Rangers 20/21 - Squad preview article

Funnily enough, I was looking at our players earlier. I put them in (imho) the team i felt they should be in, so i have a 1st, 2nd and 3Rd squad.We play 4 3 3 which can become 4 2 3 1, 4 1 4 1 dependant on opposition. I have binned McRorie,Docherty, Jones and Barker to the 3rd team as I don't rate them. Not sure about Stewart
If our front 6 are a 3 3, 1 4 1 or 2 3 1 I see the following being 1st or 2nd pick (2 3 1 formation)
Jack and Davis/Kamara
Aribo, Hagi and Kent
Morelos
Our back up formation would be
Davis/Kamara and A N Other
A N Other, Arfield Murphy
A N Other
Defoe will be a back up against poorer opposition.
From this I think we need 3 players if we are to challenge
2 attacking midfielder's and a striker (2 if Morelos leaves)
 
sheddensbear said:
Funnily enough, I was looking at our players earlier. I put them in (imho) the team i felt they should be in, so i have a 1st, 2nd and 3Rd squad.We play 4 3 3 which can become 4 2 3 1, 4 1 4 1 dependant on opposition. I have binned McRorie,Docherty, Jones and Barker to the 3rd team as I don't rate them. Not sure about Stewart
If our front 6 are a 3 3, 1 4 1 or 2 3 1 I see the following being 1st or 2nd pick (2 3 1 formation)
Jack and Davis/Kamara
Aribo, Hagi and Kent
Morelos
Our back up formation would be
Davis/Kamara and A N Other
A N Other, Arfield Murphy
A N Other
Defoe will be a back up against poorer opposition.
From this I think we need 3 players if we are to challenge
2 attacking midfielder's and a striker (2 if Morelos leaves)
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heads bursting reading that :oops:
 
OnlyOneAmoruso said:
thanks mate - that’s life! What parts we differing on?
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Just at CB i would disagree. I think that Edmundson with a year behind him to settle, Bassey coming in & Mayo looking to have really filled out we need to be giving these boys regular game time. At their ages they need to see a progression path. I dont think we should be bringing in anyone else to get in the way of that.

Then theres Ross McCrorie who can slot in there also. It could actually be an opportunity for Ross to grab a starting jersey. He's not going to get a start at RB or CM for now, so why not fully concentrate on being a CB?

I like the idea of the 4231. I reckon that will get us a lot more out of the players than we get just now. Obviously all stats are open to interpretation and you need to view it as such, but look at Aribo's attacking stats for instance. 0.22G / 0.15A per 90 is pretty poor. Then watch him during a game and he spends a lot of it covering Borna at LB as Gerrard's system dictates the LCM / RCM cover the overlapping full backs. When Aribo gets into the final 3rd he's probably our most potent / dangerous player behind Morelos. A tweak of our system to get him 30 yards further forward will transform those attacking stats. We don't need to be so cautious against 90% of our opposition.

Any spare cash we have Imo, should rightly as you say, be spent in the midfield. we need a spark in there. Some of the stats are shocking when laid out - Tavs 0.2A / 0.24xA per 90 must be at least 3 or 4 times lower than the previous season playing in a weaker team (have you researched this out of interest?), and the lack of meaningful contributions from attacking players really jumps out. The likes of Arfield and Kents assist / goal contributions were nowhere near good enough. Kent for me has a lot more to come but i reckon Arfields times up unfortunately.

All in all a really well researched article mate and as i said i enjoyed reading it. The names you put forward sound great on paper, here's hoping we move a few more on and start delving into these types of players in the coming weeks. Interesting times ahead for sure.
 
I’ll have a look at Tav season before but yeah it will be slightly down on that for a few reasons. Better balance with Barisic meaning less over reliance and a dip in Tavs own form being the main ones.

I take your point in the CB’s but when you factor in Helanders injury record as well we probably could do with one. I do like Edmundson though and Bassey is an unknown quantity so you might be right.
 
How do people come up with these players? Surely they dont sit and watch every European League? I'm genuinely curious, because the suggestions seem solid. However, as we all know you dont play the game with statistics. What works for one team set up wont necessarily work for another. Surely chemistry is a bigger factor?
 
tottie beck said:
How do people come up with these players? Surely they dont sit and watch every European League? I'm genuinely curious, because the suggestions seem solid. However, as we all know you dont play the game with statistics. What works for one team set up wont necessarily work for another. Surely chemistry is a bigger factor?
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The article says that he inputs certain parameters into Wyscout to find the players.
 
tottie beck said:
How do people come up with these players? Surely they dont sit and watch every European League? I'm genuinely curious, because the suggestions seem solid. However, as we all know you dont play the game with statistics. What works for one team set up wont necessarily work for another. Surely chemistry is a bigger factor?
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You're right, it's a much more important factor as it's specific to our club. Numbers on a page are a great starting point but watching a player, how they interact with certain types of players and how suitable they'd be for your specific club is the key.
 
Any chance of something like this in pod form?

It was a really good read, I'd love to be able to listen to an organic conversation about this though.
 
