In 2035, Raith Rovers had reached a European final and qualified for Europe for the first time in 30 years. Could they build on that? You bet they could, as Robí di Lathamé’s team of heroes won the club’s first European trophy, won their second ever League Cup, and qualified for the Champions League for the first time in Raith’s history.
What a save this has been, and the best thing about it is that we’ve only spent £720,000 in transfers in the last seven seasons. And we’re still only spending £52,000 in wages heading into the 2026 summer transfer window. Amazing!
Raith key performers
Star loanee striker Ryan Cassidy was once again our key player, who broke his own club record with 29 goals in all competitions. That was one better than his tally of 28 in his first season with us. He’s now 25 and has four more years on his Watford contract, so I doubt we’ll ever sign him permanently, but he now has 114 goals for Raith in five loan spells. What a hero.
A surprising key player was 22-year-old right-winger Mark Frost, signed for just £100,000 from Leyton Orient two years ago, who also set a new club record with 16 assists. While Alex Simpson’s 27 clean sheets in a huge 57 matches was also a new club record.
But for me the star of the season has to be academy product centre-back Willie Binnie, now 21, who popped up with a ridiculous 12 goals in 54 appearances at an average rating of 7.12. And 10 of those goals came from 32 league appearances!
The brilliantly named Niall Quinn also chimed in with 10 goals, followed by Callum Wigley and Frost with 9. While backup striker Philip Cohen scored in 24, which I’m fairly sure were all scored in home league games.
Frost led the creative forces but was closely followed by impressive central midfielder Glen Cranston’s 15 assists anf 5 goals. The Englishman cost just £19,000 from Darlington five years ago, and is now worth £4.3 million. Callum Wigley was also impressive with 13 assists, followed by rightback Godwin Uzeh and captain fantastic Dylan Tait with 7.
Surprisingly, Cohen was our top-rated player with an average rating of 7.29 from 24 games. That was followed by Cassidy (7.28), Wigley (7.23), Cranston (7.17) and Binnie (7.12).
Award winners
Cassidy won the fans’ player of the season award with 44% of the vote, followed by Cranston (25%) and Wigley (19%).
I claimed the Premiership Players’ Manager of the Year award. While Wigley won Player of the Season and Cassidy won Golden Boot in the Europa Conference League. We also had seven players in the team of the season, alongside four Bournemouth players.
Premiership team stats
The good news is that we scored eight more goals than the previous season, which was only fourth behind Celtic, Rangers and eight placed Greenock Morton. And the even better news is that we had the league’s best defence with just 24 goals conceded, which was two less than Rangers and four fewer than champions Celtic. And we kept the joint league-high of 19 clean sheets.
We also made the second most fouls (570) and won the joint fewest amount of tackles (83%). And we got the second most yellow cards with 93, just one behind relegated Falkirk’s 92. We love getting stuck in!
However, an interesting new development was that we had the joint most dribbles per match, tied at 16 with Celtic. And I presume that says a lot about our efforts to play with more width this season.
Premiership player stats
Cassidy finished as the third top scorer in the Premiership with just 11 goals. Celtic’s Callum McGregor led the way with a suspiciously low 13. But Cassidy (20%) and Quinn (25%) had the best shots on target ratio in the league.
Cranston claimed the award for more assists with 12 and also had the most key passes in the league with 88. While Frost and Quinn attempted the most dribbles in the league at 5.58 and 5.23 per 90 minutes respectively.
Defensively, right-back Godwin Uzeh made the most tackles per game with 6.17 every 90 minutes and the second most key tackles with 22. Centre-back Stewart Fleming won the second most key headers with 96 and third most interceptions with 142. And goalkeeper Simpson kept the joint most clean sheets with 18 and saved both of the penalties he saved in the league!
Join us next time to see how we can go about building for a fifth season in the Scottish Premiership. But can we ever make Raith the champions of Scotland?
Football Manager Addict 
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