine said:

I think we suffer slightly because Mullin and Millen share a similarity in approach as much as they do a similarity in surnames. Both can deliver truly excellent crosses, but both prefer to do so from a deeper position, and ideally from wherever they receive the ball. Neither is immobile, by any means, and both can go beyond if need be, but it's not their first instinct. If you could mirror image Josh Mullin and put him on the other side, I think we'd be better off. 

We saw similar in the first quarter of last season where Aidan Connolly was going for his most natural choice of cutting back to deliver on his left, and he was finding himself toe-to-toe with Ross Millen who was already an option to cross from there. That understanding developed fairly quickly, and the lack of consistent selection is probably slowing that process this season. 

And I know I'm back on my same old bullshit again, but if we're playing with two holding midfielders (and we are), we need more out of our fullbacks. There are trade-offs elsewhere, but for anyone who was at Airdrie yesterday, swap Millen (crosses from deep, rarely goes beyond his winger, particularly when it's Josh Mullin) and Dick (gets forward out of a sense of duty rather than any sort of natural desire or ability) with two natural running full-backs like Kieran MacDonald and Reghan Tumilty. That's a totally different proposition, and a totally different game. 

We're set up well to accommodate adventurous fullbacks - Brown and Byrne can easily drop in on either side - but we don't actually have the fullbacks to do anything about it. 

And thats why we probably need to move away from two holding midfielders and have one being a bit more adventurous going forward. I think Byrne can do that a lot better than Brown can. Or...we play one of them with Stanton driving from deep. He's got the ability to cover box to box and allowing him to go forward with the other sitting is a lot better than we had pre-season. 

[TxRover]

In the end, the 4-2-3-1 causes us to lack connection from front to back and leaves Hamilton without support. We probably need to find a way to play with two up top,  but the preseason 4-1-3-2 was less than stellar and would lead to Brown or Byrne deep questions. The problem is there is little way to achieve the goal of a partner for Jack while playing 4 in the back. For instance, some variant of 3-2-3-2 would likely leave us narrower and with some difficult tactical and positional choices. Likewise a 4-1-2-1-2 (diamond) would generally use the players we have, but significantly narrow our midfield presence, again limiting our linking play.

A 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 is something we see with Murrayball, but hasn’t struck me as effective…although perhaps the 4-3-3 with Brown/Stanton/Byrne in the middle and Vaughan/Hamilton/Smith up top might have some impact. It does however leave players who have been integral to our start on the sidelines, but so do most options. The 3-4-3 option is less appealing with Watson or Murray as the primary CB lacking swiftness.

[Hank Scorpio]

A lot of knee jerk reactions to change the formation after yesterday. We’ve had a great start to the season with 4-2-3-1. I’d like to see us give a front 4 a bit more of a run together rather than chopping and changing it week on week, but the formation is fine. 

[Brashy's Boots]

5 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

A lot of knee jerk reactions to change the formation after yesterday. We’ve had a great start to the season with 4-2-3-1. I’d like to see us give a front 4 a bit more of a run together rather than chopping and changing it week on week, but the formation is fine. 

This.

Too many pairs of knickers being pished. 

[Broken Algorithms]

1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

A lot of knee jerk reactions to change the formation after yesterday. We’ve had a great start to the season with 4-2-3-1. I’d like to see us give a front 4 a bit more of a run together rather than chopping and changing it week on week, but the formation is fine. 

Could be said about a lot of things yesterday tbf. Some of the reactions in the stand were embarrassing in the final 10 minutes. 

[RAITHROVERS84]

Could easily have won that yesterday and the talking points would be different.

That said we’ve not played too well lately and some of the neat lovely passing has been diminishing.

Not a terrible performance but for me in the stand it just felt something was off tactics and formation wise.

I think the point about adventurous fullbacks is a good one, clearly lacking. I would’ve had McGill on yesterday.

[Raithie]

Next game will tell us a bit about this squads resilience to bounce back from a defeat. A win down in Ayr, not a happy hunting ground from memory, and all is well again. It's looking to be another batshit mental league, just look at the likes of Partick and Airdrie. Airdrie horsed 4-0 bounce back by beating us. Partick pump Ayr 4-0 and follow it up getting beat 3-0 by Arbroath. 

