The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Raithie]

So, the Falkirk AGM seems to have gone swimmingly. Per the Falkirk thread, changes on the Board, a new Chairman who castigated the fans behavior, much discussion of changes and plan, but little concrete data of their plans. It seems that there is little, if any, money for team changes in January (though there is £160,000 inbound in January for Vaulks, but they bled out almost £400,000 last year). , and the BoD is instead expecting 10-15% more effort from the players. Sounds like this may be the chance we need to take advantage of! Falkirk seem to be vulnerable this year, thanks to McKinnon’s cunning team design.

Lets just concentrate on our own team.

[Frank conner]

Lets just concentrate on our own team.

Didn't realise there was very little to do in Texas.

[renton]

18 minutes ago, Frank conner said:

1 hour ago, Raithie said:

Lets just concentrate on our own team.

Didn't realise there was very little to do in Texas.

I think it very much depends on how much you like Brisket...

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, renton said:

I think it very much depends on how much you like Brisket...

We can move the argument about the correct meat to BBQ to the General threads...

6 hours ago, Raithie said:

Lets just concentrate on our own team.

 

Exactly what I’m doing. It now appears likely that Falkirk will not make any significant changes in the January window, so we need to evaluate how our two/three games against them have gone and if we need to seek anything to try to ensure we top them In the table. Overall, we are reasonably matched with them, but we have a thinness in the back and our middle is a pretty even match with ours clearly better when Gomis is absent.

5 hours ago, Frank conner said:

6 hours ago, Raithie said:

Didn't realise there was very little to do in Texas.

Sitting in a waiting room does that...but not as much as with the NHS. Of course, you don’t have to mortgage the house for a sticking plaster.

[Wee Sandy]

10 hours ago, Raithie said:

 

Lets just concentrate on our own team.

 

The guy has his neb in everybody's Club!!

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, Wee Sandy said:

The guy has his neb in everybody's Club!!

Nah, but the spectacular car crash nature of Falkirk this season has made it a fun read. On a related note, looks like the SFA decided to put a relative grown-up referee in charge for Saturday, Alan Muir.

[Jilted John]

Nah, but the spectacular car crash nature of Falkirk this season has made it a fun read. On a related note, looks like the SFA decided to put a relative grown-up referee in charge for Saturday, Alan Muir.

Can you furnish me with a few stats regarding Alan Muir’s refereeing this season please?

[Hottoddy22]

2, I agree with this John, against Falkirk even when we had the man advantage we didn't leave a man on the half way line, and that makes no sense to me at all. I get there's a philosophy that you pack the box to deny space but surely we'd be better to leave someone like Dingwall or Armstrong on the half way when defending a corner, they aren't much use in man marking and it always makes the attacking team keep 2 players back and it gives you half a chance of an outball without it coming straight back at you.
3. Perhaps we did plan to exploit them, unfortunately they changed shape with the arrival of Gomes, it put us on the back foot and they capitalised until we eventually got to grips with what they'd done.
 
Point 1.
The only time I'll agree with you there John is when we have faced teams (Peterhead especially) who've played a high press and prevented us playing it out. Falkirk tried that on Saturday but the man advantage allowed us to get around it and play out.  Playing the ball on the deck and retaining possession until an opening appears is the style of football favoured by all of the great sides in the last 50 years (and I'm not suggesting we are in any way a great side as we aren't) and is a total contrast to the kick and rush (Hoofball) game that virtually every Raith fan moaned like hell about for the last 3 seasons.
I appreciate in an ideal world there would be a nice balance but at the end of the day this is the third tier in Scotland and it aint too likely, so just make your mind up John what's it to be? direct (Hoofball) or patient build up (sideways epidemic)?  
If you favour the former you'd do well to consider who the potential recipient options for the long ball are.  Gullan, Bowie, Allan, Baird, Dingwall, Armstrong or Anderson? Out of that seven only Anderson or perhaps Gullan are likely to win a header as neither Bowie nor Allan seem to be able to time a jump to successfully execute a header and the other three options are too small to out jump taller defenders. Bowie, Baird and Allan have decent body strength and can outmuscle defenders but all 3 struggle woefully under a high ball, with that in mind I see no profit from a long kick out. 
Now that Hendry is back I think we will see a shedload more creativity, hopefully we will start to reap the benefits of a fully fit again Armstrong feeding off Spencer and Hendry. The only down side is that we don't have a real finisher to get on the end of things, in that respect Baird's return has been a disappointment and I don't think Lewis Allan is a natural finisher.

Don’t think Lewis Allan is a footballer

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, Jilted John said:

Can you furnish me with a few stats regarding Alan Muir’s refereeing this season please?

https://www.soccerbase.com/referees/referee.sd?referee_id=1122

And you can compare vs

https://www.transfermarkt.us/alan-muir/profil/schiedsrichter/854

And then check vs

https://us.soccerway.com/referees/alan-james-muir/83184/

That’ll generally give you good data on cards issued. Without a load of digging and crunching, there’s not a good way to figure averages on cards issued across League One. In the Premiership, the stats are available and show 3+ yellows per game and about 1 red per four or five games. League One referees seem to issue more cards overall, around 4 yellows and maybe a red every 2-3 games. Geeky enough?

