Gaffer

I completely agree with you that every set piece against us was such a nervy affair. You could almost sense that teams were expectIng to score against us. And of course that expectation (and nerves from our own support) just adds more pressure on the team when defending these set pieces. MW spent very little time analysing the opponents and it showed, especially at corners. Corners should be the easiest set piece to defend against. Did you know that scoring from a direct corner (i.e. one where the corner is crossed without any short pass to a team mate first) has a scoring chance of less than 2.4%? In other words, you should only expect to concede a goal once in every 40 corners. This season our rate of conceding was nearly 6%. That's about as poor as it gets. Our players are not that much worse than other players so it showed how poorly organised we were during those stages of the game. Equally, defending against counter attacks should be the next simplest thing to do. Most teams will go through a season having scored only four or five times from a counter attack, despite what you might think intuitively (Man City are currently one of the best in Europe and they've scored only 10 from counter attacks). We lost the majority of our goals from such a breakdown. Having a relatively simple offence to defence transition, coupled with a little knowledge of the opposition should be enough to blunt these attacks, but we didn't have this. I can appreciate MW's philosophy of dominating the ball and he's absolutely correct to focus the attention on that phase of the game. What bothered me was the apparent disregard for spending a proportionate amount of time on other phases. It's for this reason that I think we can close the gap on :them: quickly. To overtake them will be a bigger challenge though. It's for this same reason that I think he can get a lot more out of the players we have. Small changes to our tactics and training can have a big change to our fortunes. PC is a great salesman. He's great to listen to, and appears to be a really good motivator and disciplinarian. He quickly has you believing in him, much more than most managers I can think of. That rubs off on the players and if they believe in him it'll have an enormous effect. As you say though, he now has to show that he can make the change happen and that it can turn around our season. It's not necessarily that we need to finish second, but we do need to start recreating the fear other teams once had when coming to play us, especially at Ibrox. At the very least I'd hope to be able to watch set pieces against us like any normal supporter, and not through the gaps in my fingers.

If a team is not well drilled in defending against set pieces, it can spell disaster. In that regard, I agree that they are important. However, if you consider that the top teams in any any league tend to only score around 5% - 20% of their goals from set pieces, its plain to see why they are very often not such a focus these days. It's therefore reasonable to expect a team to train for offensive free kicks for up to 20% of the time if was being done proportionately. However to achieve a 20% rate of contribution of goals from set pieces, you need set piece specialists. Remember that this doesn't just apply to the player taking the initial kick/throw, it applies to those around them too. We just don't have that capability within the team, so we can choose to spend the time training those skills, or focus on open play. Unless we do that we will operate towards the 5% end of the spectrum. Focussing on improving chances from open play is much more productive. Teams like Crystal Palace and WBA have a policy of signing players that are set piece specialists. In open play they are a decent side, but they are very successful in set pieces with around 50% of their goals coming from set plays. A team's reliance (or otherwise) on set pieces is also therefore a big part of its recruitment strategy. It's also plays a massive part in the way a team's tactics are trained. It's fair to say that Toral is a very good dead ball player, but we have very few receivers capable of making the most of the chances he can create. If set pieces are to become a bigger part of our game, we are going to have to train or recruit for this purpose. Until then, we can train in offensive set pieces but it won't make a massive difference for a long time. PC knows this though, but it won't stop him from quite rightly making us a better organised unit when defending against them. It's perhaps also of interest to note that in amateur leagues, the proportion of goals scored from set pieces increases to between 30% and 80% (believe it or not). I've not looked into this so much, but I imagine this is due to the defensive frailties rather than the ingenuity of the set piece 'specialists'.

