DMAA

The Shankland fan club will never accept it but Silva is a striker and will play a major part in the rest of the season. He’s not prolific but he will score goals and bring quality to our front line.

I think we looked increasingly well coached, even though the quality is lacking at times. And I’m very hopeful Silva will have a very good few months with us. I think he adds a lot to the team. 

41 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

 

FC Twente is not only negotiating the departure of Manfred Ugalde, but has also been approached by Rangers FC. The Scottish top club has registered for Gijs Smal.

Would be very happy with that one. Excellent going forward. 

Sima confirmed as out “long term”. Forget striker, we are absolutely desperate for a wde forward now. 

41 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Nordsjælland have sold Simon Adingra, Mohammed Kudus, Kamaldeen Sulemana, Ernest Nuamah over the past few seasons, for a combined fee of around €60M.

 

They are all from the 'Right to Dream' academy in Ghana. 

 

Is Diomande next up?

 

What's interesting is all of them moved to another club from Nordsjælland before moving on to the bigger move. I suppose we're the stepping stone. Not a bad thing if we make money on them. 

Always wondered why we can't recruit directly from academies like that. 

6 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

The way modern football is played, I don't think there's much need for midfielders to be particularly good at heading the ball.  

 

What bothers me far more is tackling being a dying art.

I think it remains pretty important in Scotland. It's one of the main ways poor teams in our league get success against us. Agree on tackling though. Diomande’s tackling stats at pretty hard to understand. A mix of good and bad. 

Just in case people haven't seen his stats. 

https://x.com/KieranScouting/status/1748985505989935502?s=20

9 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

After the past few years, I don't understand how anyone can get excited about new signings. 

 

Far too many disappointments.  

Red flags were there in the stats for most of our summer signings. In particular, the stats indicated that only Sima was a good goalscorer. The rest all had very average xG vs Goals, or very poor in Lammers’ case. I don't know how Beale expected that to go. 
 

The usual caveats apply with Diomande as with any in terms of settling in and adapting, but I don't see red flags in his stats at least, other than being hopeless in the air. Very good signing on paper. 

Big fan of the Diomande signing. Centre mid urgently needed strengthening, and Diomande seems to have the skillset to make an instant impact but develop into a better player over time. A return to a trading model after a summer window where we abandoned it. Diomande is more promising than Cifuentes for me, only concern being that the stats suggest he is utterly hopeless in the air. You can't have it all though. 

Could the handball rule be more confusing? Johnston is looking right at the ball, and the ball was just about to fall at Sima’s feet so the handball directly interferes with play. He moves his hand towards the ball. It makes no sense to me.

9 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Straight into the last 16 of the competition in March and we'll be seeded for the draw on Feb 23rd....

Incredible

Absolutely amazing. Happy to admit that I did not see that coming at all. That result is up there with our best ones in Europe for me. What a morale boost that is for us. 

9 hours ago, yuddie said:

We probably need to kick around the idea that Butland is the best player in the league, best keeper is damning him with faint praise.

 

82% save rate so far this season

It's very satisfying that Hart’s form has plummeted at the same time. 

8 minutes ago, CammyF said:

He's scored goals throughout his career and was genuinely excited at his signing. He seems to be the type of striker that needs 2 or 3 chances. 

Which is exactly what the stats said. I remember quoting the stats on here pre-season and they showed that neither Dessers or Danilo were that good in front of goal, and Lammers was horrendous, but the best by far was Sima. And so it has turned out. I think Danilo certainly has shown more than Dessers and Lammers though. 

11 minutes ago, yuddie said:

It'll go under the radar but Tom Lawrence has been stinking since coming on.

 

This is horrendous.

I thought he made an impact initially, played some good through balls, but then did nothing right the rest of the game. 
 

I think k taking Cantwell off at that point will come back to haunt Clement. Made the wrong call with the starting line up, and has possibly damaged his relationship with one of our most talented players beyond repair. Granted he has been poor, but look at everyone else? Major lack of quality across the team and Cantwell would have offered more quality in the final third than most. 

The writing was on the wall when Betis lost. 

1 minute ago, Rousseau said:

It could just be a tactical change - bringing on a winger for a #10 - to go to more of a 4-4-2. Ideally, if you bring on a winger you don't want to take off a striker (Lammers). 

Lammers is just so poor though. Struggle to watch him. 

Very poor decision. Playing Cantwell wide to accommodate Lammers is just not a good decision. Cantwell should be central and mcausland wide. I fear Clement is going to waste and lose one of our best talents, and he's backing at least two duds out there tonight.  

2 hours ago, Bluedell said:

Virtually all are delighted with how the team is now playing compared to a month ago

Mostly with the same players too. There's every reason to be optimistic at the moment. He has a huge job trying to win the league though. 

Can’t argue with this appointment. That’s a very decent CV. Time to get excited again. 

3 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

It does suggest we'll get a DoF. 

 

I see this (him being a coach) as a positive. I think that's what we've always needed. We don't have quality players that can almost manage themselves. We need a coach that can instruct and develop them. 

Yeh I agree. It isn’t a negative, more of an observation I suppose that we aren’t currently set up to compliment that at the moment, but we do need to resolve that. A good coach and people person is what we need and he apparently is both of those. 

I really don’t know to be honest. I think both look like decent options. 3 Belgian titles on the trot is a very good achievement from Clement, and for that reason I’m inclined to vote Clement. Reports are generally good about his style too. I find the number of goals he conceded at Monaco concerning. 2nd for goals scored to be fair, but 14th for goals conceded. One other slightly concerning thing is that he doesn't get into recruitment much and is very much a coach. Normally that's all well and good, but at this dysfunctional club we don't have a DoF anymore because we decided we didn't need one. I'll probably still lean towards Clement, looks like he'd be a solid appointment, in a world where there are no risk free appointments. 

A report from Saudi says he’s coming to us. No idea if it’s true though. 

If I was the manager I would have said the same. I’d have at least signed some Football Manager wonderkids or something though. Not Lammers and Dessers. 

The opening ten minutes told you everything you needed to know. Grim that we never seem capable of changing a game.