DMAA

We have come back from the break twice and let Celtic overtake us and open up a gap. If there was a winter break this year I wouldn't be worried about it, but it's probably a little bit more than a myth in that there is truth in it. On empty stadiums, I think it benefits us away from home. The teams in this league need every advantage they can get against us and losing their crowd doesn't help them. I don't think it makes much difference at Ibrox, I think too much has been made of that.

I am happy with our backups but there is no denying it would be a huge concern if we lost either fullback for a period of time. Jack would be the obvious choice to play there if we didn't feel Patterson was up to it yet and I think he would do very well at some things but not so much at others.

The loss of Nuno Tavares at left back is significant too. Well, their backup is valued at £25m by Transfermarkt and played the second half in the first game, but for whatever reason he has played second fiddle to Tavares this season. They are also missing Almeida and Pedrinho who seem to be their backup right back and right winger so not overly significant but they still get plenty appearances from the bench. Tolida is irrelevant really, a youth player who hasn't played this season. Waldschmidt is the big dangerman for me. Him and Nunez changed the game last time. They had no threat until they came on. His through balls were world class for both goals so hopefully we treat him with more respect in this game and don't give him an inch, both goals would have been prevented if we'd done that last time.

Thanks for that, interesting stuff. I think it shows that the talent is this team is evenly distributed. At times, last season in particular, many fans seemed to regard Kent and Morelos as superstars who stood out like a sore thumb in our team. I never understood that, although I could see after his run of goals that Morelos could attract large bids, due to his age and profile. But generally, I think we have talent throughout the team and it is pretty evenly distributed. There aren't many players who, if they got injured, it would be a catastrophe. The two players I think we would miss the most are Tavernier and Barisic, followed closely by Goldson. I've said for a while that I see Aribo as a player who will emerge as a crucial player this season, but his injury has set him back and he will need a bit of time to return to his best. All in all, very exciting times with this group of players.

He’s tried to dribble the ball out in several other games too and almost given us a problem. His ball control is adequate but not at the level where I want him to go for a dribble. I think he has been overrated by our support due to the fact he made a good start. A good backup but Helander is much better. Arfield gets my vote. He played with energy and urgency and created chances. Delighted that he is doing so well at 32. He is clearly benefiting from the bigger squad this season and the fact he hasn’t been playing for Canada.

Brilliant, thanks for that. This guy really knows his stuff, as reliable as you can get.

As I say, I find the expenditure a little bit concerning. But overall I’m not concerned. The board chose to turn down a £10m bid for Kent and a £16m bid for Morelos, both in which I said at the time we should accept. They have also chosen to continue investing in things when they could have stopped, Edmiston House is one example. Stadium improvements continued too. Zungu was signed when we barely needed him. All of these decisions were taken by the board when the financial picture was clear. So although I don’t fully understand it all, I’m not too concerned because I think they are best placed to make those decisions. A significant player sale has to come soon though.

The overall picture is very positive. Revenue has climbed steeply. Our operating losses per day are less than Celtic’s for the second year running (we just aren’t selling players). We more or less equalled Celtic’s match day revenue (£0.1m less). Our expenditure is a little bit worrying though. If I’m reading it right our expenditure is only about £3.5m less than Celtic’s. I thought we were still significantly below their expenditure but it doesn’t appear we are.

Seems disproportionate, but they have clearly decided to increase the punishment as a deterrent and they can’t go back on that now.

I was hoping for a home game but you can’t deny it’s better to be away to a league 1 side than at home to a Premiership side, so a good draw.

Put in a couple of fictional over-qualified CVs, but with very different sounding primary and secondary schools, and see which of your fictional characters gets a call to come for an interview.

Wore it to many a wedding myself too. I just think they didn’t do a great job of the market research on this one. Scottish men tend not to like standing out in bright clothes.

