Adam Idah

That’s a bit of a stretch, Kyogo has got an xG this season of over 12 in the league and you would expect a good striker to be slightly above their xG. Even more so his xG on target is lower showing his finishing has been poor. Even just the DUTD game the other night he came on and got played in twice only to take terrible touches and lose the shooting opportunity. Against Rangers he got played in a couple of times and Sterling took the ball off him like he wasn’t there. In addition in the league alone across 21 games he has missed 15 big chances. Now all strikers miss good chances but when you consider he has rotated the role with Idah that’s probably not far off one a game.

He got the two goals against St Johnstone but one was impossible to miss and he made a good run for the second, however in terms of a classy finish that Hibs goal aside at 2-0 and the game done, I cannot remember the last time he actually took a decent pass in to him and burried it.

I believe the big issue with Kyogo is he doesn’t suit this system where your striker is actually as much about linking the play and pulling defenders around so the wingers and midfielders can go beyond them. Kyogo is hopeless at that by and large.

Idah won’t get chances if he is too busy standing behind his marker rather than trying to get across him, he is always waiting on the ball reaching him and never anticipates and attacks it. The pace and power of Idah he should be getting on the end of more than he does, the DUTD game the other night Engels put a couple of really good balls across the 6 yard box and he was either second to it behind his marker or on his heels. In addition, he is decent in the air but go and attack crosses, be aggressive to get on the end of things. Even around the box he showed against Ross county he can create half a yard and get a shot off, do it more often, instead of always trying to flick things round corners are make up for a poor first touch.

Maeda and Kuhn are both scoring a lot of goals and some of them are good finishes but a lot of them are about getting into the right areas to finish things off or pouncing on mistakes.

 

I would still love to see the 2 of them in the same team to see if things click for both of them.

 

Both Kyogo and Idah have definitely underperformed and it's no surprise Maeda and Kuhn have scored more, it's the way both wingers play.. looking to cut inside and get shots away.. this does mean that the wingers don't really supply the strikers. Taylor is often inside with Johnston really the only one who hits the byline regularly and crosses in..

Maybe the arrival of KT will help as he can naturally hit the byline..

Like I say both strikers have been off it, but there's definitely some mitigation with how we play..

2 new wingers and KT would give us much more variety and unpredictability. That may suit both Idah and Kyogo.

Idah does need to show more desire though, something that we can't level at Kyogo.

 

It’s not a stretch at all. It’s plain as day there are not enough chances being created for the strikers.

 

Even hitting the byline 5o cross for idah or holding it up....he really doesn't use his height well and is not as strong for a bigger guy as you thjnk he should.
He might need a run of games but he needs to pull his finger out for me. First touch is not good, gets bullied.
It's a shame coz we know he can play better

 

I completely agree that we lack width particularly on the left with Taylor being infield all game and Maeda doesn’t take his man on, unless he can get in a foot race.

This isn’t a criticism of Taylor as he is clearly being told to play that way or he would be taken out the team, but we have too many of our players centrally almost getting in each others way and drawing opposition players in tight too.

I also agree with new signings needed and I am not questioning Kyogo’s commitment or effort levels as they are spot on but he has been poor more often than not this season. Yes he makes runs at times and doesn’t get the ball but even when he does now are you really confident he puts the chance away? I definitely am not.

In addition, Kyogo also makes those runs at times dropping the opposition defensive line deeper or leaving himself offside when the pass required to find him is a 1 in 100 type. He needs to be more intelligent about that too but the main one for me is his finishing needs to sharpen up.

 

he must be showing up good in training for Rodgers to want spend 9 million on him. Not his fault Norwich took us to cleaners on fee.
He done enough last season to cover his fee.

 

Kyogo has definitely struggled to play the way Rodgers wants, in comparison to the way Ange had the front 3 playing, constantly on the shoulder etc..

Not getting the most out of Idah is surprising for me tho..

 

I don’t think any off huns strikers would get into our team. That new buck be found out yet.
He new on block. Teams learn how defend against him and how keep him quiet.

 

I don't even think we really set up for our wingers to be goal threats.

Kuhn just scores goals because he can cut inside on his own, beat men and finish and Maeda mostly scores goals because he's quick off the mark to get onto loose balls in the box and score tap-ins and * goals.

But the style of play isn't really to set the wingers up or anything. Like we don't set up many chances for Kuhn or Maeda to make runs into like the corner of the box and work it into them to finish or anything. They are scoring very different types of goals just cause the abilities they have.

Our build up play is slow, we pass about in triangles and will hold the ball for minutes at a time, when we usually put balls into the box we have 1-3 men in the opposition box with about 7 opposition players + their keeper and balls are always blocked or deflected, our midfield and Maeda really are scoring most of their goals because of that - they aren't scoring because we are working good chances and openings it's mostly the break of the ball and then a pass and finish or just sticking it in the net.

And we are only getting a lot of chances from the break of the ball because our play is that slow theres always loads of guys back for balls to bounce off and fall to people.

