Tannochsidebear

I got my email. I thought given the allocation that everyone who is on the CCCS with the appropriate boxes ticked would have been guaranteed tickets. They certainly aren't giving stacks of them to the RSC's, and there are not usually more than 12-15K on the CCCS with only a high percentage of that looking for Cup SF/F tickets.

Don't know what's funny about an honest opinion. Hill has been the best of a terrible bunch of defenders this season, and might be performing well by his standards, but not by the standards I want from Rangers players. Wes I'm not a great fan of, loses far too many goals from distance due to bad positioning, and his dithering on the ball and bad passes has cost us several times this season. He should never have got back in the team after the fantastic performance by the other goalie (names gone for now) in the OF SF last Autumn. It is of course by Rangers standards I apply my criteria to, as they are Rangers players ( in name anyway). To accept mediocrity and failure is not the Rangers way, no matters the trials and tribulations we have endured. I'm sure our greatest ever Ranger, Mr Struth, would agree, even if "Gaffer" doesn't!

For the second time in 3 years, I cannot bring myself to vote for anyone in either category. This season has been an absolute disaster, with both defending and attacking generally shambolic. POTY is not much of an award if the recipient has been bang average and just the best of a bad lot. For some to correctly mention a guy with less than 10 games under his belt as a potential award winner sums everything up completely. What next, a manager of the year award seeing as we have 3 contestants this season? Clearly Pedro would win after only one game in charge! If I got a free ticket to the (£150 a pop) awards ceremony I wouldnt go, there is simply nothing to celebrate about another truly awful season. That could change with a cup final victory, but awards seem to getting earlier every year just to sell tickets to a vastly over-priced dinner where cringeworthy categories are created to pad out the event.

Was just about to say the same, although I think his good patch of form was restricted to half a season, not a whole season, which coincided with new contract negotiations.

I thought the cross-border compensation was capped at £250K? Was this not what we were told and what we paid Liverpool for Rossiter, despite him having a (no laughing) valuation of around £6M at the time if he went to another English team?

Its only a good thing if you can understand what your reading, which in effect is what you are saying with your Stam story. I have no problem with stats, (6 goals for Miller from 28 league games is one I have used often!) it makes discussions like this all the more interesting, but when people use them to defend the indefensible, or out of context, they cause more confusion than they are worth. Watching a player with your eye to determine if they are good enough will never get old, no matter what their stats say. Same for teams as a whole. A team with 70% possession and 20 shots at goal must have put in a fantastic performance, right? It happened a lot with MW's Rangers side and those same performances were often utterly toothless and not pleasant on the eye. I would add that people watching games on tv dont get the whole picture of what is going on, you can only tell that from being there and watching all the off the ball work done by teams/players. These stats sites are only going from tv pictures, so again they're only ball-watching which doesnt always give you the best information about that how players played in that game. Let me give you an example -a team has a breakaway and the player with the ball makes a forward pass right to a team-mate to keep the move going, who then goes on and shoots on target but the shot is easily saved by the keeper. In stats-world, all is good. The passing player is marked up for good play, the shooting player has a shot on target. What was missed was the player out of shot who was in acres of space and if he had been the recipient of the pass a better chance should have been created. Stats-world is oblivious to this. I leave the match fuming with said player for failing to see the better option, but stats-world has him down as a plus. Stats should only ever be as a side-dish, not the main event. My feeling is that too many people are using these computer program stats as gospel, when they are simply not.

This level of football I have no will to watch, but Crooks is never going to be able to do a job for us, as he is just not good enough. He was a complete mistake by MW, probably signed due to who his agent was like so many of the underclass of the MW era if rumours are to be believed, is way out of his depth and will be released, probably this summer, to go back to his level, which you are watching currently. Fair play to you! Shame for the lad, and obviously his injury situation didnt help, but when he can go 18 months with Andy Halliday in front of you in the pecking order for that role, it tells you everything surely! Maybe slightly harsh given we have only seen him in action very little but thats football sometimes.

