Rangers winning the league is...

[Jinky67]

4 minutes ago, 8MileBU said:

You could make the same argument the other way around for 19/20, when Rangers were flying up until New Year then blew/chucked/choked/fucked their league challenge and Celtic got handed a title* on Zoom.

Again the only people that seem to care and still talk about that are Rangers fans.

We were never officially awarded that asterisk come to think of it, maybe we should ask for it? Something we could have in common with The Rangers title No 55* Maybe bring us closer together? 

Also rumour has it the meeting was done on MS teams and not Zoom

[The_Kincardine]

18 minutes ago, G51 said:

To underline this point for the third time tonight, I do not care about that. The point I'm making is about the assumption that the league title was a 50-50 shot, when it isn't.

We're all agreeing with you (apart from RG who always follows his own agenda) but moving on from it a wee bit to examine reasons for our success.

[G51]

11 minutes ago, Jinky67 said:

Yes.

Though some other notes for consideration:

a) Even if Celtic had a good manager, they probably wouldn't have won the league this season. In the same way that even if Rangers had a good manager in 16/17, we wouldn't have won the league.

b) I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to 97/98 as the year Celtic stopped the ten, though obviously Celtic fans call it that.

 

[AJF]

Rangers winning the league is... going to be glorious.

[Jinky67]

13 minutes ago, G51 said:

Though some other notes for consideration:

a) Even if Celtic had a good manager, they probably wouldn't have won the league this season. In the same way that even if Rangers had a good manager in 16/17, we wouldn't have won the league.

Rangers in 16/17 had a squad that’s had just only just pulled themselves up from the championship at the 2nd attempt. Celtic in 20/21 had a squad that had just won their 9th consecutive league title and 15 trophies on the bounce.

Using these 2 scenarios as a comparison is utterly laughable and safe to say a competent manager could have a more significant impact on the latter. A competent manager doesn’t take us to Dubai during a pandemic which has a significant impact on us dropping 9 points in the fallout. A competent manager probably doesn’t lose at home to St Mirren and likely takes at least 1 point from the 2 OF games already played. You are now looking at just a 4 point gap with 2 OF games still to play so it’s very much game on.

A competent manager doesn’t bridge a 39 point gap with a championship level squad however. You are trying just a little too hard there 
 

Edited February 24, 2021 by Jinky67

[Mvondo_the_great]

On 22/02/2021 at 09:51, ahemps said:

I still can't get my head round an 11-1 voting system. How did that come about and how does it survive?

 

Blame Aberdeen. They fucked it up for everyone we we had the chance to change it a few years ago.

[G51]

1 minute ago, Jinky67 said:

Rangers in 16/17 had a squad that’s had just only just pulled themselves up from the championship at the 2nd attempt. Celtic in 20/21 had a squad that had just won their 9th consecutive league title and 15 trophies on the bounce.

Using these 2 scenarios as a comparison is utterly laughable and safe to say a competent manager could have a more significant impact on the latter. A competent manager doesn’t take us to Dubai costing us 9 points in the fallout. A competent manager probably doesn’t lose at home to St Mirren and likely takes at least 1 point from the 2 OF games already played. You are now looking at just a 4 point gap with 2 OF games still to play so it’s very much game on.

A competent manager doesn’t bridge a 39 point gap with a championship level squad however. You are trying just a little too hard there 
 

You are missing the point again. To explain:

In 2013, statisticians modeled Premier League clubs and assigned them "expected performances" based on wages, transfer fees and player availability. They then compared this to how teams actually did, in order to measure the fixed effects that a manager brings.

There were very few managers that were able to actually beat the model, and the only ones that could were very good ones that we all know (Ferguson, Mourinho, Wenger, plus Hiddink and Benitez). Those people are genuinely good managers that are worth paying.

Pretty much every other manager however fell close to the middle, where it is basically impossible to determine whether they were any good or not. In other words, having a solid manager made practically no difference to the outcome. A follow-up study in 2017 estimated that the average manager is worth about one point a season unless you have a really top-tier one.

