The New Raith Rovers Thread

[SirJimmyofNic]

11 hours ago, foreverarover said:

If your being coached by someone who couldn't do it either it's not idea. 

Touche, very good point

[SerieA]

15 minutes ago, CountryBumpkin said:

I suspect because Connolly can't run at players and take them on, he's also not a traditional winger on the left, his game is getting the ball and cutting in outside of the box. Easton also doesn't have a lot of discipline to stay into a position, he will roam around regardless, its something we just have to accept. 

There are no excuses now, we have as full a squad to choose from as we've had all season, its time to play the players in positions that get the best out of them and make the hard calls to drop those that just don't fit into that right now.

Agree with what you are saying with both but they both have the ability to use both feet whether that’s going down the outside or cutting in.Murray’s not changed it once this season (I think).Easton’s goal against United he found himself on the right-I know he was playing on the right and ran into that position but I just think it’s worth a shot in games-especially games like yesterday.

[FitbaSupporter]

Can some stats boffin do some work on how many points we pick up at the start of seasons compared to the second half. Between the clocks going back and this new post Christmas collapse thing, it feels like the gap would be huge. 

[SirJimmyofNic]

7 minutes ago, FitbaSupporter said:

Can some stats boffin do some work on how many points we pick up at the start of seasons compared to the second half. Between the clocks going back and this new post Christmas collapse thing, it feels like the gap would be huge. 

Tx will be along with the answer shortly, I dont think it'll make good reading

[SerieA]

Fair bit of doom and gloom recently but still buzzing for a home cup semi final on Friday night.

We have a group of cracking attacking players with loads of ability and skill.

We also have boys at the other end who can defend with the United game being the prime example.

 

[SirJimmyofNic]

12 minutes ago, SerieA said:

Fair bit of doom and gloom recently but still buzzing for a home cup semi final on Friday night.

We have a group of cracking attacking players with loads of ability and skill.

We also have boys at the other end who can defend with the United game being the prime example.

 

Aye a semi final against a team we've taken 1 point from 9 and have got our number, cant say I'm optimistic for it

[SerieA]

3 minutes ago, SirJimmyofNic said:

Aye a semi final against a team we've taken 1 point from 9 and have got our number, cant say I'm optimistic for it

No better time to beat them 

[SirJimmyofNic]

8 minutes ago, SerieA said:

No better time to beat them 

I sure hope so, or it'll start to impact on the good work that's been done/being done behind the scenes at the club 

[mrraith71]

Where was Masson yesterday?

[renton]

16 minutes ago, mrraith71 said:

Where was Masson yesterday?

There were two defenders on the bench, he'd have been squeezed out of the squad.

[CALDERON]

9 hours ago, virginton said:

With the enormous caveat of not having seen Raith play since October, I think you're overlooking a far more obvious factor. The vast majority of your wins in the first half of the season were by a single goal margin and many decided by a very late winner. That simply wasn't sustainable without an upgrade in the overall quality of the team to make the return fixtures comfortable victories.

The uncomfortable truth is that Raith were rather fortunate in accumulating many of the victories they have in the league standings, and that luck (including luck with random absences for/against you too) has deserted you.  It's a straightforward regression to the mean rather than the rest of the division suddenly poring over your highly effective gameplan and hive minding the solution.

This is largely fair to be honest.

I don't think our performances have regressed that much.  We have stopped scoring goals late on to hide various deficiencies in how we defend.  

The concern is how we address that, as we can't look to any point this season where we won games comfortably or by more than 1 goal.  Its a top heavy squad in favour of attackers, but we don't score enough goals when on top for that to balance out.  

[pub car king]

The semi final is a pain in the arse. I want out of that competition we don't have time for it and need to concentrate full on the league. 

However in the flip side if we do get knocked out it's another defeat for a team that are low on confidence and a crowd that's starting to turn. 

Woth that in mind I'd ring the changes and give fringe players a chance to prove themselves. 

They might come up trumps which is great, if they don't we can always say ah well it wasn't the first team. 

That in mind the following can be rested Kev, Dick, Murray, Brown, Vaughan, Easton. 

We can bring in McNeil, Hannah, Corr, Matthews, Rudden, Turner anyone of Smith, Connolly or Mullin. 

