Falkirk FC boss John McGlynn assesses Scottish Cup opponents Raith Rovers and reveals transfer plans

Raith, on their third manager of a turbulent season, sacked Ian Murray following a 1-0 opening day defeat at Airdrieonians and his replacement Neill Collins resigned after 16 games before Barry Robson took over on December 29. The Fife team – pre-season title favourites – are currently sixth in the table and 19 points and 17 points respectively behind Falkirk and Ayr.

McGlynn – who previously managed Raith in two spells between 2006 and 2012 and from 2018 to 2022 – told the Falkirk Herald: “I think that my opinion was that Raith had such a good season the season before and they were so far ahead of everyone else, and then you looked at the signings that they made and you thought: ‘That looks like good signings’ and they will certainly be up there again.

"You can never say never but it would take a bit of a miracle, I think, for Raith Rovers to get to the top two.

"I mean, I don't know how far that makes them off the play-offs right now (Raith are currently 11 points adrift of fourth-placed Partick Thistle with two games in hand).

"I think there's a lot of ambitions of trying to get to the play-offs.

"I'm a little bit surprised (by where Raith are in the league). However, this is not a league game, this is a cup tie, it's all over on the day regardless, whether it's extra-time, penalties or whatever.

"League form and league positions go out the window and it's all who turns up on the day. Obviously, we want to try and have a cup run, we're at home, our home record's good.

"We want to try and keep that intact.”

When asked if Falkirk’s continuity over the past few years – with McGlynn having a settled squad from the one which won League One undefeated last season – had been key to their success, McGlynn added: “Continuity is a great thing. Obviously, to get continuity, you need to have some form of success.

"You need to be heading in the right direction. I think we've seen that with ourselves.

"As soon as myself and Paul have come in, we've been heading in the right direction.

"Raith Rovers made a decision at the beginning of the season. It's led to another manager coming in.

"In between times, it took a wee while to get the manager in. There are obviously caretaker managers being in place and things have changed and people have different ideas.

"Then Neil Collins comes in and maybe he's got different ideas again and signing different players.

"All of a sudden, he's gone and they're not necessarily in a great place. Now Barry's coming in.

"He's somebody to pick up the reins and try and sort things out. It's trying to find a winning formula.

"There's loads of things getting put in your way, whether it's injuries to players, new signings finding their feet, whatever it may be.

"Obviously, they're talking about making signings. To get continuity is huge, I think.

"But, as I say, you need to get results. You need to get results to buy yourself time to get that continuity.”

McGlynn, who has a strong squad available for this Sunday’s cup tie, was also asked if he expects any more ins and outs during this month’s transfer window.

He said: “Well, it's the 17th, so we've got a couple of weeks left. I wouldn't say no.

"I'm really pleased with what we've got. We're trying to make sure we've got enough squad to go the whole distance.

“I was pleased previously, but we had two young boys on the bench. That's good to get them experience and keep them involved in that.

"Now we see ourselves with a full bench of first team players, it makes us stronger. We want to try and go the distance.

"We wouldn't want to run out of players or players get overtired and end up picking up injuries.

"We're building a squad to try and take us the whole way. Even if it ends up being play-offs, you're going to know there's difficult games.

"We all know that the championship teams have got to play potentially six games.

"If you get to the semi-final, you're playing four games still, hard games.

"You need a big squad to deal with that. We've seen last year how Ross County dealt with Raith Rovers in the end.

"You're trying to look ahead and you're trying to give yourself as much ammunition and cover as you possibly can get.

"Sometimes in the short term, if you've got all the players available, it'll be a little bit frustrating for one or two not to be involved, but we have to just try and make sure we don't run out of players.”