Summer 2025 Transfer Window

[Dougal]

41 minutes ago, Jute said:

Oh totally agree that Dabbagh is a better player than Yengi on what we have seen so far. 
 

I would love to know what those that watched Yengi saw.

Probably much the same as they saw when scouting Ambrose. 

[Panda]

2 hours ago, Jute said:

If we are looking at last seasons loans I would rather we went back and tested Millwall’s resolve on Nisbet. 

Nisbet has only just began training again after his injury (last Tuesday to be precise) and Alex Neil had promised to have a look at him before deciding on his future, so he won't be leaving any time soon. And plus he's not fit enough to come into our team at the moment anyway.

2 hours ago, Jute said:

Oh totally agree that Dabbagh is a better player than Yengi on what we have seen so far. 
 

I would love to know what those that watched Yengi saw.

I wouldn't write off Yengi just yet. 

The chances he missed - they happen to all strikers. The problem for Yengi is he has no credit in the bank yet.

I thought his performance was an improvement on Ipswich, and hopefully Celtic is another improvement. 

Interesting that Boyd was first on though ahead of Sokler. 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, Panda said:

Nisbet has only just began training again after his injury (last Tuesday to be precise) and Alex Neil had promised to have a look at him before deciding on his future, so he won't be leaving any time soon. And plus he's not fit enough to come into our team at the moment anyway.

I wouldn't write off Yengi just yet. 

The chances he missed - they happen to all strikers. The problem for Yengi is he has no credit in the bank yet.

I thought his performance was an improvement on Ipswich, and hopefully Celtic is another improvement. 

Interesting that Boyd was first on though ahead of Sokler. 

Sokler is better than Ambrose, Yengi and Dabbagh. Boyd is probably better than Sokler (albeit not ready for the step up). Yengi was poor throughout yesterday (better than against Ipswich isn't much of a compliment). His chance was a missable one as you say, but his all round play was terrible too. His touch was awful, he constantly misread the bounce of the ball, and didn't even press particularly well. 

[Panda]

21 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Yengi was poor throughout yesterday (better than against Ipswich isn't much of a compliment). His chance was a missable one as you say, but his all round play was terrible too. His touch was awful, he constantly misread the bounce of the ball, and didn't even press particularly well. 

Aye but apart from all that, I think he still has potential

 

It may be that he's not good enough for this level. His best period for Portsmouth was in League One, and since then he's had injuries so quite possibly isn't even as good as he was then.

However, I don't think we've seen the best of him yet. As above, what level that best is, we'll see.

Gueye was also written off, many on this forum were happy to return Nisbet to Millwall in January, and I also remember Nilsen being described as terrible after his debut (which was against League Cup group stage opposition).

If we sign Lazetic, I actually would expect they would end interest in Nisbet or any other striker until at least January, and we'll go with Yengi, Lazetic, Boyd and one of Sokler/Ambrose with the other either sold or loaned out. So Yengi is here to stay.

[Panda]

That ends any speculation about Dabbagh returning.

[OrlandoDon]

One game does not a season make. Plenty of over reactions but plenty of valid comments. 

hearts had finlay, Milne, and shankland playing, all players we could have signed - meaning summer signings and available, whether we’d have gotten them, think they are good enough, or they would have come, is another point. They are all Scottish and late 20s, and do not fit our player trading model.
Would we have signed Nicky devlin in our current state/model? We chose to sign gyamfi, yengi, and dorrington instead of the above 3, although let’s replace dorrington with tobers. They signed spittal last summer, we signed palaversa and sivert.

my concern about Scottish players has been addressed many times. There has to be a balance and we are clearly not getting that at present. We need Scottish heart.

For every bojan there is an Ambrose, how we got 850 for papa I don’t know, but didn’t we pay 500 for Richardson? are we doing our best to sign Scottish players, or players that play in Scotland? I mentioned baccus before, not sure if he was good enough and he had a bizarre move, but there is talent in our league….that is available.
Sounds like our team lacked fight/commitment yesterday, we need some battlers for the SPL, that’s fact. Scottish or not, we need that, and as I have said before, a bit more of that in the coaching staff too.

we need 2 good forwards, but also a dominating center mid. I just don’t see how Clarkson and adil fit, I really think it has to be two with battle/muscle/engine behind adil. Maybe shinnie and Kjarten? Palaversa and kjarten? Pretty sure we need to see kjarten sooner than planned.

we have a month to fix this but there are concerns. While hearts are ahead of us in game play, fitness, and sharpness, there are deeper issues that I hope we address.

Edited 22 hours ago by OrlandoDon

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, Panda said:

Aye but apart from all that, I think he still has potential

 

It may be that he's not good enough for this level. His best period for Portsmouth was in League One, and since then he's had injuries so quite possibly isn't even as good as he was then.

However, I don't think we've seen the best of him yet. As above, what level that best is, we'll see.

Gueye was also written off, many on this forum were happy to return Nisbet to Millwall in January, and I also remember Nilsen being described as terrible after his debut (which was against League Cup group stage opposition).

If we sign Lazetic, I actually would expect they would end interest in Nisbet or any other striker until at least January, and we'll go with Yengi, Lazetic, Boyd and one of Sokler/Ambrose with the other either sold or loaned out. So Yengi is here to stay.

