DMAA

1 hour ago, ranger_syntax said:

I don't think there is one this year.

 

Not that it matters.

 

It's an oft repeated myth. Just like the one about us benefiting from empty stadiums. 

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. 

12 minutes ago, Frankie said:

I was actually thinking about if we lost Tav to injury the other day.

 

His (and Goldson's) availability has been quite incredible over the years so it seems likely they'd be out for whatever reason but there's no doubt if we lost Tav it would be a big problem.  Patterson looks good but is still untested and I'm not sure how well Jack or Balogun would work at right back.  

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.

On 25/11/2020 at 09:32, Frankie said:

The loss of Otamendi, Weigl, Taarabt and the first game changer Nunez means opportunity knocks once again...

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.

On 24/11/2020 at 08:17, Rousseau said:

Yes. 

 

He took too many risks -- or, at least a couple.

 

As I said in the match thread, it's completely unnecessary; his normal game is more than adequate. 

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. 

On 21/11/2020 at 23:19, ian1964 said:

RANGERS ACCOUNTS EXPLAINED (feat. Kieran Maguire) - YouTube

 

If anyone can post/embed the above youtube link it's a discussion on the accounts released by Rangers.

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

2 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

I'd say it's a bit concerning, particularly as revenue will have decreased considerably in the last few months.

 

We will have to start selling players either in January or next Summer, to get things back on an even keel.

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. 

45 minutes ago, Yorkie Bear said:

 

From the BBC site:

 

"Back in August, Celtic full-back Boli Bolingoli was banned for three matches, with a further two suspended, for travelling to Spain without notifying the club before returning to play against Kilmarnock without quarantining.

Similarly, eight members of the Aberdeen squad were given a suspended three-game suspension for breaching lockdown rules by visiting a bar."

 

The anti has been well and truly upped. 

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. 

18 hours ago, Bluedell said:

Agreed. That was the one I got married in.

18 hours ago, Frankie said:

Yep, that's the tartan I was married in as well.  New one looks fine but a bit too light for my tastes.

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. 

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.

13 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

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.

16 minutes ago, JohnMc said:

Am I correct in stating there are clubs using this quite extensively now for recruitment? Brentford and Midtjylland are the two I've read about, Midtjylland clearly finding success with it. The inspiration for it coming from Moneyball and the Oakland baseball team's success with recruitment that went against perceived sport wisdom? Baseball, like cricket, has a history of statistics based fandom, something that relatively new to football. I remember being told that professional scouts could watch youth matches and decide in 10 minutes whether a boy had the ability to 'make it' or not. I remember thinking this was bonkers at the time but professionals I've spoken too over the years say the same thing; they can tell very quickly if someone is a player or not. 

 

Our recent recruitment has been fairly good at first glance, but is that skewed by the fact we're playing well? Roofe and Itten can't be declared successes just yet, despite Roofe's wonder goal and good all round play he's already  picked up injuries that have kept him out and Itten hasn't settled or looked like a guaranteed starter yet. Hagi is as polarising a player as we've got just now, frustrating and vital in equal measure he's got great 'stats' but I suspect would attract a lot of criticism from our support if we were allowed into the ground. Balogun and McLaughlin look like good signings already, comfortable and already easily fitting into the first team when asked. 

 

If we look across the city though that's when our signings start to look pretty good by comparison. Outside of Eduarde there's not an obvious player going to move on for big money currently, indeed some of their recent signings have been surprisingly poor. By comparison we look pretty astute, with Kamara, Barasic, Jack, Kent, Aribo and Morelos all capable of moving on to a better league than Scotland's for considerably more than we paid for them. Celtic's issues might be related to their management not getting the best out of the players of course. 

 

I find the stats approach interesting but I can't see it changing my views of players based on what I see myself. I'm too much of a dinosaur to be swayed, but I'm glad the club are taking a different approach, as long as it works. 

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.

32 minutes ago, Tannochsidebear said:

I appreciate the explanation but the “fact” remains that whether something is a good chance or a half chance, and whether a team’s play should result in 5 goals or 6 according to xg is based entirely on opinion, and the beauty of our beautiful game is that it is entirely unpredictable and made up of so many parts. Methodology is not facts, it is opinion. 
 

I would perhaps be more swayed if they took a game, say the Hamilton game, and showed us exactly how they got to the xg number, what they counted, what score they gave it, and what they didn’t count. My guess is there would be considerable argument to be had in how they got to that number. 
 

Of course we can all agree that the Hamilton xg was exactly 0.0! No debate to be had there!

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. 

2 hours ago, craig said:

He's starting to look much like the player we have been used to.  Seems to be playing with a smile on his face again.  Fingers crossed it contnues

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. 

1 hour ago, Tannochsidebear said:

xg stats are not facts, they are somebodys interpretation of what is either a chance, a good chance, a hard chance. It most certainly is not a fact. Goals are facts, clean sheets are facts, results are facts. Silly stats like xg are not facts at all. Good discussion points perhaps, indicators of progress I will give you if you look at trends with the stats, but facts they most certainly are not. 

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.