R.R.FC
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Posts posted by R.R.FC
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8 minutes ago, Kuma Power said:
I wouldn't have been so bothered about us losing a game in isolation, if we hadn't chucked daft points away against Arbroath and Ayr and if Millen hadn't got himself sent off.
Right now, what really gives me the fear is the non-zero possibility of us having to face Airdrie in the play-offs...
I think this is spot on. We’ve won 9 away games in a row before today and were 16 unbeaten and a defeat away to the side 4th in the league can clearly happen to anyone, Airdrie are a decent side. I shouldn’t be feeling as frustrated and pessimistic about our chances for the rest of the season as I am after that.
But it’s when added to the ludicrous way we dropped points against Ayr and Arbroath and the fact we have made a mess of what looked like some kind fixtures post Tannadice to actually kick on and take advantage of that day. It feels like a defeat has definitely been coming, I’m not surprised by the result or performance today.
Stanton is a huge miss but we need to find a way to deal with it. A reset and rethink required. If he’s going to be out for any length of time I’d be asking Ross County if there is any chance Kyle Turner is available…
Typical that Queens Park picked up their first win in months right before we play them. However, we need a win and good performance to bounce back from this and restore the confidence around the place that this is just a blip and we aren’t about to settle into a sustained period of poor form.
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Really poor stuff from us. Airdrie completely have our number and that has to be a concern how well they’ve worked us out and that the rest of the league are also starting to take note.
For us, we’re not playing well right now. Easy to criticise and look at what we should do better (and there’s a lot of things) but if we’re honest, we were never as good as our points total suggests. That’s not to say we’ve not been good, of course we have but when you keep winning games by 1 goal, eventually those fine margins go the other way. Not that today was one of those ‘fine margin’ days we were comfortably beaten.
We can cheer ourselves up looking at the Dundee United score but we’re kidding ourselves on if we think we’ll be league winners the way we’re playing. I think the gap to Partick is far more relevant to us in the long run.
Considering the amount of late goals we’ve scored I thought the last 15-20 minutes was dreadful. Totally ran out of ideas and had zero creativity.
All credit to Airdrie, thoroughly deserved winners and definitely one of the best teams we’ve faced this season. McCabe is doing an excellent job, such a well drilled team in every aspect and Megwa was the outstanding player on the pitch. You wouldn’t believe there were 17 points between the sides based on the games against each other so far (well maybe you would but not in our favour!).
Murray said after the last Airdrie defeat he felt like it has been coming for a few weeks and it sometimes isn’t the worst thing to give you a chance to reset. I imagine he will feel the same here. We absolutely need a similar response this time because our recent performances have suggested the loss of form could be quite dramatic unless we get a big reaction from here.
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We’ve improved and had the better of most of the second half but still feels very much like Airdrie are holding us at arms length. We’ve not created anything clear cut to bother Rae in goals.
Last 5 minutes very much feels like Airdrie have seen out the earlier pressure and are starting to play their own game again and we’ve kind of ran out of ideas.
Megwa has been excellent for Airdrie. Bossed that side defensively against everyone he has faced.
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Thought we improved towards the end of the half. Decent wee 10 minutes spell but still much improvement needed. Airdrie definitely seem to have our number this season.
At least we have the options off the bench to change things. Can’t imagine it’ll be too long before we see the likes of Hamilton and Connolly.
Shout out to DiamondsTV, good coverage so far. One man commentary must be an absolute nightmare but the guy has done it very well and I’ve enjoyed it.
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Really poor from us so far, Airdrie deservedly ahead. We’ve not looked like creating anything since the opening 10 minutes, Vaughan’s touch well off and despite his goal against Arbroath, feel like Easton has been miles away from his best since Tannadice.
Hopefully some improvement soon.
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16 minutes ago, Salvo Montalbano said:
Goodwillie situation...
... endorsed by a sizable number of the fans
Sorry but this is nonsense. Aside from a few idiots online I didn’t see any Rovers fans ‘endorsing’ the signing of Goodwillie. In fact the reaction of our supporters and volunteers ensured he never played for our club. Those in charge of the club at the time deserve every bit of flak going for that decision but the fans actually emerged with a lot of credit for how they rallied against it and prevented it being accepted like his time at Clyde.
Either way, both situations are horrible and any opposition fan using them for petty point scoring in a local rivalry is totally out of order. It isn’t done out of respect or thought for the actual victim in either case, it is just incredibly crass and childish.
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Yeah fair play to the Dunfermline fans for their reactions to this, rightfully condemned by everyone. Hopefully the idiots responsible are all found and get their punishment.
