R.R.FC

Will be interested to see what McGlynn does in terms on formation for this one. Been a midfield diamond with 2 up front the last couple of games and we definitely needed to switch things up having become a bit stale and predictable. However, Dundee seemed to get a lot of joy down the wings yesterday so I’m not sure if that will play on McGlynn’s mind to go with wingers again. I hope not though as Dunfermline nullified our wingers very easily at East End. Huge game for both teams given how tight it is for a play off place which makes me favour the draw. I hope I’m wrong but I can see both teams fearing defeat too much to really chase the 3 points. Line up wise I would keep the diamond and go with: MacDonald Tumilty Musonda Bene MacDonald Hendry Matthews Spencer Kennedy Vaughan Gullan However, as above, I’m not sure if McGlynn will be tempted to return to wingers. Also, I think he might be play one of Ugwu/Duku upfront, he likes a physical presence up top and Dunfermline looked vulnerable at set pieces last night too so an extra bit of height could help there. Tait or Spencer is a tough decision but going by McGlynn’s love of rotation, I think with Spencer sitting out yesterday and Tait playing the last 2 they will swap for this one. For Dunfermline, I would expect a reaction from yesterday. It’s hard to imagine that squad of players losing 4 in a row against Championship sides in all competitions. They looked better after their subs yesterday so I’d imagine McManus and Banks are nailed on to come back into the team. Don’t know if Paul Watson will make it after going off last night, it will be a blow for the Pars defensively if he misses out by might be a blessing in disguise for them if it forces Mayo to centre back and they have a proper central midfielder alongside Wilson. I will go for a 1-1 draw, Kennedy for us and McManus for Dunfermline.

It’s amazing what a win can do. Whilst nobody can deny most of the recent performances have been pretty turgid with too many draws, the positive side is we have now only lost 1 of our last 7 and that loss was unlucky even after playing 80 minutes with 10 men. Only 3 goals conceded in that time too. We need to find the right balance again going forward but there are positives to be seen. Bene and Musonda are developing a very good partnership. It wasn’t pretty today but we were able to deservedly win whilst having the likes of Matthews, Kennedy, Gullan, Spencer and Vaughan all on the bench. I don’t think many people would have predicted that or being clear in 2nd place and pretty much safe from relegation with 6 games to go at the start of the season.

2 up top with a midfield diamond of Hendry at the bottom Tait and King and then Armstrong at the top of the diamond? Not what I’d have gone for, looks like McGlynn has one eye on Tuesday night which I understand but today is a very big game and I would have felt a lot more confident with Kennedy and Matthews starting at least. Big risk but if we get the win and have Matthews, Spencer, Kennedy and Vaughan fresh for Tuesday then it’s genius. Big responsibility on Tait/Armstrong to get beyond the strikers or Duku to offer a genuine threat in behind otherwise it will just be cross after cross from the full backs to the two big men in the middle which I’d imagine the 3 Morton centre backs will lap up.

The rest of your post is fair enough but I disagree on the game at Cappielow. It wasn’t a vintage performance by any stretch but it was a very comfortable and deserved win for us. I’d go as far to say I am struggling to remember a more comfortable 1-0 win for us in recent times. We scored early so didn’t have to throw everything at getting another although we still had a some decent chances. Morton literally didn’t even have a shot on target. A 1-0 was a much fairer reflection of the game that a draw would have been.

It must be a rare occurrence in football for some fans to be demanding the sacking of a player with almost 500 appearances for the club and over 11 years of service based on an ongoing investigation where we have no idea what he is alleged to have said and if he has actually said it. He has been stupid for the double red and lost the plot due to, from all evidence I have seen, a ridiculous red card decision from an incompetent ref. He should know better at his age and it’s annoying but it’s hardly a sackable offence. If he is found guilty of the other accusations of discriminatory comments then it will be very difficult to defend and he should go but let the club and the SFA carry out their investigation first and get all the facts and information required before we rush to make judgements either way.

I can imagine VT already has his Ainsley-laden reply drafted for 5pm on Saturday for that OP... On the game, it is true Morton have not laid a glove on us this season. They have been very poor in both matches but I imagine it will be a different story this time around. Appointing an actual football manager seems to have helped them (funny that) and I expect they’ll be a tough test on the back of a couple of decent results. They still look to lack a bit of quality in the final third but they will be organised, hard working and tough to break down. Given our lack of goals in the league recently, it’s hard to be completely confident we’ll find a way through. For Morton, a win could see them in 5th, two points from a promotion play off place. A defeat and they could be 9th in a relegation play off place. This league is wild. A win for us would be huge, stops the rot in terms of 4 league games without a win and a good chance to put pressure on the teams around us with Dundee and Dunfermline playing later on Saturday evening. Getting to 33 points would remove any lingering concerns about being dragged into the relegation play off battle also. McGlynn suggested in last night’s post match interview that the formation we saw last night may be used in some league games. Hard to predict if he will continue with it this weekend or revert back to the usual. Either way I think Matthews, Hendry, Vaughan and Duku will come back in replacing King, Spencer, Gullan and Ugwu. The question mark for me is if Tait keeps his position or if Armstrong returns and that’ll be dependant on the formation. I’d stick with Tait. MacDonald Tumilty Musonda Bene MacDonald Hendry Matthews Tait Kennedy Vaughan Duku I’ll go for us to sneak it 1-0 with Duku back in the goals but I don’t think it’ll be pretty.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56499950 Looks like the Davo disciplinary action may not be over yet.

