The New Raith Rovers Thread

[CountryBumpkin]

6 minutes ago, baillieinleeds said:

Our defence is the worst we’ve had in years. It’s not just a Rovers problem it’s an every club problem except the Bigot brothers ( league wise) There seems to be a real lack of talent in this country. Is it a mere Scottish problem or is it throughout the UK

Its bizarre saying that given we had one of the best defensive records in the first part of the season. Its no coincidence that we're dropped a bit since O'Riordan left and he was a 19 year old kid with less than 20 games under his belt. Yesterday, Lang was a shambles at the back, starting from his unnecessary diving header that went backwards and let Inverness in for a shot at goal and never recovered. We have no proper cover in the backline for Lang and Nolan, its a worry. 

We want to play a system that starts at the back and moves forward on the ground, its risky but can reward us because we're limiting the chances of losing possession from a long kick out, but risking losing possession by a bad pass or a mistake. 

[Scary Bear]

35 minutes ago, baillieinleeds said:

Our defence is the worst we’ve had in years. It’s not just a Rovers problem it’s an every club problem except the Bigot brothers ( league wise) There seems to be a real lack of talent in this country. Is it a mere Scottish problem or is it throughout the UK

Our defence is generally okay but it makes occasional mistakes. If it wasn’t okay then we’d be getting humped every game.

We can dominate decent teams in terms of possession, like we did yesterday. We are great at passing it about and creating good moves forward, but we’re not great at turning possession into goals. 

I prefer it when Dick plays centre back, but now that Lang is fit, that’s unlikely unless we play 3 centre backs.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Scary Bear

[baillieinleeds]

3 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

Our defence is generally okay but it makes occasional mistakes. If it wasn’t okay then we’d be getting humped every game.

We can dominate decent teams in terms of possession, like we did yesterday. We are great at passing it about and creating good moves forward, but we’re not great at turning possession into goals. 

I prefer it when Dick plays centre back, but now that Lang is fit, that’s unlikely unless we play 3 centre backs.

Millen Lang and Dick were horrendous yesterday, that was merely in the first half. That set a precedent in a way. Losing the possession in defence gave Inverness impetus to push forward. Inverness for me are an average team. Why we seem to capitulate so easily boggles the mind. Our total failure to defend set pieces lies squarely at Murray, for a guy that’s career was as a defender clearly isn’t getting his point across or his players aren’t willing or good enough to adhere the message. 

[Ro Sham Bo]

15 minutes ago, baillieinleeds said:

Millen Lang and Dick were horrendous yesterday, that was merely in the first half. That set a precedent in a way. Losing the possession in defence gave Inverness impetus to push forward. Inverness for me are an average team. Why we seem to capitulate so easily boggles the mind. Our total failure to defend set pieces lies squarely at Murray, for a guy that’s career was as a defender clearly isn’t getting his point across or his players aren’t willing or good enough to adhere the message. 

Were you actually at the game? Because in an earlier post you were asking if Masson was playing (he wasn't) but now you're passing judgement on the performances of three of our back four.

[baillieinleeds]

2 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

Were you actually at the game? Because in an earlier post you were asking if Masson was playing (he wasn't) but now you're passing judgement on the performances of three of our back four.

I wasn’t, but I have friends believe it or not. So only those at the game are allowed to pass judgement. I saw enough on the highlights to see the mistakes in defence. Especially highlighted by remarks made by those in the know. I work a lot of weekends. But when I’m not I’m at the game. That’s why I rely heavily on the posters on here. 

[SanStarko]

24 minutes ago, baillieinleeds said:

Millen Lang and Dick were horrendous yesterday, that was merely in the first half. 

Really?   Dick had a poor game, that's fair to say.  Lang made a couple of mistakes, mainly when he's trying to be too fancy.  Like late on when instead of just clearing the ball he tried to turn the attacker and ended up giving away a free kick, but other than that he was fine.  Millen was absolutely fine, as he has been for a number of weeks.  

Everybody was a disaster for the second ICT goal.  But to claim those three were horrendous is bizarre. 

 

[baillieinleeds]

2 minutes ago, SanStarko said:

Really?   Dick had a poor game, that's fair to say.  Lang made a couple of mistakes, mainly when he's trying to be too fancy.  Like late on when instead of just clearing the ball he tried to turn the attacker and ended up giving away a free kick, but other than that he was fine.  Millen was absolutely fine, as he has been for a number of weeks.  

Everybody was a disaster for the second ICT goal.  But to claim those three were horrendous is bizarre. 

 

For all the goals we score we seem to lose an equal amount. Isn’t the job of playing competitive football to score more than we concede. I was at the Linlithgow game, we made plenty of mistakes in defence, thankfully their forwards couldn’t finish a fish supper. 

