Uilleam

Is this not a case of the Bench viewing Mr Dale Pryde (a name like a brand of artisan cheese) as a middle class youth slumming it with oiks from Leith and East Lothian and, therefore, after a warning and a slap on the Rolex wrapped wrist, redeemable?

Lennon is, always has been, and always will be a guttersnipe.

Apparently so, and they will attract nerds and geeks to the grandstand near you. The Old School ain't gonna like it...... Football, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty.....as Bertrand Russell might have said, if only he had thought about things a bit more. From today's Guardian Expected goals and Big Football Data: the statistics revolution that is here to stay From predicting Leicester’s grind towards the title to foreseeing Norwich’s decline, analytical models are changing the way people watch football Paul MacInnes Thursday 30 March 2017 12.30 BST Last modified on Thursday 30 March 2017 13.06 BST The first time I came across the phrase “expected goals” was in November 2015. I had disappeared into a Twitter wormhole and when I emerged I was on a site called Statsbomb and an article entitled “Leicester City and their Trip to the Kamikaze Zone”. At that point in their miracle season, Leicester were merely unlikely upstarts, third in the table with Jamie Vardy nine games into his goalscoring sequence. But the author of the article, Mohamed Mohamed, had identified something rather unusual about the Foxes. The rate at which they were scoring and conceding goals was incredibly high. It was a rate that, if continued until the end of the season, would make them only the fifth side to score more than 60 goals and concede more than 50 in the Premier League. Of the four other occasions such a feat had been achieved, one was by Brendan Rodgers’s title‑dropping Liverpool side and another two by Sir Bobby Robson’s Newcastle United. Clearly something unusual was happening but the kamikaze football was not backed up when you looked at the data – their expected goal difference ratio was only 0.5. Expected what? Zero point, eh? I may not have realised it but at that moment I had stumbled on a new branch of football analytics, one created in public, often by the public, and one that seems likely to transform the way people watch and talk about the game. I was hardly the first to discover it – there was already a thriving digital community – but at the same time I had never heard it mentioned in any pub, football commentary or match report. I felt a bit like a naturalist might when they stumbled across a silverback gorilla: scared perhaps, certainly wary, but compelled to keep looking. What exactly are “expected goals” (or as the shorthand has it, xG)? Here is one of the men responsible for its development, Michael Caley, to define the metric in layman’s terms: “The idea is to quantify the likelihood of a goal being scored from a particular shot attempt (or other scoring chance). This is an idea that I think is quite intuitive. ‘We need to create better scoring chances’ is something managers have said forever, and xG is basically just a quantification of that notion. The broad concept has probably been around for a long time in football – Charles Reep’s notion that ‘one of every nine shots is scored’ is a sort of early version of xG.” The key difference between the notion devised by the notorious post‑war football analyst and inventor of the long-ball game and Caley’s interpretation of it is that word “quantification”. Caley, who holds a doctorate in religious studies from Harvard, started dabbling in football data while he was a student. Now he writes about it full-time, his motto: “Bringing baseball stat nerdiness to football.” Like many of his fellow analyst-enthusiasts, Caley mines masses of football data to establish how likely any given chance might be to end up in a goal. It starts with the position of a chance – one shot in six inside the six-yard box might go in, for example – but it hardly ends there. Here is Caley describing the variables that inform his own xG model. “Right now my model evaluates shot attempts across a variety of axes: where was the shot attempted from? What sort of pass assisted the shot? With what body part was the shot taken? Did the attacker dribble past his defender before trying the shot? How fast was the attacking move that led to the shot? Was the shot off a rebound or from a set play? All of these factors clearly influence the likelihood of scoring a goal. By aggregating this information into a model, I can estimate the likelihood of scoring different shooting chances in a match or over a season.” Get it? Good. Because quantitative statistical analysis (let’s call it Big Football Data) is here to stay. Over the past decade we have become used to the analysis of football becoming ever more in-depth: from the revolutions around nutrition and fitness within the game to Gary Neville and his telestrator outside it. Big Football Data is another leap altogether, however, and while in one sense it simply mirrors developments in many other industries, from retail to logistics, there is some question as to whether the football world, both clubs and supporters, are ready for an approach that essentially says “I value your opinion, but these are the facts”. For an illustration of this one could do worse than Google a recent encounter on US TV between the journalist Gabriele Marcotti and ex-pro Craig Burley, one which began with Marcotti mentioning xG and ended with