DMAA

Turning into a very exciting window indeed if the Danilo rumours are true. Great age at 24 too. 

On 11/07/2023 at 14:25, yuddie said:

I'm ready to take some flack for this take but I geniunely thought Ryan Kent had the talent to be a modern great for Rangers. I'm 26 and really started following the club during McLeish and in that time I'd still say he's one of the most talented we've had, we just haven't had players who could go to a place like Dortmund and skin a defence with Hummels and Akanji  in it for 90 mins, certainly in the last 20 years.

 

Fans will always hold the transfer fee against him which I don't agree with but can understand, but he definitely could have done more with the ability he had.

 

Wanted to say this as a few fans think he was a waste of a shirt, although he definitely could've done a lot more with his ability.

I’m very much on the other side of the fence with Kent and always have been. Not a dud by any means, but £7m was daylight robbery and I said so at the time. Celtic got Jota for £6.5m who was a far better player, everything Kent was made out to be. 
 

There was something about Kent that caused people to believe he had far more potential and ability than he ever had. Probably because he produced flashes of brilliance occasionally. It was a very popular belief initially that he would be sold for £20 and was destined for the EPL. Couldn’t believe how many people said that when we signed him. The result was that a lot of people turned on him a bit and felt he was never fulfilling his potential, or worse, not trying. The irony is that because I didn’t rate him that highly from the start, I never doubted his attitude and effort and his performance rarely surprised me. He was fine at our level but not a star, and he was capable of very good performances but simply not capable of that weekly in our league. 

12 hours ago, Bluedell said:

However ultimately I don't know for sure, but can't imagine we'd be going with Balogun as number 4 given our expenditure elsewhere. It wouldn't make sense. 

Well that I agree with. It doesn't make sense. But it does look that way to me at present. 

6 hours ago, Bluedell said:

I'd look upon Balogun as being brought in to be our 5th choice centre half (I'd hope), and yes, I'm happy with that. We've got a player who knows the club and can hopefully do a job if called upon. Whoever we're going to have as our 5th choice will have some issues.

On what basis are you saying he is 5th choice? Who is our 4th choice? 

6 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

I'm waiting for some (one) to moan about Wilson letting LB go in the first place...

That’s happened a couple of pages back. Letting him go wasn’t a mistake, he spent most of the past year injured. 

Replacing Helander like for like. Like for like in terms of of availability to play that is. With Souttar I pretty much see our number 4 as a number 3 and Davies has been unreliable for two seasons now too so I’m very uncomfortable with an injury prone and ageing Balogun being our 4th choice centre back. Standards are low if people are content with that. 

13 hours ago, BlackSocksRedTops said:

Who's next? Danilo? Maja? Roger Milla...?

Hopefully a centre back 

I asked Joost to run the stats on Dowell. matches up with what it looked like from YouTube. A goalscorer and very creative too. Would struggle as an 8 though. 
 

2 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Gerrard signs for Al Ettifaq.

 

Signs all our duds for megabucks.

 

Resigns after two weeks.

 

Here we go, 10IAR!

Kamara and Hagi would be more realistic. Two players that wouldn’t cost crazy money and could certainly do him a turn in that league. 

9 hours ago, BlackSocksRedTops said:

He reminds me of a more robust looking Roofe. And hopefully less injury prone.

Ideally

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

Fbref. Lol.

 

Their main page, scroll down to miscellaneous stats, far right. Aerial numbers. 

20 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

I'm in the Panzo camp. 

 

They're similar, but Panzo is 22 compared to Trusty at 25.

 

There's not much between their aerial success rate:

 

Trusty: 133 aerial duels won; 108 lost; 55.2% win rate. 

 

Panzo: 58 won; 40 lost; 59.2% win rate.

Where are you getting those stats? I was looking at FBref and trusty had better numbers, albeit it was aerials won rather than % won. Trusty looks much better on FBref. 

14 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

Would much prefer Trusty. If the stats are to be believed, Panzo would be worse in the air than Davies. That doesn’t work in Scotland at centre back. 

5 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

£5M. 28-years-old.

 

He’s 29 later this year 🙂

11 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Joost's stats for Danilo are good too. A very interesting link. Perhaps a case of identifying a player who is due an upturn in his career based on underlying performance. 
 