Celtic 20/21 and Rangers 16/17 had bad managers. That contributed to both teams hitting their floors. An average, or even good manager, would have earned both teams more points. But it wouldn't have made any difference to the actual outcome of the league, because Rangers 20/21 and Celtic 16/17 were having outlier seasons that are almost impossible to match.

[AmericanFan]

3 hours ago, ewan14 said:

You are picking up the " lingo " !

Yessir.

[Jinky67]

29 minutes ago, G51 said:

You are missing the point again. To explain:

In 2013, statisticians modeled Premier League clubs and assigned them "expected performances" based on wages, transfer fees and player availability. They then compared this to how teams actually did, in order to measure the fixed effects that a manager brings.

There were very few managers that were able to actually beat the model, and the only ones that could were very good ones that we all know (Ferguson, Mourinho, Wenger, plus Hiddink and Benitez). Those people are genuinely good managers that are worth paying.

Pretty much every other manager however fell close to the middle, where it is basically impossible to determine whether they were any good or not. In other words, having a solid manager made practically no difference to the outcome. A follow-up study in 2017 estimated that the average manager is worth about one point a season unless you have a really top-tier one.

Celtic 20/21 and Rangers 16/17 had bad managers. That contributed to both teams hitting their floors. An average, or even good manager, would have earned both teams more points. But it wouldn't have made any difference to the actual outcome of the league, because Rangers 20/21 and Celtic 16/17 were having outlier seasons that are almost impossible to match.

Did this study take into account the impact of a manager taking his team to a foreign country during a global pandemic vastly increasing the probability of someone catching a potentially life threatening illness and quarantining a significant number of first team players for several matches?

Just curious  

In all seriousness there have been many decisions made by Lennon this season with regards to line up, defensive shape, substitutions that have cost us more than just a point and that’s without mentioning the utter negligence of the Dubai debacle which I’m pretty sure your study wouldn’t anticipate or what impact a pandemic would have or indeed the lack of any fans, how many points are they worth a season? Would a competent manager win us the league? Maybe not considering Rangers form but would we still be in play? Most definitely. 

I will give you some credit though, there has been some more noise around the Fergal Harkin/Enzo Maresca link this evening to which I’m sure it was you that alluded to it a few weeks back. 

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Jinky67

[AmericanFan]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Rangers have spent £30m+ on transfer fees, and taken 3 years, to overtake a side managed by Neil Lennon.

It's hardly some inspiring rags to riches story.

There's something to be said for spending money wisely, which Rangers have obviously done with this year's team, and credit has to be given for that.

When the Yankees (whom I absolutely despise) were winning numerous baseball titles in the late 90s, they had insane wage bills, but they were spending money on good players and good pitching. I hate the Yankees as much as anyone, but you had to give them their due for being smart.

Meanwhile, other big clubs such as the Cubs, Mets and Dodgers were spending big money on players who never lived up to their deals and those clubs always severely underachieved (in some cases, for decades). The fact the Dodgers, who are in the second-biggest market in the country and have an insane local TV deal, couldn't win a title from 1989 until 2020 or even win an NL title until 2017 is frankly embarrassing.

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Understand Rangers fans are giddy and all that, but this ceaseless desire to get every single person alive to tell them how absolutely brilliant and incredible they've been this season is weird.

They're winning the league for a reason and all that, but they start every season with a 50% chance of doing so, and their only competitors self imploded halfway through. They still managed to f**k up the easiest treble to win in World football aswell.

I don't think this has this been the case on P&B.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

I couldn’t even name 3 Rangers players.

Absolute diddies.

[ewan14]

17 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

I couldn’t even name 3 Rangers players.

Absolute diddies.

" the permanent Mr. Angry " ?

" the Gruffalo " ?

Mmmm ?

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Morelos, Kent and Gerrard.

I couldn’t tell you any of their midfielders or defenders. Unless that Moshing guy is still there.