On the game, I thought we just about deserved the win. Dunfermline dominated the first 5 minutes and had a good few chances but after that, we completely bossed things until the Pars equaliser. Poor goal to lose from our perspective, we switched off allowing Mehmet to play the quick pass out wide, Brown got pulled across and we were left open in the middle. Think we should have committed a foul but good finish from Summers.
Second half I thought was fairly even. We got our goal and didn’t have to chase the game which meant Dunfermline had more of the ball but I didn’t think they ever really looked like equalising. Both teams lacked that bit of quality in the final third, Dunfermline in terms of breaking us down and us wasting a few good opportunities on the break.
Quite a few good performances for us I thought. Mullin’s best game for us, O’Reilly brilliant in both boxes, Brown and Byrne did very well in the middle. Brown at his best snapping into tackles and driving forward and Byrne adding the class and composure in midfield. He has an excellent ability to beat players without touching the ball, just a drop of the shoulder or movement of his body, it’s great to watch. I appreciate you lose one of our attacking options but I think Brown and Byrne are different enough to complement each other in there and should play together going forward. Great to see Matthews back on the pitch too.
Do Dunfermline always come out so late for their warm up? Never usually at a ground until about 15 minutes before kick off so it may be totally normal but was in early yesterday and it seemed strange seeing the Pars come out for their warm up about 20 minutes after us. I don’t think any of their recent injuries have been muscle ones so it obviously works for them and they started the game well but just seemed odd.
Hopefully Fisher makes a quick and full recovery.
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Josh Mullin was brilliant today, I honestly can’t believe there were people who watched that game and didn’t see it. If it wasn’t for O’Reilly’s doubles he’d have easily been my man of the match. He has definitely flown under the radar this season but today was his best game for us IMO.
2 assists, beat his full back on numerous occasions, some great deliveries and carries taking us up the field. So disciplined as well, filled in centre of the park on a couple of occasions when Brown went forward. Even in stoppage time after running himself into the ground for 90 minutes he still chased a ball all the way back to Mehmet forcing him to slice it out the park and take us 60 yards away from our goal and a breather.
Thought Vaughan was really good too albeit he tired and got slack in the second half. He linked the play well and dictated the game along with Brown and Byrne for our period of dominance from the first 5 minutes up until the Pars goal.
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1 hour ago, da_no_1 said:
In fairness, we were also terrible that night, probably our worst home performance of the season, as bad as Ayr a few weeks before.
You did have a few players out at the back but you have a lot of quality in midfield and up front which probably masked your deficiencies at the back on the night plus again we were rubbish.
Our injuries have been right through the team not just limited to defence (although all our centre halves have had spells out) Every week it seems to be a different player out and someone has to move from their natural position to cover, often during games which has limited our ability to make changes to see a game out or get back into a game if behind.
However unlucky we may claim to be, JM chose to go with what we had, so this situation is, at least in part, down to him
I'm not making excuses and I'm not "at it" - even first choice 11 v 11 we'd be second best.
I'll go 1-3 for tomorrow. Stanton will probably still score....
Yeah, I don’t think Dunfermline can be as bad as that night. Probably our best performance of the season too. Our injuries were mainly defensive but we were still missing Byrne and Matthews who alongside Brown are our holding midfielders and Brown had to play in defence due to the injuries there. We did have all our attacking players though and ultimately that quality proved the difference. Think it’s played a part in Murray favouring having as many attacking players on the pitch since which has somewhat backfired the last couple of games.
Don’t get me wrong, if I was a Pars fan I wouldn’t be massively confident given the results in the derbies this season and their injury list. However, the point is in our last two games, Ayr and Arbroath overcame adversity worse than the Pars are facing with their injuries, to get a point away from home against us, so there’s no reason the Pars can’t also get a result here. Our results have been brilliant this season but our last two performances, given the circumstances, were really poor so there is definitely plenty of encouragement for the Pars there.
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13 hours ago, DAFC. said:
I felt like we played well majority of the match v ICT. Just couldn’t score.
If we win this it’ll be down to Raith shitting the bed. Really can’t see us getting anything at all. We have got one fit, out-and-out centre half available going in to this. We are really out our depth with all these injuries. Otto, McCann, Breen, Bene are all big misses IMO.
Would be hilarious to hear the inevitable Murray implosion should we win. Him and his players have came across as really bad winners. I get the feeling he is the type of person to be absolutely incandescent with rage when his team loses. Won’t happen though.