Picked up from elsewhere. “Scotland’s 5 games before Jack played - won 1, Drew 0, Lost 4. Scored 7, Conceded 13. 7 games jack played. Won 6, Drew 1, Lost 0. Scored 9, Conceded 4." Rangers have shipped 3 goals this season, 2 v Hibs and 1 v Motherwell. Jack did not play in either of these games.” I have have an inkling @Bill will like this one.

In opinion, this one was perfect. It just looks like a proper kilt. The new one is just way to bright and blue for many people to wear at a wedding.

A bit of a random 60s/70s related question here, but I always wondered if there was any controversy when Rangers ditched black socks for the first time in their history in 1968? Between 68 and 92 we only wore black socks for 7 years.

Middleton saves the day, great stuff

Another example of stats contradicting popular perception of a player. Frimpong another one who is wildly popular despite having very little end product.

Link should play at the bit where he is asked about stats. A wee bit surprised he wasn't a bit more positive about how we are doing in this area, but it is probably a sign of his knowledge and high standards that he isn't singing our praises at such an early stage in our development in this area.

Haha, great minds think alike, we posted more or less the same thing at the same time. Stats are only a tool. Nobody uses them in isolation, a good scout is vital. However they can be a huge help to helping a scout find players with specific abilities to check them out, and of course a sense check for the scout to see that they haven’t missed anything. Hagi has raw ability, but you are right that some fans struggle to take to him. It doesn’t bother me that he isn’t that fast or strong and gives the ball away too much because he makes goals that nobody else in our team can make, because that can be the difference between 0-0 and 1-0 and I’ve seen apparently “good” performances from Rangers players in a 0-0 too often. I spent a year coaching an under 10s team in the west end, and I took over the team from a Rugby coach. I told him who I was demoting to the B team and he told me he thought he was their best player. He wasn’t. He was big and physical but he was poor, he went on to struggle for games in the B team. There were players in the B team who were head and shoulders above A team players who were, ironically, literally head and shoulders above them. People see different things when they watch the game and some people are better than that than others. (not intended as a boast, the other guy was a Rugby man and out of his depth coaching football).

The reason any elite level club make extensive use of stats is because the benefits are proven. Nowhere more so than in recruitment. It has allowed clubs to discover players who would have been really hard to find before, who have the exact qualities they want. I’m pretty sure Kante was a case in point. His defensive stats were off the charts when Leicester found him. Hagi is another one. We had missed a number 10 who can play a killer pass for a long time, and even at Genk where he had struggled his xA, xG, shot assists etc were all significantly higher than Kent and Ojo. We found a player who wasn’t valued highly by his team but who possessed abilities we needed.

This is what I’m trying to explain, it isn’t done like that. It’s all pre-defined. For example, an attempt on goal from particular coordinates on the pitch will be assigned a pre-defined xG score. The pre-defined score is based on historical data, the percentage of shots from that position that have historically resulted in a goal. Opinion doesn’t come into it, it’s pretty much at the stage where a computer can calculate it, as I understand it. They tweak the models to take into account extenuating circumstances, and the models are increasingly accurate in predicting the score based on the attempts on goal made in a game. I should say I am not an expert in this and there will be bears out there, including the guys who run these Twitter accounts, who are much better qualified than me to explain how they work. But the key point is that the stats are generated from an objective statistical model which is informed by a mountain of historical data.

As I said in the match thread, I have been his biggest critic for quite a while (which isn’t saying much to be fair), and I thought he was outstanding against Benfica. He was a joy to watch. It would be a huge boost to us if he can carry on like that given the way everyone else is playing.

Morelos leading in xG, but his actual goals trails his xG quite significantly, maybe consistent with a dip in the form for most of the season.

Hagi still miles ahead in expected assists, and even further ahead in actual assists per 90.

The vast majority of stats are just basic facts. xG is a metric which is calculated using a strictly defined and consistently applied methodology. It is a fact, you just have to understand the methodology and process to understand what it is a measure of. The number isn’t random or subjective, it provides an accurate measure of the frequency of a compilation of facts.