Raith Rovers' Next Permanent Manager

[Raithie]

When does Kevin Thomson's contract expire at Kelty?

[renton]

55 minutes ago, Against The Machine said:

I'd be surprised if this was anything more than, at this stage, Thomson maybe being the "lead" candidate but there'll still be interviews to come and budget discussions that'll have a bit part to play. 

I think Thomson is the right kind of profile though. He's well thought of, and although he's been working in League Two, you'd think he'd have a decent idea of the quality in the Championship given Kelty's budget. I have a real fear that we bring in a manager who doesn't know the Championship well enough and makes a hash of retaining our existing players, let alone bringing in new ones. 

I'd still like to see a Director of Football type role created too. The nature of a manager like Thomson (and pretty much all managers now, really) is that they'll be around for three years max. Either he'll be shite and he'll get binned or he'll succeed and move on. He doesn't even need to be that successful to be poached by the likes of a St Mirren or a St Johnstone, given how often jobs at that level open up. What we need is some form of continuity and the ability to plan for the medium term. We can't be caught in this position again where more or less the entire football department (two blokes) leaves. 

Call me cynical, but I always assume that permission to talk is really the advanced stage of the talks once they've already covered the broad basics of each side's ambition, targets etc.

 

[renton]

18 minutes ago, Raithie said:

When does Kevin Thomson's contract expire at Kelty?

Apparently it's one of those "full time team" break clauses.

[craigkillie]

Asking for permission to speak to someone doesn't mean they're the chosen candidate. Thomson had an interview with us in January, presumably we must have asked for permission to speak to him then too.

[HoBNob]

Craigkillie has just reminded me of Tommy Wright, his stack has fairly plummeted. 

[stevoraith]

Craigkillie has just reminded me of Tommy Wright, his stack has fairly plummeted. 

Aye, if he’d been appointed as manager when Barry Smith left I would have been delighted.

But nobody will even touch him now by the looks of things seeing as he isn’t being touted amongst the usual names.

[craigkillie]

I feel like he'd be a good choice for Raith, the issue he had with us was that he was tasked with winning a league when he's better suited to scrapping in upper mid-table.

[basher brash]

3 hours ago, R.R.FC said:

Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. Given reports seem to be our previous manager left to a team in the league below due to being unhappy about his budget for next season, it doesn’t seem like a foregone conclusion that Thomson would be tempted away from a big spending Kelty by what we have to offer.

Happy if it is him though, he was my first choice from the start and if we did get him it would probably lend some weight to the theory that a new manager will have access to a higher budget than McGlynn was offered.

Maybe the Rovers forced Mcglynn out the door with a reduced budget and IMO why not he wasted 100k at least on DG and 2 year deal on Keatings who hardly kicked a ball for us not to mention he had a striker already at the club right under his nose yet decided not to play him why should he be given a larger budget ? Wouldn’t surprise me if more money will be available to the new manager 

[RRFC_Liam]

51 minutes ago, Raithie said:

When does Kevin Thomson's contract expire at Kelty?

End of next season I think but he’s got clause in his contract similar to ray McKinnon where he can leave to got Full time 

[HoBNob]

31 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I feel like he'd be a good choice for Raith, the issue he had with us was that he was tasked with winning a league when he's better suited to scrapping in upper mid-table.

I was just thinking that, I think he'd do very well at elevating a club into a playoff side, but I'm not sure I'd back him to get a title. 

For example if he was manager of Ayr, Morton, Hamilton or us last season I think he could've elevated us to the playoffs. 

Wouldn't shock me if he does well at his next gig. 

[Enigma]

44 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

I was just thinking that, I think he'd do very well at elevating a club into a playoff side, but I'm not sure I'd back him to get a title. 

For example if he was manager of Ayr, Morton, Hamilton or us last season I think he could've elevated us to the playoffs. 

Wouldn't shock me if he does well at his next gig. 

Would you take him as a successor to Hughes? Always found it a bit strange nobody seemed to want to touch him when he was winning cups at St Johnstone.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Enigma

[Brashy's Boots]

I was just thinking that, I think he'd do very well at elevating a club into a playoff side, but I'm not sure I'd back him to get a title. 
For example if he was manager of Ayr, Morton, Hamilton or us last season I think he could've elevated us to the playoffs. 
Wouldn't shock me if he does well at his next gig. 

Would you take him now if Hughes gets the bullet?

[Scottydog]

My tuppenceworth.

A Rangers supporting friend has connections at Kelty and gave me his views/insights 

Pro's for Thomson

Well thought of at Ibrox, so much so he's seen as a potential future boss. Did what Ferguson couldn't have so there's some talent there. Obviously has something as a coach.

