Long - Time to go.

[Alan Partridge]

Long has been here 6 years. Forget age for a second.

To make some comparisons, Kitson was stacking shelves in Sainsburys when he was the same age as Long was when he signed for Reading. He came into the professional game late. Kitson learnt quicker and improved drastically more than Long has over the same period of time.

Everyone talked about Federici's lack of experience when he came into the side, but he'd played more first team games than Hahnemann had when he first joined Reading. Hahnemann was pushing 30 when he joined Reading having played only about 2 or 3 games for Fulham in about 3 years, and a handful of games for Rochdale. Federici had played some cup games, a couple of league appearances and a substantial loan at Southend.

Experience doesn't = age.

This is Long's 6th years as a Reading first teamer. That's a fair bit of experience.

I'm playing devil's advocate here because I think Long has offered more this season than those previous even if his goal record (especially from open play) is still average at best.

[Snowball]

Long has been here 6 years. Forget age for a second.

To make some comparisons, Kitson was stacking shelves in Sainsburys when he was the same age as Long was when he signed for Reading. He came into the professional game late. Kitson learnt quicker and improved drastically more than Long has over the same period of time.

That's the myth. The truth is a lot different.

Kitson played football right through his teens, and no doubt as a kid. He played for Arlesey Town and Hitchin Town, did the old shelf-stacker stuff and then signed for Cambridge United where BEFORE HE CAME TO READING, he played 102 games and scored 40 goals. Now say he only had one season each at those two non-league sides, that's TWO HUNDRED competitive games. Of course it might be significantly more.

And so, he arrived, about six weeks older than Shane is when he gets up this morning, 200+ games under his belt, three seasons and regular football = 102 games for Cambridge.

Shane is now 83 (82). And he's 23 Years 10 Months. On January 1st 2011, with all his days alive, and all his games he will still be behind Kitson on age and experience, the Kitson who arrived at Reading FC

For equivalent experience, that will take us to this time (October-November NEXT YEAR)

This is ignoring the Hurling, never played football as a kid stuff.


Roughly, at the start of next season, Long would need to be replicating Kitson's START to be "as good" as him. (and I'm NOT sayig he is)

10 (07) 5 goals. Equivalent age, equivalent experience. We'll ignore the fact that in the next season Kitson was playing in a record-breaking side

[Hampshire Royal]

Including Internationals, Long has made 162 appearances. That does not include, of course, his time with St. Michaels's in Ireland.

[Snowball]

Let me know when that total reaches 200+

[Wycombe Royal]

But show me 5 current championship strikers who have records better than a goal every 223 minutes.

Just a quick reminder of the challenge you laid down. You can't go moving the goalposts after your challenge has been beaten with bells on........

[Wycombe Royal]

Every striker I'd put up and show a bad year or whatever, every one would have a different excuse. Except Long. If Long has a drought it's cos he's shit.

Long has not had a good year yet. He has still NEVER made double figures in a season, yet he has had 5 full seasons in which to achieve that. He is 23 now and I doubt there are many strikers who are as good as you make Long out to be who have not achieved that by his age.

Why can't you just accept that goalscoring is not his strongest point and that focusing on his scoring rate is pointless. Long's best attributes lie elsewhere in his game, which is why I used Heskey as a comparison.

[Wimb]

Agree AP, the fact Long's been improving throughout the last 12 months is nothing but good news for the player and the club, his game isn't all about goalscoring but he's going to need to improve on it if he's going to be part of a team that's capable of getting in and remaining in the Premier League.

Which brings me back to you Snowball......

This thread has 60 pages now and I'm still rather confused about your overall point of view towards Shane Long. That might sound ridiculous but as far as I'm concerned I don't know exactly what 'point' or 'opinion' you are trying to put over.

In my eyes the VAST majority of Reading fans would admit....

That Shane Long has shown in patches throughout his Reading career (2005 onward) that he's capable of scoring goals, to have done so at International level and across the top 2 divisions in England proves that point.

Similarly this thread is full of people admitting that they'd either written off Shane Long, or doubted he had the ability to lead a line or a Reading strikeforce in this division. Not everyone is lauding him up but that's fair as well.