Burley bawling “enough of this nerd nonsense!” Ted Knutson is the man who runs Statsbomb, the name for both the website and a proprietary set of analytic tools that Knutson hopes to lease to professional football clubs. Like Caley, Knutson is an American, born in Chicago, but he lives in the UK and became best known as the man crunching the numbers for Matthew Benham, the owner of Brentford FC and an evangelist for a data-based approach to running football clubs. Knutson’s Twitter feed can sometimes seem like a series of almost psychic prognostications (he called out my club, Norwich City, as being in a false position in the Championship approximately two days before they began their descent from the top of the table to outside the play-off places). But while Knutson, to paraphrase the Simpsons, might welcome our new data overlords, he insists that the rest of us also have nothing to fear. “It’s certainly true that some people inside the game are reluctant to embrace data,” Knutson says. “There are plenty of holdouts and that is totally understandable. Some people feel that the use of data suggests that their last 30 years of knowledge are irrelevant. But: one, that’s not true; and two, you need to be open to new ideas to improve. The game has always been about opinions and plenty of people have valid opinions based on years of experience. Analytics is about enhancing that experience.” The genesis of expected goals most likely lies with Opta, the data company that has been analysing football matches since 2001, recording all the information that for years has appeared in the small statistical summaries that round up each match on TV and in the papers. According to Caley, it was two of the company’s analysts, Sam Green and Devin Pleuler, who first began modelling xG in the late noughties. Such is the complicated and often cumulative nature of such research however, Sarah Rudd of StatDNA, also an American, was working on similar models at the same time. To see how analytics now permeates the professional game it is worth knowing that StatDNA was bought by Arsenal in 2014, its research now incorporated wholesale into the club’s decision making. Green, meanwhile, went on to work for Aston Villa while Pleuler is head of analytics at the MLS side Toronto FC. Another example of the way the wind is blowing was the appointment of Michael Edwards, a data analyst, as Liverpool’s new sporting director. While Knutson’s point regarding resistance within the game is no doubt correct, it is surely the case that the influence of Big Football Data will only grow. There are obvious advantages for professional clubs in getting analytics right, such are the tight margins of competition and the potential financial rewards. According to Knutson: “There’s so much money involved in player recruitment that if you stop one transfer mistake a season it pays for your analysis team for years.” But enough about the clubs, what about the fans? The Dutch football data analyst who goes by the Twitter handle 11Tegen11 describes the service he offers as going “from watching a football match to seeing a football match …” After each weekend he posts composite images that show xG for both sides in any given game, each effort on goal mapped on to the pitch (the bigger the blob, the better the chance) and his equally fascinating pass maps that map aggregate positions of players on the pitch and the passing links with their team-mates (again, the bigger the blob, the more times they have touched the ball). Similar maps have started to pop up on TV highlights shows, while last week Major League Soccer in the US announced it will make xG data on all its fixtures available after every match. Big Football Data is starting to go mainstream. For Caley, the application of analytics need not change the way people enjoy the game. “I’d want to think about ‘analytics in media’ not as some radical change”, he says, “but where some of the things people in media already try to do, like craft compelling stories about football that describe the game well, are enhanced by analytics.” Knutson, however, believes we will start watching (or seeing) games differently, partly as a result of a changing audience. “I think people will start watching football differently”, he says. “Posting xG on Match of the Day will be a talking point, it will give them something to argue about and get a rise out of fans. The data will show you what happens over the course of a million shots and experts can tell you why. “It will also bring a new kind of fan to the game, absolutely. This kind of data overlaps with people who play Football Manager or fantasy league. It’s exactly the same thing, you take information about players and you evaluate them. If you want to be better in fantasy league then you need data. In the US almost everyone grows up with fantasy sports as much as the real thing now.” Leicester, you may have heard, went on to win the league in 2016. In the new year and with a lot of points under their belt, Claudio Ranieri adapted his side’s tactics and a more conservative approach resulted in them grinding out a series of 1-0 wins. By the end of the season, Leicester had scored 68 goals, but conceded only 36. That gave them a goal difference ratio of 0.52. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/mar/30/expected-goals-big-football-data-leicester-city-norwich?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Fiver+2016&utm_term=219707&subid=1042230&CMP=EMCFTBEML853

