R.R.FC

Is there any chance he is just bluffing in the media? Let John McGlynn think the formation will be the same and prepare us to try and exploit the 3-4-3 when Grant is actually going to switch things up and start with a back 4. Or am I giving him too much credit? Given the last time I checked Dunfermline had 7 players capable of playing centre back in a back 3, he has possibly painted himself into a corner with regards to the formation.

Yeah, the two biggest success stories from the academy were Kieron Bowie and Dylan Tait. Pretty sure Tait was released by Partick Thistle a year before signing with us from the Fife academy and Bowie was playing boys club football a year before signing for us. So I understand the clubs logic instead of spending money we don’t have on a full academy, link up with local boys clubs and keeping an eye on youngsters released from other senior clubs should still bear fruit. In theory, by doing this we could still have picked up Bowie and Tait even without FEFA. As said, McGlynn’s knowledge of youth football and player development is second to none at this level so I’m quite comfortable with him having a big say in the best way for the club to progress. He put the foundations of the old academy in place which helped produce the likes of Laidlaw, Mackie, Bates, Matthews, Callachan and Vaughan as well as making us the side to benefit most from FEFA. I feel he’ll make whatever solution we put in place work. If the 400k a year costs of running an academy are true, I’m surprised Dunfermline think that is a viable option for them but if the Germans are happy to pick up the tab, fair play to them.

I can’t remember many cup victories over Premier League opposition at Starks Park in the last 25 years. I can think of a couple of wins over Hamilton and that’s it. Obviously the Pars were the league above us in the 3-0 Scottish Cup game but weren’t a Premier League side. Am I missing anything obvious? Most of our recent cup ‘shocks’ seem to have come away from home strangely enough.

On the game itself I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I have probably been one of the more optimistic fans pre season but given the injuries to Spencer and Vaughan, I didn’t give us any chance of a win. I realise that Aberdeen didn’t really carve us open but I thought we were quite poor first half. Let them control the game and gave them too much respect. The whole team played 5/10 yards further up the pitch second half and it helped immensely. We were superb after half time. Normally cup shocks tend to be backs to the walls or nervy moments but on the balance of play we were deserved winners and we saw the game out comfortably which will hopefully heal some of the Hamilton scars. In terms of individuals, Zanatta was immense (again), impressed with the workrate of Tumilty and Connolly too. Berra strolled it, got his head on everything and handled JET very well overall. I actually quite liked Varian as well. I think if we are playing 1 through the middle without Vaughan in behind then he is better suited than Poplatnik. Credit to BRS as well for his second half showing. I thought he was awful first half and miles off the pace. Poor on the ball and Aberdeen were passing around him at ease. There was one incident in the first half where a simple 1-2 took him clean out the game and but for an excellent block by Berra could have led to a goal. However, he got himself into the game second half and was much better, seemed to play further forward rather than just infront of the back 4 which helped. Still major doubts and overall performance of a 6/10 but I would have subbed him at half time so he deserves credit for an improved performance. Hopefully he can kick on again from this but I do have concerns about him in there during the speed and intensity of a derby on Friday. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Huge game on Friday night. Win and it’s a pretty good start to the league campaign in and around the play off spots with a League cup quarter final. Lose and we could be bottom of the league and the panic starts all over again. I’ve already seen enough to make me think we’ll be fine this season and finish somewhere between 4th-7th but a win on Friday would be huge to kickstart our league form.

Big fan of him twice running off the pitch to kick on an extra ball from the sidelines just to give him enough time to get back into position after forward runs. As you say excellent shitehouse behaviour. On that note, enjoyed Jamie MacDonald’s time wasting at the goal kick in stoppage time.

I know he’s generally excellent and highly thought of but Jason Kerr has been awful tonight, tough lesson for him. Ali McCann absolutely outstanding however, easily St Johnstone’s best player and one of the standouts across both sides. Lots to be proud of over the two legs and still a decent opportunity for European group stage football.

65 minutes gone, 4-0 ahead, top of the league, playing great football, on course for our 5th consecutive clean sheet and excitement building for a successful season ahead with Spencer and Vaughan pulling the strings. 25 minutes later, we’ve conceded 4 to draw the game, lost Brad Spencer for 6 weeks due to a broken foot and Lewis Vaughan for the same period with a cartilage tear and it’s suddenly hard to see when we’ll get our next win. Football eh?

Surprised to see people still slating Connolly and Zanatta, it’s like people have made their mind up on them before a ball was kicked. Yes, we are right to have concerns based on the last few years of their careers, I thought they were both poor signings. However, they should be judged on what they do for us and so far their performances have been pretty good. If they were two unknowns from down south, I think people would be saying we had made two good signings based on what we have seen so far. Understandable to still have reservations given their recent history, they could still turn out poor but to write them off as duds is just completely ignoring how they have played so far in my opinion.

