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. 

9 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Dowell looked like a good passer, but not the most mobile; although, perhaps it's because he's not match fit?

 

I wonder if he'd be better playing at DM as a deep-lying playmaker, dictating play, etc. which would free up a place for Raskin as an #8 so he can use his energy to get about; he does score goals when playing for Belgium U21s in a more advanced position.   

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. 

6 hours ago, Bill said:

If Matondo, Sakala and Barisic don't show more against Hamburg I think they're going to spend a lot of time on the bench this season if they don't leave.

Jack and Lundstram struggled too. 

7 minutes ago, Graeme Ro55 said:

Why o why bring on Wright ? 

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!

1 minute ago, Rousseau said:

I don't see the diamond. 

 

It looks like a flat 4-3-3 and flat 4-4-2 in different phases. 

 

The front three are definitely changing positions. 

 

To be fair, we've not had a lot of the ball to see it develop. 

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

13 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

It looks like a flat 4-4-2 in defence which is nice to see - it's quite common at the top of the game - but it's not done anything to stop them passing through us...

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. 

12 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Our pressing is rubbish. 

 

And we can't pass through theirs. 

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?

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

I didn't see that. 

 

From the stats that I've seen Danilo played 1,000 minutes fewer than Gimenez. And if you look at the matches it looks like he's playing the last 20-30 minutes of games in the second half of the season.  

 

I'm pretty certain Gimenez is the first-choice striker. 

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

10 hours ago, Bill said:

On the contrary, it's extremely easy to compare, all it requires is for eyes to be open. I'm not sure what you mean by "proper" but surely every transfer window should be conducted properly, regardless of the extent of recruitment and clearly it hasn't on too many occasions and that has to lay doubt on the way we have been doing business.

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. 

1 minute ago, Bill said:

If that's really how it works then it hasn't worked very well. I think a small clue can be found by comparing the last two transfer windows with the two before that.

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. 

4 hours ago, Bill said:

I'm all for dividing labour but too often the mentality is the manager will decide what player resources he needs and the DoF will be responsible for finding and recruiting them, after which the manager will use them as he sees fit .... and that strikes me as completely arse about face. Players, was Beale is currently showing us, are primarily manager business.

 

Your point about managers not having time is an interesting one. If this is in fact the case, why doesn't he solve the problem by improving his coaching resources, instead of delegating upwards, which is never a good idea.

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. 

3 hours ago, Bill said:

It seems to me complete nonsense to have a DoF calling the shots on player recruitment targets

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. 

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

I agree, but as I've argued before, I believe that our DoF doesn't have enough power in that situation. He leaves it to the manager too often, hence the hodgepodge of players we've signed by our managers.

 

It's alright when it works (e.g. Ange), but it's not sustainable, for me.  

 

The ideal situation would be to have a DoF with a great eye for a player, and then let them get on with the recruitment, irrespective of temporary managers... IMO, of course.  

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. 

4 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

The DoF was still involved in the planning of these signings. 

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. 

1 minute ago, Devil's advocaat said:

Absolutely.

 

Danilo would get the juices flowing!

So will 2 up front, Danilo and Dessers. 

Just need someone to come in for Davies now!

33 minutes ago, CammyF said:

If all true and we get Danilo for less than we take in for Colak and Sakala, it's great business.

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.