DMAA

It is an underwhelming window largely because the expectations were raised when Gerrard said he was really excited ahead of the transfer window and there were big things planned or something like that. Sakala directly replaces Itten. Sakala certainly adds pace but he will have to prove himself. Lundstram directly replaces Zungu. I think Zungu was better at the defensive side of the game, Lundstram is another who can maybe contribute with some goals/assists like Arfield. Despite that, Celtic have had a catastrophic window and you have to take our window in that context because our financial environment the same. They appear to have balanced the books by downgrading their squad. We have maintained a strong squad but almost certainly have a higher wage bill than them now, maybe even significantly higher. I’m confident ahead of the season and, again, the biggest risks to our season are injuries to Helander, Barisic, Jack and Roofe.

@der Berliner won’t be impressed.

After the signing of Sakala we looked overstocked up front to be honest. We look overstocked at centre back and midfield too, Katic will surely secure a loan? Looks like Hadjuk Split are interested, that would be a decent move. In centre mid I've no idea, but we have 8 seniors midfielders to 3 midfield positions, something has to give surely. There's no way McCann signs in those circumstances. I think we lack a good tackler in our midfield.

I find this a very frustrating one. He was well known to be from a Celtic background but we all said that didn't matter, yet there was a feeling of inevitability about this. He has been a big player for us through the youth teams and had the better of Celtic throughout, yet the second I heard he had left Rangers after a fall out I knew he would end up there. Hopefully he’ll amount to nothing, by all accounts there are serious red flags regarding his attitude.

Deeney much more likely to be heading to Celtic. They are desperate for a striker, we are pretty well stocked.

Gerrard was more frustrated at the players who aren’t performing for him in his press conferences than anyone on here tbh, questioned their dedication at the moment and said something along the lines of he’ll be going with the in-form boys at the weekend, so it’s not that he isn’t seeing what we are or agreeing with it. Some people do go too far (the worst normally in the stadium itself), but equally some don’t seem to be able to handle fans validly criticising some individual performances.

He is a very hot and cold player. When he’s on form he is great, when he is not on form he is so poor. The opposition last night was really weak and he still couldn’t beat a man or create anything. It was a good chance to regain some confidence. I’m hopeful that the competition from Wright will do him good this season though and I’m confident Gerrard will use that. He has already started to, last season he would very rarely sub Kent when he wasn’t at it but it’s been different this season. And I thought he hinted that Wright will start at the weekend in the press conference.

I'm just worried about Lundstram's fitness. He has looked sluggish, not mobile and a bit lazy. It seems a longer term issue going by reports from Sheffield United. Not a signing I was excited about but I still believe he will do just fine if he can get himself fully fit.

I was delighted to see his hunger and aggression last night. A lot of our fans didn't take to him before now, I think he is winning a lot of them over by playing like that. I would love to see him make himself a regular this season but he has strong competition.

Kamara and Roofe returning is massive. Bacuna is an interesting signing and after tonight I think we’re all glad to have another option. Ryan Jack is also reportedly very near a return. I think things will get better soon but it is concerning when the old firm game is fast approaching.

We have Celtic coming up so the gaffer has had to decide which players to try to get up to speed and persevere with and which ones to give a chance to. He gave Bassey a chance tonight and eventually gave Wright one too. Of course he might still intend to play Barisic on Sunday and then again the following Sunday. These aren’t easy decisions to make and we do need to rotate.

Pressure was off, in a strange way, once we down to 10.

One of the few who looks like he thinks he needs to earn his place in the team.

Wouldn’t mind Patterson coming on

It’s live match thread. Absolutely nothing wrong with making a comment on a single player every now and again. I felt he had been particularly poor.

This is a very poor side we are playing, still no excuses for not hammering them and this might just tempt them to open up a bit.

Lundstram is just so slow on the ball. Incredibly poor from him tonight.

I didn’t say he was

Kent really needs to up his game.

Looks like the signing of Juninho Bacuna from Huddersfield is imminent. Low fee with appearance based add-ons according to Alan Nixon. A bit of a puzzling one given the number of midfielders we already have, surely someone is leaving.

A few players have given the manager something to think about and that’s exactly what we want.

Well I obviously see a bigger difference between the two players than you do. I have always said I feel uneasy when Balogun plays, but especially in Europe and I wasn’t surprised at all to see him exposed last night.

I don’t think we disagree, I just meant that for a period of dominance and great pressure we didn’t actually come close to scoring much, I don’t think we had an effort on target aside from the goal. You would normally expect the keeper to be very busy during a spell like that.

Yeh he was available, but he has said he has been playing with painkillers for 8 years and his ongoing problems do often cause him to be rested when we are playing twice a week. It’s possible he had some discomfort that was enough for the management to rest him but not enough to put him out of the squad.

Even in that time we were still powderpuff in the final third really though weren’t we? It’s difficult to say what should have been done, I think Hagi deserved a start though as he looks sharper than most. There was an argument to play Itten at home alongside Morelos so that we had more goal-scorers in the team but you can understand why that wasn’t done from the start, however I think it should have been done at half time when we were a man up. I think they’d have been very uncomfortable with a man on top of both of their center backs. Wright and Kent don’t have any presence.