weeyin

I haven't written off Shankland as a top flight striker, but until he puts together two or three seasons in the Premiership where he is comfortably into double figures I'm still unconvinced. When Craig Moore was his partner at Ayr Utd (and not injured) he had a decent goal return too. Likewise in his loan spell at Cowdenbeath. But he proved with us he couldn't quite hack it in the Premier League. I'm also unconvinced he can play the high press, high energy game GA required from his strikers.

I read somewhere that the possession stats that are often used actually count the number of passes rather than minutes/seconds in possession. The more passes you make, the more "possession" is allocated to you. If you see 50/50 though, I'd guess that just means they haven't kept track!

Did they not scrap that rule shortly after we took advantage of it? They won't be allowed to use their terraces, but might get away with just using their current seating. Would be a shame if they missed out on that basis.

While, of course, total points is the ultimate stat we focus on, there is no doubt other details can be useful. Most of the huge clubs track and crunch the data to their benefit. I saw one of the Liverpool data scientists on the telly talking about some of the things they review. One thing they looked at was how likely it was for a goal to be scored from play at every position on the pitch. As well as their own stats, they used the data from every other EPL team over the past few years. Based on that, they identified the optimal areas of the pitch they wanted to get into every time they had possession and then, in training, worked on tactics to take advantage of that. Then they went and won the Champions League and the EPL title, so their might be something to it. However, as I mentioned earlier, none of that data is freely available. Instead, we get glimpses of individual stats that don't really mean much in isolation.

Would love to see Arbroath get promoted - that would be some achievement.

I think you've just agreed with me. The only difference being you "don't give a flying fuck how ex players get on" - and I do hope the get on well because it means we have done our job and makes recruitment easier. If players that move on consistently fail, then the bigger clubs will stop being interested and it will make it more difficult to point to successful examples when we recruit.

I look at it from a purely selfish point of view. If players are struggling for whatever reason when they join us and we resurrect their careers, it benefits the club when we are looking to recruit the next players. If all we can point to are guys we bring in and then drop down a level or two, it's not a great advert for the club or our recruitment strategy.

I hope he goes on to great things at his new club, but his new club always finish below us in the league and win less trophies than we do. Win win.

I haven't looked for a while, but last time I did a search most of the good stuff that could be used for comparison is only available to paid subscriptions - which aren't cheap. There might some basic stuff available from the betting sites.

If there are going to be 500 limits on crowds, or worse, zero crowds, I'd rather wait for a few more weeks and extend the season instead. I know there might be logistical challenges with that, but I'd rather we tried to deal with that than with playing in empty grounds. While it was great last season to have anything available at all, I'd struggle to watch similar this season.

Putting aside his 50 goals in the last 10 seasons mediocrity, 12 different clubs in those 10 seasons should make it pretty clear he's best avoided.

Every poster who wanted us to sign Lafferty and have Tommy Wright as our manager should be made to watch the Dundee v Kilmarnock playoff every day for the rest of 2022. First one to find where Lafferty was hiding for those games wins a prize.

This is the rebuild thread, not the Tony Watt thread. If you read through it, you'll see where Shankland was mentioned, why he was mentioned, where it was clarified he doesn't play for Utd, comparisons with Clark and a joke from a Tesco Christmas cracker.

I'd be quite happy to see Scott back at Fir Park. I think he'd enjoy the formation we play.

We don't need Clark, though, so taking him would just be wasting a wage.

Clark scored even less goals than Shankland last season. If they want to give us a player, offering us someone they want to replace with TW is an insult. Give us one of their promising youngsters instead.

There is real science to show what they called "Contract Year Syndrome" in the US is a measurable effect. That is when players perform at an artificially high level during the last year of their contract in order to get a better future deal. Then, in the first year of their new contract, they often have a post-contract performance crash.

For me, Shankland hasn't proved himself at Premiership level yet. In his one and only season our top flight he scored 8 goals. There are a boat load of players that knock them in for fun in the lower leagues that never quite make it in the top flight - we've developed a few of them ourselves. Shankland might yet become a 20 a season striker at Premiership level, but he needs to start proving it soon and he hasn't been doing it in Belgium either. Of course, we like to give players a chance to prove themselves, so it might be a good fit, but wouldn't be my first choice. If TW does move on, in Jan, though, I'm quite happy for Shields to get his chance and see how that works out.

We still have Lamie, Donnelly, Maguire and O'Hara that can play there even if Sol and Ojala are injured. Not to mention Carroll at a push.

I've been a fan of Bevis, but it's a credit to GA and the team that if he did leave in January we would still be in good shape for central defenders.

I think it only becomes a distraction for the fans. And, of course, the papers need to keep recycling stories to fill their pages this time of year. For clubs and players this business as usual and they have no problems dealing with it. You can guarantee GA and the scouts would have multiple targets lined up to replace TW since the summer (in case he moved then), and will have others in mind this window if required. On the other hand GA might be happy enough having Shields step up as a ready-made replacement and not worry about trying to find another striker until the summer.

I took a few statistics classes at Uni, but I struggle to understand some of the meaning of some of these. Partly because there isn't much public detail available about exactly how they are derived - you need to pay for that - but mostly because they don't make much sense at footballing level. I can see how it makes a lot more sense in a game like baseball where a lot of the ideas were developed. A guy standing pitching a ball and another guy standing and hitting it with a bat is a lot easier to analyse than 11 players playing another 11 players who are allowed to run around and defend and tackle etc. Not to say they are all useless, but I think a lot of them are questionable, at least without a lot of context that isn't shared to the non-paying public.

If he's here after January and we're paying his wages, I'd be squeezing him (or any other player) for every ounce of effort we can get out of him. Like I said earlier, I'd rather we moved on players who no longer want to play for us ASAP, but if they are taking my hard earned pounds for 4 months I'd prefer something to show for it.

TBH, I'm not sure why people get so worked up about players leaving a club like ours. Our public business model is to bring in players - especially those with a point to prove and/or a career to resurrect - and move them on. If Watt does move in Jan, we still got a bargain by signing him for free and getting some top performances from him. The fact that he bought into our club and its community philosophy is a credit to him and our club's signing strategy. Despite his good showing, I think it's more of a risk for TW to leave for a club like Utd. than it is for us to lose him (just ask John Sutton), but I certainly won't bear any grudges when he go. At the end of the day, it's a job, and most of us consider better wages when they are offered, even if we don't always take them. And, as always, we can hold him up an example of how beneficial our club can be to a career when we are looking to recruit.