[CALDERON]

I tend to find that watching a game of football gives you a better idea of how it went than not watching it, but that's just me.

[McGuigan1978]

1 hour ago, baillieinleeds said:

Did you actually read what I said??

Yes, it’s what I based my question on. 

[TxRover]

33 minutes ago, SanStarko said:

Really?   Dick had a poor game, that's fair to say.  Lang made a couple of mistakes, mainly when he's trying to be too fancy.  Like late on when instead of just clearing the ball he tried to turn the attacker and ended up giving away a free kick, but other than that he was fine.  Millen was absolutely fine, as he has been for a number of weeks.  

Everybody was a disaster for the second ICT goal.  But to claim those three were horrendous is bizarre. 

Not an unreasonable take, I think more like:

Dick - Nightmare of a match. Beaten twice for first goal and gave away a stupid foul for the second. Don’t know where he was told to be for that free kick, but it certainly seems he wasn’t anywhere near a place you’d expect a LB to be for a kick from that position.

Lang - Probably the worst I’ve seen him play this year. Looked out of sorts and caught out most of the match, interspersed with a few trademarks beautiful passes forward.

Millen - Generally played fine and offered several beautiful crosses. Solid performance, can’t see any blame.

Spencer - Perhaps a below par day, missed a couple of passes he normally makes and seemed to be at least partial responsible for marking the scorer on the second.

Brown - Generally a stalwart in defence, but was involved in the second…possibly partially to blame.

Ian Murray - Has failed to get the team performing on set piece defending, and seems to have a team that concedes far too many goals around halftime. Too slow to make a change, and seems to have two modes…throw on attackers or like for like…when he does use subs.

 

Take away, we should see Ngwenya at LB versus Arbroath…Gullan and Vaughan to start again, but Akio needs to be on about the 60 minute mark to press the defence. Easton has kept his jersey, but Stanton is a great change-up from him, bring him on with Akio. Nolan keeps his spot, with Dick dropping to the bench. Nolan is simply too strong in the air, and has been very reliable recently. Lang needs to show it was a one game dip, if he’s nicked, rest him.

[renton]

30 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Not an unreasonable take, I think more like:

Dick - Nightmare of a match. Beaten twice for first goal and gave away a stupid foul for the second. Don’t know where he was told to be for that free kick, but it certainly seems he wasn’t anywhere near a place you’d expect a LB to be for a kick from that position.

Lang - Probably the worst I’ve seen him play this year. Looked out of sorts and caught out most of the match, interspersed with a few trademarks beautiful passes forward.

Millen - Generally played fine and offered several beautiful crosses. Solid performance, can’t see any blame.

Spencer - Perhaps a below par day, missed a couple of passes he normally makes and seemed to be at least partial responsible for marking the scorer on the second.

Brown - Generally a stalwart in defence, but was involved in the second…possibly partially to blame.

Ian Murray - Has failed to get the team performing on set piece defending, and seems to have a team that concedes far too many goals around halftime. Too slow to make a change, and seems to have two modes…throw on attackers or like for like…when he does use subs.

 

Take away, we should see Ngwenya at LB versus Arbroath…Gullan and Vaughan to start again, but Akio needs to be on about the 60 minute mark to press the defence. Easton has kept his jersey, but Stanton is a great change-up from him, bring him on with Akio. Nolan keeps his spot, with Dick dropping to the bench. Nolan is simply too strong in the air, and has been very reliable recently. Lang needs to show it was a one game dip, if he’s nicked, rest him.

Not sure I agree. Actually thought he made the Akio sub too early yesterday. Gullan is still clearly the superior option and we needed a better outball in the closing stages, and to seriously try and get a third goal.

Also, Ngwenya has form for getting utterly rinsed by decent wingers at this level, he'd have done no better than Dick yesterday. Dick had a poor game, but he's still a better left back than Ngwenya and next week is too important.

[TxRover]

8 minutes ago, renton said:

Not sure I agree. Actually thought he made the Akio sub too early yesterday. Gullan is still clearly the superior option and we needed a better outball in the closing stages, and to seriously try and get a third goal.

Also, Ngwenya has form for getting utterly rinsed by decent wingers at this level, he'd have done no better than Dick yesterday. Dick had a poor game, but he's still a better left back than Ngwenya and next week is too important.

Opinions are like, well, you know…but I understand.

Ngwenya for Dick versus Arbroath and Dick back for Dundee…I like the message and variety.

