JVdB Signs One Year Extension

[West Stand Man]

Well done yuomi, you win the internet tonight.

"He will more often pass the ball to the opposition than crisply anywhere". Fortunately, there are things called facts (see my earlier post with link to whoscored.com) that show you're somewhat adrift of reality. You can also check out the official website that shows JVdB has a passing success rate of 85.9%, better than Evans, Swift, Kelly, Bacuna. His percentage of forward passes is also higher than any of the aforementioned.

And as for yellow cards, only 1 so far this season.

If you dislike JVdB, or any other player, that's entirely your prerogative, but do try and be just a little bit objective.

He's managed .6 key passes on average in 532 minutes with 54.6 average passes.
Clement managed the same key pass stat in 230 minutes with 19.8 average passes. Perhaps unfair to compare the 2 as Clement plays further up.
Bacuna in 283 minutes has managed .8 key passes with an average of 41.3 passes per game.
Swift in 287 minutes has managed 1.8 key passes with an average of 40.8 passes per game.
Kelly in 600 minutes has managed 1.9 key passes with an average of 48.4 passes per game.

So JVDB is making more passes but much less important ones than 3 of our other options in MC.
That, to me at least, shows very clearly he is making most of his passes in our half to nearby players. The thing everyone criticises Gunter for.

Not only that but Swift and Bacuna have managed to make more impact in a little over half the game time he has had. The stats can be deceiving.

Defensive midfielder who often plays at cb making fewer attacking passes than attacking or all round midfielders shocker.

Jesus, I despair.

I have just checked and he has made fewer saves than Mannone. How useless is that?

[Ascotexgunner]

I like Joey, I don't know why, but I do. I shouldn't because at times hes completely brainless when picking up cards, and he isn't the most talented player.
His presence does something though. People can throw stats at me but when hes in midfield he seems to position himself reasonably well and he does break up attacks. Hes a bit like a rubbish Robbie Savage. Im pleased hes signed personally.

[NewCorkSeth]

Ffs Seth, the stats were brought up by someone as an objective measure of whether he loses the ball all the time because some idiot mouthed off about that.

You can't judge players solely on stats, but they're good for testing factual claims.

And I think you'll find that a middielder's role is far more than just pass success or key passes.

And at no point have I said he should be a first choice midfielder

I was trying to point out that defending him with passing stats is even more nonsensical than the claim he gives away the ball loads.

He on average manages 5 inaccurate short passes per game. So the stats don't prove the "idiot mouthing off" wrong. They show he was dead on the money.

[Snowflake Royal]

Per https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2017/september/van-den-berg-extends-royals-contract/

He's utterly useless and a total liability so this is mystifying...

Not at all. He's an imperfect player for sure and has a number of faults. But he is one of the few players this season who will play a crisp first time pass forward. He adds some bite to midfield and is usefully versatile in a pinch.

Having attended all but one of our games this season (brum) I find fault with almost all of this, imperfect player and faults excepted.

He will more often pass the ball to the opposition than crisply anywhere, plays entirely with one foot, and has only slightly more awareness than that of a blind geriatric listening to their favourite podcast.

The only bite that he adds is in getting booked for stupid challenges early on and leaving you with your heart in your mouth with every clumsy tackle he goes for thereafter.

FYI NCS

Passing comment - objectively proven wrong by the stats.

The challenges bit is also objectively wrong given he's one of our leading successful tacklers.

That was the point of the stats posted as far as I can tell. Nothing more.

/End

[BR2]

Totally underwhelmed by this and the ultimate in favouring one of your mates.
I thought in the play-off game in particular we all could see how limited, slow and reckless a player he is and he still almost always seems to get picked when fit.
His slowness of thought and movement sum up all that is wrong with our side at the moment.
A poor decision IMHO and just as poor as Gunter's 3 year extension.
These guys are holding us back IMHO -rather than being essential parts of a side with ambitions of Premier League football again that we need to offer longer contracts to in order to keep them at our club I would sooner that they just weren't around.