In fairness, we pumped Dunfermline last game at the KDM with half a team missing and one centre back (playing his first game in 6 months and making his debut) along with a formation the manager decided on the afternoon before the game.
It’s a cliche but really anything can happen in a derby and any Pars fans saying they have no chance are at it. They are not any worse off than an Ayr side that played over a half with 10 men against us or an Arbroath side which we lead 2-0 whilst they played a goalkeeper upfront and had one actually defender in their back 4 and both got a point at Starks. No reason the Pars can’t get a result here, especially with home advantage.
I think Murray comes across well and generally talks a lot of sense. He clearly has an edge to him but certainly seems less perma raging than McPake. Absolutely agree on the Social Media side of things though, we’ve had a lot of fun after wins, and rightly so, particularly against the Pars which is fine but I imagine Dunfermline will have a field day when they finally get the chance to throw it back at us, again rightly so.
Think this is a huge game for us. The last 2 results have been incredibly disappointing. 2 draws at home to anyone in this league can happen but the circumstances in both games are what made them so poor. We need a reaction here.
If we can go to Dunfermline win again and put in a decent performance, I think it will settle everyone down and give us confidence we can kick on and aren’t beginning our drop off (Our current form the first half of the season is unsustainable so there will be a drop off regardless but there are varying degrees). However, a defeat would be very disappointing, following up the win at Tannadice with 2 points from 9 would be really poor and have most of us fearing the drop off in form could be on the more dramatic end of the scale.
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16 minutes ago, CALDERON said:
For me, the past 2 games have confirmed that we aren't good enough to mount a serious title challenge this season. To be ahead against 10 men, and 2-0 up against a team with no subs left and playing a goalkeeper up front - and to leave both games without a win, is pretty poor at best. The question you have to ask, is if Dundee Utd would have done the same? When you see their game last night and that today, its a massive difference. Not necessarily in terms of individual footballing ability, but in terms of game management and game intelligence - its absolutely fucking massive.
Over the piece, don't have any real complaints - we have rode our luck a bit this season - but its a massive wake up call and a pretty sobering dose of reality. The inability to take any command of a game when on top is really quite concerning.
It will still be a successful season I'm sure, I would be surprised to see us fall any lower than 2nd, but the past week has been extremely disappointing after such a good win at Tannadice.
This. The team have been excellent this season and don’t want to be too harsh on them but I feel anyone that thinks we have a genuine chance at the title after the last two games is kidding themselves on.
Whether our aspirations are 1st, 2nd or even 8th the point dropped, particularly in the circumstances of our last 2 home games are truly dreadful results. Still in a very good position for 2nd which would have been an excellent achievement before a ball was kicked but much improvement needed for Tuesday.
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I don’t understand how anyone can dispute that red card btw. His studs are up and he catches Easton above the knee, stonewaller any day of the week.
Penalty is a tough one, for me it’s on the line of the box, which is a penalty but it’s very, very close.
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I know Ayr fans will have similar thoughts about our goals but fucking hell the goals we lost were abysmal and even worse than I remember at the time.
First one Byrne loses possession in the Ayr half and we have zero midfield and McGeady runs in a straight line from his own half to the edge of our box to hit a relatively tame but well placed shot into the corner.
Second goal highlights that despite a fantastic effort over the last few months, Scott Brown isn’t a centre back. Dempsey gets the ball from a neat Dowds lay off and Brown just backs off into his own box with nobody near rather than closing down the shot. Questions on the midfield too obviously but Brown should close that down.
Third goal is probably the worst from an overall defensive point of view. Amartey picks the ball up with his back to goal with a Rovers players tight on him on the edge of his own box and another close by. He then manages to run from that position into our half beating 3/4 men in the process beating a particularly weak challenge on the half way line. It’s switched to Chalmers and Liam Dick tries to win it when he shouldn’t and is easily beat. Then Murray just backs off and tries to show him down the line I presume but forgets to actually close the angle of the shot down leaving him literally the entire goal to aim at. Fantastic goal from an Ayr perspective, awful from ours.
The last goal is what it is. Terrible error from Dabrowski. There is a wee bit of movement on the shot if we’re being kind but should still easily deal with it. Even then, we were in comfortable possession and gave it away very cheaply under no pressure leading to the shot.
Just a really bad day at the office. So many players who have been excellent for us this season having a bad night at the same time. Think we can all forgive the players that after their efforts this season so far though.
