MICHAEL GANNTONHE SATURDAY JURY
THERE were plenty of ins and outs at Celtic during the transfer window but how do you assess their squad now?
We’ll have to hold fire on making snap judgments. Celtic have lost a clutch of key men but have won a watch in Kyogo Furuhashi and secured a goalkeeping upgrade in Joe Hart. We’ll need to see what Cameron CarterVickers, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Jota bring.
WHAT do you make of the quiet Rangers window?
Steven Gerrard will have been largely pleased at not being forced to replace some key men. But there’s no sign yet the likes of Fashion Sakala and John Lundstram will make his starting XI any better. His worry will be that sometimes standing still is moving backwards.
WHO were the big winners and losers elsewhere in the summer sales?
Aberdeen have certainly thrown the kitchen sink at it and the early capture of Scott Brown from Celtic looks like the best of the lot.
THE Euro feelgood factor has faded for Scotland but can Steve Clarke and his boys get back on track for Qatar?
Fingers crossed. Clarke has got a lot right in his time but one win from his last nine competitive matches is not a good look. He needs back-to-back wins over Moldova and Austria to light a fire under this campaign.
It’s a step in to the unknown. Celtic lost a raft of major players and it remains to be seen if the batch of new recruits can fill their boots.
Rangers will rightly feel good about managing to keep hold of their top men, even if it does mean the money men will probably need to pony up again. It’s a big ask to maintain the consistency levels shown last year and a few fresh first-team faces would have helped.
Hibs keeping hold of Kevin Nisbet, Martin Boyle and Josh Doig is huge and could see them seal third. St Johnstone losing Ali McCann and Jason Kerr on deadline day was a brutal blow, and it will have stung even more that they didn’t go for big bucks.
It looks like Scotland’s luck was used up in those two shoot-outs last year. It has been nothing but misfortune since but second spot is still up for grabs. Anything but a win against Moldova is unthinkable but even a point in Austria might not be a disaster.
Far stronger than the one which flopped last season. The goalkeeper and right-back problems appear to be sorted and there’s energy and hunger going forward where Furuhashi will prove to be the signing of the summer. Perhaps there’s still a question mark over the midfield.
None of the new signings has yet made an impact for one reason or another. But keeping hold of every one of the key men who romped to a record title triumph is huge.
They’ve yet to properly show it on the park but Aberdeen’s recruitment was strong and it looks as if the Dons finally have a goalscorer in Christian Ramirez. You have to feel for St Johnstone losing skipper Kerr and star man McCann in the final hours of the window.
They have to. Nobody expected to take anything from Denmark but the first-half display was woeful. Draws, which we have become experts at, are no use any more so it’s time for the big players to grasp the initiative and lead us to six points.