The team has signed exciting wide forward Ibrahim Cissoko on a season-long loan from Toulouse, and Darko Gyabi has returned to Leeds United after an injury earlier this year ended his spell at Home Park.
Ahead of the 24/25 season, the Greens have added a third loanee, Muhamed Tijani, who will spend the next 12 months at Home Park from Slavia Prague in the Czech Republic.
Although the signing of the frontman would undoubtedly boost the Pilgrims, another benefit of the Nigerian’s presence may be that it will lessen the load for his new teammate Ryan Hardie in the forthcoming campaign.
Ryan Hardie won’t be under as much pressure now that Muhammad Tijani has joined Plymouth Argyle.
Hardie’s inability to score in any of his final 12 games of the season served as a poster child for Argyle’s problems in the final third throughout the second half of the previous campaign.
Even though he scored 12 goals the previous season, his last came in a 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough at The Riverside, where he doubled his team’s lead with a beautiful lob from outside the penalty area. After that, however, both the player and the team’s quality declined in the latter stages of the campaign.
As the fight against relegation dragged on, Hardie and his colleagues were under additional more pressure because that Teesside treat was the last time the Greens scored more than once in the 23/24 season.
During the second half of the season, Argyle had few options up front as loanees Finn Azaz and Luke Cundle returned to their respective clubs during the January transfer window. Hardie and Morgan Whittaker carried the majority of the threat in the final third.
Teams were able to mark the two out of the game as a result, which effectively stopped much of the Greens’ danger moving forward. The Scot cut a dejected figure and appeared to be losing confidence.
The New Zealand international gave almost nothing on the pitch, save from a work ethic that keeps winning the Argyle supporters over, and there wasn’t even much opportunity to rotate Hardie when needed with only Ben Waine as a backup.
However, Tijani’s arrival will have Hardie compete fiercely for the number nine position in the upcoming season—something he lacked in the preceding 12 months.
Due to his height, the Slavia Prague loanee may also see Argyle adopt a different style of play in the upcoming season. This could lead to more crosses being swung into the box as the squad advances.
With 626 deliveries from wide positions in the previous campaign, no team in the second division tried fewer than the Greens, and Home Park’s recruitment team has looked to remedy that issue with their summer hiring.
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