The New Raith Rovers Thread

[baillieinleeds]

Thomson
?
 
Murray
Davo
Bene
McKay
Watson
Valentine
 
Flanagan
Milne
Gillespie
Matthews
Wedderburn
Vaughan
Berry
Stevenson
 
Buchanan
Nisbet
Duggan

Tbh, this looks not too bad. I’m really happy to see Valentine, Berry and Stevenson in the first time. Nisbet and Flanagan are unknown quantities. Not as meh as I thought. It’s just Father Stones one dimensional hoofball I’m worried about. Is this the only Tactic the Largs Mafia have in their management training textbook

[Wardy]

At this level basically everything is a gamble. 

[The Moonster]

15 minutes ago, Been going too long said:

agree with all of that, squad looking decent and think they will surprise us COYR

Can I ask, what would surprise you this year?  For me you guys still heavy favourites (I know the bookies odds don't agree) for the title. You've made some excellent signings in Gillespie and Wedderburn and if you've still got 3 senior players to add to that group then I suspect you'll have too much for anyone else in the league. Seems a decent mix of youth and experience too. The closest part time team to you last year was 15 points behind you and you've still got your top scorer, seemingly with a better base playing behind them now too.  There's been a few jokes from Dumbarton fans (and Raith fans tbf) about handing us the title but I genuinely think Raith will canter it this year. The surprising thing would be if you failed to win the league.

[GhostZapper]

On ‎28‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 19:37, Typicalrovers said:

I hear Nathan Flanagan was training with us. Got offered a contract today and when he heard the wages on offer got his stuff and duly fucked off.

McHattie’s in the frame for a game and Vaughan is injured and could be out for weeks/ months.

Happy Days.

Strange.... certainly doesn't seem to have f*cked off, and can't have been that bad now he's signed for us!

[RRFC1989]

I personally can see us having a better season. The lack of goals last season was due to a lack if creativity, with Vaughan being played too deep to influence to forwards. With the likes of Gillespie and Wedderburn at the heart of the midfield allows Vaughan to sit further forward and hopefully create more chances and better his own tally for goals.

[Raithie]

5 minutes ago, GhostZapper said:

Strange.... certainly doesn't seem to have f*cked off, and can't have been that bad now he's signed for us!

He's only signed til January, there's obviously something going on that he's not signed for any longer than that and I've a feeling that this is what he wants in the hope he can land a better club in the next transfer window.

Edited July 11, 2018 by Raithie

[GhostZapper]

Just now, Raithie said:

He's only signed til January, there's obviously something going on that he's not signed for any longer than that and I've a feeling that this is what he wants in the hope he can land a better gig in the January transfer window.

Absolutely agree. I imagine this was a compromise - He was part of a St Mirren squad that won the title, yet he was nowhere near the first team. He  feels he was worth more (without having proved it) and if nothing else, in the first half of the season he will feel he has something to prove. If he does, he deserves a wee boost in wage either from us, or a contract elsewhere!

However its a far cry away from the clearly false claims made about us offering crap money and the player "f*cking off" as a result.

[GhostZapper]

45 minutes ago, Rover1990 said:

It's not a given yet but I think we should be ok goals wise.  Duggan scored 15 for East Fife playing upfront on his own all season with no real service.  Buchanan has goals in him if we can get the right service to him and Milne should hopefully add some goals from midfield.  Fingers crossed it all works out.

I'd add Gillespie to that list - he looked very capable of getting forward and hovering on the edge of the box v the Pars in the pre season game.

[Tom Hagen]

Rovers certainly adding to the East Fife connection list.
Having watched Flanagan at East Fife I’ll sum him up as a Bobby Barr without the attitude

[Dazzle]

Can I ask, what would surprise you this year?  For me you guys still heavy favourites (I know the bookies odds don't agree) for the title. You've made some excellent signings in Gillespie and Wedderburn and if you've still got 3 senior players to add to that group then I suspect you'll have too much for anyone else in the league. Seems a decent mix of youth and experience too. The closest part time team to you last year was 15 points behind you and you've still got your top scorer, seemingly with a better base playing behind them now too.  There's been a few jokes from Dumbarton fans (and Raith fans tbf) about handing us the title but I genuinely think Raith will canter it this year. The surprising thing would be if you failed to win the league.

