plymouthranger

It’s like playing someone from the juniors upfront. He’s significantly worse than the striker Killie have

Any working links please gents?

Agreed, even Butland is on massive wages and apparently got a signing on bonus that was low 7 figures. So he’s hardly a gem we’ve uncovered for free… Our signings since January 2021 have been atrocious, when you read through the list of players we’ve had a success rate of about 25%, with almost all of the players commanding any transfer fees such as Dessers, Lammers, Yilmaz, Matondo, Wright, Bacuna, Cifuentes, Danilo, being a waste of money. The players we’ve signed for free like Butland, Sakala, Lundstram have done a job. But it’s fucking disgraceful that in 3 years, we’ve not had any real success when paying fees for players barring Colak (jury’s still out on Cantwell and Raskin).

Reported to have become our highest earner when he joined, apparently Goldsons refusal to sign a new deal was partly down to that (perhaps resentment as JL was useless until February of that season).

Lundstram but only if we’re bringing his wage down considerably. No point keeping him on wages in excess of £30k p/w on a multi year deal into his 30s. Id like us to be actively trying to shift the likes of Matondo, Yilmaz, Davies, Lammers this window. If we could get £7-8million for the 4 of them (which looks fucking unlikely), that could bring in some good quality replacements that’ll actually contribute.

This games of equal importance right now as the last, regardless of the opposition. Anything but a win and we’re struggling to make this a title race.

Let’s be honest, we’re a competent striker and referee away from winning that today. Move onto the next game, win our 2 in hand and there’s 2 points difference, despite us losing twice to them this season. Cyriel Dessers cannot be our starting striker in January onwards, if he is we’ll win fuck all.

I think if we had any strikers on the bench he would’ve been.

Shouldn’t have blown until after the goal then

Fuck sake

He scored more last season than Lammers has combined in his entire career barring 1 season at Hereenveen 😂

Exciting signing, if our manager and DOF both wanted him and he’s played in both their leagues, then he’s got our backing also

Not really, David Edgar from H&H asked the club if we were looking at Van Veen and was told no. Stevie from 4 lads is his pal and they do a lot of shows together, so he’s just repeating what Edgar’s been told.

As a third choice striker he’d be fine for the run in post Xmas. He’s coming over to Scotland for personal reasons, has shown he can do it against the dross of the league and would be on very small wages/minimal loan or transfer fee. We aren’t getting Shankland for under £3-4million as ECL qualification is worth that to Hearts and he’s crucial for their chances. Whilst he’s slightly better than Van Veen, pound for pound Van Veen is a better signing as a backup, as neither should be starting for us. Id be for it, especially if it gives us more money to spend on a better quality of first choice striker. Dessers has already shown he can contribute even if his overall play is limited, so he’s fine as second choice. The question is can you get a player with a better track record than Van Veen here for a spend of under £500k, I’d argue you can’t.

Interesting to hear Arfield say the training sessions by him are the best of his career. Defoe and the likes also all wax lyrical about him. Clearly very good on the training drills, but has no idea how to set up a team or manage during a game. He’s bought into the hype about how clever he is, kept changing things unnecessarily, rather than just settling on a formation and training players how to fit into that.

McLeish won every domestic trophy he could in the first 18 months, as the 01/02 league was so far gone when he joined.

Can’t see it. We’ve basically got to get a midfield ready for the 30th, whilst managing workloads also. Clement called out Rice as being a good player but needing to work on his off the ball work. I don’t see how giving him game time before the OF helps us, we need to use that time to get the likes of Sterling/Souttar/King drilled to play as a 6, incase Lundstram can’t get back in time.

He’ll be back for the OF, he’s a tough lad and once the swelling has gone down in 4/5 days, it gives him 2-3 days to try and get up to fitness (assuming there’s no break or ligament damage). Souttar could probably go alongside Sterling if needed, but not ideal. It’ll be interesting to see if Clement changes formation for the OF and upcoming games. He changes personnel rather than formation, but he might be forced into the latter come the 30th. I think in possession it’ll work fine, my worry is out of possession we may struggle to press as effectively, with so many new players playing in different roles

Don’t think there’s any debate that Shankland is an all round better footballer than Dessers. We’re going to be stuck with Cyriel until we can dupe another side to buy him, but he’ll probably end up on 12-15 goals this season so he’s not completely useless. My worry is Shanklands not a big enough upgrade, he’s not really the calibre of player I want leading the line going into a title run in in spring.

I can see why Everton fans would be annoyed about that. UEFA/FIFA are actively going out of their way to hand the big league clubs as much money as they can.

Can’t play up top by himself.

Saudis were never going to want a tournament with the likes of us vs Porto. Big leagues only, or as high a % as possible. We’ll just concentrate on winning the EL

Fuck it, despite my earlier post, give him a new deal.

Was thinking that, shame as he always came across quite well as an anchor

He was outrageous tonight. Some of the balls he took on the half term, was like Isco had swapped shirts