[Ascotexgunner]

I always find it funny when people raise stats and use it as evidence to boost their argument.
I argue with a mate who Supports Arsenal......He always keeps brining up this stat about Ozils assists, and yet with my own eyes I can see the guy has a sh*t strike rate, seems to go missing in big games, doesn't backtrack, has a terrible shots on target record, and to be fair I have no idea how "lucky" some of those assists are.
In Joeys case the only stat that worries me is the card one. He picks up too many. But as Ive said before.....I like him, I don't know why, I just do.

[Snowball]

I always find it funny when people raise stats and use it as evidence to boost their argument.
I argue with a mate who Supports Arsenal......He always keeps brining up this stat about Ozils assists, and yet with my own eyes I can see the guy has a sh*t strike rate, seems to go missing in big games, doesn't backtrack, has a terrible shots on target record, and to be fair I have no idea how "lucky" some of those assists are.
In Joeys case the only stat that worries me is the card one. He picks up too many. But as Ive said before.....I like him, I don't know why, I just do.

There is plenty of evidence that "eyeballing" subjectively is highly flawed.

Ozil is almost always one of the first on the team sheet, and keeps getting picked for Germany.

Funny that.

In general I think that 99.99999999999% of managers know a thousand times
more and see far more perceptively than the average (or insightful) fan.


Personally, I'd rather develop players like Evans, (over JVDB) even if, short term
they MIGHT produce slightly inferior results. Two years of regular play and I think
Evans would be better than JVDB at his best.

But JVDB does get the impossible tackle in now and again, and has had VG games.

But I would rather he was on the bench to be brought on when we are hanging on to a lead
and want an extra defender/defensive midfielder

[SCIAG]

Meh. Thought he was a disaster at first and he certainly has bad games, but overall he's a talented player who deserves his selection. Certainly there's lots of complaining about his absence whenever he isn't in the team.

He's managed .6 key passes on average in 532 minutes with 54.6 average passes.
Bacuna in 283 minutes has managed .8 key passes with an average of 41.3 passes per game.
Swift in 287 minutes has managed 1.8 key passes with an average of 40.8 passes per game.
...
Not only that but Swift and Bacuna have managed to make more impact in a little over half the game time he has had. The stats can be deceiving.

Sorry Seth but that's some of the worst football stat interpretation I've ever seen. You can't have 0.6 of a key pass. That means he's creating three chances every five games. Bacuna is creating four chances every five games. You can't say "his key pass to game ratio is worse than Bacuna's, and it's even worse because Bacuna hasn't played very much". You're counting Bacuna and Swift's lack of minutes twice. In that sense it reflects well on Joey that he's creating as many chances as Clement, particularly as he's maintained that over a longer period of time.

And that's before we get onto how VDB plays a more defensive position than those three. I don't think anyone wants to use him as an attacking midfielder. If you're going to criticise his creativity then use Evans as the point of comparison.

[NewCorkSeth]

Meh. Thought he was a disaster at first and he certainly has bad games, but overall he's a talented player who deserves his selection. Certainly there's lots of complaining about his absence whenever he isn't in the team.

He's managed .6 key passes on average in 532 minutes with 54.6 average passes.
Bacuna in 283 minutes has managed .8 key passes with an average of 41.3 passes per game.
Swift in 287 minutes has managed 1.8 key passes with an average of 40.8 passes per game.
...
Not only that but Swift and Bacuna have managed to make more impact in a little over half the game time he has had. The stats can be deceiving.

Sorry Seth but that's some of the worst football stat interpretation I've ever seen. You can't have 0.6 of a key pass. That means he's creating three chances every five games. Bacuna is creating four chances every five games. You can't say "his key pass to game ratio is worse than Bacuna's, and it's even worse because Bacuna hasn't played very much". You're counting Bacuna and Swift's lack of minutes twice. In that sense it reflects well on Joey that he's creating as many chances as Clement, particularly as he's maintained that over a longer period of time.

