R.R.FC

Barry Ferguson viewed as the Scottish David Beckham is a highlight for me. I don’t think Nando will ever be good enough for us. However, what can’t be denied is he seems a really nice guy and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a player to succeed more.

The whole argument is pretty pointless but posting a disciplinary table as a measure of a physical approach is impressive levels of stupidity. Burnley had a better disciplinary record than Man City last season FFS. Anyone who has watched the two teams play, it is pretty obvious we play better, easier on the eye, football than Arbroath. As a Rovers fan, I really enjoy watching us. However, I’m sure the Arbroath fans couldn’t care less. The football they play is effective and has worked unbelievably well for them the last few seasons. It’s not like they play the eye bleeding type hoofball seen by Hopkin at Ayr. They just get the ball forward quickly and try to play their football in the final third. Arbroath remind me of McGlynn’s side in his first spell. I certainly enjoy watching us under McGlynn second time around a lot more. However, there is a lot to enjoy about a well organised, hard working side fighting for every point, being a real team and making the absolute most of their ability.

Agree with this but we are already safe. Arbroath and Morton still have to play each other on the last day so they can’t both get the points required to catch us.

Am I right in thinking the TV deal is for 2 matches to be shown at every ground? In which case, our game against Hearts on the last day of the season will be the one chosen as we have only had one home game on the BBC so far and the Hearts game is the only opportunity left. I think every other team has had two home TV games either played or confirmed for selection.

Cheers guys. Yeah I thought it seemed an odd one given his performances for us but he was fairly young and hadn’t played much senior football before he arrived at Dumbarton so I’d imagine the player he is now isn’t what Dumbarton saw. He’s an excellent footballer on his day for us (see his assist for our first goal against the Pars last week) but I think the likes of Hendry, Tait and Matthews probably compliment and bring the best out of him. Not sure if it is of interest to Sons fans but knowing both are held in high regard amongst your support, Reghan Tumilty has been an excellent signing for us and Lewis Vaughan is back fit and scoring goals looking like he has never been away again. Fingers crossed he stays fit. All the best for the rest of the season.

What was the story with Spencer at Dumbarton? Did he not show enough in his appearances? Or did Duffy just not fancy him? He’s been a really good signing for us.

Any particular reason you have left out the period to May 2020 where we ran at a profit? Genuine question, not sure whether you couldn’t find it or just left it out because it didn’t suit your point. Anyway, you won’t find any Rovers fan disagreeing that we have been woefully mismanaged off the field for large spells of the last 25 years as well as many spells on the field too. However, we now seem to have people in charge who having us moving in the right direction and on course for 2 years profit in a row despite the difficulties of the pandemic. Kind of shows we are ‘living within our means’ now. I can’t say I know much about Arbroath but for most of my life they have been at least a division below us or relegation fodder when we have shared a league so I assume the current spell is one of the best of their recent history? They seem to be well run off the pitch so all credit to them for that. As Arbroath have shown in recent seasons, if a small part time team is well managed on and off the pitch, it is possible for them to outperform a basket case full time team who is mismanaged. However, it isn’t billy big time or an ‘inability to accept reality’ to say we are a bigger team than the likes of Arbroath/Alloa and should expect to finish above them. More often than not we have, even whilst we have been poorly managed and I can’t see that changing any time soon. There will always be 2/3 season spells where teams outperform their natural level as Arbroath have the last couple of seasons (and the likes of Stirling/Brechin/Cowdenbeath have in the recent past) but history shows it’s unlikely to be sustained.

If MacDonald, Gullan and Matthews are fit and we play our strongest line we should win. However, I’m not sure how likely it is those 3 will be available. Also, I worry McGlynn might try to rotate the squad again with one eye on QOS a few days later. If so, another Morton/Ayr/Inverness home game could certainly be on the cards with Arbroath being stuffy, well organised and working hard and chances at a premium with 0-0 or 1-0 either way looking likely. Hopefully we go as strong as possible, a win could be huge with QOS and Inverness playing each other. A draw there and a win for us and we would be in a very, very strong position for the play offs.

I have no problem with MacDonald going long from goal kicks when Livi’s press is cutting off the short pass but we really need to push the centre backs up when we do it. Twice the centre backs have been on the goal line, we’ve went long, Livi centre half wins the header and Livi’s attacking players have it in acres of space 20/25 years out. Minor gripe from a solid start though.

