DMAA

A good comparison of our forwards (including Danilo if we finally get him). A couple of surprises in there. xG vs goals for Lammers and Dessers in particular. Sima on the other hand has a low xG but outperforms it really well. Danilo just looks like an all rounder and he’ll be a star if he joins. Compliments Dessers well too as they are very different players.

It’s fairly early days but I like Ridvan. A much better defender than Barisic, good at quick passing and getting involved in build-up play and far more capable of getting to the byline and cutting it back than Barisic. I like how he makes underlapping runs too. He’ll never be as good a crosser but I don’t think he’s as bad as made out at crossing either. Needs a proper spell without injury this season to prove himself but I’m optimistic.

No I don’t think so. Everything I’ve read about him is that he is far more comfortable as a 10 than an 8, and struggles with the defensive side of the game. Raskin needs to be the 6. Dowell will chip in with a good number of goals too. He will definitely be better than what we’ve had in midfield on that front, even if played as an 8.

Jack and Lundstram struggled too.

Bear in mind it was a testimonial for Greegs.

A bit of a sucker punch really. Frustrating to lose even though it doesn’t matter. A good workout and a few good signs.

The stats did say he would be good at that!

Off the ball there was definitely a diamond at times. Cantwell was behind Sima and Lammers, and Jack was behind Lundstram and Dowell.

it’s been a mix between 4-4-2 and a diamond hasn’t it?

I like Souttar’s ability to break the press with his dribbling. Some better play now.

When we have the ball it’s basically just a countdown to either losing it or a long chipped pass over the top to their defence.

Looking out of our depth so far. How close is this to their best team?

Stats guy on Twitter, Joost, has Danilo performing at almost exactly the same level as Gimenez. I’ve got a good feeling about Danilo. https://twitter.com/joostvanderleij/status/1619066905243062272?s=46

Good luck Colak. He exceeded my expectations. I wasn’t massively excited last summer with his signing when most were. 29 years old and a track record of playing at a below-Rangers level, I thought it was underwhelming to say the least after how we had ended the season. Ultimately, I wasn’t wrong about his overall quality as a player, but he was a far better finisher than I think any of us expected. And Beale should have played him more when he got over his injury. Morelos did not repay the faith shown in him.

I just meant a full rebuild. So we have had big “outs” that allowed for bigger "ins". I think it is a bit presumptuous to say it's easy to compare because the success of this window won't be clear for some time. We also have no way of knowing how much of a part Wilson played in most of these signings.

Very hard to compare though because this summer is a proper rebuild. January was very good but Beale told us that Wilson put Raskin to him and he agreed and they moved forward. So Wilson was very much involved. I’ve no idea how Cantwell came about but I got the impression that was all Beale.

My understanding is that the manager is also involved up front. So the manager could say, I think we need a target man. Someone who can hold the ball up well, is good in the air etc. Or I need a ball winner in centre mid. And the DoF then does a lot of the work involved in modern recruitment and brings the manager a list and they work through it together. So rightly or wrongly I don’t see it as one sided as you do, and it makes sense to me.

They don’t call the shots though. The final say has always been with the manager. My understanding is that they do a lot of the legwork on transfer strategy partly because the manager doesn’t have time, and they present lists of options to the manager and the work through them together and narrow it down. It’s a collaborative effort and it makes sense to me in terms of the division of labour. I honestly think things would be chaotic if transfers were bottlenecking through the manager only.

Yeh I’m in favour of a DoF role. It just hasn’t improved our performance In the transfer market the way it should have.

The most important thing is to have people who have a real eye for a player. So many ex-pros just don’t really have it, and to an extent I’d say that applies to Gerrard. McCoist too. Celtic had a great window last year without a DoF because their manager had an eye for a player. We had an experienced DoF and had several consecutive poor windows.

So will 2 up front, Danilo and Dessers.

Just need someone to come in for Davies now!

Yes. I’ll take that all day long.

Colak to Parma for 2.5m Sakala to Saudi for 4m On the same night that an ITK has reported with confidence that Danilo is signing. This has escalated quickly.

Don't shoot the messenger but probably worth mentioning that Scott McKenna's name is also being mentioned. Very difficult to see that one. He's into the last year of his contract though.