And that's before we get onto how VDB plays a more defensive position than those three. I don't think anyone wants to use him as an attacking midfielder. If you're going to criticise his creativity then use Evans as the point of comparison.

Yes I was pretty unclear there.
That's how the stats are given.
Key passes made divided by games played. Sorry I didn't do the math to put in a format you prefer.

As I said just above I only quoted the stats to show that they mean nothing. Nobody has played quite the same position as him so you can't just say "look at his passing stats, he completes so much more passes than any other midfielder" again as I said above McShane has better passing stats than him. They are both passing in roughly the same areas of the pitch and both making the same type of passes (short or backwards) but he's not doing that as well as Paul McShane.. so to say he is a "crisp" passer of the ball is nonsense when the stats show he doesn't make on average 1 key pass a game and miss hits a short pass an average of 5 times a game. Is McShane a "crisp" passer of the ball?

To be clear I wasn't counting minutes twice. I said quite plainly in less time they have a better key pass per game. Meaning they haven't had as many chances as him to play but have done better in a shorter amount of time. Theres no double counting in there.

[Snowflake Royal]

Meh. Thought he was a disaster at first and he certainly has bad games, but overall he's a talented player who deserves his selection. Certainly there's lots of complaining about his absence whenever he isn't in the team.

He's managed .6 key passes on average in 532 minutes with 54.6 average passes.
Bacuna in 283 minutes has managed .8 key passes with an average of 41.3 passes per game.
Swift in 287 minutes has managed 1.8 key passes with an average of 40.8 passes per game.
...
Not only that but Swift and Bacuna have managed to make more impact in a little over half the game time he has had. The stats can be deceiving.

Sorry Seth but that's some of the worst football stat interpretation I've ever seen. You can't have 0.6 of a key pass. That means he's creating three chances every five games. Bacuna is creating four chances every five games. You can't say "his key pass to game ratio is worse than Bacuna's, and it's even worse because Bacuna hasn't played very much". You're counting Bacuna and Swift's lack of minutes twice. In that sense it reflects well on Joey that he's creating as many chances as Clement, particularly as he's maintained that over a longer period of time.

And that's before we get onto how VDB plays a more defensive position than those three. I don't think anyone wants to use him as an attacking midfielder. If you're going to criticise his creativity then use Evans as the point of comparison.

Yes I was pretty unclear there.
That's how the stats are given.
Key passes made divided by games played. Sorry I didn't do the math to put in a format you prefer.

As I said just above I only quoted the stats to show that they mean nothing. Nobody has played quite the same position as him so you can't just say "look at his passing stats, he completes so much more passes than any other midfielder" again as I said above McShane has better passing stats than him. They are both passing in roughly the same areas of the pitch and both making the same type of passes (short or backwards) but he's not doing that as well as Paul McShane.. so to say he is a "crisp" passer of the ball is nonsense when the stats show he doesn't make on average 1 key pass a game and miss hits a short pass an average of 5 times a game. Is McShane a "crisp" passer of the ball?

To be clear I wasn't counting minutes twice. I said quite plainly in less time they have a better key pass per game. Meaning they haven't had as many chances as him to play but have done better in a shorter amount of time. Theres no double counting in there.

No one said that. Also, I don't understand why you seem to think a 'crisp' forward pass somehow equates to a key pass pass. Those stats can't tell if you if a pass was "crisp", first time, successful and forward.

You're really going off on one here.

[NewCorkSeth]

Meh. Thought he was a disaster at first and he certainly has bad games, but overall he's a talented player who deserves his selection. Certainly there's lots of complaining about his absence whenever he isn't in the team.