Cons,

Kelty rumoured to be uncomfortable with him and won't be unhappy if he goes. 

Word is a decent coach but a bit of a balloon.

 

On McGynn.

Clearly forced out to make it easy for the board (Sim), was neither rated nor liked by JS.

McGlynn supposedly identified 3 players in January that he thought would do a job, Goodwillie, Lafferty & Griffiths. At the end of the day the board chose DG, they had the final say in the matter not the manager.

[SirJimmyofNic]

6 minutes ago, Scottydog said:

My tuppenceworth.

A Rangers supporting friend has connections at Kelty and gave me his views/insights 

Pro's for Thomson

Well thought of at Ibrox, so much so he's seen as a potential future boss. Did what Ferguson couldn't have so there's some talent there. Obviously has something as a coach.

Cons,

Kelty rumoured to be uncomfortable with him and won't be unhappy if he goes. 

Word is a decent coach but a bit of a balloon.

 

On McGynn.

Clearly forced out to make it easy for the board (Sim), was neither rated nor liked by JS.

McGlynn supposedly identified 3 players in January that he thought would do a job, Goodwillie, Lafferty & Griffiths. At the end of the day the board chose DG, they had the final say in the matter not the manager.

The fact that McGlynn identified Goodwillie in the first place is bad enough in itself, its just a pity he couldn't identify the one player we already had till it was too late

[HoBNob]

59 minutes ago, Enigma said:

Would you take him as a successor to Hughes? Always found it a bit strange nobody seemed to want to touch him when he was winning cups at St Johnstone.

 

57 minutes ago, Brashy's Boots said:

1 hour ago, Grant228 said:

I was just thinking that, I think he'd do very well at elevating a club into a playoff side, but I'm not sure I'd back him to get a title. 
For example if he was manager of Ayr, Morton, Hamilton or us last season I think he could've elevated us to the playoffs. 
Wouldn't shock me if he does well at his next gig. 

Would you take him now if Hughes gets the bullet?

I'm not sure, the bit where CraigKillie says he's unsure of his title winning capibillity worries me a bit. 

Odd isn't it? A manager who seemed more than comfortable in the prem with St Johnstone, won the Scottish Cup, getting into Europe but his Kilmarnock side were evidently underperforming at this level. 

I wouldn't mind him being in the discussion, out of the feasible candidates I have in my head I wouldn't mind Thompson, McIntyre, Petrie (might not be feasible right enough), Levein and now Wright. 

 

All have pros, all have cons. But any manager we appoint in league one will. 

Airdrie picked up Murray after a disastrous spell at St Mirren, Raith picked up McGlynn after two underwhelming gigs at Hearts and Livi. Any manager will have blemishes. 

[D'Jaffo]

McGlynn clearly has horrendous taste in strikers if he identified a racist and a rapist as top targets. AFAIK Lafferty isn’t either but he is a complete w****r and massive *** to boot so that goes against McGlynn as well.

[SirJimmyofNic]

Tommy Wright, I'd forgotten all about him since he dissappeared off the scene. 

[Otis Blue]

7 hours ago, 19QOS19 said:

7 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

Decent appointment for the Rovers, and would weaken Kelty too ... what's not to like?

But will it though? League 1 and a likely very good budget. I don't know if it'll make much difference who's in charge.

Aye, you could be right, who knows. The particular straw that I'm clutching at here is the one that says losing a good coach might weaken them. Who's to say that they don't replace him with a better coach and/or better players?

[TxRover]

52 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

McGlynn clearly has horrendous taste in strikers if he identified a racist and a rapist as top targets. AFAIK Lafferty isn’t either but he is a complete w****r and massive *** to boot so that goes against McGlynn as well.

JMcG has had a pretty poor record of recruiting strikers anyway. On those names, I’m pretty comfortable suggesting a myopic focus on the football was JMcG’s primary error. As an older manager, I don’t think it would have occurred to him there might be a concern since they were already active, and there might have been a bit of boys will be boys about it if he even reflected upon what they were known for.

I think the whole DG situation came as a shock to him, and it certainly didn’t improve his disposition toward the Raith Board and Sim when they left him alone out there with the apology. I do think he’s a genuinely good man who bitterly regrets getting tarred with this mess.

[Ding Dang Doo]

If it's Thomson I'm more than happy given who else was in "the running". We are never going to get the perfect manager with no negatives. Time will obviously tell but he's going to also have a decent knowledge of players at this level and will have a good few contacts in the game.