"No one is suggesting it's perfect. The elite sides all take into account data analysis because it cuts out as much of the subjectivity as possible, helping them make better decisions. It's certainly not perfect, but it is a useful tool. Surely you would trust a mathematical/scientific model which takes into account the most objective data over someone's opinion? " No, never, not in football!! Football is all about opinions, not emotionless stats. Thanks very much for the explanation, very detailed and fairly common sense for most of it, but it is still very subjective and cannot be taken as gospel. Is each component part of a move that leads to a chance given a score, say out of 100, and then an average, or sum, of all the component parts taken to declare what overall mark a chance is given? Take Miller's last minute miss in the Hogmanay OF game at ibrox that denied us a point. To me that was an absolute sitter, others told me it was a hard chance. Or Holt's chance in the cup semi-final at Hampden? Does the player the chance falls to come into it? Take current players out of it to be less emotional. If a great chance falls to McCoist in his pomp, it mostly goes in, but if it falls to Sebo it mostly doesnt? It is still the same chance, and therefore the same Xg rating? But everyone knows that Ally will score and be amazed if Filip scores? So therefore as supporters we declare the Ally chance as a sitter and the Sebo one as a difficult chance because we have filtered in the player involved. If both me and my mate, sitting side by side with a great view of the Copland goal can have opposing views on the quality of a chance, how on earth can a computer score the chance just using some variables that dont take into account the emotion of it all. Also, a great chance in the 20th minute is not the same as a great chance at 1-1 in the 90th minute. But to Xg it will be? When commentators, managers, players, at the end of the game (without seeing Xg stats) say they had by far the better chances, it comes from a biased emotional viewpoint that on some occasions will be accurate and on others be wrong, but they will believe it no matter what Xg stats say a few days later. MW constantly used stats throughout his tenure to defend a performance that was awful to watch. 70% possession, 20 shots at goal he would cry, but the game and performance was awful. Stats dont tell everything, that is why the game is an emotional rollercoaster that fans have loved for all their lives, and will pass on to the next generation. The only stats that count in games are goals scored/conceded. And overall is 54 titles, 33 Scottish cups, 27 league cups, 1 ECWC, and 4 minor titles/cups. Most fans would say that Murty did a good job steadying the ship for 6 games while the board got round to appointing a replacement to MW. However we dropped 8 points out of 12 in the league under GM, winning only one league game in 4 attempts, leaving us 8 points behind Dolly. Taking stats on their own, and given only one of the 4 games was against a top 6 side, he was an unmitigated disaster, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Who decides if it is a good chance (and therefore increases the Xg) or a not so good chance. Surely that is subjective, as with most sport? I can (and usually do!!) discuss/argue with my mates about a sitter someone missed that they think is a hard chance or vice versa. I also think defensively some are shouting great save when I think it is routine, and vice versa. If you put 6 football fans in charge of collating these stats you will get 6 different answers as to how big the Xg should be on both sides, making the whole process completely subjective, and therefore, useless? Some of the stats coming out now in football are completely laughable and are being created by the FIFA computer game generation, where a player is known by a code (DM, AM) and a number between 1-100, which in most cases bears absolutely no comparison to their ability to influence football matches or their actual footballing ability, and takes no count of team tactics and how that fits in with the players talents, team/player moral and form. It seems to me this Xg stuff, while a decent debating tool to make interesting threads such as this, are taken far too literally and seriously by some. Watch the game closely, you can tell if the team should have scored 3 or 4 goals without the need of computer graphics. I didnt see the game on Saturday so cant comment on how the Xg graphic relates to the real game that took place last weekend. Perhaps others who watched it live can comment.

Just getting back to a sideline in this thread from last weekend, although I didn't arrive in Fuerteventura in time to go to the recommended Flower of Scotland pub to see our victory over Accies, I did go in there to watch the Scotland game on Wednesday night, and it is a smashing boozer with Rangers leanings which I would recommend to any Bears who find themselves in this part of the world and want to watch the matches or just to have a good night out.