I did not mean to offend you by suggesting you were funny. It's just that I have this image of you battering the keys as you wrote it. As for accepting mediocrity, I'm assuming you're fishing again by suggesting that I'm happy with that. Of course I'm not and no Rangers fan is, but the simple fact is that we do not have the money to spend on the types of players I'd want at the club. It'll be a long time before we can spend that sort of money, so we either don't award a PotY to anyone for the next few years or we award it based on the premise that our best player gets the honour. Do not presume that my positive outlook is an acceptance of failure or that I'm content with our current position in the league. I do however have a choice the same as you. I can either live in the past (which was largely enjoyable) where we had players like Gazza and Laudrup, or I can acknowledge the situation my club finds itself in and manage my own expectations about what is possible. I fear that if you continue to measure the team relative to our past squads, you won't be happy for a very long time, and that's unhealthy in my opinion. So, I accept your opinion on the listed players, just as I'm,sure you'll respect mine.

Out of interest, what questions would you ask? I understand if people want to keep their powder dry until the event, but as an outsider I'd be interested to know. I'd like to know (although I have no right to ask): - is the board united its objective? - what is the objective? (Yes, it's not clear to me I have to admit) - what do you have in place that gives us reasonable assurance of independence between Club1872 and RIFC? - why did the three board members resign? - is there any evidence by way of board meetings (or any other documents) that these resigning board members raised concerns that were not addressed? - how are conflicts of interest made visible to members and how are they managed? - is there any evidence of conflicts of interest, and more importantly are there any that aren't being managed? - what does success look like for Club1872 and what is the 5 year plan? I'd want the board to be on the hook for answering these direct questions.

You're funny TB, and I mean that sincerely. I think we could all have predicted this as being your response. I completely understand the fact that these players aren't as good as those we've had in the past, but wouldn't you give credit to Hill or Foderingham this season? In your opinion, are these players performing "bang average" by their standards, or by Rangers standards? I completely accept the latter, but not the former.

Hill and Foderingham have to be the main competitors for this award. Both have been consistent throughout the season, but I think Hill just edges it for his goals and leadership qualities when thIngs were tough. If it was decided on work rate then Miller would be up there also. If Hyndman had been with us from the summer though, he'd have won it, and deserves to win the YPotY. You never know, he might then decide to return for a full season next season to win the main PotY award. If McKay and Waghorn had been played in their preferred central positions, I'm quite sure they'd have been competing for the main award too.

We had such a wonderful opportunity to develop a reputation as a club that could develop young players and we blew it. We had the opportunity to balance youth with experience as we came back up through the divisions. There's no point in crying over spilled milk, but I just hope we find a way to give youth a chance, otherwise there really is no point in youth development and it's associated costs. When MW was given the role, he sold himself on his ability to get youths coming through. This was exactly what we needed. However this season he went with too many older players when some of the younger ones could have had their chance. PC has been given the opportunity to develop youth and I was particularly pleased to see him immediately take the opportunity to try out some of the younger players on Saturday. We can't just play them if they're not good enough to develop into a quality player, but equally we can't continue to leave them out if they're not quite as good as some of our established players. If they don't get the chance, they'll never be good enough. This also means that as a support we need to be patient as they develop, and tolerant of their mistakes. I just wonder if we have a support that's willing to play its part though.

You really believe that? If he is mad he would take a short term financial gain with a team like Chelsea over a potentially long term career which benefited from some first team experience in front of 50k fans every other week. We have a real problem in the game these days with teams like Chelsea hoovering up the raw talent and then keeping them suppressed by loaning them out to clubs without real consideration for their future. Chelsea can afford to do this, but young kids can't. Unfortunately they don't realise this until it's too late. There is absolutely no substitute for first team experience and especially experience gained under pressure. Rangers is an ideal place for players to develop the skills (not just football related) they'd need for a long career in the game. The reason young players don't make the grade, despite the wealth of talent they have, is because senior clubs do not give them the game time. Rangers needs to demonstrate that it can play young players. I really expected that MW would stick to that part of the plan but he didn't. I could completely understand youngsters chasing the money and believing that they are the one who will actually make it at a club like Chelsea. However if it was my son I'd be asking what the stats were in these clubs. How many kids last more than 5 years in the game having gone down this route? You'll find that it's not many. Let's hope whatever happens that he's well advised. Even if it's not with us, I'd want the kid to go somewhere he will be playing games under pressure, otherwise he won't make it regardless of how skilful he is.

