DMAA

Worth noting that neither Tillman or Lowry were available last night though, who are possibly our main options for an attack minded midfielder. Lawrence could potentially do it too but I can see why GVB wanted to get minutes in the legs of Kamara, Jack and Lundstram. I wouldn’t read too much into it in terms of how we will play against the likes of St Mirren and Ross County. Also, I'm not always a big fan of the front 3 either when we don't have good goal scorers in that 3 (and we often don't), but with Motondo and Lawrence on board we may see more goals from the front 3 and it may be more effective.

Kind of agree but I’m not convinced we’ll add one as long as Roofe is on the books. What calibre of striker is coming here while we have Morelos, Colak and Roofe? A 6 month loan might make more sense but I suspect we are looking at using Tillman there if it comes to it. I'd honestly hoped a decent bid would come in for Morelos and we’d have an opportunity to reinvest that money in a new striker in this window but it's looking like we will be going into a transfer window in January where Morelos is free to agree terms with whoever he wants. If he gets offers in a top league I can't see him turning it down really.

Absolutely. As strong as we've been at centre back for a while. And we have a number of versatile players who allow us to tinker formation without necessarily making changes. I think Sands is a very useful player to have, I really hope he proves himself this season.

Agree, and I am very much hoping Tillman will be that creative player. He has said he is an 8 or a 10 so you could see him.playing in front of Kamara and Jack/Lundstram. The issue will be if those three are fit Gio may push Kamara into that position and I don't think he natural there like Tillman hopefully will be. I’m hoping Matondo can be our Sterling on the right. I’m very excited to see Tillman playing balls in behind the full backs and Matondo getting to the byline, we've never really had pace like this in the team.

I think what you mean is... What pot are we in?

I wouldnt be surprised if we are open to decent bids for Sakala. He isn't natural enough at either centre forward or inside forward or the wing for me, he's somewhere in between and as a result he isn't ideal in either position. I've often defended him as he does contribute more than he is given credit for, but if we have the money to get more natural centre forwards and inside forwards we should use it.

That's how I see it. We have one dependable centre back (Goldson) and two who are (very likely) unreliable (Helander and Souttar). The signing of Davies means we now have two reliable and solid centre-backs. Edit - I forgot to mention Sands and King who are also very capable at CB. The stats on Davies show he is a good defender but with some weaknesses. His general defensive stats are very good, good at interceptions and a high ground duels win %. His passing, movement and attacking stats are generally very good. In terms of weaknesses he is clearly not an aggressive player from his stats. Doesn't engage in many duels and he is mediocre in the air. He also has an exceptionally low shots blocked rating, no idea why that would be. £4m a tad high if that's what we pay, but a very solid signing that makes centre back a strong position (providing Helander and Souttar time their injuries conveniently for us). He’s also an improvement on Bassey in the air and an improvement on Bassey at CB in terms of reading of the game and positioning probably.

I don't think anyone can argue with that fee. Hopefully addons are achievable.

Excited by that signing, especially as there is the option to buy. With the pace of Motondo and Kent on either side, it can make the world of a difference to have guys with good vision and passing ability in the middle.

Obviously a bit of a pinch of salt with this but it does very much tally with the little I picked up from clips and reading. Very good at through balls, goalscoring and all things defensive, including aerial duels. In terms of goalscoring, he has way exceeded his xG here which can be a sign of outstanding finishing ability or long shot ability, or just a bit of luck, but it's worth noting the samplesize here is also very small and it might have evened out. Not a dribbler and not exactly fast which is totally normal for a central player.

Some quotes below, “Tillman started turning heads two years ago, when he smashed in 13 goals over 17 games for Bayern Munich’s Under-19s. He was then similarly prolific for Germany’s Under-21s in recent months, scoring three goals in four games since his debut in October 2021. Yet, by his own admission, he is not a born goalscorer. Tillman has repeatedly insisted that he is more comfortable playing a little deeper in the No. 8 and No. 10 roles. At 6-foot-2, he is strong on the ball and tough to dispossess. Youth coaches have praised his intelligent distribution and Tillman himself has said that he aspires to play like Paul Pogba — but then again, who doesn’t?” “I think he’s an attacking midfielder in a 3-4-2-1, he could be a pocket winger in a 4-3-3, could be a center mid in a 4-3-3, depending on if he can get his defensive work up to it,” Berhalter said in a press conference last week about this camp’s roster. “But he’s really talented between the lines, really natural with scoring goals, good and calm around the penalty box. Good technique, good with both feet, so a really interesting player.” In other parts of the article it was talking about his goalscoring ability. Encouraging stuff!

Don't have much to go on but I think he looks like a very promising attacking midfielder. Very good technically and as @Rousseausays an ability to play through balls that I’m not sure anyone we currently have. Its been said of him that he is very strong too and can contribute defensively, so can play as an 8 and not sure a 10. Big caveats are that at this stage he hasn't really played much senior football so we don't have any data on him. It's a promising sign that Bayern gave him a few league appearances (75 mins once), they would only play the youngsters they rated highest.