The £451K which has appeared for the first time in our accounts is worrying without further detail. I am sure C1872 are on the case already to get an explanation. I'm sure it's nothing untoward, but if it's to do with Ashley for example, we would be better knowing about it, for full transparency as we were promised.

I already do a couple of lines per week with the former players benevolent fund getting the commissions but I would be happy to do another line through Gersnet if this is possible.

It seems, going by the deductions made here, that this position is one not necessarily of coaching, but more about the local knowledge on opponents, grounds, stadia, etc, and that therefore communication skills should be at the fore for any successful candidate. But that I don't mean good at picking up the phone and leaking info to your journal pals, but a quality of language to ensure they get the right message across to Pedro and the players. This would obviously rule out Ferguson & Brown, neither of whom can string a coherent sentence together. However I believe the number 3 role will be a coaching role, similar to Kenny clipboards role under Walter, or Ally's role under Walter for Scotland. Durrant also had this role under Ally. With it looking likely Miller will be given a role with Murty at U20 level, (therefore ruling both of them out) it looks like a former player will be coming back as number 3. Ferguson, Brown, Lovenkrands, are all already quoted, or perhaps an Alex Rae or someone with Scottish coaching/management experience at a decent level and quite recently. For me none of the 3 tipped in the press tick the boxes I would want ticked, but it is going to be more important to have a good working relationship with Pedro and his number 2, than his career path in coaching.

Seriously? Well they certainly murdered it!

Utterly dreadful. No tune, dismal lyrics. Whoever came up with that needs help!

No just got to the villa around 3.30 and spent half an hour fighting with wifi before giving up. Thunderstorm probably to blame but expected to be good the rest of the week. Will visit FoS later in the week. Updates on Gersnet and BBC were enough, can watch extended highlights over next couple of days while lounging in the sunshine!

Unlucky mate, I got my bets on while sitting in departure lounge this morning.

Thanks. On phone so can't click the thanks button.

Looks like my Rangers -2 and Rangers to win both halfs bets are home and hosed!!

Quite a turnaround for a team that had only once in 24 league games under MW scored more than two goals.

Thanks mate. Thunderstorms have fecked the wifi so no streaming but the good people here are doing a good job with the updates.

Cheers Craig, hope we can add more goals and can keep up the intensity.

Just got into my villa here, wifi is shit so I'm on Gersnet for now. Glad we have now broken them down. How are we playing? Any change in tempo or formation noticeable to those watching?

I am and I will. Many thanks for info to you and others who replied. Checking flight info it looks like I land at 14.35 so by the time I get through airport and short taxi ride I will probably miss at least first half. Looks like I'm going to get holiday off to a flier in the doghouse as I dump my case and bomb straight to pub to catch 2nd half! Oh well, got all week to make it up to her indoors!

Im hoping to have landed in Feurteventura and be in my accomodation in time to sign up to RTV to watch the match tomorrow. I'm disappointed that i'm going to miss Pedro's first game in charge, and if I cant get it on RTV I will be relying on the match thread from the good Bears at Gersnet to keep me informed on how we are doing. Will we see many changes in personnel from Sunday? I think probably not so it will be about what shape/formation we use, and what desire and application Pedro can get out of them. Are Garner/Kiernan available or still suspended? If they are available I would expect both to come back in. Will he play McKay in a proper number 10 role or continue to play him on the "wrong" wing, with Waghorn playing on his wrong side also? A lot of questions and we might not get all the answers after only a few days to work with the players, but there should be enough clues as to who he rates and what way he wants to set up. For all Murty done reasonably well for being thrown in way above his level, we did drop 8 points in his 4 league games in charge, which now leaves us 8 points behind Dolly with 10 games to go, so there is no room for bedding in gently, we simply cannot afford any more dropped points in our remaining home games, and probably have to win both the Dolly matches remaining to pip them to second. If we drastically change formation and style, what then does this do to our philosophy of having all our teams from kids ages upwards playing the same way - do they all then change? Time will tell, bring it on!