There are transfers that feel like a really good fit for player and club, and Craig Wighton to Dunfermline definitely falls into that category for me.
Everything about it makes sense.
Craig isn’t a young ‘next best thing’ anymore. He’s coming up for his mid-20s and is a footballer who needs regular games under a manager who sees him a crucial part of his side.
He was totally out of the picture at Hearts last season but he did get some action under Robbie Neilson at the beginning of this one. More recently, Robbie decided he needed a different type of forward and that’s his choice.
Bit-parts at Tynecastle wouldn’t have done Craig any good and I’m glad that Hearts have let him leave on loan to go to Dunfermline early ahead of his permanent deal in the summer.
The fact that he can play a few different positions across the front-line and just off it is no bad thing but I like the fact that Stevie Crawford sees him as a number nine.
That’s where he played predominantly for us at Arbroath in his loan spell last season and he was brilliant at getting us up the pitch, bringing others into the game and scoring some important goals.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Stevie sees a bit of himself in Craig. He was a similar type of player who got better and better.
Craig has all the attributes a striker needs to go on and do the same. Just not in games against us, please!
James McPake has been talking Osman Sow up this week.
He has probably already done better at Dens than a lot of people might have thought he would. Eight goals in 13 appearances is a very respectable goals return so far.
He picked up a bad injury playing against us for Dundee United last season and you did worry whether he would fade away when they released him.
James has got several options up front now but Sow and Jason Cummings would appear to be a natural partnership.
If they both get well into double figures Dundee will have the sort of forward line some clubs in the Premiership would envy.
It’s a bit early to start thinking about who will make Steve Clarke’s squad for the Euros.
There’s plenty of time for form to come and go and, sadly, there will probably be injuries that come into the equation as well.
What you can say is that Lawrence Shankland is making himself a serious contender again as things stand.
There aren’t many of our strikers scoring goals for their clubs just now but the Dundee United man is looking more and more like the player who was banging them in week after week in the Championship.
Lyndon Dykes is probably the only centre-forward who is nailed on, while the rest will be competing against each other.
A lot of folk think it will be either Shankland or Leigh Griffiths battling it out for one place. I’m not so sure it’s as simple as that.
I wouldn’t rule out both being picked if they’re playing enough games in Sparky’s case and scoring regularly in Lawrence’s.
The bigger the games, the better and if Shankland scores a winner at Ibrox this weekend, he’ll be making his case a far stronger one.
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