The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Scary Bear]

10 league games played, 6 defeats. Anyone else concerned?

I’m hoping the weakness of teams around us can save us. I’ve only seen the home games and on that front we look like we’ll be safe enough, but there’s so little difference in quality between most sides and you often hear managers talking about “small margins”.

Finding a decent forward in Scotland seems to be a task, which doesn’t say much for the coaching up here. Surely most wee boys want to be forwards?

[Scary Bear]

6 minutes ago, Ding Dang Doo said:

My worry is we seem to have nobody, bar Stanton, who seems to be able to drive us forward with a run. It's a lot of passing and sometimes we create something but we don't have a winger who wants to drive at the opposition. Even the full backs are naturally defensive. Its means unless our passing game is on top form, like Cove last week, then we are easy to defend against just now.

Agreed. In previous seasons the full backs have dragged the play forwards. Now we are very reliant on Sam Stanton for taking play forward and for a goal threat. 

[Scary Bear]

16 minutes ago, RRFC2711 said:

Never mind won’t be long until the clocks go back….

[Ro Sham Bo]

2 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

10 league games played, 6 defeats. Anyone else concerned?

I’m hoping the weakness of teams around us can save us. I’ve only seen the home games and on that front we look like we’ll be safe enough, but there’s so little difference in quality between most sides and you often hear managers talking about “small margins”.

Finding a decent forward in Scotland seems to be a task, which doesn’t say much for the coaching up here. Surely most wee boys want to be forwards?

There is a reasonable probability that in a week's time we will be a third of the way through the season with 8 defeats from 12. Whether folk like it or not, that's the sort of form that loses a manager his job. 

 

[Raith_Raver]

8 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

There is a reasonable probability that in a week's time we will be a third of the way through the season with 8 defeats from 12. Whether folk like it or not, that's the sort of form that loses a manager his job. 

 

Wouldn't you just relish that - endless opportunities for you to unleash your obsessive negativity.

[Ro Sham Bo]

4 minutes ago, Raith_Raver said:

Wouldn't you just relish that - endless opportunities for you to unleash your obsessive negativity.

I would yes. The sooner Murray is out the better. 

[CountryBumpkin]

12 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I would yes. The sooner Murray is out the better. 

And replaced with who? 

[Brashy's Boots]

28 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I would yes. The sooner Murray is out the better. 

As well as asking who you'd replace him with, I'd be interested to know what your expectations were for this season. What would you regard as success?

[Rovers1992/1993]

 
Agnew played almost every game for us so Murray rarely had an assistant in the dugout last season. Plus, up until last season he never had any assistant apart from a brief spell with Colin Cameron. Not saying he doesn't need one but maybe he doesn't feel it's a huge issue for him given he's used to working without one during the 90 minutes.

Our form suggests we need one. Having an assistant in place, if nothing else, gives a different viewpoint/ a different opinion. Which could lead to rectifying this period of form that we’ve been in all season.

[SirJimmyofNic]

18 minutes ago, Rovers1992/1993 said:

Our form suggests we need one. Having an assistant in place, if nothing else, gives a different viewpoint/ a different opinion. Which could lead to rectifying this period of form that we’ve been in all season.

It's not just this season though is it, this has been ongoing since last November and even with the big changes in personnel the form is still the same, as for an assistant there's probably no cash to pay for one, (maybe the board saving pennies just in case they need to jettison Murray if this form is still with us come the end of the 2nd 1/4)

[Scottydog]

7 hours ago, philpy said:

The lack of experience in the defending and striking departments is going to haunt us this season. Yeah, there is scope to address that in the January transfer window, but it could be too little too late by then...

 

5 hours ago, renton said:

I think we have a good midfield, and our defence actually isn't too bad. Don't think we were in that much danger throughout the game yesterday, defending a lot of long balls from throws - until the penalty. 

We are light up top. Gullan is absolutely fine but we've struggled to keep him fit. Connell showed a good performance against Ayr and absolutely nothing else any other time. Is it inconsistency from a young guy, or is he mostly shite, but a good Killie lad who'll raise his game against Ayr?

Not sure what everyone is expecting from Frederiksen. Yesterday was largely an extension of his Cove cameo. There are some good bits in there, overlaid by what looks like a combination of rustiness and culture shock. The guy hasn't had any minutes in a long time before coming to us, and y'know - had that whole brain tumour thing to deal with as well. Like Nolan and O'Riordan (and Millen who has improved of late) he's going to have to learn on the job.

