League Stats before and after Gio

Whatever the stats say, it came down to one loss vs the mhutants at the end of the day. That's the very fine margin we're operating in.

Remember they outspent us massively and had the winter break shifted forward so they had new signings that they already had lined up in place to play against us. Ordinarily signings of a talented youngster from Man United and a seasoned campaigner from Juventus would be enough to improve the squad but it shows just how easy it is for players to not succeed here.
 
Ubik said:
what about the chances missed in those games? do they not count as blatant simple errors?
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Exactly. Blaming a keeper is pish and always will be.

Strikers can make mistake after mistake by missing, yet a keeper doesn’t get that luxury. One mistake and it’s costly meanwhile nobody says anything about the misses.
 
frazz said:
Just look at yesterday as example collum was trying his hardest to cost us that game
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if it was a league game we'd have possibly of dropped two points as he denied us a clear penalty in the final minutes, not just him but his linesman and 4th officials who are only too happy to get involved when its us.
 
Recruitment is absolutely critical. We cannot let that lot gain any momentum and we need to hit the ground running. Given the much expected big squad turnover this summer, it's a big ask unless we have some real quality lined up to come in early doors.

We get that right and next season should be a good one.
 
Gibraltar Loyal said:
His game management? You mean like bringing on 2 guys that win us the Cup?
Gio wasn't responsible for McGregor chucking at least 4 points away v Ross County and Motherwell
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You can throw in his introduction of Arfield and Sakala in the SC Semi as an example of his game management too.

How did those changes work out?
:))
 
Every point we dropped this season under both managers, was utterly drenched in "f*ck sake why did you do that you f*cking idiot" moments.

** this is not abuse aimed at managers, or players, but just things football fans generally think during games.

Aberdeen game at home I mean f*ck sake
 
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I like McGregor, clearly, who doesn't, but he utterly is a massive reason we haven't won the league.

He has built in a nervous edge into us this season in the league and teams have went for him
 
I’m loving having a Manager that doesn’t just have a Plan A, or even just a backup Plan B - but a whole raft of Plans all the way to Plan Z with subsets to each Plan LOL. I love how Gio makes in-game switches and changes. The meltdown on the match threads alone make it worth it.:))

And yes, the obvious counter would be if you get it right in the first place you don’t need to change but, of course, it’s a tactical game and the other Manager isn’t sitting there doing nothing either.

He also seems to have got the players onside and understanding what he wants, after a spell in which they looked a little confused and were still hanging onto the Gerrard way of play. That says a lot for him, and his players to be fair.

I think when he gets in a few players that he sees as tailor-made for how he wants to play we will see further improvement. It’s going to be a Summer of change though. I just hope we can hit the ground running.

Oh, and yes Greegs made mistakes, as did others. As I’ve always said though, we win as a team and we lose as a team. Looking for scapegoats does us no favours.
 
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Valley Bluenose said:
I’m loving having a Manger that doesn’t just have a Plan A, or even just a backup Plan B - but a whole raft of Plans all the way to Plan Z with subsets to each Plan LOL. I love how Gio makes in-game switches and changes. The meltdown on the match threads alone make it worth it.:))

And yes, the obvious counter would be if you get it right in the first place you don’t need to change but, of course, it’s a tactical game and the other Manager isn’t sitting there doing nothing either.

He also seems to have got the players onside and understanding what he wants, after a spell in which they looked a little confused and were still hanging onto the Gerrard way of play. That says a lot for him, and his players to be fai.

I think, when he gets in a few players that he sees as tailor-made for how he wants to play we will see further improvement. It’s going to be a Summer of change though. I just hope we can hit the ground running.
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Great Post J.
 
The bottom line is losing the league from a 4 point gap is unacceptable and the middle section of Gio's tenure so far (around November/December - February/March) was really worrying, culminating in the hammering at Parkhead we all feared before the game. At that stage Gio looked out of his depth and tactically in the league we were a shambles but since then, he has adapted domestically and we have finished the season excellently going on a decent run in the league, winning the Scottish and obviously reaching The Europa Final.