One of the simplest stats also used is the distance covered by each player. It was really an eye opener for me when I saw that the average distance covered by a player in the SPL was 8.7k in 90 minutes. This was in 2015. The average distance travelled by a BPL player was 10.8km and the average distance covered by the top players in the Liga BBVA was 13.3km. Of course the top players were in teams that were regarded as the best passing teams like Barca and Real Madrid. It becomes obvious that they're not really the best passing sides, but they are the best moving sides. I suppose when you have that much movement around you it's so much easier to find a pass. Distance travelled is a good measure of the work rate of a player but the other side of that coin is how intelligent the move is, how quickly the player accelerates and the timing of it. I find it very interesting though.

I get the sense you're more than a little sceptical at the use of numbers in football. Whether you believe it or not, football is about stats and more and more clubs are realising this. It's funny that you mention the computer game mentality because the databases created by people at SI Games are used by many of the top clubs in the world. They use these databases to find players with particular attributes they are looking for and they're surprisingly accurate. You can say it's subjective but that's just another way of saying that understanding the complexity of the numbers is too difficult so you'll use your own judgement instead. You can afford to do that because you're a supporter but clubs can't afford to so they use whatever they can to mitigate their risk of bad decisions. One example of this was when Japp Stam was sold by United. For a couple of seasons the supporters and press had noticed that he was making fewer tackles than previous seasons and suggested he was past his best. When Fergie consulted his team they agreed it was time for him to go. This was a mistake and it was caused by people making a subjective decision based on simple data such as number of tackles, as well as just watching him. When the real data systems were introduced just two years later, they were able to demonstrate that he didn't need to make as any tackles because he was reading the runs better and marking his man better than others were able to. United made a very expensive mistake and Fergie now regrets it. You'll hear him say sometimes that you shouldn't listen to the stats, but what he meant was the simple stats. He, like just about every modern day manager, now understands the importance of match and player analysis like Roussea is sharing. Embrace it TB, it's a good thing.

Remember Alexei Mikhailichenko? He was arguably the most skilful player we had but he didn't like to run. I remember Walter saying that when they played 5-a-side matches no one could get the ball from him.

Really enjoy reading these threads Rousseau. How quickly is this data available to you after games?

For me it has to be Laudrup. It was a pleasure to watch him in every game.

In football there are very fine margins between winning, drawing and losing. Our team doesn't have to perform much better to turn some of those losses into draws, and draws into wins, but it does require a consistency and that's our problem. We can beat Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts when we're playing well. We certainly already have a first eleven that can do that but we now need to turn that into a consistent habit. There's a winning mentality that's missing and that in itself can help grind out points even when we're not playing well. The problem we had this season was that our players did not have that, and even now there are some that don't display that mentality when the going gets tough. That mentality can be developed and one of the best ways to build it is to have the confidence (and arrogance to some degree) that we will win games. That's the manager's job and although I really liked MW (notwithstanding his attitude towards the end), he just didn't seem able to build the mental toughness of our team. Murty may not have had the philosophical brain and vision that MW had, but he definitely knew how to motivate the team and make them believe they are winners. This was so evident when the players took to the field against Celtic. I'm sure many of us could tell we were up for it before a ball was kicked. I'm sure :their: players also knew we were up for it. There's something in the body language that says "we are here to win" and I'm delighted to see that back in the team. There's also something very intimidating about it for the opposition and we can start to use that to our advantage. When PC talks about aggression at certain stages of the game, he's not only talking about a desire to get into the right spaces, or the desire to make risky and direct passes, he means the team needs to mentally destabilise the opposition by demoralising them. A large part of the philosophy is about quickly turning a defensive situation into an attacking one and thereby causing the opponents to think twice about committing for the fear of the consequences of a counter attack. I'm sure our players will understand that because that's exactly how we've felt for most of this season. You could see the fear in our players' body language even when we were attacking because they knew we were vulnerable if we lost the ball. That's why this season our players have made fewer risky passes in the final third (for fear of consequences) and hence our attacking style has become ineffective. With PC's philosophy we will be making more direct runs, passes and shots. This will ultimately mean we lose possession more often than before because of the increased risk, but the team will look upon those moments as moments of opportunity rather than moments to fear, and that's the difference. If we can build a team full of confidence and absent of fear, regardless of the situation, we have a winning mentality. So it's over to PC now to see if he can turn a smart philosophy into an attractive style of football, but perhaps more importantly, a winning mentality. If he does that, he can transform a team of decent players into a team capable of a challenge. And if he can also add a few more quality players into the mix we could very well be in for an exciting time next season. Depending on how quickly he can make significant changes, we could even have an exciting end to this one too.

