Rousseau

It's nice to see us playing with 1 (Sands) sitting and 2 #8s (Tillman and Lundstram) in the midfield. Tillman and Lundstram have been good in those roles.

I post this without comment. Kevin Muscat has won the Japanese league taking over Ange's old team. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/nov/06/kevin-muscat-does-it-the-hard-way-but-j1-title-means-its-time-to-party

St Johnstone 1 - 2 Rangers FGS Colak

[...] and sporting a pink carnation.

Napoli go six points clear at the top of Serie A after beating Atalanta last night. Second place Milan got a last minute winner, so it could have been a bigger lead.

These stats also highlight a criticism I have of GvB, which I've posted before. Our wingers tend to stay wide, which is not a problem in itself. But we need to adjust the team to suit. If you play with wide wingers, you need your #8s to play further forward in the half-space, and they provide the goal-threat in the box. We play with one #10, who doesn't get into the box. Or, you play with inside-forwards in the half-space - like Jota and Abada et al. - with FBs providing the width. We're in-between. If Kent is being asked to stay wide and punt aimless crosses into the box, or lay it off for Barisic to punt aimless crosses into the box, a la horseshoe, then... Ugh. It's no surprise that he had "better" numbers when he played as a #10 under SG. Still not great numbers, but "better".

I can't believe the mockery around a wee stat simply because it doesn't align with your opinion. I'm the same; I think Kent is rubbish. Kent can create lots of chances and still be rubbish, though. To me, it suggests the chances he's creating are of very poor quality. The fact that he's been involved in 39 chances but only has 4 assists is testament to that. He has scored 1 from an xG of 1.5. An xG of 1.5 for a winger is truly poor, and he's still under-performing that!

That's trivia. I. WILL. NOT. TAKE. THE. BAIT.

Stats cut through the sh*te. I'm fully on board with the 'Kent's been rubbish' narrative, but those numbers are quite startling. I would like to see the quality of the chances created, though. If he's just laying off a 5-yard pass for someone to hit a shot from 25-yards, then no wonder his assist numbers are low. If the xA is quite high, then we'd need to pass the blame on to the finishing. What's also clear is he doesn't score enough.

Secondary assists are included in the graphic, and Kent seems quite high. I agree, though: creating lots of chances is good, but you then need to look at the quality of the chances created (xA) and conversion rate.

Transfermrkt... It does give you the option of going into each player's injury history. For example, counting up Roofe's injuries, it suggests he's missed 56 games since September 2020.

F*ck off! I'm not Alan Turing! I can only find this, but I think it only includes their 'current' injury: Name - Age - Injury - Since - Exp. Return - Matches Missed - Days Missed - Value Nnamdi Ofoborh Central Midfield 22 Heart Condition Jul 16, 2021 ? 92 476 €400k Ianis Hagi Attacking Midfield 24 Knee Surgery Jan 24, 2022 Nov 21, 2022 58 301 €7.00m Filip Helander Centre-Back 29 Foot Injury Apr 11, 2022 Dec 22, 2022 41 255 €3.50m John Souttar Centre-Back 26 Ankle Injury Aug 1, 2022 Dec 21, 2022 28 142 €1.50m Connor Goldson Centre-Back 29 Hamstring Injury Oct 12, 2022 Jan 31, 2023 18 111 €8.00m Ryan Jack Central Midfield 30 Calf Problems Oct 13, 2022 Jan 16, 2023 16 95 €4.00m Tom Lawrence Left Winger 28 Knee Injury Aug 29, 2022 ? 15 67 €5.00m Ridvan Yilmaz Left-Back 21 Hamstring Injury Oct 29, 2022 Dec 20, 2022 7 52 €6.50m Kemar Roofe Centre-Forward 29 Unknown Injury Oct 24, 2022 Nov 14, 2022 6 21 €5.50m Ben Davies Centre-Back 27 Unknown Injury Oct 29, 2022 ? 2 6 €2.50m

We've got a group (4) of very old players. The majority of our players are in their peak, with a couple of years before they reach 30. Then we have a group of youngsters (unfortunately two well-used youngsters - Tillman and Sands - are not quite ours, yet). Let the old ones leave, get rid of Helander and Roofe, make Tillman and Sands permanent, and hopefully get Lowry and Hagi (I'd like to see more of McCann too) into the first-team picture and it looks ok. Obviously, we're still lacking certain positions. It's not a bad spread.

Made a thing (Axis labels are wrong: it should be y-axis mins played, x-axis age):

During previous prediction leagues for international tournaments I took the whole matchday at a time, which would be 16 games for this WC. It requires predictions every 4 days, which is how long it takes to get through each matchday. Doable. (Might remove the Joker... meh--it's a bit of fun.)

I was going to do a World Cup Prediction League - any interest? Rules will be: You will receive 3 points for a correct score (CS). You will receive 1 point for a correct result (CR). Jokers applied to a game will double the points. Jokers can be used once per round (Matchday 1, Matchday 2, Matchday 3, Round of 32, etc.). Your prediction for the Knockout phase will include extra time, but not penalties.

St Johnstone 0 - 1 Rangers FGS Colak

St Johnstone vs Rangers

Kamara and Morelos should have been sold a couple of years ago when they were at their peak - that's not to say they can't recover that level, which I think they can; I still rate them. I don't think Barisic should be moved on. I think he's at that weird age where you don't want to rely on him, but you don't want to get rid of the experience that can help Yilmaz. I'd keep him until Yilmaz is established, then move on. I would have liked to have seen Kent and Roofe moved on this summer.

Fair enough. I don't consume anything to do with them, so I wouldn't know.

I don't think our recruitment has been that bad, if we consider the profile of the players. It's only bad in the way that they've been used, IMO.

However, I still don't think we have the right manager. (I agree that he's probably not going anywhere anytime soon.) The style of play is boring. Creating chances and breaking down low blocks continues to be a struggle. He's supposed to be a conservative manager, but he can't even set us up to be hard-to-beat in the CL - even taking into account the gulf in quality.

I agree with all of that. (I could have done without the childish dig at Celtic, though. I'm not sure what the purpose of that was?)