What you could also say is we are controlling games very well the way we play and we are hardly conceding a goal because we are dominating teams in their own final third all the time that they barely get up the park against us.

So although we never really look like scoring a chance, we barely are every threatened and we have that much of the ball around oppositions boxes that even though we don't really create anything things just fall into place and we get goals from it anyway.

Would be interesting to see all of Hatate/Bernardo/McGregor/Engels/McCowan and Maeda and Kuhn's goals back and how they came about even the strikers.

Cause at games it feels like no good chances for anyone are ever really created, to me we never look like scoring really. Mind games from previous seasons you came away from games thinking "how did X guy miss that" and there was like tap-ins put by the post, blasted over the bar, headers wide, things hit at the keeper and you thought we had allsorts of chances there and only won 1-0. This season it feels like in games, we hardly done anything there and won 4-0.

Those type of chances where everyone is like "yaaa ohhhh" and a wee applause and then thinking brilliant play we should have scored there. It's very rare this season, almost non existant. Not even like 1 in 3 or 4 matches we have a game like that, probably more like 1 in 10.

 

I * hate saying but I said so here it is. Dessers, Danilo and Igamane would score more goals across the starts Idah has had. Put them in our team and they score more. Danilo's the only one you could reasonaby argue against. Dessers is shocking but puts himself in position far more often than Idah. Igamane is a far better striker than Idah. Miles ahead.

With that said, he still gets this season for me because we're winning it anyway. He needs more starts. But if he doesn't find a run of form by the summer, we need to cut our losses and look elsewhere.

 

Yeah that's my thinking on it as well

 

On that argument about not really creating much, teams we play mostly sit deep regardless of how quickly or not we play. On the Kuhn one he gets goals with individual skill I agree but also gets goals by getting in at the back post and in front of his marker. Maeda again attacks the back post and is alert to opportunities.

Kyogo too is alert to opportunities but his finishing this season and last has by and large been woeful over the course of the seasons. Last season he got 14 league goals was expected to get 19 from the chances he got and 1 in 2 given he doesn't play 90 minutes every game is good going.
The season before 27 league goals from expected to get 20, so big over performance a sign of good finishing. He actually had 11 more shots in 2023/24 some from poorer positions but by and large mainly within the box, than he did in 22/23 but went from a 7 goal over performance to a 5 goal under performance. His first season in the league hampered by injury he got 12 off nearly 11 xG so performed close to expectation.

Essentially the biggest difference in Kyogo’s performances has been his quality of finishing and I don’t have stats for it but his control in and around the box has been poor at times.

I do agree having wingers come in instead of at least one holding width like Ange had probably crowds the box defensively but teams had started to do that anyway and let us have it out wide.

However the low cut back near post type goals that Kyogo used to get are being cut out by teams being aware of it combined with teams sitting very low block against us. We play the same teams 3 or 4 times a season they were always going to get wise to it.

We still play quick counter attacking football at times see our opener against St Mirren last weekend even Hatate’s second during the week versus Dundee Utd. Palma broke down the left floated a high ball to the back post Maeda pulled it back, Bernardo dummied and Hatate finished. Hatate despite criticism has matched his most productive season for league goals for us already assists wise he only has 1 but his xA is nearly 4 suggesting he has set up team mates with decent chances they have failed to finish.

Idah has a smaller sample size but he too is underperforming his xG but still has 5 goals in just over 750 minutes of football.

McGregor is obviously an outlier for us as he has 6 goals that were all out the box so massively over producing. Kuhn is slightly over performing as Maeda is very slightly over performing his too Arne Engels is slightly underperforming both goals and assists, Bernardo is about where he should.

Kyogo to me is an outlier in he is underperforming his xG over the last two seasons quite substantially. A more clinical finisher would score a good number of goals in our set up.

 

I think his confidence is shot because Kyogo started the season as the number 1, which he probably thought would be him after the fee we paid for him and how desperate BR was to bring him back.

Just annoying that we all know he's capable of putting in a performance but he just isn't doing it.

 

Without sounding like a * to Idah, he's continued this season, unfortunately in the same way his loan spell went.
Flashes of good and when on form/confidence he can bag the goals. But he's still so far from a finished article that he's still massively needing to develop.
At his age, he's possibly behind in his development overall, but that's often the case so no major worry.

It does, hate to say told you so, highlight what a lot of us was concerned about the fee. At £9m and him being at the 23 age, it was far too risky at that fee. Still massive time to find his stride, but it does look more like we paid £9m for what he is, rather than for the potential (such as Bernardo and Engels).

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Only Igmame is a valid argument for me.. the other two are pish.

 

Back in the summer I really wasn't convinced we should be signing him, even at the 5/6m price tag people were originally quoting, he had a good goals to minutes off the bench (so did Oh before him) but there was nothing about his all round play that impressed me, that killie game aside, wish he'd have made me eat those words by now but my opinion of him hasn't really changed this season.

 

The flavour of the month. He'll be back to pish soon just like they all are.