Back from the game - Cardiff City

[Snowball]

Fairy Nuff, "rz" but understand that Church TODAY is 21 Years 336 Days old
just 19 days older today than when Doyle first played for Reading

To be exact, why not go back 19 Days from today and that has Doyle and Church identical ages.

CHURCH Exact same age as Doyle when Doyle first played for RFC (Church already has 18 Domestic goals prior to this day)

16 SUB Burnley Scored 1 Goal
35 SUB Doncaster Scored 1 goal (winning goal)
29 SUB QPR (Assist for Long Goal)
69 START Cardiff (Assist for Hunt Goal)

Sheesh, not bad for a four-goal run

So the comparison, age-for-age is from today

Here is Doyle's start

06-08-2005 09 Mins START Plymouth
09-08-2005 07 Mins SUB Brighton
20-08-2005 28 Mins SUB Millwall
23-08-2005 71 Mins START Swansea Lge Cup
27-08-2005 02 Mins SUB Watford
29-08-2005 51 Mins SUB Burnley (Scored First Goal)


Would you not say that Church's last four appearances (plus today) rank at least equally with Doyle's start for RFC?

Two goals and two assists in 1 (3) appearances?

[SLAMMED]

[Ian Royal]

Just watched the game. Really good match but we faded a lot in the second half and Cardiff took control. Happened a good 5-10 minutes before our subsititions as well.

I've been saying for a while I'd be interested to see Church in the hole and whilst he certainly has room to improve on that performance - he did plenty of sloppy things and should really have buried his chance - I think he looked very promising there.

Hunt and especially Long were also guilty of missing gilt edged chances and Mills could have done better a couple of times.

Very impressed with Long first half, he and Church linked very well. I think we need a striker on the bench, so on that performance I think it would be Hunt that missed out for one of Tabb, HRK or Antonio to play wide. Despite the goal. I still think he's better than Long, but I'm not sure if he'd play the front man role as well for our overall game.

Thought Karacan was immense most of the game but went back to his old problem of just aimlessly hitting balls up and into the air towards the end of the second half. They're just too easy to defend against.

Very unlucky not to win. We should have scored at least 3, but then I'd say Cardiff probably deserved at least one goal out of the game.

[cmonurz]

Snowball, I'd say that:

a) On face value, yes the stats match up well for Church, however...

b) It's another irrelevant comparison as it takes (in this instance) age as the common factor, not total league experience. It basically ignores their career up to that date; and if I'm not mistaken Doyle was scoring a few in the Irish league before he came to Reading, and....

c) As I've consistently argued, four (or six, or any other handful of) games is not a big enough sample.

And as I've already said, it's a stat that ignores every aspect of their game except goalscoring.

[Snowball]

Snowball, I'd say that:

a) On face value, yes the stats match up well for Church, however...

b) It's another irrelevant comparison as it takes (in this instance) age as the common factor, not total league experience. It basically ignores their career up to that date; and if I'm not mistaken Doyle was scoring a few in the Irish league before he came to Reading, and....

c) As I've consistently argued, four (or six, or any other handful of) games is not a big enough sample.

And as I've already said, it's a stat that ignores every aspect of their game except goalscoring.

I'm not quite sure how St Patrick's Athletic stacks up to be honest. Ten appearances ZERO goals, but then at the dubious level of Cork City he managed 25 goals in 76 appearances, so that's 25 in 86 appearances, overall, right?

Not really sure why you are playing into my hands, but that means, that when Doyle arrived at Reading, he was the age Simon Church was 2 days before the Reading-Burnley game this year and had had two-season's worth of experience, some of it at a debatable level. That makes them very, very similar if you piece together all Church's little loan spells and his now 37 games at Championship level - 20 Goals in all - that versus 25 goals in The Irish League.

My point is the comparison starts NOW. Church as of TODAY versus Doyle's first season (in, let's face it, the best-ever RFC team)... The question is, will Church get another 17 goals in his next 47+2 games, (even without a little help from Kitson, Shorey, Sidwell, Little, Convey etc) Doyle played 51+2 games that season in all.


Will he?

YES HE WILL


That's a scoring rate of 1 in 2.88. He currently is averaging 1 in 2.5


Print that off and tell me how I did the end of next season (severe injuries notwithstanding, of course)

[cmonurz]

That's all well and good and have to admit to not fully appreciating the extent of Church's experience.