Interesting stuff, but, if it matters, it is still not entirely clear what the 4th -the local- Assistant will do.

I think that it was the swashbuckling, cavalier, entrepreneur and money machine, Sir David Murray, and MIH, that HMRC was after, rather than Rangers, per se. Rangers became collateral damage, and the focus of publicity.

He might also look into the tax evasion schemes (Films, Tech Companies, etc.) which players and management of fhilthfootballclub employed, most of which have been declared illegal. He might also question how -by what means- the fhilth employees all seemed to end up in the same/similar fraudulent manoeuvres. Because you know what, if the club was involved in setting these up for its players and staff, that would be..... what's the word?.....it's on the tip of my tongue....

Delegate, man, delegate.

Hatred, rancour, mostly hatred.

Published in "The National Velvet'', bog roll of choice for the discerning Nat. File under "If I ruled the World, and Like Delusions".

What happens if -when- the formal offer falls flat? Does the status quo prevail?

It would be best if those factions were banished to the Black Sea coast for ten years or so. The blogger, to whose thoughts we are directed, is in thrall to Ashley's status as a "bona fide billionaire". He could be Lord Peter Mandelson.

I imagine that any discussion between the Panel and "supporters' groups", not all of whom would have been shareholders, could only have been in the most general terms, and perhaps unrecorded. What is clear, however, is that King's attempt to contextualise matters, and play a "public interest" card, did not work. King seems to be the de facto decision maker of and for NOAL, and arguments about a de iure position failed to persuade the Panel, and the subsequent Appeals Panel. It is unfortunate that King, presumably, will now have to make, and pay for, a formal offer of 20p/share for stock which is currently at about 34p/share. or thereby. It does seem to be a waste of money, presumably what the fat turd, whatshisname, as useful as tits on a bull, former "Chairman", you know who I mean, intended in the first place when he made a complaint. The blogger, whoever he is, loses any and all credibility when he promotes Mike Ashley as someone with whom King, et alia, should have done business. As I have said before, Ashley is a bastard, and anyone who supports his involvement in Rangers is a bastard, too.

It seems that the TA is missing out on more than football finals, due to the poor performances of our National XI. Iceland witnesses record-breaking baby boom nine months on from humiliating England at Euro 2016 The small island nation obviously celebrated their historic knockout victory in style The Independent Football They were heady, historic days in the sporting history of Iceland. A small Nordic nation of 300,000 people toppling World Cup winners and footballing lawmakers England in a major tournament doesn't happen every week. Not yet, at least. And it would appear that those on the litter of volcanic islands scattered in the North Atlantic Ocean ensured they celebrated that famous win. For nine months on from that 2-1 victory on the French riviera, local newspaper Visir reports a record-breaking amount of births in Iceland. Indeed, the weekend of March 25-26 saw the highest-ever amount of epidurals administered to patients in Icelandic hospitals - for those unfamiliar, that is a painkilling injection into the spinal cord, common during childbirth. How many of those newborns will be named after the Euro 2016 heroes is, as yet, unknown. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/iceland-witnesses-baby-boom-nine-months-humiliating-england-euro-2016-a7653536.html It was fecund great, as they (dinna) say in Reykjavik.

I struggle to see anything overtly sinister in this. The appointment of PC was, said King, undertaken by the football board, and was a decision with which he, as Chairman of the main Board was not/could not be/would not be involved. (Handily avoiding blame, as the more cynical may opine.) It seems clear (as clear as anything with Rangers) that the desire of the main Board is to have the football side running separately, quasi independently, on the philosophy, perhaps, of not buying a dog and barking yourself. Or am I being completely naive?

