DMAA

Scott Wright has been the pick of the creative players for me though, he’s at least caused some problems.

I was just thinking the same, we should be getting Tillman on straight away, though maybe for Lundstram because the counter attacks are causing us problems and Kamara is quicker.

Possession champions, again. Can someone tell GVB that the objective of the game is to score goals and not retain the ball? No urgency or risk taking out there today.

Poor from Souttar, didn’t anticipate it. I’m not sure who’s man it was but they shouldn’t be getting a free header like that either.

0-2 Colak

That’s a good shout too, not many are talking about him.

Forgot about him, that’s a good shout.

The options are Matondo, Tillman, Lowry, Yilmaz, Zukowski, King. Great competition.

Player of the Year - No idea, I’m going to go a wee bit outside the box and predict Kamara to find the form of 2020/21 again. Young Player of the Year - Tillman, with strong competition from Matondo. Top Goalscorer - Colak Most Assists - Tavernier. I’m hoping Tillman and Matondo will rack up a fair few too though. Best performer of new signings - I think it could be Tillman, but it could be any of them at this stage. Surprise performer - Sakala gets a lot of stick so I’m going to go with him, he has the ability to do well in his second season.

Player of the Year - Young Player of the Year - Top Goalscorer - Most Assists - Best performer of new signings - Surprise performer or Most Improved -

I might as well go through the positions. GK - I’m happy to give McLaughlin a go as number 1, but I’ll be concerned if MacGregor is still seen as number 1. Despite what some still say, he costs us points. If MacGregor has been renewed on a fairly low wage as a number 2 then I’d be content with that. LB - Yilmaz is the exactly the kind of signing we've been crying out for, very high potential. He looks a technically capable player who could be an asset at building attacks and getting plenty assists. I'd urge a wee bit of caution in terms of expectations and patience, he won't be amazing defensively and I wouldn't be surprised if teams target long balls on him. And he hasn't actually played a huge amount of senior football yet. The transfer fee shouldn’t be used against him. RB - Sorted CB - I think we are improved here with the signings of Souttar and Davies. Bassey is a loss but he was never a natural and had weaknesses. I think the main question mark now is what we are doing with Katic, Helander and King. I expect we will move on Katic and be back to 5 centre backs, with two of those being injury prone. Sands can cover here too so it is a strong position, although lacking in terms of aggression and pure defensive ability, Helander is ahead by quite a bit in that regard for me. CM - I think we are strong here with Kamara, Lundstram and Jack. I was probably hoping we would recruit another quality player due to Jack’s unreliability, and let Davis and Arfield move on. I do think both are declining and are often not at the level we need, but as backups you can't really complain. AM - Tillman is a very exciting signing and I think he could do really well this season. Probably the one I am most excited about at the moment. Lowry has a big chance this season too and I hope he takes it. Between those two you have a lot of creativity. The fact Lawrence can play here too, and Hagi, means we finally have a number of options for creativity in the middle. LW - I was hoping we’d get money for Kent in this window tbh and replace him but as most know I’m really not his biggest fan. Capable of great performances and moments but not good enough week in week out in the league for me. With the signings of Lawrence and Matondo though he finally has a bit of competition and that is a good thing. RW - Excited by the Matondo signing. Can GVB find a way to make him our Sterling? Certainly an improvement. In terms of overall quality on the wings I still feel we generally lack a bit of quality/end product with still a bit of reliance on Kent, Wright and Sakala, but I am hopeful Lawrence and Matondo will make a big difference, and Tillman in the middle will create more for all. ST - As with Kent, I hoped this would finally be the window we’d get decent money for Morelos that we could reinvest, though again most know I’m not his biggest fan. Although I wasn't excited by the Colak signing, I do believe he could have a really good season in terms of goals, and provide real competition for Morelos. Roofe is a great player but depressingly unreliable and Sakala can also play at CF so we are fairly well covered, although reliant on an unreliable player for depth. In summary I think it's been a good window and we have finally added some more creative players and that could make the difference domestically. This is a team who are capable of winning the league back, and I do realise I am being a bit greedy with some of my comments in terms of wanting a bit more. I’m still hopeful we might have one big big sale and one more big purchase, though it doesn't look likely. Trimming of the squad is required too of course.

So a max of £5.3m. It would be interesting to find out what the add-on conditions are because that’s only £3.39m up-front.

Yeh the picture is Tillman, but Lovelace looks older than his age too. It will be really interesting to see if he is trusted to be on the bench this season. Looks like he has the potential to be a goal scoring threat from the bench, even at his age. Possibly one to get excited about.

This bit is interesting. It is notable that both Davies and Yilmaz rate very highly for Smart Passes and Progressive Passes. Considering we already have Tav and Goldson in the back 4, that makes a full defence who specialise in clever passing to get us up the pitch and break through defensive teams. It has been a weakness of Helander, Katic and probably Balogun too, and has at times made us very reliant on the right hand side players. From the stats, I don't think Davies and Yilmaz strengthen us defensively, at least not from the traditional long ball and aerial form of attack we often face domestically, but we could be much more exciting to watch if these passing stats are anything to go by.

Jason Cummings needs to do better than those sunglasses and the Besiktas t-shirt as a disguise.

That's an interesting one because he was already contracted for another 2 years. Must be a pay rise.

Transfermarkt records 3 injuries to the same muscle last season, and a 4th muscle injury the season before but it doesn't say if it was the thigh. He was injured more recently but I can't see anywhere if it was the same injury. Transfermarkt is almost never exhaustive with injuries and often gets the dates wrong. You often see games missed before the injury recorded, which is the case with Yilmaz too. As I said, it's just me being cautious, it may have just been a bit of bad luck and it may go away.

Looks like he'd be a very good signing, very much fits the profile too. Slight concern over recent injury record, but that’s me just being very cautious.

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.