[Guest TheJTS98]

3 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

That's the basic idea behind the whole 'director of football' model which no team in the UK has managed to get right.  It also has importance for us as a club when Gerrard goes.

My take is that most of this season is down to 'the staff' rather than 'the gaffer' but I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Rangers' non-playing staff is very impressive compared to Celtic's. It's startling the difference in CVs when you look at it.

Obviously Gerrard gets the headlines because that's how football media works, but when you do a side-by-side comparison of the Old Firm's non-playing staff, it must be sobering viewing for any Celtic fan.

Rather than guff about Operation Stop Ten etc, Celtic fans would be wise to ask serious questions about why their club failed to change their business model post-2012 and what exactly it is that their club is interested in achieving.

As you highlight, it will be interesting to see if Rangers put any plans in place to deal with all of these guys leaving in one go in a couple of years. You'd imagine somebody at Rangers must be looking at Celtic and saying 'Let's not do that'. But then, Rangers have never been a model of foresight and good governance.

[Guest TheJTS98]

4 hours ago, Jinky67 said:

 

97/98 will always be remembered as the season Celtic stopped the 10 not that Rangers or Walter Smith blew it because they didn’t.

Will it? Maybe by you.

I remember it as the season when Hearts threw away a great shot at the title. Nobody's had a better chance of winning it since.

Rangers and Celtic were competing to out-bottle each other in 97/98. Celtic only won four of their last nine games, including drawing two of their last three, one of which at home to the side that got relegated. They also got their arses handed to them in the big 'title decider' Old Firm game as well as the Old Firm Scottish Cup semi-final. They only got away with this because Rangers didn't win either of Aberdeen away or Kilmarnock at home.

Is losing a title because you don't beat Killie at home on the second last day not 'blowing it' anymore? Keep in mind that Rangers' Old Firm record that season was P5 W3 D1 L1, but they ended the season with nothing. Smith failed to finish off ten in a row against a Celtic side wobbling like a drunk towards the finishing line, riven by internal division in the background, managed by a coach who had decided he was leaving, and against whom his side had a winning record. But he didn't blow it?

Hearts will probably never have a better chance than that year.

Anyway. Of Celtic and Rangers' potential TIAR teams, one of them failed to win the league because they didn't win a winnable home game. The other was out of the league before the Christmas shopping was done. You can't 'blow it' if you were never in it.

Edited February 25, 2021 by TheJTS98

[RandomGuy.]

6 hours ago, G51 said:

Again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how league championships work.

If Team A can buy better players than Team B, then it will generally create more opportunities and limit the opposition more. If both Team A and Team B then go into a league and both play Team C, a significantly weaker team, then Team A is going to have a higher winning percentage against Team C than Team B.

Say Team A has a win probability of 85% against Team C, with a draw probability of 12% and a loss probability of 3%. Team B has a win probability of 80%, with a draw probability of 15% and a loss probability of 5%.

Both teams should win those matches against Team C convincingly. But if you play Team C 34 times in a season, then Team A's distribution of outcomes is significantly better than Team B's. So much so, that the 4 games between them have surprisingly little impact on the destination of the league title. Neither Team A or Team B are going to win all 34 games against Team C, the odds of that are exceptionally small.

What decides league championships is primarily finance, and then smaller factors like luck, tactics, injuries etc. The more money you have, the higher your floor and your ceiling. Smaller factors then dictate which you finish closer to. This season, Celtic finished closer to their floor, and Rangers are on course to come very close to their ceiling.

I honestly don't care what you say about the title win, I'm just pointing out that this league was never a 50-50 shot at the start of the season and thinking about it for longer than two seconds would tell you that.

 

I mean, this is an awful lot of words that mean absolutely nothing.

Celtic/Rangers should be beating the rest of the league most weeks comfortably as they're financially so far ahead.

Rangers have a better management team.

Rangers have a better recruitment team.

Rangers have had 3 years of building to this season.

Rangers had outplayed Celtic in every head to head last season.