I have waited years, years, for Rangers to have a wunderkind on the books (the piggery, distressingly, reveals one as often as I open a bottle of beer), and now that there is one, he is set to sashay off to London or Manchester, without so much as a backward glance. Bright lights, big city - it will all end in tears.

....and, Puskas, of course, knew not one word of English..... When I think about it, right enough, fluency in English might have been more of a hindrance than a help, up the Drum.

Yeah, looks the part. Fast hands with power - a good combination.

'Twas done to death, resuscitated, then subject to murder again. What was more interesting, I think, was this part of his interview, particularly given the criticisms poured upon DK, by a no of media outlets, regarding the appointment of Pedro Caixinha. Why didn’t you speak to Caixinha before he was appointed? It didn’t happen because it wouldn’t happen, the way we run the club. The board of the football club [as opposed to the Rangers International Football Club plc] operates and runs their own deal so I certainly wouldn’t get involved in putting names forward. The selection process is something I would never be involved in and from a governance point of view it’s something I shouldn’t be involved in. The Times' take in full, is below http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/king-people-say-im-absent-but-im-here-far-more-often-than-id-like-to-be-5zfdk7kqq In a wide-ranging interview at Ibrox yesterday Dave King laughed off the possibility of being jailed, dismissed criticism of how rarely he shows up at the club, and insisted he had enjoyed almost nothing about being chairman of Rangers. What do you say to people who claim you’re never here? I’m not going to leave South Africa, that’s for sure. Listen, I don’t think it’s an issue. Personally I think it’s an advantage. The only disadvantage of me not being available on a regular basis would be in the corporate hospitality side of things. Ideally you would have the chairman at games, meeting everyone and talking to them. That would be a perfect world. But then you have got to dial back and ask ‘what is right for the club?’ I initially I said I did not want to get involved at Rangers, I did not want to invest in Rangers. My position remains the same. But I’m left in a situation that, as a South African, and despite other attempts from different rescue operations, I became the one who had to come in and do it. Did I want to do it? No. I absolutely didn’t want to do it. But is the club better with a local chairman? I don’t know because where would he come from? Have I had any fun or enjoyment from being involved in Rangers these part two years? Not much. If you added it all together it would only come to about ten hours, and that was probably all after the semi-final [win over Celtic] last season. There is nothing fun about what I’m doing. There’s litigation, being sued by Sports Direct and have people trying to put me in jail. What is fun about that? But I didn’t do it for fun. I did it because I felt at that time there was no-one else willing to step into the breach. I travel to Scotland more often than I’d like to. People say I’m absent but I’m here far more often than I’d like to be. It’s actually taking up more of my time than I’d like. But I signed up to do it. Surely as a Rangers fan you would like to go to more games? It’s not a question of not wanting to do it, but I live in South Africa. I have Rangers TV. I mean, I watch every game. I don’t actually have to be at Ibrox. Let’s put it this way: if it was a condition of me being involved in Rangers that I had to get to relocate to Scotland I’d be single. My wife would divorce me as she certainly wouldn’t come here. And I’m not willing to become single. How will you respond to the Takeover Panel ruling that you must make a 20p-per-share offer for the club’s entire equity because you formed a concert party to gain control in 2015? I think it is quite academic. There are a number of ways I can handle it. The way it works is I would have to make an offer and there would have to be more than 50 per cent acceptance of that offer, which means Mike Ashley would have to accept, the Easdales would have to accept, Club 1872 would have to accept. I think the chance of it being accepted is really remote. I think it is pretty much a non-issue but I just have to think what I want to do about it. My argument was there was a consortium [to push through his takeover]. But it was myself and the supporters really. It was certainly never myself and Douglas Park or George Leatham. That remains my argument. Their findings are different and I have to decide whether to appeal it or not.