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

A lot of knee jerk reactions to change the formation after yesterday. We’ve had a great start to the season with 4-2-3-1. I’d like to see us give a front 4 a bit more of a run together rather than chopping and changing it week on week, but the formation is fine. 

We’ve done well in total points, but have struggled to put points on the board. There has been considerable discussion of the isolation of our forward(s) and poor linkup play. I think our base 4-2-3-1 is a weakness right now, and I don’t know if settling on a core group of players will address that.

[R.R.FC]

Agreed there appears to have been a bit of an overreaction to yesterday. We have an above average Championship squad IMO but it’s not even close to perfect. We aren’t going to blow teams away week after week and every team in this league is capable of beating us on their day if we aren’t at our best, it’s the nature of the league.

There’s things that can be learned of course but I don’t think there needs to be a full scale inquest and ripping up of something which has brought us 4 wins in 6 games. Pleased to hear Murray recognise the last couple of performances haven’t been great but I think it’s tweaks and fine tuning rather than anything wholesale needed.

To be honest, I was more concerned Murray said in his interview he asked Watson to gamble on his fitness yesterday and it backfired. Has it been mentioned anywhere what type of injury he had?

I would like to hope/assume it was just a knock and we weren’t taking any risks on a muscle injury? I’d hope we’ve learned the lessons from that last season.

I realise sometimes you do just have to gamble on players fitness but with your most experienced player and one of only 2 senior centre backs in the squad, I don’t think 5 games into the season when you have 13 points out of 15 it is a risk you need to be taking. Yesterday wasn’t going to define our season either way but losing Watson for a number of games definitely could.

Like I say, hopefully it was just a knock and he’s back again very soon.

Edited September 25, 2023 by R.R.FC

[Ro Sham Bo]

It looked like a muscle pull for Watson. It hopefully won't be long term but I would be surprised if he isn't out for a couple of weeks anyway. It was a bit frustrating to hear we were taking a risk on him at this early stage in the season. 

I was a bit surprised when he actually brought Masson on for Watson rather than bring on McGill and move Dick to centre back. Maybe he didn't want to left sided centre backs playing together. To be fair to Masson he did fine other than being caught out for the goal. 

[Heid_The_Baw]

Canny believe folk ripping into Hamilton.  He is being used as a lone striker/targetman.  Pumping the ball up the middle is by far not our strongest way of playing.  Expecting Hamilton to head it as target man, but for himself the turn around and then take on a whole defence himself with ZERO support is ridiculous.

We have a plethora of wide players, so WHY are we not attacking up the flanks, and crossing for Hamilton to head into the net?  Route one up the middle with long balls was well exposed as being a no no on Saturday.  
Stantons near goal of the season was about as close as we looked to scoring.  We were devoid of ideas as the route one just did not work!

Start using the flanks!  Hopefully Connoly comes in and we can get that option once again.

Anyhow, as defeats go it wasn't a 'bad' one, and probably deserved and what we need to then re-assess and make this lot know they cannot just turn up to win games.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Heid_The_Baw

[Hank Scorpio]

Haven’t seen a single post where someone is ripping into Hamilton. 

[RaithRyan]

We can’t overreact over the game at the weekend - it was one of those tight games where whoever got the first goal was going to go on and win the game. We’ve been fortunate in some of the first few weeks to steal the points in games that could have went either way - this week it went against us, we take it on the chin and now the bigger test for me is how we react. We have Ayr away followed by Dundee Utd at home. That has potential to be 3 defeats on the bounce so we need to see a reactions. 
 

Im in the camp where I too would like to see a bit more from the full backs, but I don’t think we have the full backs in our locker to be able to bomb up and down in line with the system we play - I always thought we’d maybe delve into the market for another full back of the mould. I think as well over recent years we’ve been spoilt by MacDonald and Tumilty getting forward at every opportunity but have to appreciate different managers have different styles. 
 

