When Matejovsky Starts

[Royal Rother]

Snowball is the most interesting addition to HNA Team Board in a long long time.

As a long-time contributor I feel a little bit ashamed at some of the reaction to his posts.

[poohs pure]

if you knew anything about reading football club you'd have said aldershot not swindon. go away now before you get even more annoying.

thread hijack....

yes or no, is snowball starting to become a cock?

No, I think you need to take a long look in the mirror if you want to see the cock in this instance.

not sure quite how you know i need a long look in a mirror to see my cock but you're spot on

[poohs pure]

if you knew anything about reading football club you'd have said aldershot not swindon. go away now before you get even more annoying.

thread hijack....

yes or no, is snowball starting to become a cock?

No, I think you need to take a long look in the mirror if you want to see the cock in this instance.

Presumably it's a magic mirror with an image of snowball after being asked who is the biggest cock of them all.

i think i need to apologise to the board for my childish thread hijack, there was no need to hijack this thread asking if snowball was becoming a cock, i should have spotted his cockness from the first post so please accept my humble apologies.

[Southbank Old Boy]

Do you think I statiistically measure "Noel Hunt is a gutsy player.."?

Didn't you say the other day, on another thread, that these type of opinions are just observations fans make on the statistics they see played out in front of them?

[papereyes]

I think, based on Marek's starts, that if Marek had played five games more we would have got one point more and a better GD and stayed up.

What 5 league games more could he have played?

We signed him and he missed the Villa game a few days later. Then he made his first appearance, admittedly as a sub, against United.

He played in 14 of the 16 remaining games, starting 10 of them (not 7). Which games did he miss? A game where he was suspended and a 0-0 draw against Wigan, where he was an an unused sub. In which games was he a sub? United, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal. Of the 10 starting games, I have our record as won 4 draw 1 lost 5 - 13 points, which would translate as a 49 point season - safe, but with moments of squeeky bum time, especially when you consider the 4 games against better opposition that get excluded here. With those included, it is 13 points from 14 games and pretty much indistinguishable from our final tally of 36 points from 38.

So, if you're saying he should have been rushed in, he would have played when not fit and made a limited impact. As it was, the earliest games he played in were against United and Chelsea so I'm quite confident in saying that had he started, it would have made no difference. The games he came on as a sub after the sending off were against Spurs or Arsenal - again, I am quite confident that him starting would have made no difference.

I'll accept that he could have changed things in the 0-0 draw against Wigan - and that extra 2 points would have kept us up. It certainly looks like he gave us more of an edge in the games against the teams around us but then again, his starts also include the games against Bolton and Fulham that pretty much relegated us.

If you're saying that we needed a quality midfielder last season, then yes, you're right. It was said from the moment Sidwell wasn't going to stay right up through to *this* season. I might go and post it again somewhere. And, imo, you could argue that without statistics. The moment we brought in a ball-playing midfielder of some quality, we might have done better (although that's somewhat debatable given what has been said earlier).

That is hardly the most surprising thing ever, now, is it?

[teoma]

hi to all fans of Reading from Czech republic.
The sad truth is, he was the worst player of the most recent friendly game CZ-Morroco. nowhere near the class, he was before (i am fan of his former CZ club), so I wonder what the hell did you guys with him in Reading? he has some class, but he is not the type for english footbal...
anyway, as fan of Arsenal, I have to say GO READING GO, i want to see you in premier league next season. hope you will end up your series of bad matches today.

[Snowball]

Do you think I statiistically measure "Noel Hunt is a gutsy player.."?

Didn't you say the other day, on another thread, that these type of opinions are just observations fans make on the statistics they see played out in front of them?

Yes I did. I was making the point that I too make subjective, qualitative judgments.

As a rather famous referee said, their is perception and there are facts


(and the two do NOT perfectly combine)

[Southbank Old Boy]

make your mind up then

[juanpablo]

hi to all fans of Reading from Czech republic.
The sad truth is, he was the worst player of the most recent friendly game CZ-Morroco. nowhere near the class, he was before (i am fan of his former CZ club), so I wonder what the hell did you guys with him in Reading? he has some class, but he is not the type for english footbal...
anyway, as fan of Arsenal, I have to say GO READING GO, i want to see you in premier league next season. hope you will end up your series of bad matches today.

welcome , hopefully he was just rusty when you saw him

[Snowball]

I think, based on Marek's starts, that if Marek had played five games more we would have got one point more and a better GD and stayed up.

What 5 league games more could he have played?

I'm amazed how LITERAL some of you are. If I had said, "If only Marek had had a full season..." would people be coming back and saying, "but we signed him in January"?