 

[Jilted John]

https://www.soccerbase.com/referees/referee.sd?referee_id=1122
And you can compare vs
https://www.transfermarkt.us/alan-muir/profil/schiedsrichter/854
And then check vs
https://us.soccerway.com/referees/alan-james-muir/83184/
That’ll generally give you good data on cards issued. Without a load of digging and crunching, there’s not a good way to figure averages on cards issued across League One. In the Premiership, the stats are available and show 3+ yellows per game and about 1 red per four or five games. League One referees seem to issue more cards overall, around 4 yellows and maybe a red every 2-3 games. Geeky enough?
 

Brilliant

[Hank Scorpio]

I’d like to talk about Kieran MacDonald. He’s the best left back we’ve had in the last 10/15 years. Granted, we’ve not exactly been blessed with prowess in that area but he is a fucking great player. When we signed him all the Airdrie fans said his final ball was poor - nonsense. He’s got about 10 assists and has chipped in with goals, too. First touch is exemplary and is a real threat going forward. I love watching him. Right up there as POTY so far.

Is he signed up for next year?

[Scottydog]

49 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I’d like to talk about Kieran MacDonald. He’s the best left back we’ve had in the last 10/15 years. Granted, we’ve not exactly been blessed with prowess in that area but he is a fucking great player. When we signed him all the Airdrie fans said his final ball was poor - nonsense. He’s got about 10 assists and has chipped in with goals, too. First touch is exemplary and is a real threat going forward. I love watching him. Right up there as POTY so far.

Is he signed up for next year?

Totally agree with getting him signed up for next season but would guess that'll heavily depend on where we finish come May.

IMO Callum Booth was a better lb for us but he was only on loan, my question would be is MacDonald better than Rory McKeown though? RM was playing in a higher league and after a ropey start to his first season was excellent,  I was gutted to see him leave.

On a side note Sean Mackie could well end up being the best LB we ever produced, pity he only got one game for us before his move.

[Niall Russell]

1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I’d like to talk about Kieran MacDonald. He’s the best left back we’ve had in the last 10/15 years. Granted, we’ve not exactly been blessed with prowess in that area but he is a fucking great player. When we signed him all the Airdrie fans said his final ball was poor - nonsense. He’s got about 10 assists and has chipped in with goals, too. First touch is exemplary and is a real threat going forward. I love watching him. Right up there as POTY so far.

Is he signed up for next year?

Agreed.

9 assists (including a hat-trick in the 4-0 win v Peterhead)

Already contracted until the end of next season

[TxRover]

19 minutes ago, Niall Russell said:

Agreed.

9 assists (including a hat-trick in the 4-0 win v Peterhead)

Already contracted until the end of next season

Part-time contract, does that allow any wiggle room if someone comes in with a full-time contract offer?

[RaithTheRover]

I miss McKeown, he was great. But there’s no doubt I’ve enjoyed watching shite-final-ball Macca a lot more.

[Niall Russell]

10 hours ago, TxRover said:

Part-time contract, does that allow any wiggle room if someone comes in with a full-time contract offer?

No idea mate. He's well established in his day job, and I understand that that's what suits him best at the moment.

Obviously, if Man City came in with the right bid he'd probably think again ......

Edited December 20, 2019 by Niall Russell

[CALDERON]

Will there be any EF tickets on sale tomorrow? 

[Broken Algorithms]

6 hours ago, Scottydog said:

Totally agree with getting him signed up for next season but would guess that'll heavily depend on where we finish come May.

IMO Callum Booth was a better lb for us but he was only on loan, my question would be is MacDonald better than Rory McKeown though? RM was playing in a higher league and after a ropey start to his first season was excellent,  I was gutted to see him leave.

On a side note Sean Mackie could well end up being the best LB we ever produced, pity he only got one game for us before his move.

McKeown was better than McDonald so far, but there's not much of a difference. Worth remembering McKeown improved leaps and bounds when not next to Ross fucking Perry. 

[McGuigan1978]

Totally agree with getting him signed up for next season but would guess that'll heavily depend on where we finish come May.
IMO Callum Booth was a better lb for us but he was only on loan, my question would be is MacDonald better than Rory McKeown though? RM was playing in a higher league and after a ropey start to his first season was excellent,  I was gutted to see him leave.
On a side note Sean Mackie could well end up being the best LB we ever produced, pity he only got one game for us before his move.

Sean Mackie has had a pretty disastrous loan spell with Dundee this season.

[Scottydog]

54 minutes ago, McGuigan1978 said:

Sean Mackie has had a pretty disastrous loan spell with Dundee this season.

 

Has he? Never mind Sean Mackie, it's fairer to say Dundee as a whole have had a pretty disastrous season so far,  out of a possible 17 games Mackie's played 9 times in a team that has shipped more goals than it's scored.....and on the plus side he knocked in 1 of them.

All of which is totally irrelevant when the original statement was

7 hours ago, Scottydog said:

On a side note Sean Mackie could well end up being the best LB we ever produced, pity he only got one game for us before his move.

Plenty of aspiring youth talent has been judged as absolute guff in a rotten team.........you only have to look at Jordan Thomson.