Haven’t seen much slating Hamilton either tbh, although I think over the first 6 league games the big man has had a couple of big chances fall his way that he’d probably think he’d have stuck away. 
 

Last week for loan market, be interesting to see we make another move, someone mentioned another striker - if so would like to see someone with a bit of raw pace as I think were missing that a little. If Watson is out for a considerable period then we may have to weigh up a defensive option whether that be a centre half, or a full back and play Liam Dick centrally. 

[Rover1990]

If we have the budget to bring anyone in I think first priority is a defensive player.  Ideally someone who can cover LB and CB or an attacking LB and move Dick into central role as mentioned above.  Another big striker to come on for Hamilton would be good as well but its finding one that's useful at this level.

[Michael W]

Four wins, one draw and one defeat after six games. We'd all have taken that right away before the season started, wouldn't we? 

I think the manner of some reactions is a bit much and probably at least partly also down to who we lost to, rather than out of concerns for our form (which would clearly be a ridiculous position to take). Newly-promoted teams do often get a bit of disrespect and are seen as the more winnable matches, which can lead to expectations of a result. The game is not played on paper, however. 

I have two concerns. One is that we don't know what our strongest team is and we are going to struggle to build fluidity in the forward positions if we keep tinkering. The downside of being overstocked in this position is that players who are good enough to be starting will become a bit fed up if they are not getting enough game time. There are lots of players in this team that will score goals and will set goals up, but I do think we'd be better if we could settle ourselves a bit better here. 

The other concern is cover in defence. We shouldn't have risked Keith Watson, but we clearly thought the risk was worth taking. Hopefully he won't be out for any period of time. 

[SerieA]

We have a young,attacking left back on the bench.Other teams have confidence in their young players, it’s about time Murray n Raith do the same.

[Broken Algorithms]

11 minutes ago, SerieA said:

We have a young,attacking left back on the bench.Other teams have confidence in their young players, it’s about time Murray n Raith do the same.

We literally put on a centre half who is a young player on Saturday as a sub. Unfortunately our cover at centre back isn't nearly as strong given Dylan Corr has had a few injuries and while Masson had a good game on Saturday by and large, he had an error of judgement which led to the goal. It doesn't make him a bad player, and Euan Murray and Watson will be there to support him and make sure he's learning from it.

Murray took a gamble on Saturday with Watson and it didn't pay off. If he'd played the full 90, nobody would've been any wiser. 

[SerieA]

Agree with you on Masson on Saturday. My point in relation to Hannah is if Dick has to move in beside Murray-I would give Hannah a chance. Certainly wouldn’t play both Masson and Hannah together in back 4 at this stage.

As for Murray picking out Masson for being at fault for the goal.I hope since his interview on Saturday he’s had a look and gave another player a wee word in his ear

[Broken Algorithms]

Just now, SerieA said:

Agree with you on Masson on Saturday. My point in relation to Hannah is if Dick has to move in beside Murray-I would give Hannah a chance. Certainly wouldn’t play both Masson and Hannah together in back 4 at this stage.

As for Murray picking out Masson for being at fault for the goal.I hope since his interview on Saturday he’s had a look and gave another player a wee word in his ear

As much as I want to see him get his debut, it wasn't the right time. Masson has played a far higher number of games and was a like for like change. It would've raised more questions to have a player making his debut and shifting a natural left back out of position, while leaving a natural centre half on the bench.

Hannah will get his game time in due course. I suspect he'd have made his debut against Cliftonville had Robbie Thomson not picked up a knock.  

As for Masson, the club have a really good support network just now. Murray is the first to admit that we're not perfect and that mistakes will happen - it's all about how players learn from them. Murray, Mickey and Potter will all be there to help the players. I've heard nothing but good things about the senior lads in the squad going out there way to help the younger lads. 

In all honesty, I think that there's been a gradual appreciation among our support that things like Saturday will happen. Even on the bus back most folk were rational about it. You'll get the odd clown who will be screaming abuse, but unfortunately that will always happen. Genuinely keen to see what the stats are for this week given some of the players targeted for "not trying hard enough".