Credit to Vaughan, 3 goals and an assist, really bailed us out. Couple of great headers (albeit goalkeeping isn’t great). Pass for Stanton is lovely too. I’ve said it before but I think he’s very underrated this season, a lot of people I speak with still wouldn’t have him in our ‘strongest 11’ which I suppose shows the depth of the squad but he plays every week for me. Top scorer in the league now too.
As Murray said, hopefully we can learn the lessons and make the necessary improvements for Arbroath. I would definitely return to a 4-2-3-1 with Brown and Byrne holding but with Byrne apparently suspended we will likely be at least a week away from that being possible, Matthews can’t have any match fitness to be starting a game at this point.
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Came away a bit annoyed tonight that we’d blown a great chance to go 7 points clear playing 10 men at home.
On reflection it’s a bit mental. Think last week and the position we are in can cause a loss of perspective. If you’d told any of us we’d be 5 points clear at Christmas we’d have taken it in a second.
Thought Murray’s post match interview was spot on. We can be glad we got away with a point, no ground lost on Dundee United but also take the lessons and warnings from tonight and look to come back better after a good rest into the Arbroath game after a tough recent schedule.
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44 minutes ago, Dalgety Rover said:
Losing faith with Murray and his subs.
I just want to confirm you’re joking here?
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Really poor from us tonight. Can blame the disruption of the Stanton injury but I didn’t think we were anywhere near our best even before then. Amazing that we scored 4 goals and I don’t think we were anywhere near our best going forward and it rarely clicked for us all night.
However, the main issue was defensively. We looked wide open all game. Full backs rinsed time and time again and looked really soft and exposed to any runs through the middle. Dabrowski at fault for the 4th obviously but think he should have done better for the 1st goal too. Dick, Millen, Murray, Byrne and Easton all probably had their poorest 90’s of the season.
All credit to Ayr though. For all the stick Bullen gets, I thought they really did a job on us. Exploited our shortcomings at full back and really doubled up and nullified Byrne and Easton in particular.
Bad nights will happen though, the players have been brilliant so far and can be excused an off day. Hopefully we learn the lessons and are back to our best for Arbroath. Good character to bounce back and at least take something from the game at the end and the result at Hampden somewhat softens the blow whilst also feeling a bit of a missed opportunity.
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Fantastic news on Stanton, I genuinely think he’s the surest bet from our entire squad in terms of being able to handle the step up to the Premier League and thought he would have offers from the bottom 6 clubs, great to get him tied down.
Adds to the overall positive direction the club is travelling. I was listening to the Scottish Football podcast from the weekend and interesting to hear an outside perspective from Billy Dodds saying ‘the difference when you visit Starks Park is incredible with the infrastructure’ and that ’we’re now set up to go to the top league’. It shows the level of improvements made and also it is being noticed even by the opposition which can only bode well in terms of attracting players going forward too.
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56 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:
I would be astounded if Scott Tiffoney signed for you. Ultimately, he’s not playing for Dundee because he doesn’t quite suit their (currently successful) system rather than a lack of quality, so if they loan him out I could see him getting another bottom six side no bother. He’s more than proven himself in this division.
Would be some statement signing but
I don’t think we’ll sign Tiffoney either but if he was to leave Dundee on loan in January I would be very surprised if it was to a bottom 6 side in the top flight. Despite having games in hand to get into the top 6, they are only 5 points clear of 11th, they’d be foolish to help out any of the teams below them.
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1 hour ago, Kuma Power said:
Crucially, it would also open up a space to allow us to take another over-21 loan player in, which could help us to strengthen in critical areas for the second half of the season.
I’m pretty sure that rule changed a few years back. Don’t think there are any age restrictions on the number of loans. Think it’s just 4 in total from Scottish clubs and no more than 2 from the same club but @TxRovermay be able to confirm. Still be excellent to get him signed up though.
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I have seen a lot of opposition fans comment after yesterday along the lines of ‘fair play but will interesting to see how they cope when injuries/suspensions kick in’. Now we may fall away for a variety of reasons (my natural Rovers pessimism means I have been expecting it every game since August!) And injuries may play a part in it.
However, it is important to note we have had a lot of injuries to contend with so far. We haven’t had a full squad all season, our club captain has been out since pre season. Jack Hamilton has started only 12 of our 25 games. Our most experienced centre back hasn’t played since September. We have had 2 senior centre backs on pitch for 85 of the last 1,260 minutes of football we have played. Every outfield player has missed a game this season. As recently as a couple of weeks ago we had 5/6 players out.
As said, things can go wrong at any moment, this league is incredibly tight but the run of form so far hasn’t been due to a lot of luck and the same 11 players being able to play week in week out, it’s been a fantastic full squad effort.
