Doyle is great. What happened last year?

[Readingfanman]

I think Kitson is a better player.

are you mad...

Kitson is the better player overall I have to say.

[brendywendy]

he was until he left

now hes rubbish, and always was

thats what we do here.

[Sarah Star]

Have they changed the way they train now, could that be why he's consistently scoring now? I know it looks more structured in their pre-match warm-ups now with Queeg in charge and they always practice kicking into the net, which I don't think they did before. Obviously, I haven't a clue what goes on during the week, but maybe he's just been able to work on his game a bit more...or maybe I'm talking complete rubbish, who knows?

[Handsome Man]

Last season he just didn't have the strength or speed to do anything against Premiership defenders. For the last couple of months he was our worst player by a long long way, and just spent the time on the wing getting the ball and losing it.

This year the lack of pace and strength matters less and he is spending time in the box, so scores some goals. He is a good Championship striker and looks a good footballer again, but his limitations will stop him really making a mark at a much higher level. The strikers who can cope in the Premiership are all significantly faster or significantly bigger than him and there is a huge difference. He should know his level and stay with us, but I guess some panicking Premiership side will pay their £8 million in January and let him warm their bench for 18 months.

[Archie's penalty]

Last season he just didn't have the strength or speed to do anything against Premiership defenders. For the last couple of months he was our worst player by a long long way, and just spent the time on the wing getting the ball and losing it.

This year the lack of pace and strength matters less and he is spending time in the box, so scores some goals. He is a good Championship striker and looks a good footballer again, but his limitations will stop him really making a mark at a much higher level. The strikers who can cope in the Premiership are all significantly faster or significantly bigger than him and there is a huge difference. He should know his level and stay with us, but I guess some panicking Premiership side will pay their £8 million in January and let him warm their bench for 18 months.

Surely he is a great championship striker at least?

I think he could do a good job in the prem with proper service.

[Irvinchangeyaname]

I think he could do a good job in the prem with proper service.

Spot on. I've been telling my Villa mate for a while that he would fit in well there with the type of service he'd get there from the likes of Young, Barry and (dare I say it) Shorey. But hopefully I'll never be proved right now

[Rex]

He scores more because the man is up for it. The quality in the Championship is far less. We played two years in the faster Prem, and learnt to play at pace. The rings are now being ran around other teams stead of us for a change!!.

Oh and we have a right wing!

[cmonurz]

Worth noting that in our Championship winning season, Doyle scored 'only' 18 league goals. Not only is he 'back', he is well on course to go way past that total this season. No reason he couldn't have 20 goals by January.

[Archie's penalty]

Worth noting that in our Championship winning season, Doyle scored 'only' 18 league goals. Not only is he 'back', he is well on course to go way past that total this season. No reason he couldn't have 20 goals by January.

Agreed

[rhroyal]

On this debate of best strikers, why is Jamie Cureton getting a mention? Be serious, please. I think Doyle has lost his pace a bit since that hamstring a couple of years ago but his positioning and work rate are class, not to mention his finishing. He is good enough to cut in the Premiership but last season he had no service to work with. On his barren run from December to the end I'm not sure our front line managed 5 goals between them before the Derby game, yet everyone picks up on Doyle for some reason.

[earleyroyal]

Well people. I thought I'd revive an old chestnut. Doyle is clearly a great striker, arguably the best we have ever had at the club. He has scored 48 goals in 108 starts in the premier league and the championship.

The question is what went wrong for him last year? Was it bad service,

Yes. 18? league goals in 05/06 - we had good service, 13? league goals in 06/07 - we had 'best crossing in the country' according to Alex Ferguson, 7 league goals in 07/08 - we had Oster and Hunt (whose crossing/dead balling has improved by about 500% this year). This year we have good service. I think it makes all the difference, Doyle and Kitson were/are easily good enough for the Premiership but they only got about 17 goals between them last year because of the awful service. The key reason why we went down for me.

[rg6royal]

I think the reason why he didn't score many goals last season was because of the service. A different class in this division though.

[cmonurz]

50 league goals for Reading, congratulations Kevin Doyle.

[Ian Royal]

Not just bad service. Lack of confidence led to him missing some glorious chances, and just not pulling the trigger when before or now he'd have had a crack and it might have gone in.

[Handsome Man]

Last season he just didn't have the strength or speed to do anything against Premiership defenders. For the last couple of months he was our worst player by a long long way, and just spent the time on the wing getting the ball and losing it.

This year the lack of pace and strength matters less and he is spending time in the box, so scores some goals. He is a good Championship striker and looks a good footballer again, but his limitations will stop him really making a mark at a much higher level. The strikers who can cope in the Premiership are all significantly faster or significantly bigger than him and there is a huge difference. He should know his level and stay with us, but I guess some panicking Premiership side will pay their £8 million in January and let him warm their bench for 18 months.

Surely he is a great championship striker at least?

I think he could do a good job in the prem with proper service.

I think he is the most valuable championship striker and probably the best. the service he is gettign at the moment is out of this world though. The cross for the first was perfect and the second was a nice tap-in, but they all count.

[Ian Royal]

Doyle is good enough for the prem. He just didn't get great service last season and got in a bad place mentally with low confidence.

[KC Royal]

Have they changed the way they train now, could that be why he's consistently scoring now? I know it looks more structured in their pre-match warm-ups now with Queeg in charge and they always practice kicking into the net, which I don't think they did before. Obviously, I haven't a clue what goes on during the week, but maybe he's just been able to work on his game a bit more...or maybe I'm talking complete rubbish, who knows?

I think you're right, noticed the shooting practice at the one game i've been to this season against Swansea. I was actually quite shocked about how little structure there was to our warm ups last season. It just seemed to be players doing their own thing.

Over the 6 years i've been going to games i've always been impressed by our warm ups and they've looked more impressive than the opposition, but last season that wasnt the case, certainly remember being more impressed by Blackburns last season.

[Gav]

As I saw it, in our relegation season, Doyle and Kitson both went wandering around the pitch looking for the ball as no-one was getting it to them where they wanted it. Lita didn't seem to wander around looking for it, and still couldn't get decent service.

When they did get it, they were both out of position (Kitson in midfield, Doyle in the channel somewhere) and it didn't suit our shape so they couldn't really use the ball effectively.

[ukrainiandub]

Martin Skrtl(following ireland against slovakia) and Ledley King have both said that Doyle is one of the hardest players they have played against.

LMAO, look at the hype your man Heskey has got playing near the same role doyle does with ireland only England have much better players.

Doyle is well goo enough for English Premiership.