Dougie Hill was sent off 7 times in his 5 and a half seasons with us so probably a worse disciplinary record than Davo given the time spent at the club. Both aggressive defenders who play on the edge which is both their strength and weakness, it means they were decent defenders for us overall but punctuated with moments of infuriating stupidity. As funny as the Dougie Hill/Falkingham photo is, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more if the incident hadn’t actually put us down to 9 men with 45 minutes to play in a derby we lost.

1. Peter Hetherston 1999-2001 2. Jocky Scott 2001-2002 3. Antonio Calderon 2002-2004 4. Claude Anelka 2004 5. Gordon Dalziel 2004-2006 6. Craig Levein 2006 7. John McGlynn 2006-2012 8. Grant Murray 2012-2015 9. Ray McKinnon 2015-2016 10. Gary Locke 2016-2017 11. John Hughes 2017 12. Barry Smith 2017-2018 13. John McGlynn 2018-Current Day 13 for us, with a few very short reigns (Anelka, Levein, Hughes). Basically you are unlikely to get more than 2 years as Rovers manager unless your name is John McGlynn. Levein, McGlynn and McKinnon are the only 3 to have been ‘poached’ by other clubs and even Levein was due to his reputation rather than the job he was doing with us. The rest have either been sacked or left by ‘mutual consent’.

Agreed, I wouldn’t be risking anyone that is carrying a knock and would try to keep as many fresh as possible for two very important league games coming up with Morton and Dunfermline. However, having not won in 4 and struggling to score goals, we need a win here to lift the confidence going into those games. McGlynn has already said he will rotate the squad again. Does Davo’s ban cover the Scottish Cup? If so, the back 4 picks itself and any rotation will have to be further forward. Hendry is the only player from the midfield/attackers not to be rested at any point so I think this might be the game he sits out. Duku probably did enough yesterday to get another start, he really needs a goal to lift his confidence so I’d pick him again. I don’t think Vaughan can manage two starts so close together at this stage so I’d take him out and keep him fresh for the weekend. I think Robbie Thomson seems to be the cup goalkeeper too. So I’d go something like this: Thomson Tumilty Musonda Bene MacDonald King Spencer Armstrong/Gullan Tait Kennedy Duku I would hope that line up would still be strong enough to get the job done and could leave Jamie MacDonald, Hendry, Matthews, Vaughan and one of Armstrong/Gullan fresh for the weekend. I’d be tempted to keep Matthews in for King but with the greatest of respect to Stirling, who will be a tough test, if we can’t trust King to slot in and do a job against League Two opposition, he shouldn’t be here.

A goal. An Armstrong set piece assist. What is going on!?

He had to literally wrestle the ball off Armstrong too. In fairness, some of Hendry’s corners on Tuesday were excellent.

All sorted now mate, thanks.

Yeah that’s the one, a rare good team performance at that time and we still didn’t win. We dominated most of the game before Baird scored his customary goal against us with a very good strike. The last few games have been disappointing but looking back at that team and season really shows how far we’ve come in 2 years.

Agreed. He is awful but guaranteed to score on Saturday. He did actually score a really good goal for us on his debut, giving us false hope he would be a useful signing.

Based on the two Queen of the South red cards being downgraded to yellows we should definitely be appealing the Davidson red card based on the highlights. If it is overturned it doesn’t really help us massively as it doesn’t change the result from last night and Musonda and Bene should be the starting centre backs. However, it would be good to still have him available. As is the way with the Rovers, we all know if he is suspended for a couple of games a defensive injury amongst our remaining players is guaranteed.