~ You have faced a potential jail term if convicted on some of Mike Ashley’s legal actions against you? For me on a scale of one to ten it doesn’t get to one. The threat of going to jail, it’s quite amusing. My family say ‘we’ll see you at Christmas, which jail will we see you at?’; we genuinely laugh about it. I do this for a living. This is what I do. I wouldn’t have taken it on at Rangers if I didn’t have the temperament and the personality. If I wasn’t up for the fight then I wouldn’t have done it and I certainly wouldn’t be here two years later doing what I’m doing now. Where did you expect Rangers to be at this stage of the season? I would have expected us to be equidistant between Aberdeen and Celtic. If we were 12 points behind Celtic and 12 points ahead of Aberdeen I would have thought that was a fair position. That’s clearly not worked for us on the park this year. We have spent far more than half of the [proposed] £30 million already. I think £30 million is not enough. We are behind where I thought we would be on the field. The retail [dispute] for me is not an issue. We are happy to put the money in to cover the retail. It is not a lot of money; it is £5 million or £6 million. Celtic’s big advantage is getting an easy run at things like the Champions League and Europe. That is the big money and they are getting a run at that because we are not there to take it away from them. We can only really bridge that gap on the field.~ Will more soft loans be required this season? No. The indications are that it probably won’t be necessary. Making the Scottish Cup semi-finals and the income we expect from that, which wasn’t in the original budgets, should see us through to the end of the season and then what happens depends on the manager’s assessment of what he feels he needs to do [in the] close season. That was one of the reasons for bringing Pedro [Caixinha] in sooner rather than later. We could have left it until the end of May when his contract ran out and we wouldn’t have had to pay compensation. Our view was that it was better to pay, get him in now and let him look at the players, see what he’s got and try to do the business before the qualifiers in June. We decided to pay the compensation rather grudgingly — given that we didn’t receive compensation when Mark [Warburton] left — but we thought it worthwhile. Why didn’t you speak to Caixinha before he was appointed? It didn’t happen because it wouldn’t happen, the way we run the club. The board of the football club [as opposed to the Rangers International Football Club plc] operates and runs their own deal so I certainly wouldn’t get involved in putting names forward. The selection process is something I would never be involved in and from a governance point of view it’s something I shouldn’t be involved in. You met him on Wednesday: what did you think? I liked him as a person. I like his confidence, his personality, his temperament, his mentality. We had a good discussion around the different dimensions he might bring, if we think that team has maybe been a bit one-dimensional over the last period. Why did your relationship with Mark Warburton disintegrate? With Mark it just changed a little bit towards the end because, quite frankly, I didn’t appreciate some of the comments that I felt were getting into the media that were emanating from Mark. So I wasn’t as confident having a confidential conversation with him. What’s the aim for next season? I still think that we must challenge Celtic, as I expected to do this year. Does it mean win the title next year? Of course it doesn’t. But I would like to challenge Celtic and see some distance between ourselves and Aberdeen and Hearts because investment will be made to do that. We are looking to get through the Europa League qualifiers.

Thanks for this reminder. Note that the fight is on the Channel 'Spike' (160 on Sky) from 8 pm.

That's not what I mean.

Would that mean that the support would know wtf was going on before the Daily Record?

I hesitated to call it a "deduction", actually. It just seemed that once I had removed what was there, I was left with a rump. But never mind. I don't really have a view on the most appropriate candidate. PC has stressed he needs loyalty from his staff, and, as I have pointed out, a man may not serve two masters (perhaps even if one of these is merely his own ego), and Board members pushing their own man gets the thumbs down from me.

Primarily I'm against BF if he is the place man of Board interests. Also I fear that he has a big gub. But, you know, if the job is as circumscribed as perhaps it may be, I think that his ego will be too big to accept it.

I haven't assumed. I looked at the situation and, after eliminating what functions were filled, thought that I was left with one possibility. I hesitate to call it a deduction. What is strange is proposing and evaluating candidates for a post, the duties of which are unclear. I will say that If BF is the candidate of "influential Board members", I should be disappointed if he is installed, no matter the duties.

The media has him exiting the International scene.