Let's use the squad numbers to their potential 

[Wardy]

That was probably the worst we’ve seen at home from this group. The last 4 games at home actually have simply not been good enough. You cannot concede the amount of goals we have if we still have aspirations of promotion, automatically or otherwise. We’re lucky that Dundee United haven’t capitalised yet.

So we’re still hanging on in there by the skin of our teeth. Although kinda starting to look over our shoulder now, and with Partick Thistle and United up next in the league, you’ve got to be just hoping we don’t actually get beat in those games. Tough as given how the last few games have went.

I’m going to go into too much detail about the game itself yesterday. We all know the starting line-up simply wasn’t good enough. I’ve no idea what went on in Murray’s head to justify a back 3 but only one CB. It didn’t work at Livi last week, so try something different at home? We had THREE CBs on the bench. Absolutely mind boggling. 

If I were Corr or Masson I’d be on Murray’s door asking for a loan move to be honest. He’s always said he wouldn’t stand in people’s way if they needed game time. 
 

If we could get a settled back four for the remaining 15 matches please that would be fantastic. 

Hopefully with the video of Stanton training he won’t be far away from returning now too. We have missed him BADLY. His link up in the 4132 formation is crucial to the wins we had in the first half of the season. We don’t have anyone else that can play like him. It’s as simple as that. It’s a shame Murray hasn’t recognised this (hindsight of course comes in) sooner.  If it means that Brown drops out then so be it (and I love the guy) 

With everyone fit I think our strongest eleven is: 4132

Dabrowski

Millen

Watson

Murray

Dick

Byrne

Easton

Mullen

Stanton

Vaughan

Hamilton. 
 

If we can use that team in the final 15 matches I don’t think we will be far away. 

[Kuma Power]

It’s worth remembering we’re still scoring a decent number of goals. Nine goals in our last four home games is a good return – indeed, we scored two great goals yesterday. I don’t disagree that we could and should sometimes be a bit more clinical, but by the same token we shouldn’t need to be on track to break the post-war British scoring record to be able to get nine points over four games against sides in the bottom three places in the league.

What’s rapidly becoming a huge concern for me is not just how often we concede, but also how often we concede multiple goals in quick succession. Yesterday we let in 3 in 10 minutes. Against Arbroath 2 in 5 mins. Ayr 2 in 8 mins. Seven points chucked away in less than 25 minutes of football. Even when you go back to when we were winning, it was happening: Partick 2 in 8 mins.  Queen’s Park 2 in 9 mins, and 2 in 4 mins.

This points to a big problem with mentality and organisation. I really don’t want to stick the boot in given how well we’ve done and how many results the players have pulled out across the season, but for a team that supposedly has so many proven league-winners and ‘big characters’, we are so fragile, panicky and careless at times.

Glad to hear the 3-6-1 is likely to be shelved, as we simply don’t have the personnel to make it work sensibly and sustainably. Let’s get back to a back four, with people playing in the right positions and a clear hierarchy of who steps in where if someone drops out injured. I’d like to think that having a bit of stability at the back will help with the coordination and with responding to setbacks. If that means we have to make tough decisions about leaving players on the bench, then so be it.

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, SirJimmyofNic said:

Tx will be along with the answer shortly, I dont think it'll make good reading

Sorry, that’s not the kind of stuff I’m any good at doing without a database I’d have to build from scratch. I’m sure there are websites that’ll do it for you. Most of my stuff is tracking something active (and kinda manual), looking for an easy trend.

However, we all know the clocks back curse feel…I doubt it’s that clear, but I do suspect that 3rd and 4th time round the league is significantly different than 1st and 2nd. I also suspect some managers are better than others at that portion of a season.

[RoversNProud]

With the volume of goals we concede, it’s incredible we are in the position we are tbh.

I said last week,  the cracks have been papered over most of the season due to getting the breaks late on. We now aren’t getting those breaks. 
IM defensive set up is ludicrous. Why sign 3 cbs in the summer and only play 1?

E.Murray has been so out of sorts most of the season and that first goal yesterday was embarrassing. He seemed to do a 3 point turn and then his lack of pace got highlighted quite badly. 
The majority of the post match comments are encouraging IM to get in 2x CB but we already have them, they are sat on the bench!!

