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And finally in the Iain Vigurs stat attack, he had the tenth most successful forward passes per ninety minutes of any player in the Premiership last season

There's a really interesting account on Twitter @TheBackpassRule on Scottish football stats. The guy who runs that has produced charts on expected goals per 90 mapped against actual goals per 90 for SPFL premiership midfielders. Vigurs significantly under performs in that chart, as do all our midfielders. https://public.tableau.com/profile/thebackpassrule#!/vizhome/xGper90Midfielders/Dashboard1

Some stats on Vigurs compared to Draper and Tansey last season courtesy of @TheSPFLRadar on Twitter. Vigurs Tansey Draper

Abramovich takeover IMO

I appreciate people are getting excited by these signings but we don't really know anything about these players. Aside from Baird none have any real experience that we can judge them against and players straight out of youth academies are often very raw and unable to make an impact in first team football. Look at the example of Jake Mulreany, who generated a lot of excitement thsi time last year but didn't have as big an influence as anyone would've wanted. We should also beware comparing these players to the players we've previously signed from the English lower leagues and Academies. None of these guys have over fifty games in first team football, a couple (Elbouzedi and Elsdon) have never played first team football. Players like Hayes, Rooney, Draper, Tansey, Watkins, Tremarco all had far more experience, most of them had around 100 first teams games under their belts. They could be excellent signings and I hope they are but I'd be very surprised if, aside from Baird and Ridgers, more than one or two of these guys becomes a regular first team player.

Sometimes it's best to sell players when you get a great offer for them. If we sold Draper and managed to get three good quality players from the wages and fee then selling him would make sense. The club have actually suffered a lot by imposing red lines on who can stay and go. You could argue it was us refusing the countenance Hughes going to Dundee Utd that has lead us to be relegated.

Elbouzedi is an Irish youth internationalist recently released by West Brom. dunno who Leitch is.

Really hoping he is the long lost son of Jim, sired during a post-season trip to Mexico and he's returned home to win the respect of his now ageing but still legendary father.

Five signings Joe Chalmers David Ferguson George Oakley Mark Ridgers Ivor Lawton ?

We're going to build a wall, a great wall to stop our players leaving. And County are going to pay for it!

That's just a photo of a bunch of guys doing laps of a pitch. While the board are useless and our communication is terrible I think releasing a statement detailing exactly who attended training that day is expecting a bit much.

It's reported in other papers as well. McNaughton was told he was getting a contract and then the offer was withdrawn without a phone call. SO far that's Josh Meekings, Duncan Shearer and now Kevin McNaughton who have reported this sort of behaviour and that's just the people who have gone public with it. Best case this is due to the upheaval caused by relegation, changes to the board and management team and we'll settle down and stop this. Worst case is that the new board are simply arrogant and/or incompetent and are treating people like this due to their own lack of organisation or ability to run an organisation. I think the worst case scenario is closer to the truth.

Someone told me that Draper is leaving, it's a done deal. He's off to England. I don't really mind us freshening up the squad. We haven't added anyone of any real substance to the squad for years, it clearly peaked in 2015 and started to go stale after that. Problem is that I don't have any real confidence in us freshening up the squad with anyone half decent.

i think the P&J article also said that Davidson was on trial for three weeks. Assume goalkeeper is Ally Ridgers.

There's absolutely no chance we'll get a fee for OFW.

A good move - Owain Fon Williams is on a level with Zibi Malkowski as our worst goalkeeper of all time. At least Malkowski only played in a couple of games. Rory McAllister would be interesting but he was probably just there to unclog the toilets.

I think Baird is a good signing, experienced at this level and we need strikers. If we sign Mark Ridgers, which it appears we will, then I assume that we will get rid of a couple of our keepers - hopefully Owain Fon Williams leaves and Ryan Esson retires to become our goalkeeping coach. Without being unkind both were substandard last season and cost us points. Both the Motherwell players on trial don't really come with any track record of success. Maybe they'll come good in the second tier, although Chalmers has already played in the Championship for Falkirk and was poor.

Three completely 'meh' signings, at best.

We offered Blair Yule a deal but he didn't want to take a gamble on full time football when the new manager hadn't seen him so he signed for Arbroath instead. https://caleyjagsnews.com/2017/06/21/news-yule-signing-for-inverness-would-have-been-a-gamble/ seems a sensible chap.

Paul Bradshaw as well, he was some boy. Imagine Steve Paterson releasing you because you weren't professional enough.

He scored 30 odd goals with one of the poorest teams in the HFL, he must have something. Doesn't hurt to have a look at him in training, maybe a trialist.

Sunderland are an absolute car crash of a club, he's probably made the eight decision.

I don't think either of them are perfect but Sheerin has more relevant recent experience with Abroath. Since Robertson had a job as a manager Danny Lennon has won a major trophy and taken St Mirren to their best finish in 25 years. I mean, Robertson might do well with us, circumstances can dictate who does well where and who gets which job. I had heard that the day-to-day organisation on the playing side was lacking last season, with things slipping and not being set up correctly and I doubt Robertson will let that happen. It's also good that he's kept on Scott Kellacher, who by all accounts is an excellent coach. I think the fact that he was left hanging on whether he was staying, as per quotes in the Courier, is poor from the club. You have to wonder about the way football is run sometimes.

The crowds when Celtic and Rangers Under 20s played in this season's challenge cup Celtic U20s v Annan at Cappielow - 216 Celtic U20s v Cowdenbeath at Central Park - 449 Rangers U20s v Stenhousmuir at Forthbank - 324 Celtic U20s v Livingston at Energy Assets Stadium - 1219 The only game that saw any significant increase in crowds was the Livingston game, which the Celtic 'Colts' lost 5-1. That's another point, I'd imagine that a lot of the enthusiasm of this idea might fade when decent lower league teams started scudding the Ibrox and Parkhead kids week-in, week-out.

Scottish football is full of ideas that never die and this is one of them. There is no evidence that this would help young players develop and it takes well-supported leagues that contain teams who develop excellent young players and turns them into warm-ups for rich clubs reserve teams. In terms of their size and wealth clubs like Hamilton Accies and Livingston have been far more successful than the Old Firm in producing young players. Of the Scotland team who played on Saturday there were two Hearts youth products (Gordon and Berra), two Celtic (Tierney and Mulgrew), two Dundee Utd (Armstrong and Robertson), two Livingston (Grifiths and Snodgrass) one each from Hibs (Brown), Hamilton (McArthur), Middlesborough (Morrison), Aberdeen (Fraser), Wycombe (Anya) and Norwich City (Martin). Of the two teams (the Old Firm) who will be the Colt teams there were two players, one of whom, Mulgrew, is pish. Consider the vast sums of money spent by Rangers over the years on youth players and facilities and they have less success than Livingston. Colt teams really sum up the sort of discussion we have about football in this country - there are many, many things that make German and Spanish football produce better young players than in Scotland but the one that is picked up and hammered, over and over again for years, is B teams, 'Colt' teams. It's something that is pretty simple to explain and understand but actually shies away from the real reasons why young Scottish players don't do as well (not enough quality coaching at a young age, not enough facilities, lack of structured national programmes etc). The current rules say that B teams can't be included above the fifth tier of Scottish football. I think that's fine - we ourselves used to have a 'B' team in the North Caldonian League and there are other teams who have the same. The idea that you could have reserve teams squeezing out professional sides is a joke. Of the teams in last season's Premiership us, Ross County, Hamilton Accies, Rangers and Partick Thistle have played in the lower half of the league system in the last twenty years.