Riley Snow looked well off the pace in his cameo on Saturday but apparently played well against Livingston. Some players struggle to get up to the pace of a game from the bench. I’d give him another go at Inverness. He’s only on a 6 month contract so if we can’t trust him to play for the next few weeks when we are down to the barebones in midfield, as the only natural replacement, you would have to question why he was signed at all. I think McGlynn’s seen enough in training to not write him off after one, admittedly bad, 10 minute sub appearance. If the Livingston version turns up he should be absolutely fine alongside Tait, particularly in a 3-4-3 to cover his lack of mobility IMO. If the Hamilton performance from him is the norm we are in huge trouble until Matthews/Spencer return but I’ll keep the faith for now.

I never watched the announcement. I got a notification on my phone from Sky Sports which said ‘Nicola Sturgeon confirms full capacity crowds in sporting stadia to return in Scotland from August 9’ I just assumed they would be correct. I should have double checked given Sky Sports record of reporting on Scottish football… https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12371798/coronavirus-nicola-sturgeon-confirms-full-capacity-crowds-to-return-in-scotland-from-august-9

Confirmed that full capacity crowds allowed from 9th August. Perfect timing with the derby and then Aberdeen cup tie.

In fairness to Keatings he hasn’t really had much of a chance in the competitive games so far. He has played 60 minutes of football across 3 substitute appearances. He had a few decent efforts in those games and could maybe have had a goal. Not been brilliant but not been awful either. The problem he has is that he is a very similar player to Lewis Vaughan and it looks like they can’t play together meaning they are competing for the same spot in the team. This makes him our 4th choice striker because as long as Vaughan stays fit, he won’t displace him. That’s not a criticism of him but I don’t think there’s many better players in that position in this league than Vaughan. He will be a handy enough option for us through the season I’m sure.

Agreed, we were excellent going forward yesterday. The thing that pleased me most was the variety in our attacking as seen by the different types of goals we scored. Last year, we were obviously excellent to watch but if I had to be critical in any way, we were at times guilty of over playing even if it wasn’t on (see the two home games against Hearts as best examples). Sometimes if the short pass isn’t on and you can’t beat the press a more direct pass isn’t a bad option. Yesterday, we saw chances created from our usual nice interplay between the midfield and front 4 with quick passing football in addition to wing play/crosses which was another regular threat last season. However, as well as that we were not scared to go long to Poplatnik for flick ons or running into the channels when it was on. I’m not sure we score the 2nd or 4th goals last season.

Just about ready to put some thoughts together from yesterday, a quite incredible and embarrassing collapse. Unfortunately, I feel like something like that has been coming for a while. We never make it easy for ourselves. Since McGlynn came back we have seen a 3-2 defeat at home to Stranraer having led 2-0. Draws against Clyde, Arbroath and the Pars having led 2-0 and some near misses such as the 3-2 wins vs Elgin & Hearts as well as 4-3 vs Montrose and 5-3 vs East Fife where comfortable leads have ended in tense finishes. Even the 5-2 wins at Alloa and QOS had very nervy moments before late goals calmed things down. I’m not going to be overly critical despite the above because that type of thing is what has made John McGlynn mk II so exciting to watch. We are always on the front foot looking for goals. We have scored 3 or more 27 times since he came back, that’s 3 or more goals in almost a quarter of the games. However, there comes a point where you just need to be sensible and close a game out but our game management was sorely lacking yesterday. A painful lesson for a young team. In fairness, I thought Blaise for Vaughan was a sensible sub at 4-2. Strengthen the midfield to protect the back 4 and allow us to get our foot on the ball and control the game. However, BRS looked well off the pace. In hindsight, McKay should have come on and saw us go to 5-4-1. Easy in hindsight though, at 4-0 it looked a matter of how many, we were carving Hamilton open and they were offering very little. Lessons will surely be learned from this. I’m sure McGlynn will make the team sit through the last 25 minutes in the video analysis this week to see where it went wrong. The defence has looked very solid in the league cup so hopefully that was the sign of things to come rather than yesterday. However, if not, we still have Musonda and Matthews to comeback who will strengthen us defensively and McKay and Lang are options too. The positives are how good we were for 65 minutes. We all had concerns about our attack and where the goals would come from but that first 65 minutes was as good as anything we produced last season (and we still created good chances after that too). The movement of the front 4 was excellent, Zanatta and Connolly were brilliant. Poplatnik doesn’t look like he’ll score many goals but his hold up and link up play was very good. Early signs of a decent partnership between him and Vaughan who is just a class above. The type of result that either obliterates confidence or galvanises the squad. Let’s hope it’s the latter, looking at our next few fixtures, we’ll really need to be at our best to get anything.