Sorry Seth but that's some of the worst football stat interpretation I've ever seen. You can't have 0.6 of a key pass. That means he's creating three chances every five games. Bacuna is creating four chances every five games. You can't say "his key pass to game ratio is worse than Bacuna's, and it's even worse because Bacuna hasn't played very much". You're counting Bacuna and Swift's lack of minutes twice. In that sense it reflects well on Joey that he's creating as many chances as Clement, particularly as he's maintained that over a longer period of time.

And that's before we get onto how VDB plays a more defensive position than those three. I don't think anyone wants to use him as an attacking midfielder. If you're going to criticise his creativity then use Evans as the point of comparison.

Yes I was pretty unclear there.
That's how the stats are given.
Key passes made divided by games played. Sorry I didn't do the math to put in a format you prefer.

As I said just above I only quoted the stats to show that they mean nothing. Nobody has played quite the same position as him so you can't just say "look at his passing stats, he completes so much more passes than any other midfielder" again as I said above McShane has better passing stats than him. They are both passing in roughly the same areas of the pitch and both making the same type of passes (short or backwards) but he's not doing that as well as Paul McShane.. so to say he is a "crisp" passer of the ball is nonsense when the stats show he doesn't make on average 1 key pass a game and miss hits a short pass an average of 5 times a game. Is McShane a "crisp" passer of the ball?

To be clear I wasn't counting minutes twice. I said quite plainly in less time they have a better key pass per game. Meaning they haven't had as many chances as him to play but have done better in a shorter amount of time. Theres no double counting in there.

No one said that. Also, I don't understand why you seem to think a 'crisp' forward pass somehow equates to a key pass pass. Those stats can't tell if you if a pass was "crisp", first time, successful and forward.

You're really going off on one here.

Marcus Crassus said it. He brought up the other midfielders I'm being slaughtered for comparing him to.

What the stats indicate, given his position and our tactics is that the majority of his passes are backwards, sideways and in our own half.
I don't recall a single first time forward pass by him this season. You name the game and I'll re-watch it tonight to find the pass.

[SCIAG]

Meh. Thought he was a disaster at first and he certainly has bad games, but overall he's a talented player who deserves his selection. Certainly there's lots of complaining about his absence whenever he isn't in the team.

He's managed .6 key passes on average in 532 minutes with 54.6 average passes.
Bacuna in 283 minutes has managed .8 key passes with an average of 41.3 passes per game.
Swift in 287 minutes has managed 1.8 key passes with an average of 40.8 passes per game.
...
Not only that but Swift and Bacuna have managed to make more impact in a little over half the game time he has had. The stats can be deceiving.

Sorry Seth but that's some of the worst football stat interpretation I've ever seen. You can't have 0.6 of a key pass. That means he's creating three chances every five games. Bacuna is creating four chances every five games. You can't say "his key pass to game ratio is worse than Bacuna's, and it's even worse because Bacuna hasn't played very much". You're counting Bacuna and Swift's lack of minutes twice. In that sense it reflects well on Joey that he's creating as many chances as Clement, particularly as he's maintained that over a longer period of time.

And that's before we get onto how VDB plays a more defensive position than those three. I don't think anyone wants to use him as an attacking midfielder. If you're going to criticise his creativity then use Evans as the point of comparison.

Yes I was pretty unclear there.
That's how the stats are given.
Key passes made divided by games played. Sorry I didn't do the math to put in a format you prefer.

No, that isn't the issue. Apologies if I was unclear. The issue is that you counted Bacuna's "fewer minutes" twice.

Good statistics: "Bacuna has more key passes per match"
Inaccurate but would be good if true: "Bacuna has more key passes"
Meaningless garbage: "Bacuna has more key passes per match, and it's even more impressive because he hasn't had much time to make those key passes per minute".

At the end of your post you effectively cited Bacuna's key passes per match, per minute.

[Hound]

urgh, what a horrible thread

[Snowflake Royal]

Yes I was pretty unclear there.
That's how the stats are given.
Key passes made divided by games played. Sorry I didn't do the math to put in a format you prefer.

