Raith Rovers v Stranraer

[Car54wherareyou]

Looking forward to going to Starks Pk on Saturday,not been there for a few years.The Stranraer manager now seems to know his best 11 and after Saturdays performance the players seem to be quite confident with the system.This of course will be a sterner test with the likes of Buchanan and Spence up front and Faz will probably play the same type of game which resulted in almost getting a draw against Thistle but anybody who was there will tell you Stranraer had a good few chances and that performance augurs well for this type of fixture.The home side are of course  favourites,but if the blues keep it tight early doors and don't have to chase the game,you never know.

 

 

[Pride of Fife]

Looking forward to it. 

As you say, we start favourites but after watching highlights of Stranraer early season they will come here and cause us problems. Look decent going forward and plenty height throughout team, something we lack a bit of.

Anderson will get a much deserved warm welcome, great servant over the years. Just hope he has an off day cause our left back position will be filled by either McHattie who has played practically no competitive football this season or someone not natural to position.

I'm hoping our forward line click together, I expect goals at both ends. 4-3 has a nice ring to it!

[Ro Sham Bo]

This will be one of those games where a fair chunk of the crowd will be expecting a comfortable win because it's Stranraer and where said crowd will start to get very restless if we don't take the lead within the first 15 minutes.

[Hank Scorpio]

Return of King Grantie.

[kvz2000]

Hoping we are strong enough to come away with a point , we are a big strong side and will certainly not be bullied , if we can take our chances then a win is not impossible but will be a tough game 

[Broken Algorithms]

Anderson vs McHattie should be interesting. 

Also, it's quite interesting to see opposition fans only focus on Spence and Buchanan when Vaughan has been the best of the three so far. For the first round of games I'd imagine that will be a recurring theme.

Jamie Hamill and Scott Agnew to score at any point btw. Agnew must only be behind Keatings in goals against Rovers in recent seasons. Usually they're peaches too. 

Ideally we can get an early goal and build confidence into the game. It'll be a battle but I'm confident we can get a good start at home. I think the last time we played Stranraer at home, Tade scored against us. Get him in for the 50/50 draw/trial/deal for a month to keep him fit. 

[liam_barnett]

Just a heads up to Stranraer fans, you will likely be housed in this corner of the Main Stand (as this is where we are housing smaller supports this season):



Views aren't ideal but not near as bad as the likes of the Main Stand at Cappielow & the Raith Suite will be open to you in the Main Stand.

[North Terrace Gazza]

Hoping for a Stranaer win but just can't see it. Should be a relatively comfortable home win.

[Cardinal Richelieu]

8 hours ago, rw89 said:

I think the last time we played Stranraer at home, Tade scored against us. Get him in for the 50/50 draw/trial/deal for a month to keep him fit. 

Don't really understand what you mean here. It sounds like he's left his Qatari club and returned to Stark's Park?!?!

[Michael W]

1 game in and the fate tempting has started. Probably a new record. 

I'm confident we'll manage to score, but do have concerns over the defence in the absence of an out and out LB (or one who missed pre-season). If there is a criticism of our squad it's that we generally lack width and that could be a problem if we are struggling to break Stranraer down or if we need to defend from out wide. 

Hopefully a first win of the season for us. 

[baillieinleeds]

Has McHattie signed then?

[renton]

We were far from impressive on Saturday. The narrow three man midfield we used against Cowden was shown up pretty badly against a team who pushed their full backs high up: On our left hand side, particularly, neither Matthews or Murray seemed to work out when to go out and when to stick in. Having said that, Smith at least reorganized the shape of the team to match up a bit better, but I'm not sure his subs worked all that well, from the Alloa goal to half time we controlled the game pretty well and made a few decent chances. It felt to me that the half time subs actually had the effect of putting us back a bit, and once Court had arrived - probably later than he should have - we looked like a good 'ol Locke team, a desperate and disparate bunch of forward thinking players hoping for the ball to land just right. Luckily it did, but the overall experience didn't fill me with much hope.