See Barristan Selmy: You said you don't visit the forums much. May I suggest that you do, because somewhere along the line you've built up a level of negativity that's unhealthy and it would be good for you to spend some time among friends that can help. There's no doubt we have underperformed. Off the pitch, our troubles have resulted in us operating in a different financial league to :them: and it'll take some time before that's properly addressed but I'm sure you can see we are on a road to recovery. If you don't, arrange to come back for another session to the forums and I'll be happy to help you see the light. On the field, our playing squad is underperforming. That's partly down to the lack of funds to invest in players, but also because the previous manager could not find a way to get the best out of what we've got. You mentioned the long line of illustrious keepers, and when I read that I instantly recall the likes of Goram, Klos, Woods, etc. The problem is that we are not in that position any more. We were once in a position where we could compete with the richest clubs in the world for the best talent but we're not now, and my diagnosis of your negativity tells me that this is the root cause. You're living in the past, but a large dose of reality each day will help and if you come back here for at least 3 days a week I (and perhaps others) will be happy to administer it. We are Rangers, but our club has changed and so has the footballing world around us. It's either a time to throw in the towel or be excited at the prospect of rebuilding something exciting. Try it.

Ok, now I know you're on the wind up. Well done!

I never know if you're serious or not, but since you managed to get me to bite, you might as well reel me in. Our recent financial results show that what we spent was almost exactly proportionate for a "club of our size". The fact is that MW was supported well in the summer but for a number of reasons the signings haven't performed. What we spent was much more than peanuts and what we have are players that deserve more credit and respect than being called monkeys. So go on, please tell me you weren't being serious.

My understanding from what he said is that his 'initial' reaction was to reject their request to go for no compensation. However it then appears that it was in our best interest just to let them go. I think there have been some games played by Notts Forest and MW here. It no doubt started off with the agent believing that Rangers would be willing to let them go. When our board initially said no to freeing them, they could have done that believing that forest would just pay compensation anyway. Forest may then have pretended (along with MW) to reject MW and his team. This may have been a bluff to get our board to then accept their resignations and the no-compensation agreement, knowing fine well that the board was unhappy with their performances anyway. With our board then believing that we were 'stuck' with the management team afterall they've perhaps then decided to accept the agent's offer. That's perhaps exactly what MW and the team wanted to achieve and then they knew they had to leave it a little longer before they could properly take their roles in their new club. Purely speculation of course ;-). Maybe that's why King is annoyed, because he feels the board was too easily played.

I thought his interviews were great and a really good advert for our club. If you're a manager or a player, or anyone else potentially working with the club, I can imagine he'd be exactly what you'd be looking for in a chairman. And having listened to the way he speaks about the club, it's clear we already have fan ownership. He is a sensible supporter and from my perspective appears to be doing everything reasonable to help the club he supports. He seems to be open and frank in his responses and I respect the way he tries to tell us as much as he can. Of course we will continue to scrutinise decisions and progress (as we should), but I'm confident we have a very decent guy at the helm. Nice one Dave! Now get back to SA and keep your wife happy. Safe journey.

When I watched those clips of this great man it made me reflect on how we teach young kids these days. By the age of 10 we aim to have kids reasonably proficient with both feet. At the very least they need to be able to control and pass the ball with both feet. DC was an amazing player and yet I don't think I ever saw him use his right foot. I suppose he was so good he didn't need it.

