Shane Long

[Snowball]

I am interested to see how starting 20 league games in 4 seasons is a 'good return'.

He's only started three games this season and scored four league goals and won two penalties.

That's a good return by anyone's standards.

[Hoop Blah]

By your reckoning, we could sign a player on loan in time for the last game this season, sign him FT, sell him after the first game the next season and he'd have been "with us two seasons".

Ermmmm, no. By my reckoning a player who's had four pre-seasons with us and is now three quarters of the way through his fourth season is somone who it's perfectly reasonable to say is in fourth season!!!

You didn't answer the original question though, do you think he's improved or not?

[Royal Rother]

Lita's career achievements so far have been greater than Long's, no question, but for the last 2 years he has been extremely poor for us, and Long, whatever his deficiencies, has been the more effective player overall.

Some players reach an early peak, promising much more to come, and then, for a whole variety of reasons, never deliver. There is ample evidence to suggest that Lita is one such player, not enough to form the same opinion of Long.

People still banging on about Lita being better than Long because of what he achieved 2-4 years ago are seriously deluding themselves - those days are gone, and it's very unlikely they are ever coming back.

I guess I would have liked to see Matejovsky given a chance to feed the ball in front of Lita for him to run onto, as those situations see the latter at his best, but I suppose it's been given a chance in reserve games and not produced as much as is necessary to convince Coppell it could be a winning combination.

God willing, Lita will be gone soon - let's hope he pushes on and makes a properly successful career that is justification of his strut, personally I think he's already seen his best days.

[Archie's penalty]

I think Long has more potential than Lita and I think he may well come into his own in the last part of the season. That was an incredibly assured finish from him last night. He knew exactly where he was going to hit it when he received the ball.

As for Lita I think he can still be a very good championship striker but that's all. Reading need a big striker in the premiership to go along with Doyle, Nhunt and Long. Lita just doesn't offer us anything we don't already have.

So it's not the fact I hate Lita I just think it's time for him to leave.

[Snowball]

Of COURSE he has improved.

He has scored more goals this season than in any previous season (and still has 13 possible games to go)

More importantly his goals this season have been very important ones. He has won us at least 5 points this year


Year, appearances, starts, subs, goals

2005-06 01 (10) 03 goals from 07 shots, 0 assists
2006-07 09 (10) 02 goals from 13 shots, 0 assists
2007-08 07 (22) 03 goals from 14 shots, 3 assists
2008-09 03 (22) 04 goals from 12 shots, 1 assists, 2 penalties won

0000-00 20 (64) 12 goals from 46 shots. He is a very good finisher

[Dirk Gently]

I think one of the big differences is that Lita needs to be the main striker, whereas Long is happy to support the others.

That's a very significant differences while Doyle is here.

[Rex]

There's the nub. Lita does not operate as a team player. He waits for chances to be created for him, others support and create their own chances.

[Snowball]

Shane, on his meagre starts is the club's fifth top scorer
and has a top-striker's goal per game record, better than Noel Hunt's and almost seven times that of Lita

Appearances/subs/ "games"/goals/ goal every X games

34 (00) 34 18 1.89 Kevin Doyle
03 (23) 09 04 2.25 Shane Long
25 (07) 26 10 2.60 Noel Hunt
19 (10) 20 05 4.00 Kalifa Cisse
34 (00) 34 06 5.67 Stephen Hunt

[Hoop Blah]

Of COURSE he has improved.

He has scored more goals this season than in any previous season (and still has 13 possible games to go)

More importantly his goals this season have been very important ones. He has won us at least 5 points this year


Year, appearances, starts, subs, goals

2005-06 01 (10) 03 goals from 07 shots, 0 assists
2006-07 09 (10) 02 goals from 13 shots, 0 assists
2007-08 07 (22) 03 goals from 14 shots, 3 assists
2008-09 03 (22) 04 goals from 12 shots, 1 assists, 2 penalties won

0000-00 20 (64) 12 goals from 46 shots. He is a very good finisher

None of that actually shows that he's improved though, it just shows he's got more games and scored more goals per shots.

That could be for all kinds of reasons.

Personally, as with the original point raised earlier, I don't think he's progressed that much.

I agree he's a decent finisher, when it's an instinctive finish at least. He's pretty much always been like that for us though so I don't see that as an improvement. His all round game hasn't really come on in my eyes and thats a bit of a shame, but not totally suprising considering his lack of first team football.

Your obsession with stats still amuses and bores me in equal measure though!

[cmonurz]

Snowball, a genuine question - why the obsession with how many starts a player makes?