I think, that our best shot then is a hybrid type 4-4-2, with Vaughan nominally out wide but basically in a free role when we have the ball and dropping out wide when we don't. More like how we lined up against the two Dundee teams and after the goal against Alloa, I also think we need Matthews as the anchor on the other side, or we'll get overrun in midfield. Especially against a Stranraer team that looks like it has some pretty handy wide players for this level.

So, aye, first contact with league 1 did not go swimmingly, and I'd expect more of the same this weekend: We have some pretty decent talent, particularly in the forward areas but that is for f**k all if we can't get the ball to them consistently in dangerous areas. I think we are a decent bet to get a draw, but beyond that there is nothing to suggest we're in good shape to get a win.

[rover1985]

37 minutes ago, renton said:

We were far from impressive on Saturday. The narrow three man midfield we used against Cowden was shown up pretty badly against a team who pushed their full backs high up: On our left hand side, particularly, neither Matthews or Murray seemed to work out when to go out and when to stick in. Having said that, Smith at least reorganized the shape of the team to match up a bit better, but I'm not sure his subs worked all that well, from the Alloa goal to half time we controlled the game pretty well and made a few decent chances. It felt to me that the half time subs actually had the effect of putting us back a bit, and once Court had arrived - probably later than he should have - we looked like a good 'ol Locke team, a desperate and disparate bunch of forward thinking players hoping for the ball to land just right. Luckily it did, but the overall experience didn't fill me with much hope.

I think, that our best shot then is a hybrid type 4-4-2, with Vaughan nominally out wide but basically in a free role when we have the ball and dropping out wide when we don't. More like how we lined up against the two Dundee teams and after the goal against Alloa, I also think we need Matthews as the anchor on the other side, or we'll get overrun in midfield. Especially against a Stranraer team that looks like it has some pretty handy wide players for this level.

So, aye, first contact with league 1 did not go swimmingly, and I'd expect more of the same this weekend: We have some pretty decent talent, particularly in the forward areas but that is for f**k all if we can't get the ball to them consistently in dangerous areas. I think we are a decent bet to get a draw, but beyond that there is nothing to suggest we're in good shape to get a win.

if you look at the game on Saturday our problem isn't the attacking players it was defending ...murray looked poor , McKay way out his depth at the minute looked far to shaky and for the goal how much time was cawley allowed outside the 18 yard box to turn and shoot , he should have been challenge and closed down ...criminal.

the attacking players will win us games if the strikers can start putting the ball into the back of the net ...the team will never be what your suggesting above .

I can guarantee  the team to start on Saturday will be the team that started the second half....Mathews and McKay bombed

[renton]

1 minute ago, rover1985 said:

if you look at the game on Saturday our problem isn't the attacking players it was defending ...murray looked poor , McKay way out his depth at the minute looked far to shaky and for the goal how much time was cawley allowed outside the 18 yard box to turn and shoot , he should have been challenge and closed down ...criminal.

the attacking players will win us games if the strikers can start putting the ball into the back of the net ...the team will never be what your suggesting above .

I can guarantee  the team to start on Saturday will be the team that started the second half....Mathews and McKay bombed

I'm not disagreeing with your first part but I do think the formation didn't help in terms of allowing Murray and Matthews to work out who was marking the bloody right back which is where the problem was. After the formation change Matthews looked fine, I say this because I feel that if you need to accommodate Vaughan in a nominal 4 man midfield, it's because the guy on the other side can tuck in and make a 3 when Vaughan is drifting in field to attack. We don't have the midfield to play two all out attacking wide players and still protect the defence, and if one of those wide guys has an effective free role, as Vaughan would, or at least should do, it really has to be because the guys around him can fill in the gaps he leaves. It's really how we lined up several times already so it's not like it's revolutionary or original.

