DMAA

Helander is here for the long term, nothing to do with him imo. It’s between Balogun, Katic and Edmundson. Balogun’s contract expires as he turns 33. I expect us to extend that by another year but I wouldn’t be a shocked if we didn’t. Katic is returning from a season out and in my opinion should be loaned out to regain fitness and see how he does. Edmundson’s COVID transgression may spell the end for him, I hope not. Two of those three won’t be here next season IMO, at this moment I would guess Katic goes on loan and Edmundson moves on but my preference would be for Edmundson to stay.

@Billwill enjoy this. Ryan Jack’s league record this year. Played 15, Won 14, Drawn 1, Lost 0 Scored 40 Conceded 0 Points: 43/45We have not lost a goal in any League game that he has played this season.

Oh, a mention for Zungu too. He was excellent when he came on. We are all still working him out, but he was really good tonight.

Nothing new there. Roofe’s hold up play is elite level. He has the combination of all the attributes you need and what a difference it makes. Itten not at that level but still very good from what we’ve seen.

Big 3 points. Comfortable too. Crucial game time for Jack and Roofe too. Loads of positives.

I think he is, not a popular opinion though

Itten has been really good too. Ball sticks to him, good passes, fast and wins a lot of free kicks.

I was going to say the exact same thing ?

Roofe’s hold up play and link up play is on another level. Just brilliant.

My word, McGregor still has his pace

We’re playing some good stuff here. Kent is on form. Hibs showing there though that you can’t take anything for granted. We should be out of sight by now.

Hagi dropped as soon as Jack is back ?‍♂️ disappointing, I hope he is given more game time than he was before Jack’s injury because he has earned it. Line-up looks strong though, pleased Helander is getting a run.

Barisic for me. I thought he was very good and one of our biggest threats throughout. Davis was very good too.

Yeh he will. For a start he will get far more opportunities to run the ball and link up with other attacking players. I saw on their forum a number of them saying they play better football when he is in the team and Hedges is at his best when Scott Wright is playing. I think he could be a very decent backup player. One concern I would have is his finishing, I noticed in the highlights he isn’t exactly clinical. We’ll see I suppose.

Really interesting signing. Can’t be denied that it will raise a few eyebrows as he hasn’t played a big part at Aberdeen. He seems to fit the bill for a backup with Stewart not getting games and question marks over Jones. In the lead up to their equaliser against Celtic you saw a flash of brilliance from him, exceptionally close ball control followed by a deft through ball. He basically created that equaliser single handedly. But he hasn’t done that often. I have watched almost all their highlights from this season and he has very much been a supporting act. Interestingly, Aberdeen seem to have tried to get him playing like Kent, through the middle despite it not being his natural position. He runs at the defence as a decoy before playing it out to Hayes to cross in space a lot. We have obviously seen enough in him to bring him in so that’s good enough for me. Aberdeen will be desperate to get it done in this window now because they are desperate for cash and now that he’s going anyway I imagine they would much rather a cash boost than to keep a player their fans hate for another few months. Every game they start him there would be an outcry, it’s not good for anyone (not least McInnes who is getting a lot of abuse on the back of this). The player will be desperate to get away from that city too now that he is public enemy number one so I think a deal will be done near the end of the window. Aberdeen are in a very weak bargaining position though and I expect Rangers to take full advantage of that and to drag things out till Aberdeen eventually settle for what we are offering.

We have equalled our points total of the 16/17 season. 3 points and we will equal the 17/18 season total.

Helander starts so I'm very happy. Happy that Hagi keeps his place too and a welcome return to the bench for Jack and Roofe. If I was being greedy I would have liked to see Itten start too but hopefully he gets more time than usual off the bench, it should be acknowledged that he bailed us out at Fir Park.

Yeh I'd forgotten it was just carries in my previous comments. Hagi doesn't carry the ball much but I think he does most of his work around the box.

His most notable for me has always been his aggression, which is what Gerrard mentions in that article. As he says, it is unusual in a winger. Aside from that his standout qualities are pace, workrate and the ability to win the ball back (related to aggression). I’ve always said his technical ability is more consistent with an out and out winger who plays on the side of his strong foot than that of an inverted winger, who normally needs to have very close ball control and good vision and passing (Barrie McKay a recent example).

I’m surprised at the shot locations. I find that he takes quite a lot of speculative shots. I guess that would include shots that aren’t necessarily far out but are very unlikely to go in and are comfortably saved. It is notable to me that there aren’tmany passes near the 6 yard box at all, especially centrally (the location with the highest chance of scoring). I’m not seeing his assist for Arfield there in the 8-0 vs Hamilton though which is the closest to that kind of high-scoring-chance assist that I can remember.

I did notice one stat which was different to what Modern Fitba put out. The article said Roofe was leading in non open play xG per 90 with 0.68. The above isn’t non open play in that free kicks are included. However Morelos and Roofe don’t take free kicks so their stats are essentially non open play. It probably a difference in the models being used but it is surprising that there is such a big difference. The amount by which Roofe outperforms his xG is unbelievable though, he can’t keep that up.

I saw that last night, really good article. I was a little bit confused at some of the stats as they seemed to contradict what Modern Fitba put out at first glance but I noticed the difference is that they mostly aren’t “per 90” stats. The latest xA per 90 put out by Modern Fitba still has Hagi top, albeit Kent closing the gap. I’d like to see an update on the metric that shows the number of very good chances created per 90 though, they haven’t put that out in a while and it’s the most valuable one IMO.

If it is true they are planning a massive operations overhaul in the summer, then it will be a very bad season to be starting their European campaign as early as July 20th (if they finish 2nd). This season they hadn’t made a single signing till July 30th (most were far later than that) and they had only played their first pre-season game a few days before that date. It is very hard to make good quality transfers that early in the transfer window at the best of times, never mind when there has been a change in the management personnel at the club. If we win the league, we would be given an extra fortnight before our first qualifier. If the winners of this season UCL win their domestic league then we would get a whole extra month before our first European game (playoffs). See, I’m being good, adding “if” left right and centre.

And yes this is true. I don’t doubt for a minute that Gerrard is keeping the team laser focused and working on the assumption that they won’t drop another point all season. Unfortunately I have fallen into the #badjuju camp because I fully trust Gerrard to bring this one home now.

I would be very surprised if they didn’t attempt to bring in a high profile manager again and give him a good budget.