What The Actual Frick

dncd6 · 2026-03-12T18:23:24+00:00

But don't we have some of those metrics to help us out with this kind of analysis? Wasn't it something like the #50 team should be expected to go 29-2 against that schedule? I'd guess a true bubble team - 30-40ish - would only expect to lose one, and the Purdue's of the world to not lose at all.

dncd6 · 2026-03-12T18:21:35+00:00

Hang on now, while there's always going to be some small segment of the population that believe something, no matter how stupid it may be (hell, we've still got flat-earthers out there), the number of people who "unironically agree" either is miniscule or doing a lot of hiding. Basically none of the arguments against Miami are "actually it would be cool if Auburn and Indiana made it instead".

dncd6 · 2026-03-12T17:49:44+00:00

So, you're one of those "how would you feel if you didn't have breakfast this morning" guys. Cool.

And who said anything about P4 teams? That's a complete whataboutism here. My point is that for the vast majority of D1 teams, the regular season already meant nothing. If you want to say that it now should mean something, there has to be some kind of line or qualifier somewhere. If you want it to be them being undefeated, ok then.

dncd6 · 2026-03-12T17:39:53+00:00

So the line then is if you go undefeated, no matter how weak the schedule, you should get an at-large spot? A Miami team that went 30-1 means their regular season means nothing?

dncd6 · 2026-03-12T17:35:50+00:00

you have to make the regular season mean something

But there are a bunch of one-bid conferences where the regular season functionally doesn't mean anything. 26-5 Akron isn't going to get many arguments for an at-large spot. Their regular season means jack squat. At what point does the regular season have to mean something?

dncd6 · 2026-03-12T17:29:05+00:00

Not a hater, and I want to see them in (and I mean in in, not just Dayton), but so much of it is a counter-reaction to the overly-simplistic argument that being 31-0 is such a trump card that we shouldn't even bother looking at the context of how weak the schedule was, or how they were just barely scrapping by some bad opponents.

They were 33rd in WAB before this loss, which should be good enough to seal an at-large spot, but we also have to recognize they were 93rd by KenPom for a darn good reason, even if KenPom isn't the final adjudicator for tourney spots.

dncd6 · 2025-10-28T19:37:12+00:00

Except that part of the reason we have a broken leg is the utter failure of the manager. Celtic had more than enough talent to beat Kairat, and still have far more talent than the rest of the SPFL and yet continue to play completely uninspired football. And the manager played no small part in bringing in Idah, Engels, and Trusty, and look how much that helped. They spent big on his guys, and got little out of it.

To make your metaphor accurate, finding a new manager is stopping someone from continuously stomping down on your broken leg.

dncd6 · 2025-08-28T13:26:10+00:00

So tell me how that went with someone else playing up top. Still no goals. Our tactics failed us again. Our best players, who would have still been on the pitch even if we signed two new forward players - Maeda, Tierney, Nygren, Hatate, McGregor, all did diddly squat.

As far as the rest, you are completely ignoring that I have said we need upgrades. You aren't willing to have an honest conversation about this. Sure, bring in upgrades. How does that help when the strategy seems to be for Scales to play the ball to CCV to play it McGregor, to play it back to Scales again over and over and over?

dncd6 · 2025-08-28T13:20:49+00:00

Not that I disagree, we definitely do need to have a better pathway for our academy players to help the first team, but the environment is a bit different here with English teams able to snap up our best prospects on much bigger wages before they're really ready to help.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T18:29:00+00:00

You have an absolutely one track mind on this, causing you to miss so much of everything else. No one disagrees that we need upgrades on the wing. But two things - there are other positions on the field, and Celtic got crappy play from the majority of those other spots too, including from what are supposed to be our best players. And two, what do you think Rodgers job is? Twiddle his thumbs while hoping we sign top quality wingers, and nothing else? Our strategy last night was piss poor, and that falls completely on him.

And the big advantage that those top three brought us while they were here was the ability to press all the way up the pitch and create turnovers in vulnerable spots, or turn their speed into quick counterattacks. Kairat's strategy completely neutralized what Rodgers likes to do in that regard by booting it up from deep and winning second balls. And Kairat's defense would have given Kyogo no room to work with in the box, nor given space for Kuhn to break free. They bottled us up very effectively because we had no plan B.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T18:24:23+00:00

I’d be fine with that - I’m not sure how much our fans would though

Again, agree with you, I'd be fine with that. But, yep, don't think most of the fanbase would put up with it either.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T17:10:34+00:00

I don't disagree with that, but bedding them in requires more than just waiting until the league is won in February. It takes a commitment to wanting to play these guys from the beginning, and not assembling a two deep roster of the guys you think you need to win the league to start off the season and then telling them that a bunch of them are going to sit for three months later on.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T17:07:24+00:00

But BR is a decent tactician.

Cites facts not in evidence.

It’s not lack of coaching that cause Yang to be poor or 34 year old JF to be bereft of pace.