People have also ACROSS THIS BOARD been saying how impressed they've been with Shane's work rate and his overall contribution to play. The fact he wins and scores penalties is another great trait of a striker and one that shouldn't be disregarded.

The above three points lead me to believe that if you think you're fighting a war against people who are labelling the entire of Shane Long's game 'shit' or saying 'he's useless' then you've already 'won'.

So what else exactly are you trying to prove?

[Snowball]

But show me 5 current championship strikers who have records better than a goal every 223 minutes.

But here is some quick guesswork (and you will notice that most of these have sustained high scoring rates over more matches than Shane):

Michael Chopra
Rob Earnshaw
Jason Scotland
Dave Kitson
Matty Fryatt
Steve Morison
Kris Boyd
Nicky Maynard

...and those are just off the top of my head.

Now toddle off and collate their career minutes played (we have to be fair and use the same level of detail that has been used for Long) and see what their goals per minute scoring rate is. I WANT you to prove me wrong.

I'm still waiting. You asked for 5, I provided the names of 8 players which took me about a minute to come up with. I guess you don't want to work out their scoring rates because you are scared of what it will show. You laid down the challenge, I responded, so it's over to you.....

Nah, You don;t get it. YOU work out their scoring rates

Read this line and tell me what it means:

But show me 5 current championship strikers who have records better than a goal every 223 minutes.

I'll say now, "No they don't have a scoring rate better than 1 in 223 minutes" and it's down to YOU to show that they do.

See that's what "SHOW ME!" means. Intit?



PS I am sure there are current Championship players who meat the criteria, but the question is HOW MANY?

1 in 2 (180 minutes) is extremely rare in this league, so 1 in 223 minutes is not far off the best

[Wycombe Royal]

No chance I have a job to do and I am 99% confident that 7 of those 8 I listed have a scoring rate higher than Shane Long (Kris Boyd is better than a goal every 180 minutes) and most of those have done this over a longer period than our Shane has.

Your're the man with the stats so you do the donkey work. I don't need to prove anything whereas you LOVE using stats to prove things.....

[cmonurz]

This page should help illustrate to you Snowball why your statistical comparisons are too narrow to ever give an accurate picture of a player's performance.

You are entering argument about qualitative judgements on the comparability of the records of Kitson and Long.

'Kitson stacked shelves'.
'Yes but Kitson played for Hitchin'.
'Long started in hurling'.
'Long was very young'.

Etc etc.

And that's the problem - it's not for you to cement exactly what parts of their history are relevant to the argument - to blindly say we 'have' to compare Kitson and Long at similar ages ignores their relative backgrounds, experience etc. The Hahnemann/Federici example above perfectly illustrates that (and astounded me actually, that Feds was 'more experienced' than Marcus).

[Alan Partridge]

Long has been here 6 years. Forget age for a second.

To make some comparisons, Kitson was stacking shelves in Sainsburys when he was the same age as Long was when he signed for Reading. He came into the professional game late. Kitson learnt quicker and improved drastically more than Long has over the same period of time.

That's the myth. The truth is a lot different.

Kitson played football right through his teens, and no doubt as a kid. He played for Arlesey Town and Hitchin Town, did the old shelf-stacker stuff and then signed for Cambridge United where BEFORE HE CAME TO READING, he played 102 games and scored 40 goals. Now say he only had one season each at those two non-league sides, that's TWO HUNDRED competitive games. Of course it might be significantly more.

And so, he arrived, about six weeks older than Shane is when he gets up this morning, 200+ games under his belt, three seasons and regular football = 102 games for Cambridge.

Shane is now 83 (82). And he's 23 Years 10 Months. On January 1st 2011, with all his days alive, and all his games he will still be behind Kitson on age and experience, the Kitson who arrived at Reading FC

For equivalent experience, that will take us to this time (October-November NEXT YEAR)

This is ignoring the Hurling, never played football as a kid stuff.