There is no doubt that McHattie will start on Saturday, even though he didn't look any more convincing than usual. His positioning last year was criminal, and if that continues we'll be no better off by having him.

Again, in my opinion we got very fucking lucky on Saturday, and can't rely on a good bounce from Lennox's kicking to get us back into games every week (lovely hook on by Spence and nice finish from Vaughan but ultimately a hoof up the park bypassing the whole team) I don't think we looked any better with Barr in the side than we did with Matthews out wide once we shifted shape after Alloa scored.

[Paco]

I wasn't at Alloa so don't want to be too critical but I was pretty alarmed Smith went into what is one of the tougher matches in this league playing a 4-3-1-2. Fine at home to teams content with a draw, and full-backs who will get a bollocking if they go over halfway. Crazy away to a side who will want to pin you back as much as possible. Encouraging at least that it was changed at half time.

I do think given our lack of wingers and Vaughan being magnificent that it utilises our squad in the best way but you need to be careful who you play it against. Even in McGlynn's 4-3-3 that steamrollered this league you had Graeme Weir who was essentially playing down both wings, allowing the three man midfield to concentrate on the centre, not spreading itself too thin by covering the flanks.

For this game it should and probably will be a basic 4-4-2. Not sure I like the thought of Vaughan and McHattie being the left side against Anderson though. Faster and stronger than both. Hopefully he has one of his off days with crossing. Still think he'd have added an awful lot to this squad...

[renton]

3 minutes ago, Paco said:

I wasn't at Alloa so don't want to be too critical but I was pretty alarmed Smith went into what is one of the tougher matches in this league playing a 4-3-1-2. Fine at home to teams content with a draw, and full-backs who will get a bollocking if they go over halfway. Crazy away to a side who will want to pin you back as much as possible. Encouraging at least that it was changed at half time.

I do think given our lack of wingers and Vaughan being magnificent that it utilises our squad in the best way but you need to be careful who you play it against. Even in McGlynn's 4-3-3 that steamrollered this league you had Graeme Weir who was essentially playing down both wings, allowing the three man midfield to concentrate on the centre, not spreading itself too thin by covering the flanks.

For this game it should and probably will be a basic 4-4-2. Not sure I like the thought of Vaughan and McHattie being the left side against Anderson though. Faster and stronger than both. Hopefully he has one of his off days with crossing. Still think he'd have added an awful lot to this squad...

In fairness it was changed before that, after the Alloa goal, Vaughan dropped wide and Matthews pushed up onto the other side. Barr was actually stripped to go on before HT but Smith seemed to change his mind at that point.

[CALDERON]

For as much as Saturday wasn't great (and it wasn't) we more than deserved a point away to a team who are usually there or there abouts in this league.

Certainly wouldn't say we were lucky at all.

[Car54wherareyou]

14 hours ago, liam_barnett said:

Just a heads up to Stranraer fans, you will likely be housed in this corner of the Main Stand (as this is where we are housing smaller supports this season):



Views aren't ideal but not near as bad as the likes of the Main Stand at Cappielow & the Raith Suite will be open to you in the Main Stand.

Probably be around 80 to 100 visiting fans.Quite a lot of supporters live in the central belt and travelling is not an issue.Sadly no supporters bus as it too expensive,which is a shame really as these are the diehards and don't just turn up for the odd Celtic/Rangers games,the price of a bus has risen dramatically in recent years and normal expenditure comes before football expenses,but we're a noisy bunch of regular nutters.

[Broken Algorithms]

9 hours ago, Cardinal Richelieu said:

Don't really understand what you mean here. It sounds like he's left his Qatari club and returned to Stark's Park?!?!

 Not quite. If only it was the case. He's left his club in Qatar and is back in Scotland. I think he's training with Partick at the moment but looking for a move abroad. 

[Blue1870]

He was at the partick v stranraer game. Good player for the Blues Greg. A real character and decent bloke as well. Scored so many goals for Stranraer arriving late at the back post.