Kmcalpin

Certainly the players gave of their best but as can happen in these situations we just blew it. OK Panathanaikos were perhaps a class above us but they didn't have to work very hard for their goals, although their second was well taken. I thought Lasley, Hutchinson and Higdon were the pick of the bunch and didn't look out of place in this game. At the back, too many unforced errors and poor marking cost us. In midfield and up front we lacked penetration and a killer touch. Some poor decision making too. At times our build up was painfully slow when we had the players to hurt them. Felt a bit sorry for Chris Humphrey - he looked to be in the mood early on but poor service limited his involvement. Still on the plus side our lads will have learnt a lot. You don't always have to produce glittering exciting football to win games sometimes being solid and reliable is quite adequate. A great night and the fans turned out in big numbers . A 9,000+ crowd in late July is quite an achievement. The club will have made about £190k from the gate and that can't be bad. If we can just tighten up in defence we can achieve a better result in Athens.

Good news indeed. Well done to all concerned and most of all you, Andy.

It was the Pitch In fund Andy. There was a fund for share purchase and one for general donations/club projects and contributors could choose which one they wanted to opt for. Given the overall numbers it was moderately successful if I recall rightly. Most folk paid in about £10 / £15 per month (that was 10 years ago). This kind of scheme has its place, but I agree with Bop in that monthly sums shouldn't be fixed. Some folk may have a hard month with bills etc. A good idea.

Specialist training Greg - unless you're physically tough you smply won't survive down south in the upper echelons. Just look at Faddy. Not the biggest or strongest of guys when he was with us but within 12 months at Goodison he'd put on a stone of muscle. I was scared stiff when Everton took the field yesterday and I was just watching from the stands. Some very big guys in that side and if they'd wanted to they could easily knock 10 bells out of any Scots side. I saw Adam Cummins and Jelavic together and whilst they were about tthe same height, the latter was about 2 stones heavier. You would not want to mess with guys like Darron Gibson. Everton were not a dirty side and the game was 100% clean yesterday but you knew that the Toffees could take care of themselves if they had to.

For Jamie's sake and the sake of the club, both financially and in a playing sense, now is the right time for him to move on. An English club can toughen him up physically in a way we can't. He has gone as far as he can with us and will not develop any further. The important thing is for us to bring in a replacement who will strengthen the team, at lesser cost.

Both lads are promising but have a bit to go. They are young after all. Stuart Carswell struggled a bit in some games last season and Steve Hetherington looks good going forward but needs to brush up on his defensive skills and positional awareness - if you were at Starks Park last week you'll know what I mean.

I think the club rightly played down the benefits of this game although in fairness they didn't know who we were playing at that time. How many fans would FC Kobenhavn or Dinamo Kiev bring? Don't forget though that if we sell 10,000 tickets HMRC will take their whack in VAT (max £60,000) and a fair chunk of the tickets will be concessions.

Well done folks, and especially yourself Iain. We all have our differences from time to time but its good to see we can pull together when the chips are down.

Presumably too Stuart Carswell is injured I've hardly heard his name mentioned in recent weeks and he doesn't appear to have featured in any game. Is he injured or has he done a Lord Lucan disappearing act?

??????? Its always hard to tell from the stands but they seemed ok when they went off on Tuesday evening. If true we're really in it, with Hutch being sidelined as well.

I don't think we'll get anything like a full house. We'd struggle at the best of times but with the game being slap bang in the middle of the holiday period I'd be delighted with a 9,000 crowd. Hope I'm wrong though.

We were discussing this very point in our office today Andy. The feeling was that BBC/STV would be lukewarm at best but that Greek TV monies will make us a very happy club indeed. How accurate is that? I don't know but no doubt someone on these boards will have good knowledge of Greek TV.

Yes he does. Probably his last chance. The forgotten man of the pre season preparation - presumably due to injury?

I know its a limited basis from which to draw conclusions but I think we'll struggle this season with a mid table finish at best. Central defence is a huge concern to me. On the evidence so far we have 1 good centre back (Shaun Hutchinson) and potentially good one in Steven Saunders. The others are either not good enough or too inexperienced. Central midfield is also a huge concern. Keith Lasley is getting on now and he'll need a mobile ball winner beside him - who? Central defence and central midfield are two critical areas of the team. We could also lose one or two of our best lads later in the window. On the evidence of first two friendlies there are no young lads ready or able to step up. Currently the squad is just too thin - last year we had a very good starting 11 with 1 or 2 reasonable back up players - this year we have maybe 9/10 good first players. Some rivals like Aberdeen and perhaps Hibs will have gotten stronger. Dundee United will finish 2nd as their fans are saying, and I don't think St Johnstone are much weaker. Hearts will finish in the top 6. Of the others Kilmarnock will not be any weaker. Don't be fooled by Dundee - they were tipped off 2 months ago that they could be playing SPL football this season and have announced plans to sign 6 players.

Agreed Iain. Tomorrow night's game against Arbroath will be the same again. However I'm concerned about central defence. I just don't think that we've enough muscle there without Hutch. Tend to agree about Jamie Murphy - he looked to be in the mood tonight but like much of last season didn't seem to know where he was meant to be playing. He was just as likely to pop up at full back as he was to support Michael Higdon. It made life difficult for his colleagues who found it almost impossible to play with him.

Couldn't really take much from the game tonight apart from a chance to improve match fitness and sharpness. As expected an experienced Raith side put themselves about a bit to prove they were SPL standard. Hopefully the Everton game will show us our strongest defensive and midfield line ups. Certainly its not clear to me at the moment. Don't want to read too much into the game but I'd have thought that some of the young lads and fringe players would have sniffed a CL place going abegging and would have taken the golden opportunity to prove themselves but that wasn't the case.

I'm sure you'll hear pretty soon. To date the admin has been reasonably good.

Any word yet on who might line up for us? Is Shaun Hutchinson fit enough to play for 45 minutes? Has Harry Ramsden now left the club, given that we cannot sign anyone?

Think its on Wednesday evening Max.

Society funds are purely a temporary cash float and do not reperesent permanent expenditure.

I'd avoid handing over an extra fiver at the gates and I doubt if the club would like it. Best if the club arranges something separately like a bucket collection outside / inside the gates.

Just a bounce game and the run out will do the lads good. Add to that, Ayr had a point to prove and we didn't. Only points of concern to me, as it has been for some weeks now, is our central defence and central midfield. If Hutch is going to be sidelined we'll ship goals. Tuesday evening will be another bounce game but I don't think its unreasonable to expect an improvement. Presumably Adam Cummins is still injured?

Agree with that. Next Saturday will be about Stevie Hammell and rightly so but I hope that the club takes the opportunity to raise some additional cash through some scheme or other.

Not necesarily. We've always competed with and sometimes bettered them. We were beating Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee and Hibs 70 or more years ago. No reason why that should stop.