Love a revealing cut-away! (from a London Transport Museum poster by Gavin Dunn)

Yesterday evening, whilst two of the long shot specialists in the Scottish Championship were playing, I put out the latest post. This time round, I was digging into long shots and whether they're a bigger thing this year than previous seasons.

After a brief diversiion into xG difference, I'm returning to the transfer window series. This time: if we wanted to find a player who anchors the midfield more like a conductor than a breaker-upper, who could we find to scout in more detail?

I'm going to return to my transfer window series tomorrow. But bouncing off a chat we had on the @drawloseordraw.bsky.social episode recorded earlier this week (and due to release soon), I thought I'd do a quick dig into something that offers some hope for Thistle after a rough few weeks

It's that time of year - the transfer window is open, and the rumour mill is in overdrive. Instead of writing about players who Thistle might - or should - sign, I'm going to do something a bit different. I'm going to use the idea of red and yellow lines...

We're almost halfway through the season, and two of the other top four are playing as I type. So maybe it's time (whisper it quietly) to talk about who has the weapons to sustain a title challenge. And what's in there is perhaps surprising...

🚨 Episode 299 - Brammed Up 🚨 The panel assemble to discuss not two, but one game, after Tuesday’s late postponement. We also look ahead to the best away day going! 🐠 Join us! 🇧🇪 on.soundcloud.com/hGPT8ZbHzb5Z... 📸 Donald Wilson

It's panto season (in general, and particular in my house), so this week, we're looking at a very panto-villain-coded metric: The Captain Hook Coefficient.

It's been a busy month moving 400 odd miles, but more or less ready to start my next adventure next week. And any town that has a lemmings statue can't be all that bad.

Love these posts- and it’s always a thrill to see a player you like appear in this sort of analysis. Enoru keeps popping up when I look at the National League,so I appreciated seeing a more detailed breakdown. After another player I liked in the NL last year (Reyes Cleary) getting love on the

The latest Jagalytics Power Ratings are up. Only QP and Morton added any ratings points this week - everyone else underperformed expectations, and so lost at least a few points.

Almost game time, so just a short post. Coming back to my BOING model, giving a bit of the background and simulating the remainder of the season based on the evidence of the first third.

I've added the latest round of fixtures, including Thistle's fabulous 5-0 win, into the Jagalytics Power Rating supercomputer (ed: not actually super). Thistle are up at 677, still around 50 behind St. Johnstone as the strongest team in the league.

In the interests of matching the narrative on football analytics online this week, and the theme of the day, today’s post is all about set pieces…or dead (geddit) balls.

In case you missed it, my latest post at The Thistle went out yesterday: This time, looking at the three types of keeper in the Championship - Sentinels, Builders and Watchdogs.

Latest Jagalytics Power Ratings are up - sorry for the delay; the data providers have taken a while to flow through info from the midweek game last week, and I haven't had time to tweak my code to adjust for it.

A bit late, I’ve published my latest article, reading for the journey to The Lang Toon. This week: comparing our defensive midfield options.

With the catch-up game tomorrow evening, I've run the Jagalytics Power Ratings again to show the impact of Thistle's win against Ross County, and the other weekend games.

Ready for another weekend, I'm going back to a topic I've explored before - and what I think is the best predictor of points accumulated rate. This week's post looks at ball progression

Based on the latest Jagalytics Power Ratings, here's the win chance for each of the weekend's games

I've updated my Jagalytics Power Ratings for the week up to last weekend's games. You can see them here.

It's that time of the week, and Thistle fans are getting on buses to travel to the Paris of Inverclyde. So as you travel, why not read the latest Jagalytics post?

Here are the latest Jagalytics Power Ratings, to include the weekend games. Thistle underperformed expectations (as did St. Johnstone), so we both lose a few ratings points: datawrapper.dwcdn.net/RRX2Z/1/

On this day 1896, the veteran WILLIE PAUL scores the 14th of his 15 hat-tricks for Thistle - no Jag in history scored more. Starting tomorrow, the great man's 20-part story will be re-published on the Thistle Archive throughout October. ⚽️⚽️⚽️ 👉 thethistlearchive.net/match-1896-1...

A couple of weeks ago, I began the slow process of profiling Championship attackers, with the eventual aim of developing some attacking 'Archetypes' that are relevant to our league - descriptive images of the sort of players we all recognise that show up in their stats

Lunchtime chart: I've rerun BOING, my Monte Carlo simulation of the remaining games of the season. You can see the results here: datawrapper.dwcdn.net/i84DU/1/

On this, it's worth noting that whilst the Power Ratings track somewhat with the league table, they're not the same. Thistle have been the second strongest team in the league for a couple of weeks, despite only hitting there in the 'real' table this week...

