All Activity

Or we appoint a geordie manager using Way I ! 🤪

Could we not get ahead of the curve and appoint an AI manager? If they want to leave, we just switch them off and back on again.

Brilliant 🤣, life in general seems to be run and arranged by computers now. Where is it all going to end. With the next exiting new manager hopefully. But will it be via an online interview.

Just hoof it up the park!

If Lenny Henry is being quoted as being funnier than me its definitely time to retire 🤪🤪

Dougie Donnelly's interview with him yesterday after cup final was cringeworthy

It's difficult to tell exactly what data is being used, as clubs and the data company like to keep that very secret. It is their intellectual property after all, and different clubs will be looking for different things. As @fizoxy says, though, you can imagine we look at the number of key metrics that he mentions from percentage of games played by academy graduates and net profit on players recruited, developed and sold, to formations, tactics, style etc. It's only part of the picture of course, and candidates still need to be good fit for the club. In our specific case, we need to find a manager who supports the fan-owned model the Community Trust. Not sure if we'll have metrics on that, but there could be some. A number of years ago on one of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures of all places, I remember the data scientist from Liverpool discussed how they were using certain models. It wasn't related to recruitment, but it was still fascinating. One of things they had done was to map the pitch into 1 metre squares. Then they took all the match data from their own games, and all the data from other EPL matches, and figured out the chances of a goal coming from possession in each individual square. Then, when they were training, part of their focus was to have tactics and formations that would get the ball into the higher percentage areas as quickly and as often as possible.

That's a bit unfair. I heard Lenny Henry tell a funny joke once.

I'm not sure MON is dangerous, but its obvious that when you take that job, it's part of the deal that you don't bad mouth their support. It's another reason their choice of managers is limited. The problem starts at the Board level, and that feeds all the other parts of the club. Graeme Souness is the only manager I can think that has taken any sort of stance, and while he shook things up by signing players from the "wrong school" he still didn't go as far as condemning the bigotry. Unfortunately for the sane fans, and unfortunately for Scotland, the sectarianism is good business for the media, so they will continue to take advantage of it for the forseeable future.

I’d say it’s more that he embraces the problem, many that there are, at that club. Celtic and their fanbase’s ‘victim mindset’ ramped up tenfold when O’Neill went there in the year 2000, along with the attitude you see nowadays of “let us behave how we want, say what we want, sing what we want and if you have a problem with any of that you are an anti-Catholic, anti-Irish right wing racist…but don’t you say or sing anything that we don’t like because that offends us”. He emboldened them with and created a siege mentality, using Neil Lennon in particular to push the anti-Irish agenda and result of all of that is Celtic have the footballing authorities, the media and politicians scared of doing or saying anything to upset them. Do not believe for one second that Martin O’Neill is anything other than a very dangerous, manipulative person.

Remember it well, here he is It is laughable in a way, there is a problem at Celtic Park but he wants absolutely nothing to do with it

I think it’s much of the same. You could argue Rangers and Celtic would be the exception but on this seasons form I doubt they’d have won the A league.

How is the standard in that league compared to ours?

Unfortunately we are and always have been a selling club ………..it wouldn’t be ideal as both have been outstanding this season……….. as long as they don’t end up along the M74 / M8

Its a bit of a double edged sword. Circling vultures will know full well that he has the ability and think they can bring out the best in him. However, when dealing with MFC they'll plead that he's overachieved and they're doing us a favour by taking him off our hands for a fee (a modest one of course)

Said before but I would punt Maswanhise asap, form since end of January poor and I just feel like Bair we cash in while value decent. Also just my view but if Rangers were serious about Watt then how about £2.5 million and Findlay Curtis?. Think that would be good business for players we signed for hee haw

Agree 💯. Oneill back to his old self, tries the charm but once confronted goes into full defence mode.

He's back to missing sitters, sell him asap for as much as possible , gives time to look for a replacement, which hopefully we have been doing. He reminds me of a fast Higdon or Van Veen having a good two thirds of a season.

Stama played in the A-League final had a great game unfortunately his team got beat 1-0 at least he got a medal

Straight out the grizzly book of jokes , the one he co wrote with lenny Henry.

Sectarian bigots wont condemn sectarian bigotry.

Unfortunately, I dont see Just being available for the initial European games, even if we havent sold him. He is going to the World Cup and will need a break after that for a couple weeks at least, which brings you pretty much right up to the date of the first game. He is a fit guy and probably wont have lost that much fitness in a short period of time, but Im sure we would want to ease him back into training before he plays a competitve game. Hope Im wrong, as he is absolutely essential to what we do.

100% We can’t afford to lose Watt & Just, one would be bad enough but both along with Slattery would decimate our midfield. Losing one of them would be difficult enough but both is out of the question - I hope. If possible I’d like to keep Watt & Just until the European ties are done at the very least giving us time to bed in any replacements alongside Priestman if need be.

When we hired JBA we mentioned how many young players he gave their debut, but my guess is the analytics are more around how his teams play, i.e. possession, formations, tactics and the like. This is more about the higher level clubs, but is pretty interesting: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48758776/want-hire-next-jurgen-klopp-how-data-help-clubs-pick-manager

We've been told that the hunt for our new manager (and players) will involve analytics. What exactly is this? Without wishing to know the fine details, presumably its a program/method that matches our requirements i.e open expansive football; run on a tight budget; squad size; level of ambition etc to the skillsets, personality and achievements of individuals. Does anyone know a wee bit more about this?