Rousseau

Rangers 1 - 0 Aberdeen FGS Morelos

I still think this is an exciting prospect.

I can see the argument for the spontaneity of the game, but I want the correct decisions. I still think there's a better balance to be had. I don't think VAR is the issue. It's the rules that are the trouble. VAR gets most decisions right, IMO. In the moment you can't always see if the goal's offside or not, but with VAR you can. I always look at it from Rangers' perspective: if someone scores a goal against us, I would want the decision to be absolutely f*cking correct. Take the League Cup game against them: it was offside; it changes the game otherwise. If we had VAR in that game, it wouldn't have been given. Our Refs are incompetent, but they're not that incompetent (I think? ). It has highlighted how some of the rules now need changed. The hand-ball rule is bonkers. That's not VAR, that's the rules themselves.

The Kante one is interesting. I can recognise from the stats that he's an incredible ball-winner. But, for me, his overall game is poor. It's a personal judgement. I wouldn't be using him at Chelsea, unless they want that singular player to win the ball back in big games, etc. Teams like Leicester can use him more consistently. So, I can use the stats to see what he's good at, but still disagree with someone over Kante's overall merits. Like @DMAA with Hagi. I was the opposite with Hagi: he wasn't quite doing it, for me, but seeing the assist stats, he's clearly creating chances for our players. He just needs to find the right position, or perhaps only be used in the right games. I think SG is going for the latter, and only using him in certain games. Stats are just a tool.

Yes! Kante epitomises this. Average player, in an poor team, but yes, his defensive stats were tremendous. It would be easy for a scout to overlook that. Idrissa Gueye was similar: not a standout, but had an uncanny knack for interceptions and winning the ball back. He was signed by Villa, moved to Everton, and is now playing for PSG. They're not brilliant players (I'm not a fan of Kante - even if I think his ball-wining ability is stunning), but they have a superb skill-set that teams can use.

Cool.

Here's an analysis of our defending:

I'm still worked up!

For us fans, it's mostly through Twitter etc. -- and the few @DMAA posts here. The data packages that clubs and pundits use are bloody expensive!

"The Beautiful game" is still there. We all still get caught up in the emotion of it. But then some of us, afterwards, want to look beyond that to see that stats of the game; to see how it really was. I was bouncing on Sunday (and sick on the Thursday!). Then on Monday I wanted to look at the stats to see how dominant, or not, we actually were. In the same way people re-watch games, to catch things they missed.

The hostility to this is embarrassing. It's just ignorance. (Not necessarily here, just in general.) Those that criticise are the same that'll declaim, "Oh-- he should have scored there! That's a sitter!". Yes, the xG backs you up on that. It just describes what you intuitively think. What's wrong with that? No wonder this country achieves little of any relevance in football: we're still in the dark ages, held back by 'received wisdom', as other countries have modernised and developed and shot past us. Rant over. Apologies in advance.

You're not getting it. The 'fact' of "whether something is a good chance or a half chance", to put it your way, is calculated through statistical modelling. Opta takes 300,000 shots (what's that 20,000 games, assuming 15 shots per game?), looking a variety of variables (position of the shot, angle, etc. - quite a few) and comparing how many times that shot was actually scored, to get the probability of that type of chance being scored. So, their model then takes all that data and compares it to a chance that one of our players had on Sunday, to get the probability of that chance being scored. That's what would be 'expected' to score based on 300,000 shots in 20,000 games. To keep it simple, penalties have an xG of 0.76, meaning they are scored 76% of the time. That's a fact. Better players will exceed that, because they're better players: the xG describes that fact. It takes nothing away from "the beautiful game". It's giving us more facts with which to describe the game.

Clearly a dip in form, but I always thought he wasn't quite getting the quality of chance, but that suggests he is - or at least getting better chances than he's putting away. Should be an upturn around the corner.

xG is based on historical data. That's not interpretation.

Ooh! I found a video, @compo

"The term xG in football is an abbreviation which stands for 'expected goals'. It is a statistical measurement of the quality of goalscoring chances and the likelihood of them being scored. An xG measurement can be generated for both teams as a whole and individual players, giving an indication as to how well they should be performing in front of goal. A number of factors are taken into account when calculating xG. They include: type of assist, whether it was a shot taken with the head or foot, the angle and distance of the shot, and whether it was a big chance. The context of a scoring opportunity is precisely what informs its xG rating. A rebound falling to a player in front of an open goal six yards out will have a high xG score, but a shot taken from 35 yards at a narrow angle will have a low xG score. If you see that chance is described as having an xG rating of 0.35 that means a player would be expected to score from the chance 35 per cent of the time - a one in three chance. If a chance is described as 0.5xG it should be scored 50% of the time and so on." xG is the goals we'd expect to score going by the quality of the chances we've created. For our game against Hamilton, the quality of the chances, added up through the game, you would expect to see us score around 6 goals. So, we've actually scored more than that (8), meaning we've scored from more difficult chances. We all do it intuitively: we know know when a chance is a half-chance, or if a player should have done better. The xG gives us an actual number.

Livingston: Bogey team.

Hamilton had no attempts!

I went for Roofe too: 2 goals, and an assist, but his movement was excellent all game. Roofe worked well with Defoe: they were interchanging constantly. I thought Kent, Arfield and Aribo had good games too. Tavernier also got 2 goals and an assist, but one was a penalty so that doesn't count! ?

Tierney attempts to change direction:

I feel like we're getting a bit carried away with the table. They've got two games in hand.

Not too many points, but I'm sure we'll take that every week if we're scoring 8! Correct Result (1 pt): Everyone who entered. Correct Number of Rangers Goals (1pt): - FGS (2 pts): GS and gisabeer. Correct Score (3 pts): - Latest Standings:

Once again, Bassey has come on for one of our best players and I haven't noticed any real difference.

Get the finger out, Rangers! We've gone more than 10 minutes without a goal.