As I said just above I only quoted the stats to show that they mean nothing. Nobody has played quite the same position as him so you can't just say "look at his passing stats, he completes so much more passes than any other midfielder" again as I said above McShane has better passing stats than him. They are both passing in roughly the same areas of the pitch and both making the same type of passes (short or backwards) but he's not doing that as well as Paul McShane.. so to say he is a "crisp" passer of the ball is nonsense when the stats show he doesn't make on average 1 key pass a game and miss hits a short pass an average of 5 times a game. Is McShane a "crisp" passer of the ball?

To be clear I wasn't counting minutes twice. I said quite plainly in less time they have a better key pass per game. Meaning they haven't had as many chances as him to play but have done better in a shorter amount of time. Theres no double counting in there.

No one said that. Also, I don't understand why you seem to think a 'crisp' forward pass somehow equates to a key pass pass. Those stats can't tell if you if a pass was "crisp", first time, successful and forward.

You're really going off on one here.

Marcus Crassus said it. He brought up the other midfielders I'm being slaughtered for comparing him to.

What the stats indicate, given his position and our tactics is that the majority of his passes are backwards, sideways and in our own half.
I don't recall a single first time forward pass by him this season. You name the game and I'll re-watch it tonight to find the pass.

Fulham, for a start shortly before our goal.
No. MC didn't say that. You're arguing with something that wasn't said.

Here are the facts

https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/94/Show/England-Reading

Well done yuomi, you win the internet tonight.

"He will more often pass the ball to the opposition than crisply anywhere". Fortunately, there are things called facts (see my earlier post with link to whoscored.com) that show you're somewhat adrift of reality. You can also check out the official website that shows JVdB has a passing success rate of 85.9%, better than Evans, Swift, Kelly, Bacuna. His percentage of forward passes is also higher than any of the aforementioned.

And as for yellow cards, only 1 so far this season.

If you dislike JVdB, or any other player, that's entirely your prerogative, but do try and be just a little bit objective.

As MC said, you can objectively see in the stats that Berg does not pass to the opposition more than anywhere. I'm not sure where the stats on the OS are, but for Whoscored, you can also see his pass accuracy is better than those mentioned. Can't see anything to do with forward passes anywhere, so not sure about that. You're the one who raised key passes.

[NewCorkSeth]

Meh. Thought he was a disaster at first and he certainly has bad games, but overall he's a talented player who deserves his selection. Certainly there's lots of complaining about his absence whenever he isn't in the team.


Sorry Seth but that's some of the worst football stat interpretation I've ever seen. You can't have 0.6 of a key pass. That means he's creating three chances every five games. Bacuna is creating four chances every five games. You can't say "his key pass to game ratio is worse than Bacuna's, and it's even worse because Bacuna hasn't played very much". You're counting Bacuna and Swift's lack of minutes twice. In that sense it reflects well on Joey that he's creating as many chances as Clement, particularly as he's maintained that over a longer period of time.

And that's before we get onto how VDB plays a more defensive position than those three. I don't think anyone wants to use him as an attacking midfielder. If you're going to criticise his creativity then use Evans as the point of comparison.

Yes I was pretty unclear there.
That's how the stats are given.
Key passes made divided by games played. Sorry I didn't do the math to put in a format you prefer.

No, that isn't the issue. Apologies if I was unclear. The issue is that you counted Bacuna's "fewer minutes" twice.

Good statistics: "Bacuna has more key passes per match"
Inaccurate but would be good if true: "Bacuna has more key passes"
Meaningless garbage: "Bacuna has more key passes per match, and it's even more impressive because he hasn't had much time to make those key passes per minute".

At the end of your post you effectively cited Bacuna's key passes per match, per minute.

Haha I'm so confused. Let me try state clearly what I thought I expressed well.

Bacuna has managed in 3.14 (283 minutes) games an average of .8 key passes per game.
Van Den Berg has managed in 5.91 (532 minutes) games and average of .6 key passes per game
Bacuna has played less time than Van Den Berg but has made more of an impact than him.
Is that ok to say? I'm really struggling to make my point here.

