In praise of Shane Long...

[LoyalRoyal22]

Long has a better all round game than Doyle, and he gets his head up, and is also quicker. And scores more goals.

[Terminal Boardom]

Long has a better all round game than Doyle, and he gets his head up, and is also quicker. And scores more goals.

What does help for Shane is that he is the focal point of our attack. 5 years back, we had the likes of Doyle, Kitson and Lita battling regularly for 2 starting places. I am delighted with the leaps and bounds that Shane has made. Long may it continue.

[Royal With Cheese]

Long has a better all round game than Doyle, and he gets his head up, and is also quicker. And scores more goals.

What does help for Shane is that he is the focal point of our attack. 5 years back, we had the likes of Doyle, Kitson and Lita battling regularly for 2 starting places. I am delighted with the leaps and bounds that Shane has made. Long may it continue.

Arguably TB this should be taken into consideration in the statistics that Snowball produces?

[facaldaqui]

Long has a better all round game than Doyle, and he gets his head up, and is also quicker. And scores more goals.

Nothing against Long, but how short people's memories are. It's the same with those who want Federici dumped for McCarthy, without further ado. Perhaps they are the same people who wanted Hahnemann dumped for Federici when Federici came in and had a few good games. If anyone has an all-round game it is Doyle. But neither Doyle nor Long are likely to score prolifically in the premiership.

[Ian Royal]

Long has a better all round game than Doyle, and he gets his head up, and is also quicker. And scores more goals.

What does help for Shane is that he is the focal point of our attack. 5 years back, we had the likes of Doyle, Kitson and Lita battling regularly for 2 starting places. I am delighted with the leaps and bounds that Shane has made. Long may it continue.

Arguably TB this should be taken into consideration in the statistics that Snowball produces?

Statistics can't tell you who is the better player. They can tell you who has the best goals to minutes or starts or whatever ratio. They can't tell you who is better, because it's utterly subjective and involves far far too many nigh on impossible ot quantify variables.

Snowball doesn't understand this and is unable to enter into a reasoned debate about the different players strengths and weaknesses. He just posts stats which represent a tiny proportion of the picture as if that somehow over rules everything else than can be said.

Understand this, don't get involved in the numbers argument and life is easier.

[Terminal Boardom]

Statistics can't tell you who is the better player. They can tell you who has the best goals to minutes or starts or whatever ratio. They can't tell you who is better, because it's utterly subjective and involves far far too many nigh on impossible ot quantify variables.

Snowball doesn't understand this and is unable to enter into a reasoned debate about the different players strengths and weaknesses. He just posts stats which represent a tiny proportion of the picture as if that somehow over rules everything else than can be said.

Understand this, don't get involved in the numbers argument and life is easier.

But Ian, it's fun and it makes me laugh

[Ian Royal]

That's what I thought originally. It's a slippery slope TB.

[Royal Rother]

You might well think he has but to my knowledge Snowball has NEVER said that stats illustrate X is a better player than Y.

But he has illustrated very effectively that Kebe and Long (and Harte to a lesser extent) were CONTRIBUTING a helluva lot more than people gave them credit for. And loh and behold, they are now fans' favourites.

[brendywendy]

^^^^^^^

[Royal With Cheese]

You might well think he has but to my knowledge Snowball has NEVER said that stats illustrate X is a better player than Y.

So you're saying that Snowball thinks Doyle is better then Long?

[Royal Rother]

I believe he has said that many many times.

[Snowball]

Do I say:

Long is a better all-round player than Doyle?

Long has greater ball-skill than Doyle?

Long's passing is better than Doyle?

Long's tactical awareness is better than Doyle?

Long's space-making is better than Doyle?

Long's running off the ball is better than Doyle?

Long's tackling back is better than Doyle?

Long defending corners is better than Doyle?


ALL I have said is the absolute fact that Long scores more goals per minutes than Doyle overall, Long scores more goals per minute against Premiership opposition.

Long has also equaled the scoring record of Kitson in a single season, exceeded Doyle's and has 8 Championship games to get the single goal that will make him the clear top-scorer in any season since 2002. TEN seasons. That is pretty damn impressive for a player who has only just turned 24.