Yup, MacDonald and Matthews are massive losses and my confidence in our chances is now pretty much gone. Much prefer they miss today than a league game though, let’s hope they are both back for Arbroath. As much his name on the team sheet doesn’t inspire much confidence these days, I am chuffed for Davo to get his 500th appearance, superb landmark.

Yeah if that’s to replace Musonda it’s a bit underwhelming, although more than happy to trust McGlynn. His work in the transfer market the last couple of seasons has been very good for the most part and with a very young squad, Berra’s experience could be crucial. On a more positive note, if we can convince Musonda to re-sign as well then Lang and Berra look pretty sizeable upgrades on Mendy and Davo.

Comes with a similar game plan yet plays a different formation and completely different personnel. Yeah, I thought that was odd. Came with a similar game plan but left out Iain Wilson, who I thought was man of the match at East End Park and the key part of that game plan. I know there were other changes but given the game was always likely to be decided by the middle of the park battle, Wilson was the one name I was delighted to see on the bench.

Crawford himself said after the match: ‘We came into the game with a similar game plan to the last time. That doesn’t guarantee that it is going to work but that was probably one of our better performances of the season at East End when we won 4-1.’ Kind of sums up the Dunfermline fan’s frustration with him. Approaching with the same game plan because it worked 2 months ago, completely ignoring the fact our personnel and formation would be totally different to that night.

Yeah I think today is the last day we can sign loan players so hopefully just cheap squad filler planning ahead, in case Davidson gets a longer ban after his hearing rather than because of any injury issue with the current back 4.

Regan Hendry after the 5th ‘15 minutes, fucking get another!’

These are the games that Regan Hendry and Lewis Vaughan have started together and completed under John McGlynn without being injured/sent off: 5-1 win vs Dumbarton 4-0 win vs Peterhead 1-1 draw vs Ayr 5-1 win vs Dunfermline I will blame the Ayr game on the horrendous pitch!

I remember a lot of fans in League One laughing at us and wondering why the vast majority of Rovers fans retained faith in McGlynn towards the end of that season...

Incredible performance by us, as good a performance as I can remember seeing. Dunfermline were awful but we certainly contributed to that in a big way with our approach to the game. Totally dominant from start to finish. Great energy and pressing from the front and excellent in possession with superb passing and movement. Some cracking goals too. There wasn’t a failure in the entire team, seems almost unfair to single out players but I’m going to anyway! Vaughan and Gullan could finally be the solution to our striking problems, they linked superbly and it’s just brilliant to see Vaughan back to his best, let’s hope he stays fit. However, I thought the best player on the park was Regan Hendry he totally controlled the game and was imperious, a fabulous footballer and we just have to enjoy every game we have him for. Great to see how desperate the players were to make up for the embarrassment at East End Park, just a shame we couldn’t be there to enjoy it. Credit to McGlynn for leaving out the physical striker. Got his selection and formation spot on. Crawford really had no answer, a couple of formation changes, 3 subs and couldn’t work out how to counteract it. He really is out of his depth. Petrie seems the obvious choice for Dunfermline and I think he would get that squad of players firing but I hope Crawford gets a little longer obviously. Fair play to the Pars fans who have taken it very well, rather disappointingly.

Excellent first 45 from us, in complete control and deservedly a couple of goals ahead. Would expect a reaction from Dunfermline second half, was glad to see Wilson on the bench, he dominated the game at EEP. I’d expect to see him soon. More of the same from us please but I have been watching the Rovers too long to think this is over. Dunfermline will be much improved and hard for us to maintain that tempo second half. Would bite your hand off for 3-2 at full time right now.

Yeah his loan signings are usually excellent. That and his ability to develop and get the best out of players who either haven’t reached their potential or are a bit down on their luck are his biggest strengths. The likes of Tade, Brian Graham and Kevin Nisbet previously and Reghan Tumilty this season. Hopefully he can manage the same with James Keatings and Zanatta next year. The academy is another advantage of McGlynn. Last time he ripped it up and started again. The likes of Laidlaw, Bates, Callachan, Vaughan, Matthews, Mackie and McKay were all products of the system he put in place. This time around we have already sold Bowie who is scoring for fun in the Fulham under 18’s and Tait looks a great prospect with a few younger ones in the pipeline. I won’t hijack the Falkirk thread with any more Rovers chat but I hope Falkirk can get their academy up and running again. You were well known for your production of talented youngsters and it helps give a club an identity rather than an endless line of overpaid mercenaries who you struggle to remember a few years down the line like you have suffered in recent years and we were subjected to under Gary Locke and Barry Smith.