We do lack a nuisance presence, I think. Our forwards and attacking mids are very much 'technical and tidy' type players. We don't have a Weir type player who runs channels, upsets full backs and gambles on percentage balls. We need to also keep it a bit simpler at times (looking at you Dylan Easton).

I dunno, I don't think Murray is doing a bad job. We look generally a bit more solid than McGlynn's 2nd half of the season squad, and it's worth noting that for the obvious technical talent in the side he hasn't inherited a high flying team, instead he's taken over a team with relegation form, and in a sticky market we're in October still trying to get a squad together and match fit. 

Thing is, even a good defence (and I think our CBs generally look better than last season) can't be water tight, so if you aren't scoring goals you'll be hard pressed to get anything out of games. We've started games at a high tempo and when we've scored we've generally gone on to win, when we don't and the tempo drops and we start losing second balls that's where the issues start.

Maybe Frederiksen gets more match fit and shows a bit more (he was unlucky not to score yesterday), maybe we keep Gullan fit and he helps drag them team up the park. Maybe Vaughan comes back in a few weeks and gives us another, quality option. Hell, there is a good chance his knee goes in 5 minutes but if it doesn't, we all know He'll add that score out of nothing option.

Or maybe we continue to limp along going lose-win-lose and Murray has to reassess in January.

 

3 hours ago, Ding Dang Doo said:

My worry is we seem to have nobody, bar Stanton, who seems to be able to drive us forward with a run. It's a lot of passing and sometimes we create something but we don't have a winger who wants to drive at the opposition. Even the full backs are naturally defensive. Its means unless our passing game is on top form, like Cove last week, then we are easy to defend against just now.

In amongst the usual nonsense posts I found myself agreeing with much of the above.

Defensively we aren't terrible but we do lack depth and experience, all the plaudits won by Millen, Ngwenya and Dick last week evaporated as we slowly lost composure, tbf it happened in all areas but more notably in defence. The sheer panic was coming off the Rovers defence in those final moments, you just knew what was going to happen.  Keeping O'Riordan and bringing in a new face or two in January is a must, someone who can play both Rightback and Centre half would be handy.

Midfield has Stanton and that's about it, especially if Connolly is out of sorts!  McBride is too lightweight, Ross has lost form and confidence, Spencer isn't back to what he was and Matthews cant get a look in, which is surprising given that for all his grittiness Brown isn't as good a footballer. Easton continues to confound, on his day with his confidence up he's unstoppable....well unstoppable until he is forced on to his weaker foot, clearly his left foot is only for standing on and defenders are picking up on that. No new faces required in here unless we lose someone.

Up front we are so short of credible options more so with Gullan out again (Surgery needed here methinks), Big John give us something else but when he's out jumped several times by a guy 6 inches shorter than him it albeit confirms my worries, like most tall guys he cant jump because he's never had to learn how to. Very much reminiscent of the Hearts Loanee Derek Homes who at 6'2" you couldn't slip a copy of the Sporting Post under his soles when he was jumping for a header. Connel might be a loan striker bet he definitely isn't a lone striker, tbh not much of a striker at all. This is a department that needs a reboot in Jan, love to see Hamilton on loan from Livvi but he'll probably end up at Gayfield.

As for an assistant I wonder what Craig Easton is up to these days?

[Scary Bear]

2 hours ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I would yes. The sooner Murray is out the better. 

To be fair, the style of football he has us playing is pretty good and of the 4 matches I’ve attended we’ve won 3, so I am not looking for a sacking. I think we’re just lacking a cutting edge up front. If we can’t find one we’ll be in trouble no matter who is in charge.

It was obvious from the squad make up that unless the midfielders weighed in with a few goals we would be struggling. They have scored a few to get us our 4 wins.

When is Vaughan back?

Also, get Ethan Ross to remember where the goal is. An excellent player on his day who should be among the goals on a more regular basis.
 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Scary Bear

[Ro Sham Bo]

1 hour ago, Brashy's Boots said:

As well as asking who you'd replace him with, I'd be interested to know what your expectations were for this season. What would you regard as success?

Avoiding a relegation battle, which won't happen if we persevere with this clown for much longer. Defeat by Arbroath this week will drag us right back into the mire.

I am hoping the reason he's not appointed an assistant is because the board realise he's not likely to be in charge beyond the short term and are delaying sanctioning a new appointment. 

As for who we appoint? No clue. I thought Murray would be a decent appointment but the warning signs were there after his first two friendlies that it was never going to work and that is turning out to be the case. 

[CALDERON]

We are 5 points behind top 4 with a game in hand.  That's in line with most reasonable expectations, i would imagine.