You guys keep suggesting that the role of this assistant is "unclear", or a "riddle", etc. If you listen to what PC says he wants, it seems pretty clear to me, as I posted already. It's a relatively small role and fairly insignificant as far as we are all concerned but it is something that's important to PC. Due to its insignificance I've been relatively disinterested in who gets it, but what does interest me is the level of debate we can generate, especially when it seems that most of it is caused by people making things up (about what the role is) or just not listening to what the man himself said the role was. Bizarre. If you keep up this corruption of the facts, many of you could be in line for a new role yourselves ..... working for the Scottish media!!!!

When I listened to PC I never got the impression that this 'assistant' was expected to spend any time with the players at all. When PC spoke about it he said that it's someone local (a "local club assistant") that can help him understand: the cultural issues; the histories of the club and its rivalries; the traditions of the club; what it means to live in Glasgow and in Scotland; how do the opposition managers behave and how do they like their teams to behave; and the history and relevant information relating to the domestic competitions we are competing in. He also indicated he wanted to explain to this assistant how his philosophy works so that the assistant can help him work out any issues in implementing that for our club. So it appears that this is someone that would work as an adviser to PC, but not a coach to the players. This makes sense and I can understand why he's used a similar approach at each club he's worked at previously. Very often the cultural barriers can be a problem and it doesn't surprise me that his attention to detail means he wants to understand those that may be relevant to what he's trying to achieve. I really don't think this appointment is a big deal though. {I think this is my 100th post. I know that's nothing compared to many on here, but I've never got that many things to say that are worth posting. I do however enjoy reading the posts from everyone.}

Are the minutes of Club 1872 meetings made available to members? It seems strange that the discussions at the board would be kept quiet from members. So either those directors that resigned did raise these concerns (and in which case they are minuted), or they didn't. It should be straight forward to check and thereby bypassing this charade. These posts and announcements are filled with words but void of any content. It then invites the readers to read between the lines and fill in the blanks. This is a poor way to build trust and in my opinion none of the directors (neither those who resigned nor those still in role) have managed this situation particularly well. For fan ownership to work we need a strong team to run Club 1872. From my reading of this, we clearly have no sense of team at all, never mind a strong one. The primary requirement of any team is a clear goal that everyone buys in to. Again for me this does not exist. It seems to me that personal advancement has overtaken the collective goal and that's always going to undermine the effectiveness and trust within the team. It's times like these that either strong leaders emerge and resolve the challenge, or the team dies along with its purpose. I'm sure most of us would like to see the fan ownership model succeed, but who can lead it, build trust, and truly meet the objectives it was created to achieve? I don't know any of the characters involved, but as an outsider I am not impressed by any of them. In so many ways it is unfair for me to criticise others for their apparent mismanagement. I didn't campaign against the previous regimes as some have done. I am not a Club 1872 member. I am not interested in a role in either the RIFC or Club 1872. I'm just a supporter that wants to see how well this concept performs before I commit to it myself. You'd think that after everything that's happened to our club recently we would find so many more things to unite us than divide us but for some reason the suspicion and mistrust of previous regimes has resulted in us trusting very few and arguing with many. Other supporters are not enemy here. We know who the enemies are. We are crying out for trusted figureheads to fix a broken support. I just don't see where they will come from though. The Rangers board has a role to play in that but so do we. Thank goodness we have a game in a couple of weeks because at least then we will be back talking about the really important stuff, and at least for 90 minutes we will have a distraction from this off the field turmoil.

You have to seriously question the point of this friendly. It's not about familiarisation of the players to roles as he's resting many of his first team. It's not about testing our players against tough opposition, clearly. And it's not about the revenue as this will certainly be a loss maker. I don't get it. I'm assuming GS had to have a rationale for a game such as this. I'd love to know what it was. It seems a complete waste of time. Instead, I'll be watching the development squad tonight. They've been really impressive over the campaign so far and I expect them to qualify tonight.

Having players playing in positions most suitable for their skills and attributes is enormously important, and yet it amazes me how many coaches seem reject this idea. I appreciate footballers have many common skills, however the pitch geography (yes, I just had to put that in there) is different in each position, as is the knowledge of the runs of the players around you. We need a settled first eleven that knows their roles and are suited to those roles. The last time I felt we had that was under DA.