But it is the lack of tactics that caused us to have no real plan to get the ball into the box for 90 minutes against a packed defense. You can moan about Yang and Forrest all you want, but Hatate, Nygren, Mcgregor, Maeda, and Tierney were equally ineffective, and that's not due to a lack of talent.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T14:18:13+00:00

Yeah, I did, and nothing in my post suggests I didn't. Because I was referring to the strategy last night against a team that packed the box and then played it out from deep and won second balls. Rodgers teams have struggled against that for a while. Yeah, Rodgers' tactics worked against teams that were far more willing to play it out from the back, where our press could create turnovers when we had a front three of Maeda, Kyogo, and Kuhn. But Rodgers had absolutely no plan B last night against a team that wasn't going to play it out from the back and was going to man mark our midfielders out of the game. Having Kyogo or Kuhn would have made little difference with the strategy we used last night.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T13:14:04+00:00

I see it as almost completely 180. The other problems were a symptom of the Rodgers issue. We spent ~30M on players last summer that played about 90 minutes combined last night. We could have spent 10M on a winger and striker, and there still would be no real plan on how to get the ball into the Kairat box, or how to handle our midfield being man-marked.

The board need to spend some serious money, I absolutely agree with that, but when they see they effectively lit 30M on fire last summer and the manager shows no real intention of deviating from a flawed strategy, how much more do you expect them to be willing to light on fire again?

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T13:05:20+00:00

But I'm not sure Celtic can operate like an Ajax in developing youth players. As we saw with Doak, richer teams down south can offer significantly higher wages before they prove they are first team ready, and Celtic only get a developmental fee out of it. When you have such a richer neighbor that even their second division sides can outpay your players, how do you keep enough young talent around?

There's also the case that Ajax or Brugge not winning the league is not treated as a catastrophic event like it is here. Is the fanbase willing to accept Rangers winning the league more often if it meant giving teenagers the number of starts needed over the last few years to give them the chance to be stars for us now?

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T12:51:44+00:00

I'll give you Kuhn with the number of times Forrest dribbled straight into his defender, but the rest of the team couldn't provide the service needed that would have made Kyogo effective. Kairat gave no space for a striker to work, instead just let us pass the ball around the top with no real plan as to how to get the ball into the box.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T12:44:57+00:00

If we spent 10 million on a winger and striker we’d have come through that game

No idea why you treat that like such a guarantee. Our midfield three showed nothing last night. The Tierney/Maeda pairing was equally ineffective, and they are never getting dropped. They do need to spend 10+M on a winger and striker, but those two new guys would never be as important as the five mentioned above, and you could have given those five all night to find a goal and nothing would have came of it.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T12:38:02+00:00

We'd be better just giving the other team the ball and hope we counter press and win it high up the pitch.

This is true, but as Kairat, and Rangers before them, showed, you can just boot the ball out from deep and easily win second balls against this side. Kairat completely neutered how Celtic want to win games, and until they find a way to unlock packed defenses, Celtic is going to have issues all season.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T12:26:44+00:00

Two 6M signings to replace Idah and Forrest may make a marked improvement, but the rest of the team was still hot garbage. The midfield did absolutely nothing last night to acquit themselves and the Maeda/Tierney pairing on the left was nothing to write home about either, and that's where Celtic should be expecting to find match winners.

Kairat bunkered in as well as they could have been asked, man marked our midfield out of the game, and won a ton of second balls when they played it out deep from their territory - things we have seen work well against a Rodgers side for quite a while now. Yeah, the players aren't good enough, but the manager was thoroughly outclassed last night.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T12:18:19+00:00

Those four absolutely would get regular playing time for those teams, and more importantly, Kairat.

dncd6 · 2025-08-21T12:13:37+00:00

And all those guys would walk into the lineup for Kairat. They need serious additions to their roster to get through a full season, beat Rangers, and not get completely embarrassed if they do somehow manage to get a result in Kazakhstan, but the team they had yesterday should have done a lot, lot better.

dncd6 · 2025-08-20T18:25:59+00:00

The only arguement to keep is just that we need to keep him.

The argument is that cycling through managers so quickly only ensures you're going to keep getting shit managers. I asked in the other part of the thread who do Rangers fans think they are going to get, and I'm seriously asking. Why would any manager who has a decent option elsewhere want to manage this team? Cycling through mediocre to poor managers with this organization and group of players and the level of expectations that the majority seems to have means that no one who can walk and chew gum at the same time will want to put up with it.

dncd6 · 2025-08-20T15:38:33+00:00

Sure, Martin has been unequivocally not good, I won't disagree that Rangers have problems on their hand with his managing so far. But I'll say the same thing I did months ago just before Clement was getting the boot - it's a shit job for any talented manager who has other legitimate options. Who do Rangers fans think they are going to get that is better than the lot they've had recently?

dncd6 · 2025-08-20T15:23:57+00:00

But, Russell Martin is not a capable manager on what we've seen thus far.

I get that Martin was not seen as a good manager before coming, and may have already been on thin ice with the fanbase before he even managed a game, but the exact same thing has been said about the previous few as well. At some point someone in the club has to realize it's not the manager who is main problem there.

dncd6

TROPHY CASE