There is cause for concern.  6 defeats out of 10 isn't good.  If you pro rata that out for the rest of the season, you get 21 defeats.  A very linear and crude way of looking at it, but a bit scary none the less.  The Hughes/Locke season saw us lose 17 over the whole season, and we already over a third of the way there having played less than a third of the games, and with 2 tricky away games to come in the immediate term.

We've conceded the 2nd lowest amount if goals , yet scored the 3rd lowest.  If you look at every remaining fixture, they are all games we could quite conceivably lose 1-0.  I've said it a few times, but I remain convinced that there are few sides at this level as wasteful in front of goal.  I get the point about creating more chances, but there have been plenty of absolute sitters missed this season, or fantastic situations where decision making let's the move down (eg Easton yesterday).  Bad finishing or lack of cutting edge has contributed massively to the defeats this season.

All isn't lost, we are a decent enough side largely.  But I do get the feeling that our season is hanging on either the Big John experiment working, or Lewis Vaughan giving us a consistent run in the team from now until the end of the season - for only the 2nd time since he's been at the club.  As things stand, this side simply won't score enough goals.  Someone made the point that even against Cove, we needed 5 or 6 really good chances to score 3.  In tight games, especially away from home, we need to see a fairly drastic improvement up top.

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by CALDERON

[DaveT]

As has been said our biggest issue seems to be scoring goals, as a team we look no worse than any of the rest.

Problems will always come from any team who cant score, all the moans about getting beat by a dubious penalty shouldn't matter if we were capable of putting the ball in the opposition's net ourselves.

I am more than a little concerned that at present we have not improved our team over last season.

It may be we are still in a rebuilding phase at present, but we need to be really careful as we are starting to move in the wrong direction in this league.

A couple of wins could be enough to paper over the cracks which are very evident in this team, so hopefully we get them soon.

[CALDERON]

15 minutes ago, DaveT said:

 

I am more than a little concerned that at present we have not improved our team over last season.

.

From the first half of last season, agreed, but this side is better than the team that  finished last season.

Edited October 16, 2022 by CALDERON

[raith1974]

I've got to say I wanted IM as manager but his transfers have been fairly poor. Is that due to him or restraints from the board. Connel, McBride should never have been signed. Wasting money on players who are not good enough. Its taken months to bring in a striker who may or may not be up to it. Millen not great, I'm also shocked at the lack of experience in our back line and up front. Now we have no number 2. Cost cutting or Murray just doesn't have a clue. For me an assistant must be signed. I'll give Murray until Christmas but if things don't improve he will need to go to give a new manager a transfer window to bring in the missing pieces that are clearly needed.

[DaveT]

6 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

From the first half of last season, agreed, but this side is better than the team that  finished last season.

I can see where your coming from, the problem I have is there are huge gaps in our team at present that need addressed,  and as yet haven't really been.

We still need to hope we can keep our defence as it is beyond January.

And know one can tell me we have a better goalscoring forward line than we did at anytime last year

[CALDERON]

17 minutes ago, DaveT said:

I can see where your coming from, the problem I have is there are huge gaps in our team at present that need addressed,  and as yet haven't really been.

We still need to hope we can keep our defence as it is beyond January.

And know one can tell me we have a better goalscoring forward line than we did at anytime last year

Other than Poplatniks purple patch towards the end of the season, there's not much in it. Would Ethan Varian be the answer? The failure to recruit properly up front is not limited to Murray, its a follow on from last season.  Certainly don't think there's huge gaps all over the pitch.  It's one area of the pitch, as it was last season.

There's a reason why Mcglynn gambled on Goodwillie, after all (not condoning the signing) You only need to go back and listen to his interviews at that time. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by CALDERON

[DaveT]

11 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

Other than Poplatniks purple patch towards the end of the season, there's not much in it. Would Ethan Varian be the answer? The failure to recruit properly up front is not limited to Murray, its a follow on from last season.  Certainly don't think there's huge gaps all over the pitch.  It's one area of the pitch, as it was last season.

There's a reason why Mcglynn gambled on Goodwillie, after all (not condoning the signing) You only need to go back and listen to his interviews at that time. 

As I said just my opinion, but we desperately needed the goal scoring issue sorted, it hasnt as yet been done.

Defence wise we are relying on loans to plug gaps, we will possibly never know why so many central defenders were allowed to leave the club at the same time with no ready replacements in place.

We do have a midfield who play the ball around well enough, but teams have no fear of our midfield, they seem to run out of steam after a period of the match.

Could be Murray needs to look at his substitutions and when they have to be made.

Stanton has been playing really well of late but the rest seem to be in fits and starts.

Teams know they can get at us if they can hold out from our initial assualt.