calscot

Nothing to do with disparaging Rangers now, so no interest. Probably a small mention of his punishment by the SFA when it happens.

It really does seem naive to me that we don't force a pressing opposition back with some decent long balls that would bypass most of their team and have them scrabbling on the back foot. As I said before, if we have a system that only works if we have much better players than the opposition then we are by definition, stuffed against Celtic and in Europe. Warburton should be able to recruit on a budget that is equivalent to the likes of Ross County, and use his system to beat them, or he's no better than your average SP manager. I said before he came that if you concentrate on things like playing the ball on the ground and entertaining, you will miss out the task of finding out how best to win and be less likely to achieve that, and it seems to be coming true. I'm again reminded of Yogi who had Falkirk playing a similar style, but due to their budget, it didn't work against more pragmatic sides, and they were subsequently relegated and he was sacked. I've always said that playing football exclusively on the ground doesn't automatically win you games, or even entertain, and I can remember criticising the MK Dons for trying too hard to do so, and while they passed it around very well, playing from back, it ended up as U football, where they rarely attacked the goal, and became quite dull to watch. I did see them beat Wimbledon FC, who were a lower division, but it was pretty tedious going - and now the club that replaced them in south west London are quite a few places above them in League One. There is no fixed football philosophy that wins you stuff - if there was, everyone would do it and so who would win - especially among equal sides? Winning managers are those that continually adapt to the situation and see ways of overcoming the opposition - even if it's not pretty. They are totally focused on winning while managers like Warburton are focused on other things. They beat other managers who have similar budgets and often greater, because they are better and smarter - while also generaly brushing aside the less well financed ones. The much maligned Walter was capable of this, at least for Rangers and Scotland, and until the likes of MW get us to a European final, his type of philosophy will count for little.

Not sure about that - if we leaked one less goal in every game we'd have saved a maximum of 9 points which is just one more than your top end. But that would be 8 less goals, for a total of 5: 4 against Celtic and only 1 solitary goal in 11 games against the rest - Aberdeen. That's incredibly unrealistic. To be fair if you want to adjust it to suit the argument, 2 of the games don't count for points with 2-1 wins, so at best 3 goals in 11. I think your top end is at worst 4 goals in 11 games and your low end 5. That would require a top class defence with less attacking tactics. It has to be said Walter achieved something similar when he took over from Le Guen, but I doubt we can find another Weir, Ehiogu and Webster for the money we have for their wages, even though they were free IIRC. I think that's what DB is alluding to. One half decent defender on our wage scale, is not going to change a not horrendous 8 goals in 11 games to something a lot better that brings us loads of points - and even good players make mistakes, or don't stop other players from doing so, and the opposition can still score good goals. Our biggest problem, that has the potential give us more bang for buck, is our scoring form at 15 goals in the 11 games outwith Celtic. Another 7 goals could potentially have brought us another 13 points - and 22 goals in 11 games, where you dominate, is not that special and to be expected of Rangers. We just needed to score 0.64 goals more per game to get to 2.0 a game, to be top of the league by two points having played a game more. Moneyball Maths says get the attack sorted out.

I really haven't seen him being scapegoated, but when you consider he said he was the best player in Scotland and Brown wasn't in his league, so the criticism of him deserves to be the most scathing in Scotland. He should have raised us up a level, instead he was effectively a complete loud-mouthed no-mark that detracted from the cause. I think most of us have no sympathy for him and I can imagine him being another of our enemies in the media when he leaves.

They are so crap, that I find being just as crap, for what I imagine is about three times the wages, incredibly depressing.

I'm sure he's a raving, right wing Tory... Most people with a bit of money usually are.

I still can't understand how you can have rules that don't follow common sense and then punish people for following them because of they don't follow common sense. Does it mean we can break any rules or laws that don't make common sense with impunity? That would probably be most tax laws. The old stamp duty didn't follow common sense when it jumped to to the higher rate for the full amount at each threshold - does that mean we can get our money back?

Also, can't help thinking that his stress levels could have been ameliorated by a simple, but humble apology.

If you can't cope with stress then maybe you should choose a different profession...

