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Presumably means Ruby is away, and we are left with two experienced defenders in Tobers and Knoester, and three youngsters in Milne, Molloy and Dorrington. Given we will have an absolute minimum of 50 games this season that doesn't seem unreasonable, and when we are 60 games in* and looking a bit leggy for all those cup finals, I'm sure we'll be thankful we had so many options. *Shinnie will play all of them.

I like Dorrington, I think he's going to be a fantastic player, but I can't help but think we're making this signing for fear of missing out. We have absolutely zero requirement for a right sided centre half. He's a loanee, with zero option to buy as far as I can tell. He's ahead of Tobers and Milne in the pecking order, who are our players. We could change to a back three, of course, but I think that takes away from what was tried last season. There are probably a handful of games where a back three would be beneficial from a defensive perspective. I'd be unconvinced of it when trying to break teams down at home (or away). It just reeks of poor squad building to be honest. Again, I'd go back to that employee in the building who puts pressure on the manager to make sense of these calls (the technical director we were expecting five years ago). In terms of squad harmony, player development (Milne), it doesn't make sense. It's not an area of the pitch that traditionally needs a huge number of players. Knoester will likely play 40+ games, and so will Dorrington now I'd expect. We have Polvara and Devlin who can both cover for the half dozen games that we struggle with suspensions etc, I don't think we need Tobers and Milne to provide cover for that one position. In fact, as a general rule, we should be looking at two players for every position, with utility players for third cover (other than striker, perhaps, where different types of striker can adapt to different strategies). In light of this signing, I'd look to move on Rubezic (regardless of the signing) and Tobers.

If memory serves he became first choice because Tobers got injured for the last few months of the season. Also did Dorrington not only play LCB very early in his loan spell where just looked a bit all over the place regardless of what side he was on? He defo took a few months before he started looking like a solid CB and once Knoester went in on the left he didn't miss many games if any. I would also add I think it's far too early to be writing Tobers off given injury and settling into a new club and country time but I agree he's not set the heather alight just yet. 39 caps plus the captaincy of Latvia by the age of 24 would suggest he's not completely useless though......

Likewise, it’s nothing against dorrington, good lad and solid player. Even has me wondering if Tobers has settled or is he on his way? If we’re playing alfie it’s less minutes for Milne and polvara (even though he’s a midfielder) and we’re not developing our own players as you’ve said. Good player and he probably makes us better, but at what cost?

Happy with that. A lot of defenders on the books now though.

Yeah he had good instincts in the 6 yard box, which is not something to be sniffed at, but looked quite poor coming deep with the ball at his feet and in the air in general. Would never be anything more than a "fox in the box" to bring on with 20 minutes to go when we need a goal. Which, to be fair is probably something we need as we can't rely on Sokler or Ambrose to do that, but I'd still be wary about parting with serious money for him.

The Epstein stuff is so bad they’re releasing information about Trump‘s health for the first time!