Where’s the ‘most miserable draw’ thread?…

I’m afraid I have cancelled this out by sticking a tenner on Dunfermline. 6/5 for a Pars win seems very generous given the two squads.

Hopefully Matthews is back sooner rather than later, he is such an important player for us. Playing 4-2-3-1 with Tait and Spencer as the 2 is okay in games we dominate the ball against lower league opposition like in the league cup. I like them both, they are very good footballers. However, I am a little concerned it leaves us exposed against the better teams in the league without a more defensive minded player in there. I appreciate they did well together in the home win over Dundee last season but that was followed up by the capitulation at EEP. Will be interesting to see if McGlynn brings in Blaise alongside them to help the defensive side for the game up at Inverness then the derby, as he did for the cup game at Livingston.

In January, half our team were ill with Covid causing a couple of games to be postponed and the rest of the squad and management to isolate. We played Hearts at Tynecastle for our first game in 4 weeks having not trained in 2 weeks and won 3-2. Jamie MacDonald did an interview after the match and was struggling to speak such was the effect that Covid and then the game had on him. So we have seen similar situations before and it’s certainly not impossible Falkirk can still be in a position to get a result on Saturday. We did get skelped by Hearts a few days later as our team were absolutely fucked after the weekends efforts but with a week before your next game there is plenty recovery time. The difference from our situation is we already had a bit of a fixture backlog but at this stage of the season there is plenty time to reschedule. In addition, the lack of training and missed games probably have a bigger effect at this stage as the players don’t have the minutes in the legs and base level of fitness at the same level.

Before McGlynn arrived first time around and ended the hoodoo with a win at Airdrie, we had went 15 years without an opening day win. Since then, our record has been very good, 1 defeat in 14 years. However, that defeat was at home to Hamilton… We have played pretty well in the League Cup, looked solid at the back and created plenty of chances, we are just struggling to finish them off at the moment. I’d imagine it is likely we will see the same line up as Saturday. Good early test to see where we’re at. Hamilton haven’t had a great League Cup campaign but coming down from the Premier League they’ll be looking to hit the ground running. Kieran MacDonald against Tumilty should be an interesting battle. First game at Starks for me since the win over Forfar pre lockdown so looking forward to it. I’ll predict 2-0 Rovers with Vaughan and Connolly getting the goals.

Agree with this. We had almost 50 shots across our 4 league cup games so it’s not like we aren’t creating chances which would be much more concerning. People point to shots on target but two of our best chances on Saturday were shots off target. Varian putting over from a yard and Zanatta skying from 6 yards in the first half. We played against a side who camped in their half and defended for their lives and we still found openings and created multiple chances on Saturday. There were 2 or 3 genuine sitters that go in 90% of the time and if they do, we view the game totally differently. We certainly aren’t toothless in terms of creating chances which is encouraging but we do need to start converting more which is where, the legitimate, concern about our striking options comes from. However, strikers are confidence players more than any position, a couple of goals and they can look different players. If Varian/Keatings/Poplatnik can get off the mark early in the league they may well kick on. I don’t see us having the budget to bring in another striker so we have to hope they do.