I just hope Gio has learned and doesn't revert to type domestically when he has a full preseason with the players to get his ideas across. He was overthinking things domestically during that terrible spell, sitting off teams and inviting them back into games - in Scotland we need to just go out and overwhelm teams. Keep the pragmatic style for Europe.

He certainly has shown enough the last couple of months to warrant getting a go again next season but we need to start fast and win the league next season, no iffs or buts.
 
Injury time in Dingwall basically decided the title.

The tramps got to play till they scored, if that game had ended 1-1 they would never have built the momentum they enjoyed after it.

Then we conceded an embarrassing goal in added time up there right before going to Parkhead, it changed the whole build up to that match. Instead of Celtic must win to keep in touch, it became Rangers are off the top if they lose.
 
We were awful under Gerrard between us winning the league and his departure.

It clearly went south between him and the board and he threw the toys oot the pram.

Glad he left when he did now, he's been found out since the new manager bounce at Villa faded away.
 
I couldn’t give a shit about stats. Put trophies in the cabinet.

We threw away the league title. Some of his game management, decision making and use of substitutions were poor.

The response after the Celtic defeat at Ibrox and Braga away was excellent. We asked for a response and he delivered.

Braga, RB Leipzig at home were sensational as was the comeback in the Scottish Cup semi final. We also battered Celtic at Parkhead and should have won that match.

Time for a rest and we hit the ground running from the off.
 
This isn't a dig, Gio, and the board will be doing well to build a side for next season that is as strong as the one we have.

I think next season is actually a way bigger challenge than this.
 
A reminder as well that the expected league table that the Rangers Review boys made up had Celtic winning the league when Gerrard was still in charge.

We'll never know, of course, but that trajectory had already set in under Gerrard. His inability to reverse it may have been one of the reasons he decided to chuck it.
 
ClockworkOrange said:
A reminder as well that the expected league table that the Rangers Review boys made up had Celtic winning the league when Gerrard was still in charge.

We'll never know, of course, but that trajectory had already set in under Gerrard. His inability to reverse it may have been one of the reasons he decided to chuck it.
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We were starting to play decent stuff under Gerrard before he left
 
Crouchy said:
The Tims went on a great run.

He got his arse handed to him in the first OF game, then his failure to drop McGregor saw is capitulate over a 6 week period.

He’s shown a good improvement since February.
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A great run buoyed by some shocking refereeing decisions that helped to maintain momentum. Not to mention the rescheduled Old Firm game to suit those bastards.
 
JMTrangers said:
We keep hearing about how Gio was responsible for an '8 point swing', so I thought it'd be worth looking into how the team was performing in the league before and after he took charge.

BEFORE GIO:

2.31 points per game
2.23 goals scored per game
1.00 goals conceded per game


AFTER GIO:

2.36 points per game
2.04 goals scored per game
0.72 goals conceded per game

That's not to mention winning the Scottish Cup and reaching the final of the Europa League. He also had to face Celtic 3 times in the league (twice away) compared to us facing them just once before him this season.

Obviously he's gotten some things wrong, but there has been definite improvement in the league so far and it should get better when he has his own players in.
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Been saying this for weeks. We didn't lose the lead we had because Gio took us backwards in league terms. The league performance throughout the season was pretty consistent. We had a lead because they dropped a lot of points early on (not because we were great) and lost the lead because, by fair means or foul, they went on a long run of dropping virtually nothing (not because we went downhill). Taking over someone else's squad mid-season, trying to implement your own ideas and systems while playing matches twice a week, must be unbelievably tricky, so maintaining league form, winning the Scottish Cup and getting to the EL final in these circumstances, not to mention injuries to key players, is actually pretty remarkable. With a proper transfer window and a full pre-season, I'm excited for what next season will bring.
 
Tailwind said:
The unarguable truth is, with decent refereeing and VAR, we still win that league by a decent margin.

There was the run of about 5 penalties that should have been awarded against them, over the space of not many more games early in the season.
The offside Kyogo winner.
Play until Celtic score a winner around 100 minutes happened a couple of times.
The several non pens they were awarded.

That was just the gaining Celtic points side of the equation.