OnlyOneAmoruso said:
You're right, it's a much more important factor as it's specific to our club. Numbers on a page are a great starting point but watching a player, how they interact with certain types of players and how suitable they'd be for your specific club is the key.
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Don't get me wrong, Its an impressive piece. I'm just not familiar with Wyscout and was curious how you flagged those specific players. Stats in football is a fairly recent thing. For years assists were never even recorded let alone such a detailed breakdown of how a player performs in specific areas. Do you reckon clubs are using systems like this to identify players to watch?
 
tottie beck said:
Don't get me wrong, Its an impressive piece. I'm just not familiar with Wyscout and was curious how you flagged those specific players. Stats in football is a fairly recent thing. For years assists were never even recorded let alone such a detailed breakdown of how a player performs in specific areas. Do you reckon clubs are using systems like this to identify players to watch?
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All the big clubs ether use Wyscout or some form of it. Stats is a massive part of football scouting now, but I agree that looking good on paper can only get you so far. I imagine our scouting department will use it regularly to throw up some random names, but that's just the start of the process.
 
Rule Britannia said:
All the big clubs ether use Wyscout or some form of it. Stats is a massive part of football scouting now, but I agree that looking good on paper can only get you so far. I imagine our scouting department will use it regularly to throw up some random names, but that's just the start of the process.
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That for me is a bit of an issue. If you are part of a pool of clubs looking at the same set of data you are going to see the same as everyone else. By all means do it, but it is important to have something else you can use to enable decision making.
 
Sutton_Blows_goats said:
That for me is a bit of an issue. If you are part of a pool of clubs looking at the same set of data you are going to see the same as everyone else. By all means do it, but it is important to have something else you can use to enable decision making.
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There's been plenty articles written about Wyscout over the past few years as it has really taken off. Most teams nowadays are using it, but I don't agree that everyone is looking at the same set of data.

We will have a list drawn up of what Gerrard thinks we need, say for example "solid in midfield, reads the game well and can tackle" so will search on specific data points, whereas say a Championship club in England may well be focusing on passing stats, expected assists or goals per 90 to take them back to the premier league.

Stats are also very much open to interpretation remember. 10 teams could search the exact same list of 10 players and each team could fancy a different player. The players on that list (if you're scouting team are any good) will already be known to most clubs anyway.

The hard work comes away from the paper when you start to watch a player, look at his on / off field personality, talk to his coaches & family. Every team has a different dressing room and different expectations. Things like Wyscout are very much the beginning of a long process. You would have to be mental to sign a player off of his generated stats alone.
 
Rule Britannia said:
There's been plenty articles written about Wyscout over the past few years as it has really taken off. Most teams nowadays are using it, but I don't agree that everyone is looking at the same set of data.

We will have a list drawn up of what Gerrard thinks we need, say for example "solid in midfield, reads the game well and can tackle" so will search on specific data points, whereas say a Championship club in England may well be focusing on passing stats, expected assists or goals per 90 to take them back to the premier league.

Stats are also very much open to interpretation remember. 10 teams could search the exact same list of 10 players and each team could fancy a different player. The players on that list (if you're scouting team are any good) will already be known to most clubs anyway.

The hard work comes away from the paper when you start to watch a player, look at his on / off field personality, talk to his coaches & family. Every team has a different dressing room and different expectations. Things like Wyscout are very much the beginning of a long process. You would have to be mental to sign a player off of his generated stats alone.
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I'm not arguing against stats mate, i'm a big believer in it. But the information is only good if you know how to use it, thats the key.
 
I'd say its too early for this sort of assessment TBH but

this squad ABSOLUTELY NEEDS proven aggressive winners not ball playing CBs

you also say for example that we rely on Tavernier and Barisic and when either are missing we don't perform as well but put low rating for signing more full backs

last season's squad is/was weak mentally and physically that HAS to be addressed
 
Sutton_Blows_goats said:
That for me is a bit of an issue. If you are part of a pool of clubs looking at the same set of data you are going to see the same as everyone else. By all means do it, but it is important to have something else you can use to enable decision making.
Click to expand...

It's not a skill to just look at numbers on the page so everyone having access to the same data is one thing. The best analysts at the best clubs are the ones that can apply context to it, highlight the important information and relay that information to coaches/players in the most effective way.
 
Rule Britannia said:
All the big clubs ether use Wyscout or some form of it. Stats is a massive part of football scouting now, but I agree that looking good on paper can only get you so far. I imagine our scouting department will use it regularly to throw up some random names, but that's just the start of the process.
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I can’t imagine gathering these stats. I’ve seen people do it at baseball games, but it’s much slower paced. Must be a dream job for an anorak. It’s strange to think you have people at games, all around the world, watchIng and counting every pass. Blows my mind.
 
tottie beck said:
I can’t imagine gathering these stats. I’ve seen people do it at baseball games, but it’s much slower paced. Must be a dream job for an anorak. It’s strange to think you have people at games, all around the world, watchIng and counting every pass. Blows my mind.
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Especially if they're watching the dross we get served up in Scotland! spending all day counting long diags, elbows and little else :D
 
thetoptier said:
I'd say its too early for this sort of assessment TBH but

this squad ABSOLUTELY NEEDS proven aggressive winners not ball playing CBs

you also say for example that we rely on Tavernier and Barisic and when either are missing we don't perform as well but put low rating for signing more full backs

last season's squad is/was weak mentally and physically that HAS to be addressed
Click to expand...

Proven aggressive winners will be costly
 
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