Might as well give this a go with less than a week till the first game although I think every team is still looking to add to their squad. 1. Kilmarnock - I see Kilmarnock and Dunfermline as the only realistic league winners. Given the edge to Killie on the basis Tommy Wright is a better manager than Peter Grant as well as the talk about Killie keeping the same playing budget as last season which should mean the remaining quality they add to their squad makes all the difference. 2. Dunfermline - Their attacking midfield and striking options look the best in the league at the moment. I think the middle of the park looks light from a defensive side if Wilson is out for any length of time. Also, they were a decent side on paper last season but their Achilles heel appeared to be in goals and in the dugout. I’m not convinced that Mehmet and Grant represent a sizeable enough upgrade on OFW and Crawford to see them win the league at the moment but I think they’ll definitely be improved and in the mix. 3. Partick Thistle - TBH, after the top 2, I think the next 5/6 sides are probably in with a shout or a top 4 spot. Thistle look suspect defensively but in Smith, Turner, Tiffoney, Graham and Rudden they should have enough firepower to stay in the top half of the league. Champions from League One always tend to have a good first season up. 4. Raith Rovers - I see us as finishing somewhere between 4th-7th. Defensively we look sound but think we are lacking a bit in the final third to push any higher than 4th. A lot will depend on the fitness of Lewis Vaughan. We have a few relative unknowns in Poplatnik, Varian and Riley-Snow along with players relying on the coaching of McGlynn to recapture previous form in Keatings, Zanatta and Connolly. That’s a lot of what ifs and why I can’t see us higher than 4th and worry we could get dragged a bit lower. However, MacDonald, Musonda, Bene, Tumilty, Matthews, Spencer, Tait and Vaughan is a good nucleus from the side that did so well last season so I still feel we have enough about us to stay out any serious relegation trouble. 5. Inverness - Another side that is hard to predict, mainly due to the fact I have no idea what Billy Dodds will be like as a manager. Gardyne and McKay look like good signings but Broadfoot is underwhelming. Interesting to see if they get the Duku from the first few months of the season or the empty jersey we saw in the last 6 months. Hedging my bets putting them in mid table but they look to have enough quality in the squad to be pushing up the way rather than down. 6. Hamilton - The biggest unknown for me. I didn’t see much/any of them last season and looking at their team from Saturday there are so many youngsters it is difficult to predict the quality of their squad. They usually tend to do better than I expect but I’ll go for 6th, probably with a decent end to the season after a change of manager half way through. 7. Ayr - They will be hard working, organised and horrible to watch but probably horrible to play against too. The quality (or lack of) in this league means a limited but hardworking side can actually do quite well. Relying on unknowns for the key attacking positions which is a gamble and will obviously be in big trouble if they don’t work out but I think they’ll be fine. 8. Arbroath - Same back 4 for about 100 years now. Solid and experienced side and if they can keep him fit, Low will be an important addition. No problems back to middle but the same problem for them every season in that, aside from Bobby Linn, they lack quality in the final third. Reliant on loan signings again to get them goals but Campbell knows what he’s doing and will see them safe again. 9. Queen of the South - QOS fans seem a lot more positive than they did before last season and they’ve had a decent League Cup campaign so this prediction could look very silly at the end of the season. However, my prediction is basically just based on the fact I don’t know a lot of their players. A lot of unknown quantities in terms of signings from the lower leagues and down south and the squad at the moment looks very light and inexperienced which will be a problem if they don’t get off to a good start. 10. Greenock Morton - Can only judge on games against us but they were the poorest side I watched us play last season and I was surprised they stayed up in the end. They don’t look to have made any significant upgrades to the side and look like they will have the same struggles scoring goals as last season. I’m not really convinced any of those predictions will be right tbh, the league looks very open and competitive this season. Tl;dr version: I would probably realistically group the league into 3 sections. 1. Title Contenders (Killie, Dunfermline) 2. Play off contenders (Partick Thistle, Raith Rovers, Inverness, Hamilton) 3. Relegation Fight (Ayr, Arbroath, Queen of the South, Morton) There is always usually a side that surprises by being better or worse than most people expected. I can see a side moving up or down one of the above groups (I.e Ayr to play off contenders) but no chance any side moves up/down two groups.

I’d say it is absolutely inconceivable we would lose away to Alloa…but only because we are playing them at home. Doubt any Rovers fans are taking that one as a certainty.

Only listened to the BBC commentary but sounds like a draw was a fair result over the 90 with us better in the first half and Livi the second. Draw leaves us in a good position, hopefully get the job done on Saturday. Still very early doors and I don’t like to read much into this tournament but definitely positives to take with the commentators impressed by Riley-Snow who should only get better with fitness and minutes under his belt. Another clean sheet for Berra and Bene as well. Musonda, Lang, Matthews, Fotheringham (probably), Keatings and Poplatnik still to add to the squad too. Pretty sure the first year of the group stages we went into our last game at home to Alloa on the back of a draw away to Premier League opposition knowing a win would see us progress. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself…

If we followed that policy we would never have signed Musonda, Ugwu or Duku last year who all contributed in some way to a very enjoyable season.

In fairness to Fotheringham, if he does sign, I’d not really judge him on his time at Falkirk. They were a basket case of a football club last season in free fall to 5th in League One. He was a 17/18 year old making his first senior appearances. Also, the style of football we play is a million miles away from the hoofball Falkirk played last season. I’d imagine a young winger/attacking midfielder like him would be far better suited to our way of playing. Young players develop very quickly at that age. I remember being underwhelmed when we brought Jamie Gullan back for a second spell a few months after his fairly forgettable first spell but he was like a different player. I’d probably have preferred another midfielder/winger in the ‘proven’ category. In McGlynn we trust but we do look like we’re going to be heavily reliant on his ability as a coach unlocking the potential of several of our new signings, most appear to be joining with mixed reviews which is never ideal. However, we’ve seen with MacDonald, Tumilty recently and Tade, Graham etc in the past he is definitely capable.