[FT] Raith Rovers 3 - 3 Rangers (Forrester 29; O'Halloran 35; Miller 48)

[barca72 440]

Actually the corner was from the other side. It was played into the area glanced header found a Raith player on the pen spot who controlled it and swept it back towards his own goals and collected on the front edge of our 18yard box, the player is then closed down by Haliday and Wilson with King to their right and Zelalem behind them, from there the ball is played out to the side of the box, Wallace tracks it and it is swung back into the mix with Wilson posted missing running back towards the goal... Kiernan is drawn towards the ball to try and win the header because there is no Wilson and Tav comes over to cover him. Holt is on the line with 4 Raith players around him. Miller is in space on the 6 yard box King the same on the 18yard box Zelalem and Haliday a yard apart are standing having a smoke at the pen spot marking nothing and no-one. That's 4 Rangers players standing marking space doing nothing and one (Wilson) still trying to get back to the header Kiernan couldn't reach. Keirnan and Tav in this occasion did what they should have but Wilson being out of position wasn't the only problem with that goal.

 

Well thanks for the corrections, bud. I was just going from the highlights vid.

However, there is something seriously wrong when you have one man defending against four attackers before the ball is properly cleared from the area.

Surely it can't all be put down to Wilson.

[pete 2,499]

Look at the marking at the second goal. How much room do you need.

 

[Frankie 8,150]

Look at the marking at the second goal. How much room do you need.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]614[/ATTACH]

 

That was Forrester to blame there - no idea what he was thinking.

[Frankie 8,150]

From where I sat I thought Miller offside ,in your picture free kick still not taken and Miller on move which IMO took him into the offside decision./QUOTE]

 

Spot-on Mack

 

Same scrutiny, only this time with the moment the free kick was actually taken...like Mack, the linesman called it correctly.

 

 

Just as the other image is just before the free kick is taken, that image is just after.

 

In the BBC Scotland highlights of all places (3mins,24secs in) they stop it at the correct place and Miller appears to be in line with Craig Barr. IMHO, it was well worth the risk of the quick free kick as Raith were sleeping and there was still several minutes to go in any case at that point. Just bad luck the linesman didn't give us the advantage and pulled the play back in a decision that really could have went either way.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/35954094

Edited April 4, 2016 by Frankie

[Frankie 8,150]

Concerns about our defence of late have been raised before, even by myself. So I leave that out and say a word about the substitutions.

 

First one - O'Halloran off, King on. IMHO, both seem to take their time to click with our style and tactics. MOH has now scored two in two, but much like last week, was not that often involved. We should utilize his pace more often right now, when we hit teams on the counter. King looked a bit off today too, but he hasn't seen that much game time either (still 21, mind you). Either one can play in the Challenge Cup Finale, but none in the Scum game.

 

Second one - McKay off, Shiels on - Barrie had a rather quiet game by his standards. He will be important for the Challenge Cup game and the SFA Cup semi. Shiels is as good a sub as you can get, was immediately in the game and set up Miller for the goal that should have won us the match, bar the (second) intervention of that linesman.

 

Third one - Forrester off, Zelalem on. From the looks, MW was suggesting that Harry got a knock to the calf and was taken off as a precaution. Make no mistake, these last few weeks we are living on Forrester's goals, invention, guile and cunning. We should utilize anything there is to get him signed, he will be one of the prime weapons against the Yahoos. I was very content that he went off. We had Law and Clark on th bench, but MW probably looked for keeping possession and spraying passes about. No the choice I would have made, not least since Zelalem is not exactly the type of player that will like the way Rovers played, nor their pitch. Clark (who has more bite in him) up front and Miller in a somewhat deeper role would probably have served us better. Or, indeed Ball to bolster the midfield.

 

Generally, Rovers are there challenging Hibs and Falkirk for a reason. They gave it their all and punished our slackness at the back. You would have thought that our players have learned from last week, but having said that, every game is different. What I very much DO assume is that our players are as annoyed about it as we are, which is a good thing. I'd rather have that now than next weekend or the weekend thereafter.

 

I think this is a fair post worthy of more comment. Unfortunately, I think the last three games have shown just how light our squad is and the manager's subs - while generally OK on the face of it - haven't worked.

 

On Saturday King was anonymous which is a shame as in his last two games he's been very good. Generally we played too much down the left hand side and when we do play down the right. Tav often doesn't utilise the wide player - other than using them as a dummy run to free up space for him to come inside. That's fine as it can be effective but he needs to mix up his play more often.

