Uilleam

FYI: Lobsang Rampa was the pen name of Cyril Henry Hoskin (8 April 1910 – 25 January 1981), an author who wrote books with paranormal and occult themes. His best known work is The Third Eye, published in Britain in 1956. Following the publication of the book, newspapers reported that Rampa had been born Cyril Henry Hoskin, and was a surgical fitter and plumber's son from Plympton in Devon who claimed that his body hosted the spirit of a Tibetan lama going by the name of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, who is purported to have authored the books. The name Tuesday relates to a claim in The Third Eye that Tibetans are named after the day of the week on which they were born.

I haven't seen such a high risk strategy succeed since The Rumble in the Jungle. Rope-a-dope, eh, whodda thunk it? Clement, presumably, which is an even bigger surprise than it actually working.

He is doing very well for us, without incurring such expense.

Spring Heeled Jack has played himself back into a semblance of form. Now for the other ten.

Exactly.

Deservedly back in front.

This is neither the time nor the place for honesty.

The Club has lately, about a fortnight ago, or thereabouts, appointed a new Assistant Manager, a Moroccan chap, out of Belgium. It makes ye think. Just sayin'......

Scunnered, me. Don't mention the rugby - that was grim, but Rangers today plumbed depths unexplored since Berwick, in 1967.

Em................

What did we talk about before we had transfer windows?

https://x.com/Chris_Jack89/status/1886487735898100196

https://x.com/ibroxrocks/status/1886490246793011555

Raman Bhardwaj on X: "Rangers have been working to bring in a winger, but barring last minute change this now looks unlikely." / X

Transfers, then. And here are some thoughts from Mr Hamzah Khalique-Loonat, Football Data Journalist from The Times (or @Rousseau as he is known in this parish). Make of them what you will (and you will), but if only 50% of transfers are successful, perhaps we should not be too disappointed at lack of activity in the current window, or, indeed, in any window, for that matter. The seven reasons why half of all transfers end in failure With hundreds of millions now spent on risky signings, clubs have turned to AI and number analysis to predict who is likely to flop or thrive — and why Hamzah Khalique-Loonat, Football Data Journalist Monday February 03 2025, 9.00am, The Times https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/why-transfers-fail-football-premier-league-deadline-day-j706qfxjt The transfer window shuts on Monday night and while Premier League clubs are not expected to break the £815million record spend from January 2023, Manchester City alone have already shelled out £125million as they seek to rebuild their squad and prepare for the remainder of an intense season. But the curious thing about transfers is that despite the enormous amount of money spent on them, many simply just don’t work out. In fact, the success rate is roughly 50 per cent which means new recruits are as likely to flop as they are to thrive. The reasons are plentiful and varied, anything from injury derailing a career to players falling out of favour with a manager, having difficulties settling in or even not liking the English weather. Ian Graham, the former director of research at Liverpool, set out the seven most common problems as follows: current player is better than the new player; the player is not as good as first thought; the player does not fit the style of the team; the player is played out of position; the manager does not rate the player; the player has fitness issues; the player has personal issues. If a club was 90 per cent confident in each of those elements being successful, once those probabilities are worked out you end up with a 48 per cent chance of overall success. Analysis by Plaier, a Hamburg-based football data consultancy, reinforced this point. It found that, on average, half of all new players in the Premier League appear for 540 or so minutes (or six matches of game time) before being moved on. This number includes every player that has at least one minute of playing time, taking in reserves and academy prospects called upon in tricky situations who would otherwise realistically not be regulars. Nonetheless, the number is enormous, especially when considering that wage and transfer expenditure are the biggest outlays for Premier League clubs, their importance heightened in the era of Profitability and Sustainability Rules. But is it possible to head off these issues before signing a player? Can clubs know for certain, or act with at least near certainty, that they are not buying a dud? Jan Wendt, the chief executive of Plaier, believes using data can help remove some of the uncertainty associated with buying players. “We don’t look just at one single player and have a look at his metrics and compare these. We also say, against whom was he playing and with whom was he playing?” he says. Measuring what players do is simple enough. Nowadays there is both event data (manually collected information that records every action by a player with the ball) and tracking data (automatically collected information captured by cameras, to document the actions of every player on the field at once) for clubs to work with. The answer, Wendt believes, is in a correlation engine — a computer tool which is designed to recognise patterns. “A correlation engine creates chunks out of data,” he says. “The AI runs them in parallel and selects the best tool with the highest accuracy; it guarantees that you always have the best outcome. “It’s not just used in football, it’s also used in other areas, for example, in aviation where it’s more professional — a matter of life and death if the system has a failure.” So how can this link back to football, specifically in terms of scouting and increasing the likelihood of transfers succeeding? “The first thing we can measure is a player’s performance, but we do not measure his capabilities as a player, we measure his efficiency in a system,” he says. “We do not care how well he dribbles or how well he shoots or how many goals he scores. That has no influence on the game itself. “We measure his contribution or, in definite terms, his efficiency in connection with 11 players and with other players playing 11 opponents home and away in a specific league. “All these things in itself have an influence on your own performance and your performance has an influence on this whole system with the 21 other players.” By doing this, Wendt hopes that clubs can be much smarter in their recruitment. They will be able to analyse and model what sort of players suit a specific tactical system and how they interact with team-mates — even down to the likelihood that a player will succeed in a different league or role. Soon, perhaps, that 50 per cent figure may start to rise.

RANGERS Football Club are today delighted to announce the signing of Lyall Cameron on a pre-contract agreement from Dundee. The 22-year-old midfielder has made over 100 appearances for the Dens Park side, impressing with his performances in the Scottish Premiership. Coming through the academy at Dundee, he made his debut for the club at just 16-years-old against Raith Rovers in 2019/20. Cameron has also been capped for Scotland at under-21 level. Technical Director, Nils Koppen said: “I am delighted that we have agreed a deal for Lyall to join the club and to continue his career at Rangers come the summer. He is a talented young player, who has already gained great experience in the Scottish Premiership, and adding young, Scottish talent to our first-team squad is hugely important to all of us at the club. “Lyall has a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing him continue to grow at Rangers in the coming years.” Cameron will join the club upon the expiry of his contract in the Summer.

It has been put to me that Bobby Clark was known to play outfield for Aberdeen, and, indeed, did so at Ibrox, as he had lost his place between the sticks to a fellow called Ernie McGarr.

Thanks, if thanks is appropriate, for this info. The tale of woe wot I heard was that he lost 5 in each of two matches against ENG. One was an SFA Centenary Challenge match, the other a Home International. Don't on any account, go to the bookies on this unverified story, mind.

Did he not lose hunners of goals v ENG in two games, back to back, in the early 1970s. Or was that somebody else?

I fear that today will bring some 'close, but no cigar' type intel. demonstrating that the Club tried, but, alas, could meet the demands of neither the Pomeranian, thunderbooted, defensive midfield striker, not his compatriot the goal scoring goalkeeper. I will be delighted if I am wrong, and we sign even a demi-panatela; or two.

I was thinking of his experience in Damascus (?), at the hands of the Turks.

Doubtful, but perhaps not so improbable as him accepting an offer from a Turkish outfit.

He'll surface in Arabia, soon enough......

Czech mate, Lenny