Roughly, at the start of next season, Long would need to be replicating Kitson's START to be "as good" as him. (and I'm NOT sayig he is)

10 (07) 5 goals. Equivalent age, equivalent experience. We'll ignore the fact that in the next season Kitson was playing in a record-breaking side

Was Shane at Cork City or did Reading pick him up off the street? If you are taking Kitson playing centre back for Arlesly Town as expereince then that sure is. You also say he played 102 games for Cambridge, whilst posting up Shane's sub appearances. A quick look to wikipedia shows Kitson made 102 apps for Cambridge, how many were sub? if you are using Shane's sub stats to help your arguement then you have to use Kitson's as well. I don't know the answer here. But i would bet enormous money that's not 102 starts at 90minutes a time either just like Shane.

Kitson had 2 years at Cambridge where he was a regular player but he was a lot older than Shane and had to learn quicker. He didn't have the football upbringing Shane has had. Working at a top class facility with excellent players for 6 years. Kitson has come through the school of hard knocks, and when you consider his manager at Cambridge was John Beck then he must have learnt quick.

Kitson when he first got in the side was raw, brash but had something there. You could say Long was the same. But he developed his game and showed massive improvement a lot quicker than Shane has. Yes Shane is younger and by that token when he first joined not fully 'filled out' as it were but I think 6 years down the line whilst there has been improvement it's not been quite as much as everyoe had hoped, and certainly not as much as DK over a similar period.

I look forward to tomorrow's debate, Long v Jimmy Quinn.

[Wycombe Royal]

Taking subs appearances as 45 minutes (so I'm giving Shane some help):

Rob Earnshaw - 268 (97), 155 goals - 184 minutes per goal
Jason Scotland - 195 (57), 92 goals - 219 minutes per goal
Nicky Maynard - 126 (17), 63 goals - 192 minutes per goal
Luciano Becchio - 86 (12), 38 goals - 218 minutes per goal
Michael Chopra - 185 (44), 82 goals - 227 minutes per goal (but remember I am allowing 45 minutes for a sub appearance)
Dave Kitson - 256 (44), 106 goals - 236 minutes per goal
Matty Fryatt - 195 (51), 79 goals - 251 minutes per goal
Steve Morison - 190 (20), 96 goals - 188 minutes per goal
Kris Boyd - 237 (75) , 169 goals - 146 minutes per goal

Now Shane using my simple 45 minutes per sub appearance - 66 (79), 27 goals - 352 minutes.

So it is obvious that he is nowhere near some of those, but Shane has had a higher proportion of subs apprearances so lets lower it to 15 minutes for a subs appreaance and then re-compare to the ones he is closer to:

Matty Fryatt - 231 minutes
Michael Chopra - 211 minutes
Dave Kitson - 224 minutes
Shane Long - 264 minutes

It still isn't stacking up is it? And those players were justr off the top of my head (all stats courtesy of Soccerbase, are for League matches only and computed very quicky as I have a job to do).

[Hoop Blah]

The impressive thing with Steve Morison is that he seems to have improved, or at least maintained, his scoring rate as he's moved up through the division.

It's a shame we didn't get him when we apparently tried at the end of the last window. Lets hope we can go back and get him on New Years Day!

[Wycombe Royal]

THe most obvious thing about all those players is how MANY goals they have scored compared to Shane (with the exception of Becchio). And we all know how hard it is to maintain a scoring rate over a higher number of games.

Just out of interest which WAY is Shane's career minutes per goal moving this season - has it gone up or down compared to the end of last season?

[Snowball]

Just out of interest which WAY is Shane's career minutes per goal moving this season - has it gone up or down compared to the end of last season?

This season a goal every 342 minutes (domestic games only) 1 every 292 minutes including internationals which surely ARE releavnt

Incidentally, his 233 over the last two seasons was domestic-only. He has 4 goals in internationals from 15 appearances, mostly as sub

I can't find records indicating minutes played for game prior to 2008 but SINCE then, when appearing he has averaged 32 minutes per game,
one 90, one 45, the rest 2-3-4 minutes. It's reasonable to suggest that prior to that his minutes would have been less.