 

I think McKay was take off to rest him as he played last Tuesday and with tomorrow's game and Sunday's ahead of the Celtic match the manager wanted to look after him. Again that's fine but because Forrester was blowing out his arse, we struggled to retain possession and Shiels, once again, wasn't great (though unlucky with the quick free kick at Miller's goal).

 

The final sub was the strange one. Clearly Zelelam has been out for a couple of months with illness and injury so the manager wanted to give him some much-needed game time. That's fine if we're leading by 2 or 3 goals (or very comfortable) but on Saturday we weren't and Zelalem's lack of match sharpness was obvious. Ball may have been a better choice but perhaps the manager was happy to risk the draw to get the Zelalem playing again ahead of the next three matches?

 

All in all, it's good to see some healthy criticism of the tactical choices made recently and if MW didn't realise the expectations upon him by now, he will now with many fans frustrated with recent dropped points and goals conceded.

[pete 2,499]

Has Zelalem being playing for the development team? Surely that was the place to get him match fit.

[Frankie 8,150]

Has Zelalem being playing for the development team? Surely that was the place to get him match fit.

 

No, he's just back from injury and I agree he could have played for them to regain match fitness.

 

Problem is clearly we've been short of bodies on the bench so he was a sub on Saturday and against Queens last week so I assume the manager wanted to keep him ready for situations such as at the weekend. In the last game against Raith in February in Kirkcaldy, Zelelam was excellent for the first half so perhaps MW looked at that and was happy to take the risk. Unfortunately it didn't work in terms of helping us see out the game but I'm sure the manager will be well aware of what went wrong.

 

Another issue is that, for the most part, our subs only get 30mins a game at most. As such fringe players like Zelalem, Law, Shiels and others who haven't started games much of late really don't look sharp enough when they do come on. Therefore, as much as guys like Halliday and Ball have done well this season, perhaps they could have been rotated out of the starting XI more often lately. However, that's easier said than done when our last three games have been against teams that almost always give us hard games.

 

Tomorrow night and Sunday's final is perhaps a chance to rest players that have proven their worth but the manager will want to win these games convincingly so there's clearly a balance to be found. Generally I think it comes down to squad depth: i.e. it's fine to have a lean squad to avoid having players doing nothing but you still need to ensure any subs are good enough to step in when required and be prepared to play them more often. I think our biggest problem is that our fringe players just aren't of the quality needed to do that.

[der Berliner 3,245]

That was Forrester to blame there - no idea what he was thinking.

 

Of all people last Saturday, bar maybe Foderingham and Halliday, I'd say that Forrester deserves the least criticism, as he was essentially running the show most afternoon. While you can want full concentration from anyone for 90 mins these are human beings still. We defended rather badly late on as a team with Holt (!) essentially alone with three Rovers chaps for their 3rd goal, IIRC. These panic-stations and switch off stuff needs to adressed and this started in the dressing room straight after the game, as we were told. So manager and players know what is wrong. Whether and how they tackle this particular problem remains to be seen. As I've said, Crooks will be valuable here (if he rises to the challenge).

 

EDIT: Re the Miller goal that never was ... I was under the impression that Miller's run angles more towards the goal than the goal line, which the picture does not reveal 100%. But that is history now and if people were in line of sight and say he was off, so be it.

Edited April 4, 2016 by der Berliner

[der Berliner 3,245]

Video and picture collection, courtesy of Caledonia

 

FT: Raith Rovers vs. Rangers FC 3:3 (2:2)

 

1:0 Louis Longridge 25.min.

 

1:1 Harry Forrester 30.min.

 

1:2 Michael O'Halloran 35.min.

 

2:2 James Craigen 38.min.

 

2:3 Kenny Miller 49.min.

 

3:3 Harrison Panayiotou 90+4.min.

 

90 Minutes in 90 Seconds

 

All Goals

 

5 Minutes Highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKRndxYMHBc

 

13 Minutes Highlights (scroll down page)

http://rangersfc.org/index.php?dn=news&to=art&id=1827

 

Reaction Mark Warburton

 

Reaction Wes Foderingham

 

Reaction Kenny Miller

 

Pics by Willie Vass

http://willievass.photoshelter.com/gallery/020416-Raith-Rovers-v-Rangers/G0000QWX5IF8wYyo/C0000FPOTtcv6CMk

 

Pics by Rangers FC

http://rangers.co.uk/news/galleries/gallery-rovers-v-gers/

[ian1964 10,413]

Ach!,maybe that is our wee bad run of games come to an end and we will finish the season strong and not give any more goals away so easily!,starting tomorrow night when we lift the league title and this will not only give the players an extra confidence boost but will set them up nice for the next two cup ties after achieving the ultimate target for this season,promotion!.