Despite the bleating in the press and social media, we werent awarded one non-pen this year. We were denied numerous blatant pens though. Thats the real story. Pens that if scored would have won us significantly more points. Including against them, which would have knocked their points total and boosted ours.

The only decision we really got I think was an offside goal by Sakala, that I'm not even sure if it was the difference between a win or not (i've now forgotten).

With good refereeing and VAR our points total is probably 10 points or so higher and their's is 10-15 lower.

But aye, scapegoat one of our team as some like to do.

But, I know you are reasonable and know all this.
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The Sakala goal put us 1 up on Motherwell at Ibrox & they equalised second half T.
 
The wobble after the break really screwed us when he was trying to figure out how to use the squad. He has shown he knows what he is doing and can adapt though.

If he is properly backed in the summer and we have a new keeper (or even just McLaughlin) and we actually have a fit forward to choose then I trust him to be successful.

The only worry is that he isn't properly backed.
 
Ubik said:
apart from conceding the first goal in most games before he left.
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We put 6 on Motherwell, could have done the same to Ross County, were decent enough at St Mirren even in games when the first goal was conceded.

We didn't concede the first goal v Hearts, battered them and then the person people don't think cost us the league got involved.

Aberdeen had mitigating circumstances TBH but we were showing signs of turning it around

We also looked to be on the way to dropping McGregor, which, would have been key.
 
Brick_Top said:
We never really improved or regressed much in the league under Gio.

We dropped the same daft points all season under both managers. The only difference was that the mentally challengeds were dropping points left, right, and centre for the first two months of the season. That allowed Gerrard to open up a 4 point advantage by the time he left despite his dropped points.
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There’s a valid criticism in saying that statistically he didn’t really improve us in the league in six months.

Breaking it down however, the first couple were actually pretty decent and we increased our lead over the Beggars during this period by two points.

The next two were terrible however and it was in this period that we effectively lost the title.

The last two were really pretty good though, probably the best football we played all season, coinciding as it did with some sensational European displays and beating the Yahoos to reach and then win the Scottish Cup final.

So looking at it overall we had a good start followed by an awful middle bit bookended with a strong finish.

In this respect you can view it as him benefitting from the proverbial new manager bounce, then hitting as sticky patch as he starts trying to impose his own vision onto the players, before finally getting them to buy into said ideas and vision and beginning to reap the rewards.

All things considered, it’s been a hugely encouraging start from Gio, IMO.
 
Now the season is over, we can look back at the european run and a scottish cup- delivered by the very man that some on here wanted out the door at the end of this season.

maybe next season, we can all just calm down and give people time to bed in before shouting for heads to roll.
 
JeffreySpauIding said:
We drew with Brondby and scraped a 2-2 with Aberdeen at Ibrox after going 2-0 down just before he left.

Just because we beat a terrible Motherwell 6-1 doesn't mean we were playing decent stuff.
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We didn't "scrape" a 2-2 with Aberdeen TBH, we made a c*nt of the first 10 minutes and looked a bit shaken by the events that had taken place during the week before, their keeper was also pretty decent.
 
Johnny Yen said:
Ross County away was the turning point, it handed them the initiative, knowing fine well if they beat us they would go top, they never looked back after that.

There has been lots written and talked about Gerrard and all the rest, the one thing I would have been certain about under him, we would never have capitulated against the filth.
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For what it’s worth in my opinion colum is just useless and should not be anywhere near grade one officiating.
 
They took 7 points from the OF League games, we took 4. Sakala's shot goes in at the DhimDome instead of hitting the post and we finish level on points. Of course they, by that stage, still have won it on goal difference but that's how fine the margins are.

Ultimately, we weren't good enough over the season - all the way from August to May. I read of the points advantage we threw away but, and I know folk get mocked for this, any lead is distorted when there's an imbalance in the number of OF games that have been played. Always get a truer reflection when there's been 2 or 4 games played.
 
JeffreySpauIding said:
The wobble after the break really screwed us when he was trying to figure out how to use the squad. He has shown he knows what he is doing and can adapt though.

If he is properly backed in the summer and we have a new keeper (or even just McLaughlin) and we actually have a fit forward to choose then I trust him to be successful.