Doyle, I love the bloke, but he got his first 18 league goals in the 106-point team, and his second 18 goals in the season we tried to bounce back, when we still had an almost-Premiership side. I don't believe Doyle would have score 20+2+3 = 25 goals this season for Reading and Ireland. I believe Shane Long has matured into a more valuable striker than Doyle.

[Snowball]

Doyle is a better player.

I'd love to see the two of the reunited next season if we get promoted and Wolves go down.

Agreed, but 4-3-3 with Long on the right, and Hunt/Manset the other striker

[readingbedding]

Swing and a miss

[Ian Royal]

I believe he has said that many many times.

Funny how he keeps bringing in his stats whenever anyone says Doyle is a better player kinda implies disagreement. But then he rarely ever actually gives a real opinion and hides behind just posting "facts" so he can always wriggle out.

Long and Kebe are fan favourites with many now, because they have been delivering, Kebe to a lesser extent since the beginning of this season compared to the end of last. When they weren't delivering they were rightly criticised, unfortunately the criticisms were often overly harsh or vehement.

For Long that would probably be because he had been around for ages without stepping up, despite briefly showing that he might a couple of times, only to fail again. That was massively frustrating. Certainly as someone who didn't rate how Long was performing, in hindsight I think he'd have got more support from me if it hadn't been for the previous couple of seasons where he'd shown good form just before Coppell left, only to be arse under Rodgers (mainly due to bulking up way too much) and then ending well under McDermott only to frustrate yet again at the start of this season. People only have so much patience. Certainly I have a pretty limited supply in those circumstances. Especially having seen him lose the ball pretty much every time he touched it in a few games when he was just starting to be asked to step into the first team role proper.

Personally I always thought Kebe was extremely skillful and could be an ace player but he was frustrating as hell messing up chance after chance when he should have done better. Under McDermott he seems to have found himself, and personally I think its because he's given free reign to play his game, rather than what seemed a more traditional and restricted winger's role under Coppell.

[Royal Rother]

I repeat, all Snowball did was show, through the use of meticulously researched stats that nobody else had ever considered compiling, that the contribution of Kebe and Long were far more significant than people were suggesting.... And since then, despite the vitriolic responses from many quarters towards those stats and the man himself, both players have become stars of the team and nobody doubts their contribution anymore.

Whatever you think of the way Snowball conducts himself on the board those are indisputable FACTS and suggests that he has more insight into the game than 99% of the contributors on the board. Yet only about 3 of us have given him credit for that, which is pretty pathetic to be honest.

Love you as I do Ian, he was right and you (and many many others) were wrong.

[cmonurz]

I repeat, all Snowball did was show, through the use of meticulously researched stats that nobody else had ever considered compiling, that the contribution of Kebe and Long were far more significant than people were suggesting.

That completely and utterly misrepresents what Snowball actually did, initially.

[Royal Rother]

That's strange. I'm very clear in my recollection of what he did when he came on here which was to big up Jimmy Kebe's contributions to the team at a time when he was being lambasted week-in week-out by the vast majority of this board. And then he moved on to Shane Long's contribution at a time when he was receiving similar treatment...

What do you think he did?

[Snowball]

cmonurz about to rewrite history.

[Snowball]

Snowball will probably dredge up some useless stats proving that we're better off without Rasiak and Sigurdson.

Well I'm sorry any clown can see that we're desperately missing their goal threat at the moment, as quite simply Long, Hunt and Church are NOT goal scorers, they are all support strikers for an out and out goal scorer.

Unless McDermott does something about this, we could go down as confidence will soon disappear.

41 (01) 3,510 Minutes 22 Goals, 7 Assists = A Goal every 160 Minutes
20 (12) 1,869 Minutes 08 Goals, 7 Assists = A Goal every 234 Minutes
15 (23) 1,541 Minutes 04 Goals, 1 Assists = A Goal every 385 Minutes

34 Goals and 15 Assists and there are still 8 games to go