I think that's another reason I can't engage with the Scotland games much - I rarely watch them these days and often don't know the score until a day or so later. If the team was made up from players in the SP, and with a smattering of Rangers players, then it might pique my interest. Although, I'd still need it to shed a lot of the nefarious and petty, political and personal shit that pervades it - and most of the people at the top. I don't follow English football, clueless about the EP never mind the EC, so most of the players are a bit of a mystery to me. To be honest, I now find football has become a bit of a putrid, corrupt, greedy, self-serving sport which brings the worst out in people, and only my affinity to Rangers keeps me interested - but also means my interest is very narrow and I couldn't tell you most of the Celtic team - whereas I used to know most of the players in the top half of the table, and the most notable ones of the rest a while back, as well as the likes of the Man U team, AC Milan, Barca etc.

Most probably Maplin...

Not sure we can afford them these days...

I thought we missed him when he was injured but seeing him against Ross County, he looked two divisions below, never mind one. Totally out of his depth for the half hour he was on. I'm hoping it's an injury problem or at least a one off, as I thought he was a decent player last season. If it's itchy feet, then there's no reason to want him to stay.

Thinking about it, if they were going to do it, why did he not have the recorder set up before the visitors arrived - then they would never have known?

I sometimes wonder how many boardrooms are swept for bugs, you see it so often in films. However, I think it's easier to bug your own room to visitors, rather than bug someone else's. That also means you don't need to send a detectable radio signal as you can just record and retrieve later.

Fair enough, but I think they are slightly related, and to me win rate is more consistent from season to season rather than depending on who else is doing what. It makes it a KPI for him rather than how other managers are doing also. For example, you could be just in second place but doing quite badly with win rate as everyone is taking points off each other, which could give a false impression of performance, that could be shown up the next season if one of the teams gets their act together. Also, I don't think second place by a point above Aberdeen but 35 points behind Celtic is the same performance as second, 20 points above Aberdeen and 10 points behind Celtic. Or you could be doing quite well but pipped to second by goal difference by a team having a season of a lifetime. Although, when it comes to first place, I completely agree - I care a lot less about how it was done, and if it's a 50% win rate then fine.

I think we were optimistic from last season due to the way we played and won the league pretty convincingly, but what we are waking up to is that the players we thought were good, are of a similar standard to the likes of Hearts and Aberdeen, and obviously Hearts already won the second pretty convincingly, and you would expect Aberdeen to do so too. So where we are is about where we should expect with St Johnstone being the surprise party crashers. Although, personally I think we have the potential to be the top of that lot by a small distance. It seems a lot of the players we enjoyed last season have found their level now, and there are so many that just look pretty ordinary SPL players, although a little bit above the average to be good enough for the top half of the table, outside Celtic. A few of them are actually struggling for even that level. Our summer purchase of a whole team of players was supposed to raise us up a level, but who has made an impact? I think Kranjcar started to look good, and Rossiter had potential, but both succumbed to injury, while Windass had a brief, bright moment before fading. Hill seems just about ok, and better than the two previous bombscares, but he's not even in the league of some of our less well sung heroes of the past. A squad player that's better than two players who shouldn't be in the squad. Barton was a waste of time and money, and I'm not sure what happened with Senderos except that it doesn't look like he's been forgiven for that hand-ball. Garner is an enigma and his transfer fee is looking like it's highly inflated by a rich second tier under a mega rich first tier league - reminding of some similar backup signings we made in salubrious times as mere punts with petty cash. At the moment, I think most fans would welcome a swap for Sebo. So we're relying on quite a few stalwarts from last season with the likes of Foderingham giving us nervous tension and most others vastly under-performing and looking like they are lacking in confidence. We'll have the odd game like Killie, where it all comes together, but teams are learning to press us and harry us, and without using all three dimensions of the pitch, our team just don't seem to have the chops to cope. In the Championship they had time to pick their passes, now they have far less time to think and on a bad day like in Dingwall, the passes are pretty woeful. We sorely need a change or even just a big tweak in the tactics as we're telling the opposition exactly how we'r'e going to play, when we're going to use our substitutes, and have taught them how to nullify our threat. The only unpredictable thing is how well we're going to play plan A.