The only worry is that he isn't properly backed.
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Perhaps of more concern is that the post-break 'wobble' isn't exclusive to GvB. Its become a bit of a 'thing' for us.
 
Tough for Gio to take over another manager's team, but he didn't help himself, by basically neutering one of our, if not the main attacking threat in Tav. Having him sat back rather than marauding forward was strange. Surely he must have watched matches, recordings of matches etc. And then came to the conclusion that our main threat should be neutralised.
 
frazz said:
This is a big point people don't want to talk About the stopping of league for early winter break change in refs and change in sub rules

We play those two games we are 9 or 12 points clear and it's a different story.

But we do need to question sir if the decisions, abdn, Motherwell,celtic, Dundee utd done of the decisive against us were just bizarre and decisions for them in their games they struggled even more bizarre.

Just look at yesterday as example collum was trying his hardest to cost us that game

It's done we can't change it but we need to start applying serious pressure on these refs and sfa
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Changing rules part way through a season - incredible! And you know who benefited - the team that emptied themselves after 40 mins.

Will be the same this coming season when VAR is introduced half way through but at least they have not made this one up on the hoof dependent on who needs it.

As for VAR itself, I'm not convinced this will not be bent too.
 
The games being moved were the defining factor

We come out those games at least 3 points better off and celtic at least 2 points worse off, IMO.

Their squad was an absolute mess at that point in time. They were playing Barkas and Bain in goal, they had no strikers, they had youth players coming off the bench, Welsh and Scales were playing in defence for them.

By the time the games did get played they had loads back from injury, 4 new signings and could use two extra subs per game.

Anybody who doesn't think this is the most significant thing that happened in the league this season is off their nut.
 
Davester said:
Tough for Gio to take over another manager's team, but he didn't help himself, by basically neutering one of our, if not the main attacking threat in Tav. Having him sat back rather than marauding forward was strange. Surely he must have watched matches, recordings of matches etc. And then came to the conclusion that our main threat should be neutralised.
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Easy with hindsight. He was probably looking at it, particularly after the Hibs semi-final, and thinking 'why the f*ck are we conceding so many goals'? Hibs was dreadful, but we'd had a run of about half a dozen games (was it that many?) where we'd conceded first every time. Probably thought he needed to stabilise things a bit.
 
Valley Bluenose said:
Easy with hindsight. He was probably looking at it, particularly after the Hibs semi-final, and thinking 'why the f*ck are we conceding so many goals'? Hibs was dreadful, but we'd had a run of about half a dozen games (was it that many?) where we'd conceded first every time. Probably thought he needed to stabilise things a bit.
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Any gaffer worth their salt would definitely have looked at the Hibs debacle and decided on the spot, this can't go on. But not in hindsight, Tav had been a main attacking threat for years.
 
jim_baxter1960 said:
Changing rules part way through a season - incredible! And you know who benefited - the team that emptied themselves after 40 mins.

Will be the same this coming season when VAR is introduced half way through but at least they have not made this one up on the hoof dependent on who needs it.

As for VAR itself, I'm not convinced this will not be bent too.
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The 5 sub rule should benefit us considering the amount of games we have played this season but Gio refused to take advantage of the 5 subs until recently
 
Paisley-1872 said:
Aye stats look good but would much prefer that silver shiny thing at the end of the season than saying " aye but we improved"

Gios game management in games needs alot of work still and will need to hit ground running next year
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we literally say that about every single manager we have , even walter.
 
Davester said:
Any gaffer worth their salt would definitely have looked at the Hibs debacle and decided on the spot, this can't go on. But not in hindsight, Tav had been a main attacking threat for years.
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Yup. However, whilst we all noted the reduction in Tav's output, I recall that many of us on here were saying how 'refreshing' it was to look a bit more solid at the back. That spell also coincided with Aribo's best spell of the season, playing as an out-and-out Number 10. Something we didn't see so much of as the season went on.

We seemed to get the balance better in the latter part of the season when Tav was immense but I think, initially, GvB simply wanted to get off to a 'solid' start whilst he assessed things.
 