Akio brings a useful speed threat to a tiring back line, and would have likely changed ICT’s subs. As it was, they replaced both forwards and two of their mid with subs, along with one back. It we had Akio running at them sooner, they might have changed that pattern, and it would certainly have made them think. Gullan is playing better, but I’m nagged by IM’s comment about “managing his injury”, and would rather pull him early and keep him longer than have him out again.

But back to LB. At RB, Millen and Connolly are near telepathic at this point, but on the left we are scrambling to find a viable threat to push down the wing. Dick is better at trying to get on the end of Millen’s crosses than providing them himself. Ngwenya gets down and into that corner, pulling defenders out and getting some crosses in. Yesterday we saw Easton, Vaughan and Gullan digging them out in the left corner, not ideal. Easton functions better just outside the penalty area, distributing and shooting, similar to Vaughan (who adds runs into the box), and Gullan needs to be in front of the  goal.

[Been going too long]

3 hours ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Its bizarre saying that given we had one of the best defensive records in the first part of the season. Its no coincidence that we're dropped a bit since O'Riordan left and he was a 19 year old kid with less than 20 games under his belt. Yesterday, Lang was a shambles at the back, starting from his unnecessary diving header that went backwards and let Inverness in for a shot at goal and never recovered. We have no proper cover in the backline for Lang and Nolan, its a worry. 

We want to play a system that starts at the back and moves forward on the ground, its risky but can reward us because we're limiting the chances of losing possession from a long kick out, but risking losing possession by a bad pass or a mistake. 

I agree bud thought Lang was poor yesterday, probably his poorest game for us ( that I have seen) but he has been very consistent so everyone has a bad day. Would like to see us if we can bring in another cb and let’s be honest bin big John. If a guy who hasn’t trained with the team and met them 2 hours before ko gets on before him, he must know he is wasting his time here but understand it’s his income 

[TxRover]

7 minutes ago, Been going too long said:

I agree bud thought Lang was poor yesterday, probably his poorest game for us ( that I have seen) but he has been very consistent so everyone has a bad day. Would like to see us if we can bring in another cb and let’s be honest bin big John. If a guy who hasn’t trained with the team and met them 2 hours before ko gets on before him, he must know he is wasting his time here but understand it’s his income 

Not sure I understand the distain for Nolan, and Dick is better at CB than LB…just saying.

[renton]

No chance we can convert Frederiksen into a centre back? 

[grumswall]

17 minutes ago, renton said:

No chance we can convert Frederiksen into a centre back? 

A big mark Campbell type is exactly what we need in that defence. Our cbs aren't very dominant in the air although they do not too bad most of the time. 

[Scary Bear]

Personally I want to see Stanton back in the team. He offers surging runs from midfield and he scores goals. Our great form before the clocks went back was when he was in the team and scoring.

[TxRover]

35 minutes ago, renton said:

No chance we can convert Frederiksen into a centre back? 

Well, if Garath Bale can go from LB to an attacker/winger, why not?

Edited January 29, 2023 by TxRover

[Been going too long]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

Not sure I understand the distain for Nolan, and Dick is better at CB than LB…just saying.

Be interesting to see dick and Lang have a run together that might happen if Ngwenya is fit now, Nolan is ok but occasionally makes errors that cost us or could have eg ball over the top especially ( Linlithgow and Dundee games spring to mind) would like an organiser in the back like Berra but not many going about 

[TxRover]

4 minutes ago, Been going too long said:

Be interesting to see dick and Lang have a run together that might happen if Ngwenya is fit now, Nolan is ok but occasionally makes errors that cost us or could have eg ball over the top especially ( Linlithgow and Dundee games spring to mind) would like an organiser in the back like Berra but not many going about 

I think Lang and Nolan generally play well together, but I wouldn’t be completely opposed to pairing Lang and Dick…especially as Dick and Nolan are both out of contract at years end (not to mention Lang is too). Of the two, Nolan would be a higher priority (for me) to sign, but if Dick stays solid at CB (and is willing to commit to CB), I’m willing to listen. I just think Nolan is a solid CB at this level already, with very little in the way of experience, and might well become very good.

This may be heretical, but I don’t think we can gain much with another Berra or Bene in the back. Lang and, surprisingly(?), Nolan are both pretty vocal CB’s, and I’m not sure we’d gain tons with an “organizer” back there. If we can get Lang signed, he continues to develop as our organizer and experienced hand going forward (unless Dick is converted?), add Nolan and/or Dick and we’re in decent position at CB for a while, especially if we keep and develop Masson, unless he’s going to be made into a RB.

I don’t know about you, but if we started next season with Millen, Lang, Nolan, Dick across the back, having Masson and Young behind them at LB and RB, I wouldn’t be terrified, and I would pick Dick as the weak link at LB.