In the last four years, 50% win rate would not have got us 2nd place 3 times out of 4. To scrape 2nd in the other we'd need 50% plus 7 draws or 6 draws plus more than 16 goal difference. The average for second without us in the league was 55.9%.

I went back from 2012 to 2000 and not once did the winners have less than 68.4%. The only time this century was 2013 with Celtic sleepwalking to a tainted title without us in the league, at 63.2% with 24 wins. So I would say we need a minimum of 25 wins which is 65.8%, although 26 wins is real bar at 68.4%.

Probably different times, but for a more recent comparison, in a horrendous off-field season with administration and a 10 point penalty, McCoist managed it in the league - 68.4%, 26 wins out of 38, and was considered a failure. So I can't see how I'm being harsh. But in any case, it's not me being harsh: it's the reality of the league - Lennon managed 78.9 that year, and Rogers is currently sitting on 90.9 albeit in only 11 games, but he's well on the way to over 67%. The season before McCoist, Walter achieved 78.9% with Celtic at 76.3%, so 67% wouldn't have been anywhere good enough to win. The season before that it was 68.4% to 65.8%. And then 68.4% to 63%. So I think that target is quite a good fit what we minimally need to achieve to have the slightest chance of winning the league - and at least challenging somewhat and finishing a distance from third. But there can be no argument that 42% is not going to cut it. I realise that you get a point for a draw, but at Rangers, draws need to be pretty minimal, they hurt us too much, which is why grinding out wins can become very important.

That is pretty sackable form for a Rangers manager - even in our current financial plight. I can't see Warburton getting sacked by the board unless it gets a lot worse, but if it doesn't get any better by the end of the season, I think a guy like Warburton would do the honourable thing. We really need to start seeing some consistent progress, and for someone who's always been sceptical of some of MW's philosophy, I'm finding it hard to be optimistic. For me, I think one of his kpi's is to win around 2/3 of the games and he's missing that by a fair margin - at 58% for this season in all competitions and 42% for the league. His all time record against Premiership clubs is again 42% and even when you add 10 games against Premiership hopefuls of Hibs and Falkirk, it only improves to 45% against the top 14 clubs in Scotland in 29 games.

BTW I was pretty shocked at Waghorn's sub performance - reminds me of Van Vossen before and after that miss. He's been replaced by his shit, twin bother as Walter put it.

If you take the Celtic game out of the equation as an outlier and for this season not too relevant, we've lost 8 goals in 11 games to the rest of the league. I'd say that's not too bad, and actually championship challenging defending - and the same as Celtic. However, the real problem is the number of goals scored which is 15 in 11 games against the rest. That's mid table scoring form, and another level from Celtic's 34. To compete for the title or for now, a good second place, you need an average of about 2 goals a game or more but this season we've rarely looked like a team who are pre-destined to score a brace, the Kilmarnock game apart. So for me, as long as we're shipping just the one, single silly goal, I'm not too bothered about the defence and would rather concentrate on the attack until we sort that out first.

I see what you're saying but you can't extrapolate one game to the whole season - we could do that with the previous game and say we're 2nd place by miles. For me I think it shows the two extremes between us playing well and playing badly with our more average, expected game halfway between. So a reasonably comfortable draw away at Dingwall, while playing very badly, definitely suggests a top 5 team, never mind a top 6. If you extrapolate the sum of our 12 games then we're obviously competing for 2nd to 5th. That would be fine for the likes of Hibs, but while there's not much chance of 7th and below, it's still a pretty dire position for us, so nothing to be happy about.

The performance was dire but when you look at the table we're a club comfortably in the 2nd to 5th place. No struggling at all for a top 6 place - you'd be taking a big risk on betting against us on the form we've had for what it is. Our problem is not struggling to finish in the top 6, it's that in the race for second or a disappointing third, we're no better than Aberdeen, Hearts and St Johnstone, who are similarly profligate in throwing points away but still a noticeable level above the rest.