DMAA

£4m is the rumoured fee the make it permanent, an option you would imagine we are inclined to take. If you ignore the fee, he seems to be an excellent player to have in a squad. His best years ahead of him, and covers a lot of positions.

It's hard to predict, but we have probably another couple of seasons of automatic Champions League qualification before we lose it. So this season and next are more important than most. Our qualification to the CL has only accelerated the eventual loss of the automatic space we have.

I think Matondo will prove a very useful player over the course of the season, and hopefully for seasons to come. But the fact remains that after spending £12m or so and making the Champions League, our strongest 11 has a central attacking mid playing in the right forward position (Tillman or Lawrence), which is a bit disappointing given it seemed to most of us like the top priority position to strengthen.

We haven’t signed a clear starter who is natural in the right forward position. Both Tillman and Lawrence look best centrally. Matondo doesn’t look to have the quality to be a clear starter who we can rely on week in week out. Question marks over style of play too, why didn’t we go for a left footed wide forward?

I think we absolutely do need to catch them up, they were a far better team last season. Whether we have already caught them up remains to be seen. I still have a concern regarding the disparity in goal scoring capability between our front 3s, although I do believe we have made strides in the right direction with Colak replacing Morelos, Lawrence replacing one of our midfield 3 and Tillman replacing Wright or whoever else.

In seriousness, Club Brugge are in a different league to us in terms of their use of the transermarkt. They have a great track record for signing quality young players and flipping them for big money, an example for us to follow. To be fair, we've taken steps in that direction too with the signings of Yilmaz and Matondo (and maybe eventually the signings of Sands and Tillman). Time will tell whether those players are good enough to bring in the fees Brugge have brought in, it's all about quality scouting. Bassey is our obvious big success to date. We have a long way to go though, clubs like Brugge have far more money than us to spend because they've been doing this for years whilst we have generally been very pragmatic.

You obviously haven’t seen what I am capable of on Football Manager.

I would like another couple of outs and ins but it’s all very quiet.

Matondo is more comfortable as a right winger for me. He lacks something coming off the left, doesn’t quite have the technique to do it very well. On the right we can exploit his pace and get him to the byline. I expect he may need time to develop though.

2.97 vs 0.45 Not bad but not a particularly impressive differential at home to Ross County tbh. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on the xG differential table as it seems to accurately predict the league winner pretty early every season.

Far from ideal to have Liverpool early in the group.

Wisconsin Razorbacks? That is niche. What’s your background?

With new signings it's often about expectations. He's only had one season of regular senior football and patience will be required. Davies will have the £4m tag hanging over him a bit too for some fans. Lundstram was free, but there was a clamour for a big signing in centre mid who was very creative and a goalscorer, a different type to Davis, Jack and Kamara. For a while Lundstram looked similar to those in level and style. I voiced some concerns about his fitness at the time, I'm sure he later said he struggled for a while after having had COVID. The level of criticism was insane though, when the January transfer window closed loads of people were "very disappointed" that we hadn't moved him on!! I wasn't a big fan of the signing, but better to have him around the second half of the season than not! I don't think any of us saw that scale of a turnaround coming though.

Just looked it up, that was 2005. But yeh a good team. And yes, Bob Malcolm, Ian Murray and Namouchi started that game. Not exactly a team full of a stars.

Have we got worse with the endless discussion that comes with the internet? I often mention that arguably our best performing side (02-03) had Bob Malcolm and Maurice Ross in it. They each made about 30 appearances that season. Ricky Foster played a part in Walter Smith’s sides. As did a fairly raw Gregg Wylde. Edu maybe an even better example because he was a proper regular, despite being a fairly limited player, he was used well though. Cole and Hutton started our last Champions League game, which was under Walter too. Today it feels like every position has to be perfect. Not just the starting 11, the backups have to be perfect too. Even an established player like Barisic (compare to Foster) gets crucified and completely written off after a poor performance. If your weakest player is Barisic then you are in good shape! Some very good Rangers teams have had weaker links than that.

Agree, he can play centre mid. Centre back is just where he has got his chance. We haven’t seen him excel in centre mid yet though.

Have to say it’s great to see James Sands, who didn't start in Seville, getting 20 votes for man of the match for this game of all games. What a turnaround for him, I’m chuffed for him. I have wanted him to do well since he joined, I’m not sure why, part of it is the fact that he’s come across the world to better himself and it’s always a shame when that doesn’t work out, but he also just comes across like a good guy and a good team player. He’s also been written off plenty by our fans. Anyway, I’ve nothing to add to what others have said about his performance other than that even though I knew he had more aggression and strength than he got credit for, I was surprised last night at just how tough he was. As things stand, he certainly looks like a ball playing centre back rather than a centre mid, and our £4m signing has a job on his hands to displace him.

I think that’s likely. PSV were being tipped for the title by some, maybe wrongly, but Ajax only just beat them to the title by 2 points last season, and it remains to be seen whether they have effectively replaced the players they sold.

I think they have a weaker third team, giving them an easier route to 3rd.

I’ll take it. Could have been better and could have been worse. Celtic have the easier group this time.

Just watched back the highlights for the first time. Colak played a huge part in forcing the error for the goal. He pressed their centre back hard, when there was no need to, and that forced him to play a rushed pass back to the keeper and he kept pressing, this gave Tillman the chance to press with him and nick the ball, Colak was where he was purely due to incredibly hard work and excellent stamina an hour into a game in 28 degree heat. Alfredo has advantages but his pressing has long frustrated me in Europe, especially when we aren't right on top of them, he doesn't have the stamina or pace to do what Colak did there. These are things that are hard to measure but pressure on centre backs interrupts their build-up, stops them being able to take their time to pick accurate long passes forward, and occasionally forces mistakes. Yes it was a mistake but it's laughable the way Celtic fans make out PSV simply gifted us the goal, this mistake was forced by some excellent pressing from two players, and Colak in particular who instigated the whole thing.

Is TV the Market pool money?

Not Bayern!! If we draw Bayern we lose Tillman.

Honestly there was a feeling of inevitability about it after our goal went in. As the team defending the lead your are bricking it, but I was thinking if I was a PSV supporter I’d be raging because they were doing nothing at all. Long balls and no ideas. On a separate note entirely, Champions League qualification is massive in progressing our reputation and prestige in Europe that one step further. Europa League is great entertainment but it is not respected the same way. We can now say to prospective signings that we are a team who make the Champions League sometimes, whereas up until now you could be excused for saying we weren’t at that level yet.

I’m a wee bit annoyed that we have to wait until 5pm (likely 5.30pm) for the draw, not what we were used to with the Europa League. What a great thing to be annoyed about today 😀