The stat doesn't tell us anything. 'Long has 4 goals in 3 starts' means nothing. I appreciate you have since included the full appearance stats, but you use that phrase a lot, 'x starts and x goals'. Surely you can see it is meaningless?

[Starfish]

Snowball, a genuine question - why the obsession with how many starts a player makes?

The stat doesn't tell us anything. 'Long has 4 goals in 3 starts' means nothing. I appreciate you have since included the full appearance stats, but you use that phrase a lot, 'x starts and x goals'. Surely you can see it is meaningless?

cmonurz, he has invented half of these statistics, as has been proven elsewhere - they have been shaped to fit his (particularly unhealthy) obsession.

Shane Long = Irish International = the scariest statistic of all perhaps.

[brendywendy]

Snowball, a genuine question - why the obsession with how many starts a player makes?

The stat doesn't tell us anything. 'Long has 4 goals in 3 starts' means nothing. I appreciate you have since included the full appearance stats, but you use that phrase a lot, 'x starts and x goals'. Surely you can see it is meaningless?

cmonurz, he has invented half of these statistics, as has been proven elsewhere - they have been shaped to fit his (particularly unhealthy) obsession.

Shane Long = Irish International = the scariest statistic of all perhaps.

bah!

worse people with england caps IMO

[cmonurz]

Michael Ricketts. *Shudder.

[brendywendy]

carLOLton PaLOLmer

[Snowball]

Snowball, a genuine question - why the obsession with how many starts a player makes?

The stat doesn't tell us anything. 'Long has 4 goals in 3 starts' means nothing. I appreciate you have since included the full appearance stats, but you use that phrase a lot, 'x starts and x goals'. Surely you can see it is meaningless?

But it is NOT meaningless.

Doyle this season has had 33 starts, and almost 33 x 90 minutes.

Long has had three starts and a total minutes which is the equivalent of 8 x 90

Therefore in minutes played Doyle should have scored 4 x Long, and lo and behold 18 v 4

This idiotic, brain-dead list, of which, may I say, you are a fine example, doesn't seem to be able
to allow for starts, minutes played etc.

Noel Hunt, for example has started 25 league games and been sub 7 times but he usually gets pull off
about two thirds of the way through the game, so his time on the pitch is about 16/17 * 90 minutes
HALF of the time Doyle has been on the pitch. So he should be on, say 18/2 = 9 goals. Oh he's got TEN

I LOVE Doyle, great player, but in terms of minutes to get a goal, Noel Hunt and Long match him

[Snowball]

Snowball, a genuine question - why the obsession with how many starts a player makes?



cmonurz, he has invented half of these statistics, as has been proven elsewhere - they have been shaped to fit his (particularly unhealthy) obsession.

I've invented no statistics. I've made a few mistakes, but invented nothing

The appearances stats are on the club web-site, the shots stats are on the club website, the starts, subs and minutes played are on the club web-site

[VOR]

"I LOVE Doyle, great player, but in terms of minutes to get a goal, Noel Hunt and Long match him"

Snowball, if only you could read a football match as well as you can read a spreadsheet.

Anyone with 2 eyes and a brain can see that Doyle is 5 (or would you prefer 5.000) times the player that Long is. Long and Lita are impact players while Doyler will give you 90 solid minutes and is miles better than either of the other two at holding the ball and bringing in other players. Are you seriously suggesting that given equal time on the pitch, Long would score as many goals as Doyle?

[roberto_11]

Long may have a good goals to minutes played ratio or whatever, but that could be because he is only brought on when we are chasing games, so we are playing in a more attacking fashion, or that he only comes on at the end of games where defenders legs are tired and he has some pace etc etc. Doesnt mean hes a good player. Thats a subjective opinion on how well he fits into how the manager wants his team to play

[SeniorRoyal]

Long,the new David Fairclough!

[Snowball]

I've maligned Doyle. I've presumed he played most of his 90 minutes

If you put the exact minutes played in you get

2927 Minutes 18 goals = 163 minutes per goal DOYLE

0717 Minutes 04 goals = 179 minutes per goal LONG

1851 Minutes 10 goals = 185 minutes per goal HUNT

0575 Minutes 01 goals = 575 minutes per goal LITA



Doyle-Hunt starts P25 W16 D4 L5 51-19 = 52 Points = 2.08 per game. Equivalent of 95.68 point season

Doyle-Long starts P03 W01 D1 L1 05-05 = 04 points = 1.33 per game. Equivalent of 61.18 point season

Doyle-Lita starts P06 W01 D3 L2 04-06 = 06 points = 1.00 per game. Quivalent of 46 point season