I get the fact your trying to play down your chances a little but there is no way anyone can see us as heavy favourites for the league, we've made very meh signings on the whole whereas Dumbarton have made quite a lot of good signings for this league. We may get over the line due to being part time/ a few real quality players but were no where near heavy favourites.

[The Moonster]

1 minute ago, Dazzle said:

I get the fact your trying to play down your chances a little but there is no way anyone can see us as heavy favourites for the league, we've made very meh signings on the whole whereas Dumbarton have made quite a lot of good signings for this league. We may get over the line due to being part time/ a few real quality players but were no where near heavy favourites.

I'm genuinely not trying any sort of psychology here (it would be utterly pointless on a football forum for fans anyway), both full time teams finished at least 15 points ahead of the next best team last year, who have you lost from last seasons squad that will be such a big miss? Of course things can go wrong and the season can be a disaster but if I was a Raith fan I'd be expecting to win this league by a decent margin, looking at the squads around the division you still have the strongest IMO.  We have made good signings but we'll have a squad of 17 which will contain the likes of Ross Perry, Andy Little (apparently) and an out of retirement Iain Russell as back up. We don't have the depth to win this league IMO, I fully expect us to make the play-offs though given who we've signed.

[renton]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

Can I ask, what would surprise you this year?  For me you guys still heavy favourites (I know the bookies odds don't agree) for the title. You've made some excellent signings in Gillespie and Wedderburn and if you've still got 3 senior players to add to that group then I suspect you'll have too much for anyone else in the league. Seems a decent mix of youth and experience too. The closest part time team to you last year was 15 points behind you and you've still got your top scorer, seemingly with a better base playing behind them now too.  There's been a few jokes from Dumbarton fans (and Raith fans tbf) about handing us the title but I genuinely think Raith will canter it this year. The surprising thing would be if you failed to win the league.

We don't. We'll add a keeper and probably that'll be it.

[The Moonster]

3 minutes ago, renton said:

We don't. We'll add a keeper and probably that'll be it.

Still think Raith's squad + full time will prove too much for the rest.

[GhostZapper]

Just a reminder that tickets on sale for the Hearts game to ST holders today. I might be wrong, but overheard someone in the background saying "900 each" -  which wouldn't be far away from capacity.

[WSDR 88]

Going to get my Hearts ticket after work. That’ll be my first game of the season. I’ll just listen to the Cowden game on RaithTV.

[Beachbum]

 

[Raithie]

43 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I'm genuinely not trying any sort of psychology here (it would be utterly pointless on a football forum for fans anyway), both full time teams finished at least 15 points ahead of the next best team last year, who have you lost from last seasons squad that will be such a big miss? Of course things can go wrong and the season can be a disaster but if I was a Raith fan I'd be expecting to win this league by a decent margin, looking at the squads around the division you still have the strongest IMO.  We have made good signings but we'll have a squad of 17 which will contain the likes of Ross Perry, Andy Little (apparently) and an out of retirement Iain Russell as back up. We don't have the depth to win this league IMO, I fully expect us to make the play-offs though given who we've signed.

You've touched on some interesting points. For the most part I was happy at the players we released. At a push I'd have maybe kept Spence and if we could of gotten Furtado fit again he'd have been a handy player to have although the complications surrounding being able to actually to sign him would have meant he'd have been a no go anyway. I'm probably in the minority but I'd have kept Lennox as well seen as we're now scrambling for a keeper and only appear to have one keeper on our books at the moment. 

I think the expectation is to win the league, no way could we go through another playoff situation but there's the easy way and the Rovers way. The assumption last season was it would be between us and Ayr and that's how it transpired but we saw time and time again, from both teams actually, that when the opportunity came to take hold of things and run away with the league we'd screw it up. I'm expecting another roller coaster season and if we did somehow win the league by a decent margin I'd be surprised. 

