Shaun Long

[weybridgewanderer]

well you are the one that was admiring his chest

[Alan Partridge]

Snowball, any reason why you've been absent from the forum all season until the last few weeks?

[Pseud O'Nym]

I think McD's comment tonight has indicated there has been a weight problem

Also in Matt Mills video interview on the OS Mills says something on the lines that both he [Mills] and Long have had to lose some weight.

[Sun Tzu]

I think McD's comment tonight has indicated there has been a weight problem

Also in Matt Mills video interview on the OS Mills says something on the lines that both he [Mills] and Long have had to lose some weight.

Bulking up with muscle would add more weight than fat though so it's not impossible that Long overdid the gym work and had to streamline a bit.

usual HNA extreme view on display. Long has always been a more effective player than he's been given credit for and he's also not suddenly become the new Robbie Keane. The main change seems to be that he now looks up when he has theball and plays with team mates rather than getting his head down and running down blind alleys.

[Dirk Gently]

You mean the player that 2% thought we had and 98% said was utter crap and should be got rid of...

Justify those numbers, please. Or are they just made up.....?

You have to be kidding me. Long has been pilloried on HNA
and so have I for daring to say he'd be a very good striker

There's a 60+ page thread which is all the justification I need.

Not arguing with the fact that many have pilloried him, but I'm interested in how you can state it with such certainty at 98% and 2%. I can't imagine that those are accurate numbers - how can you be sure that it's not 97% and 3% - and are you absolutely certain that absolutely everyone has expressed one of those two extreme opinions? And how can you state something like that when the maximum number of users on HNA? represents fewer than 4.6% of the average RFC crowd. (Let me know if you need me to justify that statistic, BTW).

For one who loves giving us statistics to justify you're arguments, the fact that these particular "statistics" are so obviously made up casts doubt on the credibility of any of the numbers you regularly throw at us.

PS - please don't make the assumption that everyone disagrees with you're basic argument - but if you're going to use statistics as much as you do, don't be surprised if people hold them up to scrutiny.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Always rated Long but he never got a chance to play regularly ubder Coppell should have been out on loan learning his trade and scoring goals. Let's hope he can push on a be a great Reading player.

[Gordons Cumming]

All I can say his potential has been a long time coming.

HTH

[CMRoyal]

What the hell has happened to the guy?

Not much that hadn't already happened towards the end of last season. The guy just needs a decent run of games. He'll always be frustrating at times, but is good for a dozen goals a season with a fair wind and plenty of games. Credit McCoppell (is that too much?) for showing faith.

[CMRoyal]

You mean the player that 2% thought we had and 98% said was utter crap and should be got rid of...

Justify those numbers, please. Or are they just made up.....?

You have to be kidding me. Long has been pilloried on HNA
and so have I for daring to say he'd be a very good striker

There's a 60+ page thread which is all the justification I need.

Translation:

"I made them up."

[papereyes]

In terms of his weight, i was more worried about the size of his arse than his torso

I think McD's comment tonight has indicated there has been a weight problem

You put it down to his injuries, i put it down to the training regime

He clearly bulked up over the summer.

He's now a lot less bulky.

[Franchise FC]

What the hell has happened to the guy?

Not much that hadn't already happened towards the end of last season. The guy just needs a decent run of games. He'll always be frustrating at times, but is good for a dozen goals a season with a fair wind and plenty of games. Credit McCoppell (is that too much?) for showing faith.

Fester McCoppell

[johnnym]

He seems to like playing with Howard - and Howard seems to like playing with Long in the team.

Gay

[Barry the bird boggler]

I remember when brendan started he said he didn't think working on fitness was so important and wanted the players to do more ball work

And he's probably right if you've got world class players.... methinks Reading are just a tad off of being world class at the moment.

[Ian Royal]

Match program has goals scored as

00-15 = 7
16-30 = 6
31-45 = 6

46-60 = 7
61-75 = 3
76-90 = 8

ET = 1

Or to put it another way 13 goals in the first third, 13 goals in the second third and just TWELVE goals in the last third (including extra time)

So it is total BS that this season it's an advantage scoring-wise to come on in the last 30 minutes, and the advantage of coming on for the last 15 is very small

For a team, maybe - but there clearly has to be an advantage for an INDIVIDUAL. Coming on fresh against tired defenders can only be a good thing - so whilst your statistic may not be true it's not particularly relevant.