I know when we signed him and when he debut'd

He COULDN'T (from the point of his debut) play many more games, and I said, so. With his suspension he could have started three more. I said so, and said "that would mean an extra .6 of a point (and yes I do know we can't score .6 pf a point)

We signed him and he missed the Villa game a few days later. Then he made his first appearance, admittedly as a sub, against United. He then played in 14 of the 16 remaining games, starting 10 of them (not 7). Which games did he miss? A game where he was suspended and a 0-0 draw against Wigan, where he was an an unused sub. In which games was he a sub? United, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal. Of the 10 starting games, I have our record as won 4 draw 1 lost 5 - 13 points, which would translate as a 49 point season - safe, but with moments of squeeky bum time, especially when you consider the 4 games against better opposition that get excluded here. With those included, it is 13 points from 14 games and pretty much indistinguishable from our final tally of 36 points from 38.

No WAY do you talk of a guy coming on as a sub and make a judgment on his form for that. His first "game" was a ten-minute run-out against the champions. He came on when we were already losing 1-0 (despite playing well) and we were hit on the counter in the 90th minute when going all-out for the equaliser. Of course I leave a ten-minute debut as a sub out of the stats. Just as I ignore cup games. He played 10 STARTS, and look at the title of the thread, "Whan Matejovsky STARTS>"

10 minutes v Man Utd, then the last 9 minutes at Chelsea already losing by the final score. and he played the last 11 minutes at Arsenal when the score was already the final score, and got a whole 25 minutes against Spurs when the score was already settled.

That's 55 minutes in total out of 360 minutes, 15.3% of the playing time, and even so we conceded just one goal in those four sub appearances, that by the Premiership Champions, scored against the run of the play by a guy just crowned European Player of the Year etc. And if you remember, we were excellent in the last 20 against Spurs and Cerny made two absolutely outstanding saves.

Nevertheless, this thread is about Mateovsky STARTS. Had he STARTED versus Spurs

So, if you're saying he should have been rushed in, he would have played when not fit and made a limited impact.

No I'm not saying he should have been rushed in.

As it was, the earliest games he played in were against United and Chelsea so I'm quite confident in saying that had he started, it would have made no difference.

IF he improves the side (if) then how can it not be that we might have got something from these games? Against Man Utd we were VERY unlucky, we could have got a 1-1 draw without Matty and nobody would have said Man U were robbed. Had we got a 1-1 draw (perfectly reasonable scenario if we were just 1% better) we would have stayed up.

Again we were unlucky against Spurs, losing to that early Keane goal. We had three good chances after Matejovsky came on, one just wide and two great saves. IF Matejovsky improves the side by just 1% n=maybe we wouldn't have conceded (enough to stay up) and maybe we would have scored to equalise

The games he came on as a sub after the sending off were against Spurs or Arsenal - again, I am quite confident that him starting would have made no difference.

I remember the Spurs game and we should have got something from it. His replacement Marek Matejovsky was desperately close to pulling us level, sidefooting no more than a foot wide from the edge of the area with the keeper scrambling. We were doing everything we could, and James Harper was inches away from putting Lita in with a wonderfully inventive reverse ball that was just overhit. Despite our pressure, we nearly got caught on the break, with Bent smashing an effort past Hahnemann but off the post and across the face of goal. Ivar Ingimarsson tried his luck from 25 yards, and Radek Cerny almost gave Doyle a chance with a spillage. ... Rosenior had half a shout for a penalty, but it was definitely ball to hand by sub Jamie O'Hara inside the box.
With less than five minutes to go, a brilliant save from Cerny denied Dave Kitson at the near post. It was a quite stunning stop, right out of the top drawer. ... Then, unbelievably, Cerny pulled off another brilliant save, this time to deny Rosenior as he unleashed in the area. They were two superb stops, and he had to be out sharply again a moment later to deny Lita as he closed in.


The endeavour was certainly there, especially in the second half, but Spurs' first half showing gave us too much to do.


IMO, we could have got a point of Man Utd, SHOULD have got a point off Spurs, and might well have won at Wigan, all with Matejovsky starting... That's FOUR points. Of course we'll never know.

But I'm only interested, really in starts, when he plays 90 minutes or the best part of it. and that, unarguably gave us 13 points from 10 games... and in the championship, his starts have yielded WWDD 8 points from 4 games, 2 points a game

[Snowball]

hi to all fans of Reading from Czech republic.
The sad truth is, he was the worst player of the most recent friendly game CZ-Morroco. nowhere near the class, he was before (i am fan of his former CZ club), so I wonder what the hell did you guys with him in Reading? he has some class, but he is not the type for english footbal...
anyway, as fan of Arsenal, I have to say GO READING GO, i want to see you in premier league next season. hope you will end up your series of bad matches today.

welcome , hopefully he was just rusty when you saw him

Let's be fair to Matejovsky. Going away to play an international after a few months of playing reserve football in the English Championship?