Can we stop all the one-upmanship though? I'm not 'playing into your hands', or anything of the sort. This isn't a 'battle', it's just a discussion.

And you have, once again, completely ignored by point that your analysis focuses solely on goals. Am I allowed to bring all-round play into the argument at season's end?

[Snowball]

That's all well and good and have to admit to not fully appreciating the extent of Church's experience.

Can we stop all the one-upmanship though? I'm not 'playing into your hands', or anything of the sort. This isn't a 'battle', it's just a discussion.

And you have, once again, completely ignored by point that your analysis focuses solely on goals. Am I allowed to bring all-round play into the argument at season's end?

Goals are countable

Assists are countable

The rest is opinion and unprovable.

And. sadly, Doyle (who I have always admired as a player) has a halo around him, so "objective opinions" about KD are very rare indeed.

His stats are slowly waning. His 11th consecutive league game today with still not a single goal. What was that about goal-droughts?

[Svlad Cjelli]

Just to get away from the interminable stats, you may enjoy this, posted onto a Cardiff message board after the game :

I love Reading FC

Its so middle class. From Lord Farquart the half time announcer, the Waitrose advertising, fans popping cans of pringles and sipping pimms, its all so nice. Well dressed fans scurrying back to their Range Rovers - you think they would be terrified if they woke up and found themselves in Canton after a game.

Even their abuse was very pleasant - they say you're sh1t so nicely.

I'm also pretty sure when Graeme Murty came on as their half time legend they were singing 'Murty is a naughty boy'

[floyd__streete]

Just to get away from the interminable stats, you may enjoy this, posted onto a Cardiff message board after the game :

I love Reading FC

Its so middle class. From Lord Farquart the half time announcer, the Waitrose advertising, fans popping cans of pringles and sipping pimms, its all so nice. Well dressed fans scurrying back to their Range Rovers - you think they would be terrified if they woke up and found themselves in Canton after a game.

Even their abuse was very pleasant - they say you're sh1t so nicely.

I'm also pretty sure when Graeme Murty came on as their half time legend they were singing 'Murty is a naughty boy'

Beacuse they're so welsh and terrifying and proud of it I suppose. Having watched the welsh derby the other week I can't say as their new place sounded particularly intimidating for what is undoubtedly their 'cup final', so welcome to your own future. Boyo.

[Wimb]

That's all well and good and have to admit to not fully appreciating the extent of Church's experience.

Can we stop all the one-upmanship though? I'm not 'playing into your hands', or anything of the sort. This isn't a 'battle', it's just a discussion.

And you have, once again, completely ignored by point that your analysis focuses solely on goals. Am I allowed to bring all-round play into the argument at season's end?

Goals are countable

Assists are countable

The rest is opinion and unprovable.

And. sadly, Doyle (who I have always admired as a player) has a halo around him, so "objective opinions" about KD are very rare indeed.

His stats are slowly waning. His 11th consecutive league game today with still not a single goal. What was that about goal-droughts?

If you refuse to analyse and debate the intangibles then what are you doing on a 'fourm' go start a stats blog.

[Snowball]

Never said we can't debate intangibles, just that it's circular and pretty much meaningless

[Wimb]

Never said we can't debate intangibles, just that it's circular and pretty much meaningless

No more meaningless then stats that can be manipulated every bit as much as an opinion is it?

If it were only stats we looked, for example at goals from open play, you'd say Shane Long was an awful striker because he's scored once. We all know he's better then that stat suggests now don't we?

Stats make it look like Church was twice as good a player then didn't it?

04 07 = 06 games 10 chances 01 goals (1 goal in 10.0 chances) Church
11 00 = 11 games 19 chances 01 goals (1 goal in 19.0 chances) Long

Noel Hunt - 2 goals from open play from 2 games, twice as many as Shane Long in under 1/4 of the starts.

Ian Harte - More goals this year then Shane Long

But Snowball who do you think should play up front?

[Ian Royal]

Snowball, you're one relative newcomer to a website that has been running for about 15 years or more now and has a membership of thousands and certainly a couple of score regular posters. What makes you think you can dictate the terms of the discussions on here?