The standard in the Championship isn’t great but it is still a decent step up from League One. We’ve had a good season so far but we added 10 new players this season. We were also fortunate in that nearly all McGlynn’s summer signings have contributed massively. In addition, players like Hendry and Armstrong missed large spells with injury last season but have been key players and available nearly all of this season so the team does have quite a different look to last season’s. The likes of Declan McManus and Ray Grant are good examples of the step up. Both amongst the best players at this level last season but both have struggled in the Championship. Alloa fans would like to see Grant benched and McManus has only scored 3 goals from open play all season (2 against us, which I am sure he will add to tonight!). However, Falkirk will clearly add to their squad if they go up and if you get 5/6 good quality additions there is no reason you won’t be competing for the promotion play offs. Whether you have faith in Miller and McCracken to get those signings right is another story, I am not sure what their signing record has been like.

As with any new signing, I will give him a chance but not overly impressed by that one. Seems a bizarre signing. Didn’t particularly rate him last time aside from a brief burst of form before he was temporarily recalled by Hearts in January. Had a good season at Alloa but struggled at Partick Thistle and Ayr more recently. He definitely has ability though and is still relatively young so will be interesting to see if McGlynn can get the best out of him. Our style of football this time around will definitely suit him more than Barry Smith’s hoofball. Looking at it optimistically Ayr United and Mark Kerr seem to have struggled to get the potential out of a few of their attacking players. Look at the difference in Bruce Anderson and Innes Cameron after they left. However, I wouldn’t have high expectations of Zanatta being anything other than a squad player. I don’t think there’s much chance of us going up this season and the squad retentions and signings so far all look decent for Championship level but we’d be in a bit of bother if we actually went up.

You’re right, I don’t know what he’s thinking but I can only go on what I have seen, in terms of playing time awarded by the manager since he joined. King has only completed one 90 minutes since he joined, a cup game against League Two opposition. We have played 11 games in that time. If you are looking at minutes played of our 5 central midfielders since King joined it would look like this (Remember that in the period since King joined, Matthews has missed 4 games injured, Hendry 2 through suspension and Spencer and Tait have missed one game each whilst King has been available for every game): Hendry: 720 minutes Spencer: 602 minutes Tait: 495 minutes Matthews: 404 minutes King: 304 minutes Which proves to me where McGlynn views King in the pecking order. King is also the only one to miss out on a place in the 18 when fit. Also worth noting that since our run of midweek games began, due to McGlynn’s rotation, only Hendry and Kennedy have started 3 games in a row from our midfield/attackers. Having started the last 2 games King will drop out here.

Fully prepared for this to come back and make me look stupid but I am surprised at the amount of people worried King will start tomorrow. I think there is 0% John McGlynn starts him and I would actually be surprised if he even makes the squad. He is the weakest of our 5 central midfield options and McGlynn knows that. He’ll play certain games as McGlynn continues to rotate the squad but not a game as important as this.

As above there were many factors which contributed to our hammering in the last derby. Musonda and Davo had shockers and the ball didn’t stick up front. These issues will hopefully be improved with Bene and Musonda looking promising and Abraham out the side. Despite this, I thought the biggest issue last time was the midfield. We lined up with a midfield two of Tait and Spencer and played the last half hour with King and Spencer as a two who are probably our 4th and 5th choice central midfielders although Spencer was one of the only players to get pass marks. Usually Hendry/Matthews provide some dig and defensive security in midfield and will cover the gaps left when our full backs push forward. However, without them, that didn’t happen leaving huge spaces for Dunfermline to exploit and Iain Wilson, in particular, dominated the midfield giving Dunfermline control. With Hendry and Matthews back and probably a 3 in the middle we should be better placed to compete. Ultimately, I think man for man Dunfermline have a better players so if they turn up and play to their best it will be difficult. However, the league table shows they aren’t doing that as often as they should be. I am hopeful it won’t be as one sided as last time, we are definitely capable of getting the win and Dunfermline are not in good form, particularly away from home so that gives me hope we can sneak it but I thought that going into the game at EEP.