This piece is an extract from yesterday's The Rugby Road Gates newsletter, which is emailed out at 6pm every Wednesday. To receive our full, free Kilmarnock newsletter straight to your email inbox, click here.

Daniel Armstrong’s rise to becoming Kilmarnock’s talisman was well-documented last season. From seemingly being out of the picture after the Championship title was clinched, to producing the kind of form that had the entire top flight worried about his abilities. His turnaround at the club has been astonishing.

So far in the 2023/24 campaign, the winger has three goals and five assists to his name. A healthy enough return from the 14 competitive matches he’s played. That follows on from scoring 12 and setting up his teammates on 10 occasions in 47 appearances last term.

Like most attackers, for all of Armstrong’s brilliance, he can immensely frustrate at the same time. Derek McInnes was vocal in the summer about the challenge he’d set the 26-year-old this season – to go and show he wasn’t a one-hit-wonder. Even at the tail-end of last term opposing teams were clearly giving him some extra attention. From what we’ve seen since the beginning of August this theme has continued, with sometimes up to three players marking him. While he may not quite be on the same trajectory to hit the numbers he did last season, there does seem to be some rather loud rumbles of discontent whenever he loses the ball. Of course, every fan is entitled to voice their opinion within reason. However, according to our partners at StatsBomb, any overzealous criticism directed towards him is misplaced.

Using the football data site’s ‘On-Ball Value’ (OBV) metric, Armstrong is the most influential player in Killie’s team by quite some distance. By definition, the process is a possession value model that objectively and quantitatively measures the value of each event on the pitch. In short, it looks to assign a value to each action that takes place on the field based on the positive or negative impact the action has on the team’s likelihood of scoring and conceding.

Armstrong leads the way for Killie by a decent margin, thus highlighting his importance. He has an OBV of 0.38. Excluding goalkeeper Will Dennis, who has a score of 0.35, the next closest outfield player is Brad Lyons on 0.21. Lewis Mayo, Matty Kennedy, Stuart Findlay and Kyle Magennis make up the list of data collated by StatsBomb so far this season. Each player must have played at least 600 minutes to be included.

The Herald:

Looking at last term, Armstrong remains on top of the tree. He finished last season with a score of 0.35 after his 37 Premiership games. Comparatively across the league, he was the seventh most influential player going by this system of measurement, with St Mirren’s Ryan Strain the only non-Old Firm player narrowly ahead of him. He’s currently still seventh for OBV ranking in the Premiership this season, with goalkeepers taken out of the equation. Dundee’s Owen Beck leads the way with a high score of 0.55.

This statistic tells us that Armstrong has a real ability to take control of games and Killie needs to continue to allow him to flourish if results are to turn more positive. Using OBV as an indicator, it also shows that he’s one of the best-performing players in the division. Any suggestions that it would be beneficial to take him out of the side are quite frankly inaccurate.

The full Killie OBV list:

1. Danny Armstrong 0.38

2. Will Dennis 0.35

3. Brad Lyons 0.21

4 .Lewis Mayo 0.16

5. Matty Kennedy 0.12

6. Stuart Findlay 0.08

7. Kyle Magennis -0.04

AND ANOTHER THING

David Watson was the clear breakthrough talent from the academy last season. The midfielder had to bide his time and had made his debut prior to becoming a first-team regular, but the Prestwick Pirlo has not looked back since. It remains to be seen who, if any, will take a similar path this term. Bobby Wales has of course made a few fleeting substitute appearances here and there, but he’s gone out on loan to gain some valuable experience at Alloa. Ben Brannan, who was on the verge of joining Tottenham earlier this year, is another youngster very highly regarded by McInnes.

I would absolutely love to see Steven Warnock get a run in the team, though. Any time I’ve watched the attacking midfielder he’s very easy on the eye and is exciting – something that has generally been missing from the starting XI since August really. He scored twice during the Reserve Cup win over Airdrieonians on Wednesday and was on the bench at Celtic Park before the international break. The 20-year-old is worthy of some time on the pitch against Livingston.

For those heading along to tomorrow’s open training session at Rugby Park, it will be interesting to keep an eye on Warnock and see how involved he is with first-team matters. There should be a good turnout at the event given free entry is on offer and it’s during the school holidays. Brad Lyons is sure to get a good reception from the fans after his international debut for Northern Ireland. Huge congratulations to him.