Yep, Yengi is definitely here to stay, and there is every chance he improves once settled. It's good to give an honest opinion at the beginning in the hope of being wrong. It's a sort of game, for me, to see if I can recognise a player or not. I'd say I've got a decent track record, with some glaring mistakes. Probably like most scouts. Guys like Ambrose are perplexing, but rare. I can see why they took the punt on Yengi, I think a lot of his issues are down to his nerves. He looks like he's trying too hard and fucking up simple touches (such as the lovely ball dinked through to him by Clarkson which he shinned backwards). That'll be difficult to turn around. Even harder when he loses his place to the new signing. 

[RicoS321]

41 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

we need 2 good forwards, but also a dominating center mid. I just don’t see how Clarkson and adil fit, I really think it has to be two with battle/muscle/engine behind adil. Maybe shinnie and Kjarten? Palaversa and kjarten? Pretty sure we need to see kjarten sooner than planned.

It's not a dominating centre mid, in terms of winning tackles (although that helps a lot), it's a midfielder that will do the yards. Shinnie and Nielsen at the beginning of the season were our best two, because Shinnie was covering every blade and Nielsen was positionally excellent and strong in the tackle. Clarkson is getting better and better at putting in a shift, but he needs someone like Shinnie putting in the miles too in order to free up space for both him, and allowing Aouchiche to remain closer to the number nine. I just don't see a 19 year old having the engine (I could be wrong, but it'd be very rare at that age). I think we need to be looking at a midfielder in his mid twenties that is at peak fitness and willing to run (and be first to the ball) - like Ramadani was. An athlete, basically. I think that'd be the only way to fit Clarkson and Aouchiche in the same team (edit: in a 4-2-3-1 I mean).

Edited 22 hours ago by RicoS321

[tlg1903]

3 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Yep, Yengi is definitely here to stay, and there is every chance he improves once settled. It's good to give an honest opinion at the beginning in the hope of being wrong. It's a sort of game, for me, to see if I can recognise a player or not. I'd say I've got a decent track record, with some glaring mistakes. Probably like most scouts. Guys like Ambrose are perplexing, but rare. I can see why they took the punt on Yengi, I think a lot of his issues are down to his nerves. He looks like he's trying too hard and fucking up simple touches (such as the lovely ball dinked through to him by Clarkson which he shinned backwards). That'll be difficult to turn around. Even harder when he loses his place to the new signing. 

Aye a goal would be good for him, hell even an assist just to get some confidence up. I felt Yengi did have one nice touch when he layed off to Aouchiche to run onto early in the second half and he was bit unlucky with an attempted rainbow heel flick that would have taken him into acres of space on the right.   None of this is to say I don't have concerns though, he does look massively off the pace for what we need from a no 9.  The rest of his game last night was poor and he's going to be a target for the boo boys before long if that doesn't change.  The salt in the wound is Hibs look to have signed exactly what we are after with Keiron Bowie and he would have helped with euro registration too.  

Personally  I try and reserve judgement until a player has had a chance to settle into a  new place to live and had a reasonable amount of consistent game time.  Sometimes I can tell straight away but that's usually only when they are really fucking good and even then they can go onto disappoint you.  I think it's also relevant to mention that all new signings have to learn the system and that takes a bit longer with gegenpress.  For someone like Yengi this is likely the first time he's ever been played in such a system.  
 

[Panda]

Luca Stephenson looking less and less likely. He's played in every Liverpool pre-season friendly, including 90 minutes in one of their friendlies with Atletico Bilbao yesterday, so a sale now would be strange considering they clearly rate him highly.

Talk is it'll be a loan at best, and Dundee United are more likely to be the destination since he was there last season so no reason for Liverpool to give him to us unless they want him to get European experience.

[OrlandoDon]

4 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

It's not a dominating centre mid, in terms of winning tackles (although that helps a lot), it's a midfielder that will do the yards. Shinnie and Nielsen at the beginning of the season were our best two, because Shinnie was covering every blade and Nielsen was positionally excellent and strong in the tackle. Clarkson is getting better and better at putting in a shift, but he needs someone like Shinnie putting in the miles too in order to free up space for both him, and allowing Aouchiche to remain closer to the number nine. I just don't see a 19 year old having the engine (I could be wrong, but it'd be very rare at that age). I think we need to be looking at a midfielder in his mid twenties that is at peak fitness and willing to run (and be first to the ball) - like Ramadani was. An athlete, basically. I think that'd be the only way to fit Clarkson and Aouchiche in the same team (edit: in a 4-2-3-1 I mean).

We’re in agreement, I saw ramadani as a dominating center mid, althletic, powerful, and saw a lot of the ball. Until we solve the center mid and center forward positions we’re going to struggle. I’m starting to wonder left back too.

Playing with one up, that one has to have ability. Easy to say now, but would yengi scoring a home hat trick against Huntley, fraserburgh or the likes have helped him settle? I heard the argument against weaker preseason opponents but there is value when you have a number of new players trying to settle at a club. I do think two lighter creative players in center mid doesn’t work for us and we saw that for much of last season where we really couldn’t play clarkson and McGrath together centrally with one of them at 10. It’s been a year and have we really figured out who our two best central mids together are??

[OrlandoDon]

*Huntly!

I will question the Nicky devlin situation. Very different to Jensen but I wonder who is better suited to the SPL. Devlin was our best player for a number of months last season. He did a job in the cup final on the left, surely a better fit than shinnie as a short term fix if he’s not playing RB.