We don't have much depth either and it's inevitable we'll get hit with injuries/suspensions and the dreaded winter drop in form. We're already nursing injuries to key players just now, Vaughan being one of them, with talk of him missing the start of the season . The doom and gloom, which is common within our support, is a mixture of things either through uninspiring signings and/or the style of football people 'assume' we'll be playing this coming season or lack of faith in Smith after some questionable performances/tactics/team selections last season. As you've mentioned though we finished well ahead of the other part time teams last season and whilst in individual games there doesn't look to be much between full time and part time over the course of a 36 game season there is clearly some difference. I know people will look at our games against Alloa in the playoffs but I think we were mentally fucked after that last game that could of secured us the title. I've harped on about this before but there's only been 2 part time teams that have won this league since we last won it back in 2009.

I'm in the 'things look ok' camp just now. I've yet to see us in pre-season but think our signings look not to bad on paper. I've not really been keeping up to date with other teams squads, minus Dumbarton for some reason, so it would be ignorant of me to write off teams like Airdrie or Arbroath as being contenders. 

[Broken Algorithms]

2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Can I ask, what would surprise you this year?  For me you guys still heavy favourites (I know the bookies odds don't agree) for the title. You've made some excellent signings in Gillespie and Wedderburn and if you've still got 3 senior players to add to that group then I suspect you'll have too much for anyone else in the league. Seems a decent mix of youth and experience too. The closest part time team to you last year was 15 points behind you and you've still got your top scorer, seemingly with a better base playing behind them now too.  There's been a few jokes from Dumbarton fans (and Raith fans tbf) about handing us the title but I genuinely think Raith will canter it this year. The surprising thing would be if you failed to win the league.

I can understand your view, but for all we were 15 points ahead last season of 3rd place, we still got utterly ruined by Alloa in the playoff. We had a very strong start to the season, but then we completely lost any semblance of good football and were hoofing it long from October onwards. We took 3 points from 4 games at Station Park and Cliftonhill. Where teams have sat deep and defended in numbers, we've shown in the past we've run out of ideas quickly and Smith doesn't have a plan B.

Gillespie is an excellent signing for this level, and Wedderburn should be reasonable enough. Milne did very well for Montrose, but he's going to need to be excellent at breaking down teams who will pack defences. Keeping Murray and Benedictus was vital for us too.  Aside from Milne and Vaughan, we have very little in the way of creativity in the team. Signings like Nisbet and Flanagan come in and they've hardly set the heather alight at their past clubs (admittedly, the market is a bit limited when you're the lowest rank full time club in the country).

Even if we win the league, we're in a very uninspired state at the moment. From my point of view, the fans are grudgingly accepting that we've got Smith for another year. We played some truly rancid football at the end of last season. Part of that comes down to the players, but the manager hardly did himself any favours (Vaughan in centre mid, throwing in McHattie and Benedictus against Ayr when they weren't fit before going 2-0 down and still playing 5 in midfield, playing a full strength team against highland league jobbers in the Challenge Cup, only to lose Lennox to injury for months).

I'm more than happy to give Flanagan and Nisbet a chance. We've had plenty of players come in, where we've been told they're not good, for them to prove everyone wrong (Brian Graham, Dougie Hill, Grant Murray) but I'm not expecting any miracles.

Edited July 11, 2018 by Broken Algorithms

[Been going too long]

2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Can I ask, what would surprise you this year?  For me you guys still heavy favourites (I know the bookies odds don't agree) for the title. You've made some excellent signings in Gillespie and Wedderburn and if you've still got 3 senior players to add to that group then I suspect you'll have too much for anyone else in the league. Seems a decent mix of youth and experience too. The closest part time team to you last year was 15 points behind you and you've still got your top scorer, seemingly with a better base playing behind them now too.  There's been a few jokes from Dumbarton fans (and Raith fans tbf) about handing us the title but I genuinely think Raith will canter it this year. The surprising thing would be if you failed to win the league.

I think the team will do better than a lot of rovers fans think it will that's the surprise, another 2horse race Imo between ourselves and Dumbarton but I hope/ think we will edge it

 

[Raithie]

20 minutes ago, Beachbum said:

 

All that's missing is a highlights reel and we've got Yaw Osei levels of trying to big someone up. The article loosely translates to 'does well in development games but heehaw else when called to play in the first team'.

I jest. Hopefully he can do the business for us.