And yet still the period where more goals are scored than any other is the last 15 minutes.

And there is no effort to take into account the type of player.

Long - young player who's game is built around athleticism and speed.
Rasiak - old player who's game is built around experience and feeding off scraps in the box.

What a fantastic like for like comparison from the professor of logic.

[Ian Royal]

In terms of his weight, i was more worried about the size of his arse than his torso

I think McD's comment tonight has indicated there has been a weight problem

You put it down to his injuries, i put it down to the training regime

He clearly bulked up over the summer.

He's now a lot less bulky.

Agreed. I don't need to strip him naked every few weeks and measure his weight and size to know this.

He had an enormous arse back around October / November and looked very chunky. I put it down to injury, poor fitness training regime and going mental with his boxing training.

He's now slimmed back down to his normal (solid) athletic build. Funnily enough he is now quicker again and more agile. He's still missing a fair few good chances, and his touch still isn't particularly good, but he's scoring so horay!

But lets not forget, 3 games isn't exactly a significant sample. Afterall, Sonko was our top scorer after 5 or 6 games with 3 goals, at the start of last season.

[Maguire]

Match program has goals scored as

00-15 = 7
16-30 = 6
31-45 = 6

46-60 = 7
61-75 = 3
76-90 = 8

ET = 1

Or to put it another way 13 goals in the first third, 13 goals in the second third and just TWELVE goals in the last third (including extra time)

So it is total BS that this season it's an advantage scoring-wise to come on in the last 30 minutes, and the advantage of coming on for the last 15 is very small

For a team, maybe - but there clearly has to be an advantage for an INDIVIDUAL. Coming on fresh against tired defenders can only be a good thing - so whilst your statistic may not be true it's not particularly relevant.

And yet still the period where more goals are scored than any other is the last 15 minutes

And coinicidentally, when he magics up his Long stats, he counts his sub appearances as, guess what, 15 minutes

[Snowball]

Snowball, any reason why you've been absent from the forum all season until the last few weeks?

I was on a brain-surgery course

[Royal We]

His name was obviously a great weight on his shoulders Changing it was a master stroke.

[Snowball]

Match program has goals scored as

00-15 = 7
16-30 = 6
31-45 = 6

46-60 = 7
61-75 = 3
76-90 = 8

ET = 1

Or to put it another way 13 goals in the first third, 13 goals in the second third and just TWELVE goals in the last third (including extra time)

So it is total BS that this season it's an advantage scoring-wise to come on in the last 30 minutes, and the advantage of coming on for the last 15 is very small

For a team, maybe - but there clearly has to be an advantage for an INDIVIDUAL. Coming on fresh against tired defenders can only be a good thing - so whilst your statistic may not be true it's not particularly relevant.

And yet still the period where more goals are scored than any other is the last 15 minutes.

And there is no effort to take into account the type of player.

Long - young player who's game is built around athleticism and speed.
Rasiak - old player who's game is built around experience and feeding off scraps in the box.

What a fantastic like for like comparison from the professor of logic.

Hmmm the last 15 mins = 8 goals, two other same-length periods have 7 goals.

It's hardly a massive difference, is it?

The interesting statistic is the low amount of goals scored 60-75 minutes
perhaps suggesting that teams close it down for a while and/or take a bit
of a breather before thinking, hey we can win this, and upping the pace in the last 15.


if we were seeing twice as many goals a minute in the last 15, fair enough, but ONE goal more
than the first 15 minutes or the first 15 minutes of the second half is hardly a clincher!

[Snowball]

And coinicidentally, when he magics up his Long stats, he counts his sub appearances as, guess what, 15 minutes

No, I count ALL appearances by subs as AN AVERAGE OF 15 minutes, Occasionally they get on for an hour, or 45 minutes, or 25, but sometimes it's for just a couple of minutes.

But this "BS" about the goal-fest in the last 15 is ridiculous 7-7-8 is hardly a major difference