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I don’t have a problem with anyone claiming we have a good budget for this level, we do. It’ll be nowhere near Dundee United’s though so to be ahead of them at this stage, when they themselves have had a very strong start, is a great effort.
We also won’t be paying massive wages compared to other sides, we’ll definitely be in the top 4 I’d imagine (as you’d expect given our crowds) but any talk of us having the second biggest budget by a distance is nonsense.
I also find it funny when some Pars fans (not Salvo tbf, he generally seems one of the best Dunfermline posters) claim we are spending huge unsustainable sums on players when they were lining up all summer to tell us Dabrowski was pish, they wouldn’t take Euan Murray back ahead of their current centre backs, Callum Smith was never good enough for this level and there’s no way Shaun Byrne turned them down because they didn’t have any need for him. Now, apparently we’re only doing so well because we have loads of players we can’t afford and everyone expected us to be up there…
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Yet another important game, as they all are now. Exactly the type where complacency can creep in and you get found out if you’re not at your best. We’ve seen it so many times where a team wins a huge game celebrates opening an advantage and then follows it up with dropped points.
Ayr’s results actually seem to be better away from home so this will be a tricky game. If we’re at our best we should win but anything less and we won’t, as we saw against Airdrie. I would bite your hand off right now for another one goal win.
However, I should add to the above that this side have shown no sign of complacency yet this season and we have been playing well in recent weeks (Arbroath aside). 2 upcoming home games against Ayr and Arbroath offers a good opportunity to put ourselves in a strong position going into the New Year, fingers crossed we can put in a couple of good performances and take advantage.
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Fantastic result yesterday, up there with best away days I’ve had following this club. Just a great day out from start to finish.
On the game, I thought United were the better team first half without being particularly threatening. They had more possession and had a couple of half chances whereas we didn’t really create anything, still felt 0-0 was a fair result at half time though but it looked like we lacked a little bit of belief.
Second half, Murray clearly told them to be more positive and I thought from the start of the second half until our goal we were really good. Created a few chances and then an excellent goal by Easton. After that we didn’t have to chase the game and I thought we actually saw it out relatively comfortably. We limited things to a couple of great blocks and 2 excellent saves from Dabrowski but both from outside the box.
Can’t be said enough how impressive an effort it was to get that result yesterday after playing 95 minutes on a heavy pitch on Wednesday night while United had the full week to prepare. Once again Murray got things spot on with his team and tactics. I genuinely think the only mistake he has made this season was risking Watson at Airdrie and even that can be easily forgiven since we’ve not lost a game since!
Not that it really matters but I have no idea what the difference was between the Moult elbow which was deemed a free kick but no card and the Vaughan one literally 30 seconds later which was a yellow card. Also think Sibbald had a couple of offences after his yellow card that probably would have seen him booked if he hadn’t been already.
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United are a strange one. I think most people would agree they have a stronger defence than us. 6 goals conceded after 14 games is very impressive and I thought Declan Gallagher strolled it against us at Starks. On the flip side, we have had to change our defence every week and have been able to field 2 senior centre backs on the pitch at the same time for a grand total of 71 minutes across our last 12 games. As a result it seems we have to score 2 goals every week to get a result (which we’re managing).
However, United have only kept one clean sheet in their last 5 and have only conceded one less than us over the period so there is some encouragement there, albeit their cup results all season seem to be an outlier.
For us, I’m a bit worried that the midweek game and heavy pitch will have taken a bit out of us. Hopefully Murray and Hamilton are fit to come back in. Will be interesting to see what Murray goes with, I don’t think anyone can guess the line up or even the formation. I agree with those on the podcast that 4-2-3-1 with Byrne and Brown seems the sensible option and what I would go with but I have feeling Murray won’t, he always seems to go with the more front foot attacking option. I don’t think he’ll leave Brown out again but can see him keeping him in the back 4 or even returning to the 3 at the back.
I think Murray will play one of Connolly or Mullin because they have done well and both are good defensively to help against the United threat down their left. However, if I was picking a team to get our best players on the park at the moment, I’d probably go with the below with a diamond in the midfield. Don’t think we’ll see it though.
Dabrowski
Millen
Murray
O’Reilly
DickByrne
Brown
StantonEaston
Vaughan
Hamilton0
Airdrieonians v Rovers - 6th January
in Scottish Championship General Chatter
Posted
Don’t think Ian Murray will enjoy these fixtures much. This was the 9th Raith Rovers vs Airdrie match he’s been involved in and he’s yet to win one.