Euan Murray certainly isn’t a new face at Raith Rovers, but that didn’t quell the fans’ excitement at the signing.
The centre-back is known to the Stark’s Park faithful for a stint between 2017 and 2019 before he left for local rivals Dunfermline.
Some of Rovers’ summer signings bring with them the experience of doing well in this division.
Josh Mullin and Keith Watson won the Championship with Ross County and Murray achieved the same feat with Kilmarnock after joining them from the Pars.
He then moved to Hartlepool to play under then-manager Paul Hartley though continued to play regularly once the manager was let go on in September.
Murray later dropped out of the side due to injury and made his return in March before a hamstring injury ended his season.
A fairly lengthy pursuit of the player then ensued before Murray negotiated his exit from the North East and made his return to Raith Rovers with “unfinished business”.
His new manager, Ian Murray, recently spoke about getting the defender “up to speed” in time to play some part versus his former side Kilmarnock next week.
In total, the defender made 36 appearances total for Hartlepool last season, 29 in League Two as the side were relegated to the National League.
The radar below selects a range of metrics used to analyse central defenders and compares them to the English League Two average.
These will likely not translate exactly to the Scottish Championship but they give an idea of how Murray performed compared to his peers last season.
One thing that stands out that bodes well for Rovers’ possession-based approach is how comfortable Murray is on the ball, outperforming the league average for passing accuracy – as well as passes under pressure – and they tend to be on the shorter side.
At 6ft-plus, Murray possesses height but performed below average when it comes to aerial duels.
However, these will also include attacking aerial duels which can pull down the win percentage if that player challenges often for headers in the opposition box.
It should also be taken into account that Murray was part of a Hartlepool side that was under the cosh for large parts of the previous campaign, conceding 78 goals in 42 matches – the worst record in English League Two and eight more than bottom-placed Rochdale.
What we do know is that Murray has a form for heading in set-pieces, scoring nine goals during his last stint at Raith before an incredible scoring run at Dunfermline that saw him score seven goals in nine matches at the start of the 2020/21 season.