After last night's game (and the weekend matches too), I've updated the Jagalytics Power Ratings for the Championship. Thistle remain strong in second place of the ratings, and now have a score above where any team in the league started the season.

It's QF weekend, and the BOING is firmly taking root in our hearts and minds. So I'm going to do a handbrake turn, and post an article that doesn't look at the Sellick game at all.

I've extended my Jagalytics Power Rating to cover both of the top two leagues in Scotland, with a view to previewing Sunday's match. Remember, the ratings for each team started the season weighted by where Opta Analyst had them in the first week of the year.

It's the most magical time of the year - Monday lunchtime on the day after all Championship teams have played at least 5 games...which means the first run of my BOING model: datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Y0xZf/1/

Right. Fun time's over. No more frivolous trips to empty stadiums in Hungary. It's back to the serious things of a) Championship football and b) Jagalytics articles. No messing around at the back there. Knuckle down and let's get going.

It's a no-game week as Thistle take a break to let three players play for their countries. But there's no down time at Jagalytics Towers! This week, I'm looking at the short- and long-term impact of bringing in deadline day signing Oisin Smyth from St Mirren

After this weekend's games, I've updated the Jagalytics Power Ratings. St. Johnstone are still in first, Raith Rovers in second, but Thistle have closed the gap and consolidated in third, jumping to a rating 661.

In the mood of the day, following in the powerful slipstream of Thistle Analysis on Medium (go read his Wilsonball article!), I've published my latest too. Today: opposition research.

Further to James Cairney's piece yesterday on the change in Robbie Crawford, I had a quick look at his positioning. This season, the heatmap of his events on the pitch shows he spends a lot of time on the left, between the central channel and the left flank...

I meant to say in the original post that I simplified the chart only to show Thistle and our next opponent (Raith Rovers) in detail. It just keeps the chart a bit cleaner

I've updated my Championship Power Ratings after the weekend's games. This uses an approach similar to Chess or Tennis to show the strongest team based on head-to-head results. Thistle are currently third in the Championship, based on this, behind St Johnstone and Raith Rovers

I’m sure others have worked this out already, but another plus of having two players called up to Scotland U21s is that it strengthens “come here to get developed” narrative which Thistle want to drive.

🌍 Approximately 71% of the world's surface is covered by water. Ts'oanelo Lets'osa deals with the rest. Check out his stats from Saturday's win over Ayr United 👇

Latest article for subscribers at The Thistle is up, looking at crossing and chance of scoring in different zones: thethistle1876.substack.com/p/location-l...

Getting ready for the next round of the League Cup, I've been reflecting on some of the downsides of our current playing style - notably the impact in and out of possession of our high defensive line

Really excellent content again. Consistently impressed by Tony’s insight, professionalism, and self-deprecating honesty. Great to hear some behind the scenes stories without feeling grubby or “tell-all” voyeuristic. Matt does well getting under the skin of Tony’s experience. Well worth a listen

I've been a bit quiet on my own Substack for the last few weeks - getting involved in some other things, going on holiday, and preparing for the season ahead. I've just put up my first post of the league season

Also: if you haven’t signed up for The Thistle yet, today’s as good a day as any. Latest article is by yours truly, exploring the impact of different types of pitch on our results: thethistle1876.substack.com

Tony is one of the good guys. Great listen, with some insider insight into Thistle’s recruitment process. Hear about Ade Azeez, Myles Roberts, and the signing that could have transformed Gary Caldwell’s tenure…

🚨 Episode 277 - Tony Kinnear interview (part one) 🚨 Matt caught up with former Jags Head Scout Tony Kinnear about his ten years at the club 🔍🇧🇪 Join us! 🗣️📻🎙️ on.soundcloud.com/7qOph4luiQ1l...

I would be very delighted to be wrong and be bottom after this weekend. Mostly trying to manage my irrational hope.

Going alongside our weekly score predictions are our season long forecasts! 🔍 Each answer is worth three points, so take note if you’re playing along at home. ✏️🤔 What do you think of the team’s shouts? 🗣️ graphic design is our passion 🎨

For those of Thistle persuasion, James Cairney of The Herald (and beyond) had started this: thethistle1876.substack.com He’s posting a huge volume of Thistle content here, including interviews (Wilson and Logan for starters), game previews and reviews, and all sorts of other stuff.