If you take the extreme case and say his 15 appearances total 15 x 32 minutes = 480 minutes, he has 4 international goals

= 1 international goal every 120 Minutes. In fact, it's almost certain that he hasn't averaged more than 20 minutes a game

If that is the case it's 4 goals in 300 minutes, 1 every 75 minutes played (plus he has one assist I know of and won a penalty

And the goals were against BOLIVIA (1), RUSSIA (1) and DENMARK (2)

I doubt he has played an average of 32 minutes per international, but IF he has that makes his minutes and goals now

8,733 minutes (total) for 37 goals = 1 goal every 236 minutes (2.62 games)

This INCLUDES his games as an 18, 19, 20 year old

?? 1 Bolivia
?? 2 Denmark
29 1 Russia + 1 Assist
90 0 Slovakia
04 0 Algeria
03 0 Paraguay
45 0 Nigeria
24 0 Poland Won Penalty, Scored by Shunt

32.5

[Snowball]

Just out of interest which WAY is Shane's career minutes per goal moving this season - has it gone up or down compared to the end of last season?

Are you seriously suggesting that a 18+1 game run (5 goals) is definitive?

2 goals in the next 2 games would be back to 1 in 3 (21/7)


Doyle, BTW, has now gone 11 Premiership games without scoring. Does that mean he's "finished"?

[Snowball]

Taking subs appearances as 45 minutes (so I'm giving Shane some help):

Rob Earnshaw - 268 (97), 155 goals - 184 minutes per goal
Jason Scotland - 195 (57), 92 goals - 219 minutes per goal
Nicky Maynard - 126 (17), 63 goals - 192 minutes per goal
Luciano Becchio - 86 (12), 38 goals - 218 minutes per goal
Michael Chopra - 185 (44), 82 goals - 227 minutes per goal (but remember I am allowing 45 minutes for a sub appearance)
Dave Kitson - 256 (44), 106 goals - 236 minutes per goal
Matty Fryatt - 195 (51), 79 goals - 251 minutes per goal
Steve Morison - 190 (20), 96 goals - 188 minutes per goal
Kris Boyd - 237 (75) , 169 goals - 146 minutes per goal

I love how you have to dig out Premiership-quality players to even compete with this kid
who is still three years away from his prime

Now Shane using my simple 45 minutes per sub appearance - 66 (79), 27 goals - 352 minutes.

You can't GUESS Shane's minutes. We know them EXACTLY. He's on 1 goal in 223 minutes.

His sub-time is way way lower than you suggest.

So it is obvious that he is nowhere near some of those, but Shane has had a higher proportion of subs apprearances so lets lower it to 15 minutes for a subs appreaance and then re-compare to the ones he is closer to:

Matty Fryatt - 231 minutes
Michael Chopra - 211 minutes
Dave Kitson - 224 minutes
Shane Long - 264 minutes

No, let's use Shane's ACTUAL, total minutes. That is totally fair. He is on 1 in 223


It's hardly my fault you're too lazy to work out these other guys' minutes

[Bandini]

Most active topic:Long - Time to go.
(406 Posts / 10.44% of user’s posts)

THAT'S 1 IN 3 POSTS ON THIS THREAD

perhaps it's time for a lie down

[Snowball]

This page should help illustrate to you Snowball why your statistical comparisons are too narrow to ever give an accurate picture of a player's performance.

You are entering argument about qualitative judgements on the comparability of the records of Kitson and Long.

'Kitson stacked shelves'.
'Yes but Kitson played for Hitchin'.
'Long started in hurling'.
'Long was very young'.

Etc etc.

And that's the problem - it's not for you to cement exactly what parts of their history are relevant to the argument - to blindly say we 'have' to compare Kitson and Long at similar ages ignores their relative backgrounds, experience etc. The Hahnemann/Federici example above perfectly illustrates that (and astounded me actually, that Feds was 'more experienced' than Marcus).

Utter BOLLOX. Kitson in Tesco is a fairy-tale. It happens not to be very true.

He played junior football and football in his teens for the two semi-pro clubs I've already mentioned.
You're now trying to pretend he DIDN'T play senior 200 games before he arrived at Reading?

[Bandini]

Utter BOLLOX. Kitson in Tesco is a fairy-tale. It happens not to be very true.

Agreed, it was Sainsbury's.