Orbix

Getting £19m for Bassey, spending £3m on Davies and then another £1-2m to grab some u23 left backs from EPL development squads seems a decent bit of business. Wonder if we’ll see a 3-4-3 this season as well. Peofile of defenders appears to be that they need to be much better on the ball, and bringing it out to feed the midfield. The move to hybrid CM/CB’s in Sands and Lundstram gave a lot of flexibility in the Europa.

Looks like someone’s taken a fixed percentage to add on. £3.13 is £2.99 + 5% etc

Tillman apparently in for medical - season long loan with option to buy. It’s exactly the kind of move we need to be making.

Think it’s favoured for its proximity and that players aren’t uprooted by loans. nothing official afaik

Cole McKinnon to Partick on loan with an option to recall in January.

If I was going to use any player as an example of a proper c**t, then it’d have been Brown, Brown and Brown. We can’t hoard all of the coaches remember.

I don’t know if I could look down the list of the last five Celtic and Rangers managers and their coaching staff and say hand on heart that either team were hoarding talent.

This is just what I said in my post, written as an accusation

Speaking of Weston.

IMO, teams can offer youth players four things: Experience, Coaching, Facilities, Wages. The way that the B teams solves an immediate problem is that it allows certain SPFL teams to offer experience, facilities and coaching to players to offset the fact they couldn’t compete on wages with clubs outwith Scotland (because of where it sits in terms of European football, but in which the SPFL teams need to compete to earn money). Ultimately it'll lead to those teams that can afford to do it farming younger and younger youth players domestically for other teams to gamble on, concentrating the academy structure and consolidating a power imbalance in the league pyramid. IDK how you’d solve it though, restriction on transfers is likely not kosher with the ECJ, some minimum limit of first team minutes before a player can transfer maybe, stop the likes of Turnbull being poached before the producing club gets benefit?

Me as well to be clear. The B team idea I think works to alleviate an immediate problem in the context of the SPFL and its place in European football but long term it’s unworkable.

Initially was just listing wirey players. Would say Berbatov and Vardy definitely in that category, Torres before he bulked up the same?

Was just the first three I could think of, there’s probably better examples of wirey short arses. The City Group own 8? different teams worldwide. Chelsea had Vitesse Arnhem.

We did get more professional under Advocaat but it’s been a long time now.

True. Just don’t want to see them all go the way of Katic and overtrain. Doubt they’d be allowed too. Lol that its only July and Twitter is doing the ‘who’s on the plane’ tracking thing. The restrictions on loans coming in mean that Academies are going to have to move earlier to bring in youth from everything I’ve read.

I’m of two minds about it, there’s definitely a minimum bar of not getting booted off the ball, but there have been plenty of wirey strikers who score without being able to deadlift a car - Vardy, Berbatov, Torres etc were never massive.

I’d be interested to see what level Lovelace comes in at - the direct comparison is to Weston who came up having started for Blackpool but who hasn’t made a squad yet afaik, need to get players bridging that gap between B and bench.

Absolutely. Aribo, Bassey, and Kamara have both shown youngsters coming through the London academies that we offer a route to big games, European football, and increased exposure to international teams (for those first/second gen players not going the England youth route) If the Academy has had £1m of the Patterson money for investment and recruitment I’d be pretty happy.

Seems to be right in the sweet spot of experience and age for us, and either as a deliberate policy or as a function of the markets the club is shopping in, a lot of these players don’t have a lot of miles on the clock either; Colak - 28 - 320 appearances Lawrence - 28 - 300 Souttar - 25 - 230 Fulgini* - 25 - 300 Matondo - 21 - 80 Tillman - 20 - 30 Fulgini seems to be the major purchase this season, wonder if Tillman is seen as the plan b if it doesn’t go through. Alongside the Academy and B sides going on a bit of a spending spree. We bought in Vos and Gio to do the ‘bring through youth’ model, and Lowry, King and McCann all proved last season they could be called on. Be nice to see our average starting XI age drop down a couple of years. Young (17 | Hibs) Willox (16 | Caley Thistle) Cooper (16 | Partick Thistle) Lovelace (16 | Millwall) Bell (16 | Everton) Stevens (16 | AFC Wimbledon) Pollard (15 | Aberdeen) Rice (15 | Motherwell) *though reports of him in Germany seem to be that he’s all but signed for Mainz

McGregor screaming at teammates young enough to be his grandkids

Practically zen.

Isn’t it ‘the opposition’ fans?

Rangers had to prove the existence of the contract, to satisfy the court of PoH’s standing as an associated member to the SPFL’s rules. That decision was passed in October last year. Did it take Doncaster 8 months to read and understand it?

Are you still trying to deflect a £200k (and rising) own goal by the SPFL with half arsed sevcoing?

The sponsorship deal isn’t tied to a direct pot of redistributed money, it all goes into the prize fund as per the SPFL rules. Whats going to be really funny, and what the Athletic are reporting, is that the woolly wording on the new agreement specifically prohibits the SPFL from acting but doesn’t prohibit Rangers. So if we win the league next season it could be the Cazoo Premiership Trophy Tav lifts.