Alchemist Required: Finance and a Major Overhaul by Summer 2023

[Bill 13,717]

1 hour ago, craig said:

Our wide players are playing, well, too wide and offer little inside where you can take shots.

Except maybe Sakala

[der Berliner 3,744]

20 hours ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

No idea why you'd compare Yilmaz to Kent yeah. But wasn't sure what thresholds you were looking at in terms of playing time before judging as you seemed to use a very small sample set of minutes to differentiate being able to judge one but not another. As well as only looking at SPFL stats to which i think it would be unfair not to look across all competitions as the bulk of Yilmaz appearances have been in Europe and League cup.

 

IMO its fair to judge a player after 15 minutes(remember that chap Ali Dia for Southampton )  or 15 years, call it as you see it. I'm open to debate is all.

... it was all about the new "spark" that Ridvan brings into the squad (like Lowry or Tillman), not a positional thing. Kent, IMHO, has of late become a "better" version of Gregg Wylde. Too little end product for a role that is meant to provide the team with goals (the point of 4-3-3 is having 3 capable attackers in the front line.). If he was meant to be a winger, his stats are fine. Yet, up top we don't need 30odd chances if we don't score enough goals and all wingers have seriously fell short of that. One might correctly say that scoring goals is a striker's job, and thus it seems clear that the management either failed/-s to understand the lack of firepower (i.e. a setup thing), or, as I pointed out, continue to play people who can't hit the target themselves. And it is rather bemusing that Matondo, Sakala and Wright get it in the neck, whereas Kent escaped and escapes much criticism.

 

BTW, I remember similar debates in seasons gone by, not least on our way back, when we were creating chance after chance and failed to convert them against the Scottish defenses. People - including some locals of these days - were laying into our side for not playing well enough etc.pp.. I pointed out that we created so many chances and dominated games, yet, it was brushed aside as if it didn't matter. Now the opposite seems to be the order of the day.

 

You obviously need to create chances. Yet, at the end of the day you want to see them converted too ... and in that respect Kent falls as short as anyone else in those wide-attacking-slots ... this and last season. As I said before, I have nothing against Kent. He does his job and on his day is a real handful. Yet, these days have become too infrequent of late and against most teams in Scotland, his best attributes are blunted by the brickwall defenses. So put him on the wing and let more strikers to their job up top. As it is, we have a blunt weapon there and too little firepower where it matters.

[der Berliner 3,744]

As for that neat stat up there ... you might want to believe your eyes first and foremost, right? Here's a list of our goals so far, with scorers, assists and those "secondary" assists. And below you can find a youtube link to the highlights of all our SPFL league and cup games to have a look again:

 

 

MD 1 Livingston

1-1 Arfield (Kent, Barisic)

1-2 Tavernier (Colak, - )

 

MD 2 Kilmarnock

1-0 Colak (Lawrence, Colak)

2-0 Morelos (Matondo, Davis)

 

CLQ USG

1-0 Tavernier pen. (Barisic, )

2-0 Colak (Arfield, Tavernier)

3-0 Tillman (Barisic, )

 

MD 3 St. Johnstone

1-0 Tillman (Tavernier, Wright)

2-0 Colak (Matondo, Tillman)

3-0 Arfield (Matondo, Jack)

4-0 Lawrence (Arfield, Tavernier)

 

CLQ PSV

1-1 Colak (Tavernier, Davis)

2-1 Lawrence (Tillman, )

 

MD 4 Hibernian

0-1 Tavernier pen. (Colak, - )

1-2 Lawrence (Barisic, Kent)

 

CLQ PSV

0-1 Colak (Tillman, )

 

MD 5 Ross

1-0 Lundstram (Kent, Barisic)

2-0 Colak (Wright, Lundstram)

3-0 Colak (Kent, Lawrence)

4-0 Davis (Tavernier, Wright)

 

SLC QotS

1-0 Ure (Kamara, Barisic)

2-1 Arfield (Ridvan, Sakala)

3-1 Arfield (McCann,Lovelace)

 

MD 6

forgettable

 

 

MD 7 Dundee United

1-0 Colak (Tavernier, - )

2-0 Colak (Barisic, Lundstram)

 

MD 8 Hearts

0-1 Colak (Kent, Colak)

0-2 Colak (Matondo, Lundstram)

0-3 Morelos (Tavernier, Morelos)

0-4 Kent (Tillman)

 

MD 9 St. Mirren

1-0 Colak (Barisic, Colak)

2-0 Tavernier pen. (Colak, Tavernier)

3-0 Colak (Sakala, Tavernier)

4-0 Sakala (Morelos, Tavernier)

 

CLGP Liverpool

1-0 Arfield (Jack, )

 

MD 10 Motherwell

0-1 Tillman (Tavernier, - )

0-2 Lundstram (Barisic, - )

 

SLC Dundee

1-0 Davis (Wright, Tillman)

 

MD 11 Livingston

1-1 Lundstram (Kent, Roofe)

 

MD 12 Aberdeen

1-1 Colak (Tillman, Lundstram)

2-1 Lundstram (Davies, Tavernier)

3-1 Tavernier (Barisic, Kent)

4-1 Morelos (Sakala, Arfield)

 

CLGP Ajax

1-1 Tavernier pen. (Matondo)

 

 

SPFL Highlights list

https://www.youtube.com/spfl/videos

[ascender 352]

On 04/11/2022 at 13:24, Rousseau said:

I've seen this posted a lot, but what constitutes a "chance"? And how good a chance does it have to be to count?

 

I'm surprised to see Lundstram on there actually, but not the other three as our tactics for the last 3 or 4 years can be summed up by Tav doing something on the right or Kent & Barisic combining on the left.

[Rousseau 10,607]

5 minutes ago, ascender said:

I've seen this posted a lot, but what constitutes a "chance"? And how good a chance does it have to be to count?

 

I'm surprised to see Lundstram on there actually, but not the other three as our tactics for the last 3 or 4 years can be summed up by Tav doing something on the right or Kent & Barisic combining on the left.

According to Opta it's "[the] final pass or pass-cum-shot leading to the recipient of the ball having an attempt at goal without scoring".

 

This graphic also includes secondary chances, which is "where a player makes the pass to the player that creates the chance".

 

So, I believe it could include Kent's 5-yard lay-off for Barisic to punt in an aimless cross.

 

No wonder it's so high!  

 

It doesn't include the quality of the chance, which I've discussed above, somewhere. 

 

I don't understand why everyone is jumping on this stat as being wrong. It's not wrong. It doesn't tell us much, though. It only suggests he's involved in a lot of chances we create, which are invariably very poor chances - as shown by the xG of 1.3 against St Johnstone, despite 20 corners! He also, right or wrongly, plays every game, so he's going to be involved a lot. 

 

I don't know why Jota and Abada et al. are not on the list. Maybe they've been out? Maybe they don't create the same volume? What is clear, though, is that they assist and score more than any of our players, which is all that matters.