[Snowball]

Snowball is the most interesting addition to HNA Team Board in a long long time.

As a long-time contributor I feel a little bit ashamed at some of the reaction to his posts.

Cheers!

[papereyes]

With his suspension he could have started three more. I said so

He only missed one game due to his suspension.

The Newcastle game.

Your premise is that we might have got points against Spurs and United and we probably could have got something against Wigan.

It's not unreasonable but I think we wouldn't have got anything in the first two but yes, we might have got something against Wigan. I also think that Marek's impact on our form is a lot smaller than you've previously tried to claim. If you make the reasonable assumption that we wouldn't have got points against United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs, then our form with him involved is indistinguishable from that over the whole season.

I also think that any argument claiming that we could have got points against those four clubs is fatally flawed. Three of them are amongst the best in the country and the fourth we lost to twice and drew once that season. Maybe we could have got a point but I'd put it at the lower limit of likelihood.

I think that might be because I've 'found' three games where he started and we lost all three. I have no idea why you didn't count them in the first place.

[juanpablo]

Snowball is the most interesting addition to HNA Team Board in a long long time.

As a long-time contributor I feel a little bit ashamed at some of the reaction to his posts.

agreed

[Cookie]

We're doomed I say we're doomed unless he plays.

[Snowball]

With his suspension he could have started three more. I said so

He only missed one game due to his suspension. The Newcastle game.

That's right. There were 14 games from his full debut to the season's end. He played in 10, was suspended for 1 (11) that means he could have played 3 more

They are Arsenal, Spurs, Wigan



SUSPENDED Newcastle


NO START Arsenal (came on at 0-2 down in 79th minute, 0-2 at end)
NO START Wigan Athletic (did not get on pitch)
NO START Tottenham (came on at 0-1 down 65th minute, 5-6 chances afterwards, at least two great saves)


STARTED Derby County

Your premise is that we might have got points against Spurs and United and we probably could have got something against Wigan.

United was actually before his full debut.

It's not unreasonable but I think we wouldn't have got anything in the first two but yes, we might have got something against Wigan.

Well that would have been enough

I also think that Marek's impact on our form is a lot smaller than you've previously tried to claim.

.2 points a game when measured against exactly the same ten teams
+1 goal GD overall compared to -6 GD overall when measured against exactly the same ten teams

That is a massive .7 of a goal difference per game. 2 goals over 3 games. We were relegated for a -3 goal GD compared to Fulham

If you make the reasonable assumption that we wouldn't have got points against United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs,

I think that is an UNreasonable assumption. As I said, we deserved a draw against Spurs, and we could easily have got a draw v United.

then our form with him involved is indistinguishable from that over the whole season.

First you are making an assumption. Second Marek didn't start against United. I don't count brief sub appearances, not when I can measure STARTS

I also think that any argument claiming that we could have got points against those four clubs is fatally flawed.
Three of them are amongst the best in the country and the fourth we lost to twice and drew once that season.
Maybe we could have got a point but I'd put it at the lower limit of likelihood.

Look, earlier, I said (bolded) IF Marek improves the team by 1%. I believe he does.

I'm aware how good Man Utd were, how good Arsenal were, but there is a factually/statistically-based, totally reasonable argument that we "would have done better" (ie played slightly better) versus Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Wigan.

We all know we might have played better and lost by MORE! (eg Bent for Spurs almost scored) but IF we agree that Matejovsky improves the team, by just 1% then we might have got points or goals all over the place

2-1 versus Man Utd (or the 1-1 draw we deserved) GD better by 1, or GD +2 better plus a point
a lucky 1-1 at Chelsea (we only lost 1-0) better GD +1, and a point
a 1-1 draw versus Spurs (which we deserved) better GD +1 and a point
a 2-1 defeat at Arsenal (we lost 2-0) improved GD
a 1-0 win at Wigan improved GD and two extra points.


5 games. I'm saying that IF Matejovsky improved the team, not by a lot, just a per cent or so, or by .2 of a point per game as his ten starts show, ALL we had to do was win at Wigan, or draw home to Spurs or nick a goal at Chelsea. If we had ONLY managed to lose 2-1 to Man U and Arsenal (instead of 2-0) then we would have need a 5-0 win, not 4-0 at Derby to stay up.

I

[Fezza]

Or you could say that Mareks sending off and the subsequent suspension was responsible for missing out on safety. Therefore our relegation was his fault....


Stats = b*llocks wrapped up as educated b*llocks

Our relegation last season falls firmly at SC's door and that is all there is to it.