How long will IM persist with out of form lads. It’s time to make some changes for next week 

[grumswall]

I think it's worth noting that a few players didn't get a proper pre season in them and Murray is one of them. Connolly another. A good pre season goes a long way at this level so it may be the reason we're not seing the best of some of the players. Dick and millen aren't really up to it for a team looking to challenge for the league at this level. Millen has a great cross on him and his link up play with connolly last season was very good but connolly hasn't been at his best and is in and out of the team for Mullin who is basically millen but an attacker. Dick isn't good enough to start at lb or cb and I think our only real failure in recruitment so far has not been replacing those two in the summer. It isn't all doom n gloom though, we're on a bad run but we do have the players available to turn that around and I think the most important thing now is to focus on securing second and go in to the playoffs in good form. 

[Keyser Soze]

12 hours ago, MICMAC said:

 

4. Stop the fkn booing

This 100%. Yes we were rank rotten in the 1st half yesterday but booing the players off isn't exactly helpful, boils ma pish so it does.

Edited January 28 by keyser_soze

[pub car king]

Just to pile on a bit more moaning/reflecting.

Ian Murray and he tells us this tries to get his best players in the pitch. This has been to our detriment at times and yesterday was a prime example of this. We had a back 3 two of which are full backs and the actual CB looked well off it. A 5 or 6 man midfield I don't honestly know which it was, in there we had brown and Mullen playing as a kind of old fashioned inside left/right which neither of them are (actually Mullin has had a bit of a raw deal lately getting shifted round the pitch on a weekly basis). We had Connolly and Smith getting used as makeshift wing backs, neither one of them is a defender so can't do that and this also hampered them from being attacking wingers as well. 

I think the whole squad are probably a bit scunnerred at the minute. We have first pick players getting put in ridiculous positions they don't know how to play. We have second pics not getting a game in these same positions and we have players who clearly aren't fit getting played andnot being able to perform at their usual level and it's another weakness in the team for opponents to exploit. 

I think.this cup game and free week are really needed for everyone to have a bit of a reset. 

[TxRover]

26 minutes ago, grumswall said:

I think it's worth noting that a few players didn't get a proper pre season in them and Murray is one of them. Connolly another. A good pre season goes a long way at this level so it may be the reason we're not seing the best of some of the players. Dick and millen aren't really up to it for a team looking to challenge for the league at this level. Millen has a great cross on him and his link up play with connolly last season was very good but connolly hasn't been at his best and is in and out of the team for Mullin who is basically millen but an attacker. Dick isn't good enough to start at lb or cb and I think our only real failure in recruitment so far has not been replacing those two in the summer. It isn't all doom n gloom though, we're on a bad run but we do have the players available to turn that around and I think the most important thing now is to focus on securing second and go in to the playoffs in good form. 

Fair points, and made me reflect a bit on the 3-5-2 scheme we’ve seen a bit of discussion of. Millen is NOT a player for the 3 in that formation, he is, like Mullin, a wing in the 5…so we have two very identical players that we’ve been playing weekly in our 4-1-3-2/4-2-3-1. Dick is capable of playing in the 3 there, but is still trying to do IM’s pelt forward tactics, and he doesn’t really have the cross quality like Millen and Mullin.

If we wanted to do 3-5-2, the answer has to be drop one of Mullin and Millen, play the other wide right. Put Dick at LCB, with direction to not pelt forward, when Murray isn’t available for that spot. So we have:

Corr (or Masson)/Watson/Murray (or Dick or Hannah)

Millen (or Mullen)/Turner (or Brown)/Stanton/Byrne (or Matthews)/McGill (or Easton or Connolly)

Hamilton (or Smith)/Rudden (or Vaughan)

Looking at that, our two spots lacking “cover” are Stanton’s creativity and linkup play and Watson’s take no prisoners CB in the middle. Of those two, in my opinion, the Watson role is the one we’ve most missed, but it was covered up by Stanton’s brilliance for a long time. Murray isn’t Watson…Corr isn’t Watson, neither is Masson or Brown. This exercise shows that a second “serious” CB should be procured immediately (much easier said than done).