He sounds very well connected, perhaps that could bring a lot of indirect value to the club too.

Why? They look probably the second best draw of 4 there.

He’ll do well and he deserves. Still don't understand how we didn't get £10m up front. I’d be shocked if the EPL clubs would walk away from that.

Any idea who the other will be? Tillman being mentioned but as far as I can see no reliable source has said we are actually making an offer.

Matondo imminent now.

Had a wee look at Caskie’s stats report on Matondo and Kent and thought I’d do a comparison, as they look very similar in style from Youtube. In short, Matondo seems to have played much more as a wing forward for Cercle who wants to be in the box, whereas Kent sees himself as a winger. Worth bearing in mind, Cercle Brugge finished 16th out of 18, so comparing stats here is very hard. - Matondo’s goal threat stats are far better, and he actually outperforms an already high xG. Presumably, he was encouraged to get in the box and score goals whereas Kent has been asked to create goals, but even if you assume that is the case, the stats are very impressive. - Matondo’s crossing stats are very low in comparison, doesn't cross often and when he does they aren't that accurate. Hard to know how much team set-up affects that. - Dribbling stats are remarkably similar, basically they both attempt dribbles all the time but have a very low success rate. To an extent, you can understand low success the more attempts you make, but it suggests to me that he relies on pace more than close control, which I have always said is true of Kent too. - Similar attacking movement stats. Accelerations and progressive runs are very high. These things are important as you are constantly stretching the opposition and making runs. - Received passes is very low for Matondo and very high for Kent. Explained partly by the fact Matondo seems to have been playing as more of a forward whereas Kent drops deep quite a lot and builds attack. Slight concern of lack of involvement in play maybe. - General passing stats are very low for Matondo. Partly explained as above, but a slight concern at very low no of passes to the penalty box, suggests to me that vision and through balls could be a weakness. Kent has high stats for all those, but of course he's had the advantage of playing for Rangers and not relegation strugglers. More encouragingly, the most important stat, xA, is almost exactly same despite all of the above. So Matondo seems to be creating chances at a similar rate to Kent despite having these other low stats. Worth noting that it seems Kent got very lucky with assists last season and is a due a major correction down as his expected assists were far lower than his actual. You'd need to check his assists one by one to see if that is the case though. - Attacking passing stats are actually very decent when you consider who he's playing for. - Defensive stats are generally poor for Matondo. Very low no of successful defensive actions, very low possession adjusted interceptions and very low aerial duel success. One encouraging stat is a very decent duel success percentage. Perhaps surprisingly, Kents stats are all very low for all those too. So it is encouraging that Matondo’s duel success % is good bit higher than Kent’s because he looks like a wee guy. My verdict would be that this looks a very promising signing at the fee quoted. 4 years younger than Kent with loads of scope to improve, especially while playing for a team who dominate the play. Seems like he could help us add goal threat to our front 3 which has been a major problem. Question marks over creativity/end product, but absolutely worth the risk.

This one looks very exciting.

There are exciting players being picked up for peanuts every year by teams at our level. Some of us are just hoping to see a signing like that, it really isn't that big an ask. Celtic signed a few last season who you could see clearly from their stats would be a success. And we've done it ourselves in the past too with guys like Aribo.

Exactly. We will always sign some guys that are that age but you expect a higher calibre player than Colak and Lawrence tbh. This is a graph of Lawrence’s stats in a good season a few years back and they are far worse than I expected. Even xG is way below average and that's what people keep saying her will bring.

FWIW, I don't doubt that Lawrence is a coup on a free and Colak decent value at £2m. I just had high expectations of the calibre of player we’d be going for after making the EL final and with high profile exits likely.

Not at all what I was hoping for at this stage of the window, but there is plenty time to bring in bigger signings. Aribo will be very hard to replace.

I'm definitely more on the fence than some. I think there's every chance he could be our top goalscorer next season though, so he could well prove a good signing in the grand scheme of things. In his favour, he has proven himself at the level of the Croatian league (141 mins per goal) and Swedish league (152 mins per goal). Those leagues are quite a bit below us in the rankings, but our league is carried by two teams so the level will be comparable (especially Croatia). His stats in those league show him to be a very good goalscorer and good in the air. A few things against him, he has flopped in Greece which is only a slight step up from Croatia imo. He was playing for the second best team there but kept out of the team by guys who weren't that good and when he did play his record was incredibly poor, one goal in 636 mins. His stats chart for his PAOK spells was very poor too. He did very little of note until 24. His creative stats are poor and movement stats average. He's 29 in a few months so a surprise to me to see us spending money like this on him tbh. Despite raising these more negative points, I do still believe he could score a lot of goals playing in a team like ours who create a lot of chances and could have a very successful season with us.