The more I think about it, the more I’m coming round to the idea of a 4-1-2-1-2 (midfield diamond in more straightforward terms). We have been too rigid in recent games. As discussed, the full backs are our sole creative threat. An important part of our early season form was midfielders getting beyond the striker, we haven’t seen that nearly often enough in recent weeks. Ethan Ross, Matthews and Tait were excellent at this earlier in the season. At the moment everything is a bit side to side and pedestrian in front of the opposition which is very easy to defend, we lack a threat in behind. Back 4 and goalkeeper picks itself. I think a midfield diamond of Hendry, Matthews, Tait and Kennedy has good look about it. Hendry at the base of the diamond, our deepest lying midfielder as he has been most of the season. He can still create from there and he fills in the gaps nicely when the full backs get forward which they are both good at would still be required to do in this formation but with hopefully more targets in the box and some of the creative burden lifted by a more flexible and forward thinking midfield. Matthews and Tait have great energy and ability to go box to box. Tait is more technical and creative but both can make dangerous late runs from midfield. I would then have Kennedy/Vaughan at the top of the diamond in a free role behind the strikers, given licence to pick up pockets of space wherever they can and get on the ball as much as possible. The two upfront could be any 2 from 4, I honestly can’t decide. Duku and Gullan are well out of form and there are still big question marks on the quality of Ugwu and Abraham. I’d go something like this: MacDonald Tumilty-Musonda-Bene-MacDonald Hendry Matthews-Tait Kennedy Duku-Gullan

Difficult to add anything on that one. Paco and Raith Against the Machine have already covered all better than I could. Going forward I think 4-2-3-1 is the way to go. Back 4 picks itself, Matthews and Hendry as the two with Armstrong, Vaughan and Kennedy behind the striker. I would give either Gullan or Abraham as the 1 because Duku/Ugwu just aren’t firing. I know McGlynn likes a physical hold up striker but it isn’t working. Gullan may not be suited to play as a sole central striker but him playing there would allow for a very fluid front 4 with all able to play in any of the positions which should be more difficult to defend against. The other option is Abraham, I know many have already written him off as a diddy and the fact McGlynn isn’t giving him any minutes certainly doesn’t inspire confidence he is good enough. However, has he really been that bad in his time on the pitch? He was decent against Dundee, not bad 45 minutes against the Pars before a shocker of a second like the rest of the team. He did okay coming on at Morton but was ineffectual at Arbroath. I’m not ready to write him off quite yet and if McGlynn insists on a physical central striker I’d rather he got another chance at Ayr than Ugwu or Duku right now.

I would certainly go as strong as possible tonight and no way would I be thinking about leaving Hendry and Tumilty out after good performances on Friday. However, we have 3 games a week for the next 4 weeks so I don’t think anyone is going to be able to play every minute of every game. Particularly with McGlynn’s comments about using all of the squad. So regardless of form I think Hendry will sit on the bench for a game and given Musonda is our only real full back cover I think it’s likely he will slot in at left back one game and right back another to give MacDonald and Tumilty a break when required. Tonight, is not the night to be resting key players though, it’s a very important game. We should be going full strength, the Stirling cup game seems the obvious choice to give Hendry and one of the full backs a rest if needed.

Stuart Anderson under Grant Murray is another one. Onto the game, hard to know exactly how we will line up. McGlynn has often spoke about the whole squad being needed for this run of games but I would like to see us go as close to full strength as possible here. Looking at the table, a win would pretty much guarantee safety and put us in a very strong position for top 4, 5 points clear off 5th with a game in hand so it is a very important game. I don’t think we have been particularly bad the last 3 games. JM discussed after the Arbroath game that we were either putting 9/10 performances or 2/10 with nothing really in between. I think the last 3 games have probably seen us average around 6.5/10 not been great but it’s the longest we have gone without a real poor performance since December and a solid base to start building a consistent run of results. As with any run of draws the next game is very important. Win here and we are 4 unbeaten in a strong position for the promotion play offs. Lose and we are 3 without a win and looking nervously over our shoulder. We have missed some good chances in the 0-0 draws, I’m not sure if we’re creating significantly less than earlier in the season we just are being less ruthless. We have given a few teams hammerings this season by being clinical and taking almost all our chances rather than the fact we were creating hundreds of chances every game. I would bring Matthews, Armstrong and Abraham in for King, Gullan and Ugwu but after the line up that nobody predicted on Friday night I don’t know what to expect.

Cheers John.

After a promising start King has been anonymous again. Get Matthews on for him and Armstrong on for Gullan. We’ve been very poor second half.

Given Todorov seems to be winning every header if we keep giving away cheap free kicks in these areas, we will eventually get punished.

Not sure how this is still 0-0, great chances missed by both. Todorov is bullying our two centre backs, Musonda in particular. Positive that Ugwu is getting the chances but the finishing is very poor. We really lock a quality number 9.

Agree with this. Armstrong is clearly off the boil but most wingers out of form at this level would go into hiding. However, to his credit, he has never done that and is always trying to get on the ball but when nothing is working for him it only magnifies the fact he is out of form. I would bring Gullan in for him tomorrow but can see why McGlynn is hoping he will play his way back into form, he was excellent up until the end of January. A wee break would do him good just now though.