Macky said:
The 5 sub rule should benefit us considering the amount of games we have played this season but Gio refused to take advantage of the 5 subs until recently
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I dont think he trusted certain players for a while. He clearly felt like they let him down big time after that parkhead disaster.
 
Bigbluebear said:
I dont think he trusted certain players for a while. He clearly felt like they let him down big time after that parkhead disaster.
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And that was a mistake IMO.

We had guys like Arfield Aribo and Morelos all struggling. I always remember the St Johnstone game where we were dire and he didn’t make 1 change. Morelos then limped off at the end and that’s when he ended up with his injury at Colombia.

Roofe, Diallo, Lowry and Davis badly underused this season too. Both had a spell injured but there plenty of games when they were fit and never played.
 
Macky said:
And that was a mistake IMO.

We had guys like Arfield Aribo and Morelos all struggling. I always remember the St Johnstone game where we were dire and he didn’t make 1 change. Morelos then limped off at the end and that’s when he ended up with his injury at Colombia.

Roofe, Diallo, Lowry and Davis badly underused this season too. Both had a spell injured but there plenty of games when they were fit and never played.
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Roofe is no use to us. Never fit
 
Bigbluebear said:
Roofe is no use to us. Never fit
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When he is fit he is our best goal scorer. He was our top scorer this season before Gio came in and last season.

Yes he has injury problems but that’s no excuse not to use him when we needed a goal or when Morelos was fvcked. He was struggling for a few games, ice packs on as soon as he came off etc.
 
Macky said:
When he is fit he is our best goal scorer. He was our top scorer this season before Gio came in and last season.

Yes he has injury problems but that’s no excuse not to use him when we needed a goal or when Morelos was fvcked. He was struggling for a few games, ice packs on as soon as he came off etc.
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He clearly hasn't been fit for virtually the entire 2nd half of the season.
 
JMTrangers said:
We keep hearing about how Gio was responsible for an '8 point swing', so I thought it'd be worth looking into how the team was performing in the league before and after he took charge.

BEFORE GIO:

2.31 points per game
2.23 goals scored per game
1.00 goals conceded per game


AFTER GIO:

2.36 points per game
2.04 goals scored per game
0.72 goals conceded per game

That's not to mention winning the Scottish Cup and reaching the final of the Europa League. He also had to face Celtic 3 times in the league (twice away) compared to us facing them just once before him this season.

Obviously he's gotten some things wrong, but there has been definite improvement in the league so far and it should get better when he has his own players in.
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That is without counting the dodgy match officials decisions that ultimately helped them to the title!
 
Roofes goal return this season is utter gash TBH

3rd in a 3-0 home win v Livvy
6th in a 6-1 win v Motherwell

Penalties against Hibs, St Mirren and St Johnston

I appreciate being able to put a penalty away etc, but in reality we should be finding a forward at his value who is giving us way more than that.

His season is decent evidence of why people shouldn't just look at stats, he has been poor this season, his contribution isn't near to being enough
 
jim_baxter1960 said:
Changing rules part way through a season - incredible! And you know who benefited - the team that emptied themselves after 40 mins.

Will be the same this coming season when VAR is introduced half way through but at least they have not made this one up on the hoof dependent on who needs it.

As for VAR itself, I'm not convinced this will not be bent too.
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You watch, first half of the season they'll give Celtic a shit load of dodgy decisions as they did all this past season.

2nd half of the season we'll start getting a lot of their dodgy decisions reversed in our favour by VAR.

And then they'll try and create a false equivalence been the dodgy decisions refs gave them from August to Dec with the correct VAR decisions being awarded to us from Jan to May
 
Gordonek said:
An interesting stat from last year would be the ratio of goals conceded against shots on target.. or even just shots. This must be absurdly high... The games we let go to draws were disasterous over the season where we conceded a goal to one shot on target or 3 goals to 3 shots on target etc... It was freaky...
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We went through a period where we played Dundee Utd, Motherwell and someone else where I think we had something like 60/70 shots at goal and only 3 goals, yet our opponents had like 3 shots on target and 3 goals.

McGregor was practically invisible against Motherwell. Then you add in his clangers against Hearts, Ross County and Celtic.
 
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