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

4-4-2 diamond is what MB was using towards the latter part of the season. 

 

A Christmas tree could be used too, as we do have a few #10s. 

 

I see us playing with two mobile, pressing forwards. Lammers suits that. Sima suits that too, being a winger and a striker. (It even suits Sakala and Matondo - even if the latter is not a forward.)

 

I would still like a goalscorer. 

I’m a big fan of that system in our league, and good pressing forwards would create a lot of opportunities for us and put loads of presssure on opposition defences. I've often been frustrated by our 1 up front approach because we just don't have enough players in and around the box and right on top of defenders. In an ideal world, I'd like a quality goalscorer brought in, maybe like Dessers although I find the fee very high. I also think Colak is underrated and has proven himself as a very clinical goalscorer. His goalscoring rate is excellent. 

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

I didn't look into his minutes and fitness issues. 

 

That's a wee bit worrying. 

 

I don't think we're going with wide forwards. 

 

I'm even starting to suspect we're not going with a main goalscorer; rather, we're expecting a number of players to chip in with a decent number of goals (10-15) - did you make that point before? 

He got the 9th highest number of minutes at Angers last season, but he got just over 2000 mins compared to 3200 mins from the player who played the most, despite availability to play being almost the same. I saw someone post a quote from the manager saying he was struggling a bit with fitness after his injury ravaged season at Stoke. If that’s the case, that’s possibly better than not playing as much because you aren’t performing. After a season of playing fairly regular football, he should be in a far better place this summer than last. 
 

You’re probably right about set up. More of a Christmas tree? If we sign Dessers, he's a 20 goals + player though. If not, Colak can be that player. 

One thing I do like about Sima is that he does seem a goalscorer, despite some very low xG and touches in the box last season. System could be to blame for that too. If you compare to some of the players from recent seasons he's certainly an improvement for goals. 
 

15 hours ago, Rousseau said:

He had a bad time with injuries at Stoke, but then he played 37 games (pretty much every game) for Angers last season. 

 

I'm not worried about his low goals. He hits his xG. 

His FBref stats are the same as Lammers for last season, very bad. Playing for a bottom of the league side of course so you expect them to be low, but didn’t seem to stand out at all in that context. Did score a few goals. Managed a fairly low minutes total despite a high number of appearances, apparently it's partly because he was struggling to regain full fitness after a season out injured. 
So I'm a bit mixed on it. Looks like he can score goals and add a bit of athleticism but not less skill full and creative than you'd want in a wide forward. 
Edit - just seen your comment on the last page commenting on some of this. 

18 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

If you want to get loan players from clubs in the big leagues, you probably have to take a hit on certain aspects of the deal.  

I don't think Rangers are in much of a position to dictate terms to the likes of Bayern Munich.  

 

I'm not sure Tillman is keen to move to Scotland permanently and even less sure about whether I'd want us to spend £5m on him. 

It’s been a great loan for us because we’ve shown Bayern and other elite clubs that we can be trusted with their players and make them wanted across Europe. I hope we go back to Bayern for another loan. 

41 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Stirling [Maldini]

😃

16 hours ago, Rousseau said:

I had a wee look at Ryan Kent - unfortunately FBref doesn't have stats from Scottish football, only our Europa League and CL matches. 

 

Lol.

 

It says based on 507 minutes minutes so it looks like that only includes Champions League. Europa League would be interesting. 

5 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

No chance does he end up at Sevilla. 

8 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Ooh--What is it?

I honestly can’t remember. I’m sure it was Modern Fitba who produced some stuff with it, and that’s going back a few years. But I think the principle is simple, you’re measuring how many chances they create with an xA above a certain value, like 0.6 for example. 

17 minutes ago, Devil's advocaat said:

recall watching City in a CL game this season, Grealish didn't have much of a game, couldn't beat the full back, and so resorted to rolling the ball back to the area maybe 25 yards out, which resulted in DeBruyne having a few shots. This then translated to Grealish creating the most chances in the game, which he didn't really. 

Sounds like Kent. Kent would often build up a decent xA with low quality chances. There's an advanced stat that can show you who creates the most high quality chances though, but you don't see it used often. I remember Hagi was way ahead for it anyway.