Both sides spent roughly the same on transfer fees this season.

The title this season was 50/50, as it usually is between Celtic/Rangers. It only changed because Rangers had to start again in the bottom tier and went through a decade of clownshoe managers. Much the same as La Liga is always 50/50 between Real Madrid and Barcelona, despite the financial gap between the two, a simple dud manager or shite recruitment run will swing the odds in one's favour.

Edited February 25, 2021 by RandomGuy.

[Forever_blueco]

4 hours ago, TheJTS98 said:

Will it? Maybe by you.

I remember it as the season when Hearts threw away a great shot at the title. Nobody's had a better chance of winning it since.

Rangers and Celtic were competing to out-bottle each other in 97/98. Celtic only won four of their last nine games, including drawing two of their last three, one of which at home to the side that got relegated. They also got their arses handed to them in the big 'title decider' Old Firm game as well as the Old Firm Scottish Cup semi-final. They only got away with this because Rangers didn't win either of Aberdeen away or Kilmarnock at home.

Is losing a title because you don't beat Killie at home on the second last day not 'blowing it' anymore? Keep in mind that Rangers' Old Firm record that season was P5 W3 D1 L1, but they ended the season with nothing. Smith failed to finish off ten in a row against a Celtic side wobbling like a drunk towards the finishing line, riven by internal division in the background, managed by a coach who had decided he was leaving, and against whom his side had a winning record. But he didn't blow it?

Hearts will probably never have a better chance than that year.

Anyway. Of Celtic and Rangers' potential TIAR teams, one of them failed to win the league because they didn't win a winnable home game. The other was out of the league before the Christmas shopping was done. You can't 'blow it' if you were never in it.

2006 hearts  . Still believe they were on course for a proper challenge at the very least until Romanov decided to sack Burley

Edited February 25, 2021 by Forever_blueco

[Dons_1988]

Aside from learning that G51 has read Soccernomics, I also learned that he knows with statistical certainty that domestic football, and in particular Scottish football, has been ruined as a sporting contest by the disparity in finances. 

[Jacksgranda]

On 22/02/2021 at 12:41, AndyM said:

Rangers have  won the league because they've been amazingly consistent and they have a top class goalkeeper who has saved them between 10 and 15 points.

Celtic, the only club  who can challenge them, have played like complete spanners all season and had a series of total clownshoes in goals who as our Glaswegian friends would say "couldnae keep weans oot a close".  You can see this recently as at their worst Rangers bullshitted their way to a point at Hamilton thanks again to McGregor whilst Celtic crashed miserably in Dingwall.  I actually think Hugh Keevins was right, Celtic were eaten alive by the whole 10 in a Row thing.

Great, isn't it?

On 22/02/2021 at 12:49, coprolite said:

So what you're saying is Stewart Milne saved Scottish football. The man's a visionary. 

That's one way of looking at it...

On 23/02/2021 at 12:47, Leith Green said:

We shoot bears in Leith

Rewilding Scotland thread for that sort of chat.

On 23/02/2021 at 18:16, Jinky67 said:

The only way it could have been made easier is if we went bust

Thankfully the banter train is only extending as far as us making a rip roaring c**t of it and not quite going full on Craig Whyte. Not far off it mind you

Can't fault Rangers though, they won the games they needed to win which ultimately is all that matters

That would be nearly all of them.

8 hours ago, AmericanFan said:

Yessir. Aye

FTFY

[G51]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

Aside from learning that G51 has read Soccernomics, I also learned that he knows with statistical certainty that domestic football, and in particular Scottish football, has been ruined as a sporting contest by the disparity in finances. 

Most of the detail in that actually came from John Mullers space space space blog, (highly recommended) though the theory about managers having no actual impact on things has been around for a while. 

And I believe my very first post on here was calling for greater revenue sharing within the league. I’ve been very consistent on that. Second tier teams like Hearts and Hibs should be able to put together a title run.

Edited February 25, 2021 by G51