All that just to make the point that pointing to Van Den Bergs stats does nothing to help his cause.

Look I get that they shouldnt be compared as they play different positions but whathisname said he has a better passing rate than (insert list of midfielders) and i was just trying to show that his high passing success rate doesnt matter as hes not making the same types of passes.

[NewCorkSeth]

No one said that. Also, I don't understand why you seem to think a 'crisp' forward pass somehow equates to a key pass pass. Those stats can't tell if you if a pass was "crisp", first time, successful and forward.

You're really going off on one here.

Marcus Crassus said it. He brought up the other midfielders I'm being slaughtered for comparing him to.

What the stats indicate, given his position and our tactics is that the majority of his passes are backwards, sideways and in our own half.
I don't recall a single first time forward pass by him this season. You name the game and I'll re-watch it tonight to find the pass.

Fulham, for a start shortly before our goal.
No. MC didn't say that. You're arguing with something that wasn't said.

Here are the facts

https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/94/Show/England-Reading

Well done yuomi, you win the internet tonight.

"He will more often pass the ball to the opposition than crisply anywhere". Fortunately, there are things called facts (see my earlier post with link to whoscored.com) that show you're somewhat adrift of reality. You can also check out the official website that shows JVdB has a passing success rate of 85.9%, better than Evans, Swift, Kelly, Bacuna. His percentage of forward passes is also higher than any of the aforementioned.

And as for yellow cards, only 1 so far this season.

If you dislike JVdB, or any other player, that's entirely your prerogative, but do try and be just a little bit objective.

As MC said, you can objectively see in the stats that Berg does not pass to the opposition more than anywhere. I'm not sure where the stats on the OS are, but for Whoscored, you can also see his pass accuracy is better than those mentioned. Can't see anything to do with forward passes anywhere, so not sure about that. You're the one who raised key passes.

Jesus I dont know whats wrong with me today I'm doing an awful job getting my point across.
He said "You can also check out the official website that shows JVdB has a passing success rate of 85.9%, better than Evans, Swift, Kelly, Bacuna. His percentage of forward passes is also higher than any of the aforementioned."

The "JVdB has a passing success rate of 85.9%, better than.." is not that different a sentiment from my quote of "look at his passing states, he completes so much more passes than any other midfielder"
Those are pretty much identical sentences just worded differently.

[bcubed]

Totally underwhelmed by this and the ultimate in favouring one of your mates.
I thought in the play-off game in particular we all could see how limited, slow and reckless a player he is and he still almost always seems to get picked when fit.
His slowness of thought and movement sum up all that is wrong with our side at the moment.
A poor decision IMHO and just as poor as Gunter's 3 year extension.
These guys are holding us back IMHO -rather than being essential parts of a side with ambitions of Premier League football again that we need to offer longer contracts to in order to keep them at our club I would sooner that they just weren't around.

Can't fault any of that (apart from criticism of Gunter)

I had wondered if it was just me who thought JVDB was such a liability in the play offs. Was so far off the pace clumsy and clueless

[ladida_gunner_graham]

Here are the facts

https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/94/Show/England-Reading

I quite like certain parts of The whoscored.com website but the player stats are sometimes a little hard to fathom. What are they measuring to have Blackett and Swift as our 3rd and 4th highest rated players this season?

[cornflake]

I like Joey, I don't know why, but I do. I shouldn't because at times hes completely brainless when picking up cards, and he isn't the most talented player.
His presence does something though. People can throw stats at me but when hes in midfield he seems to position himself reasonably well and he does break up attacks. Hes a bit like a rubbish Robbie Savage. Im pleased hes signed personally.

+ 1

[bcubed]

Totally underwhelmed by this and the ultimate in favouring one of your mates.
I thought in the play-off game in particular we all could see how limited, slow and reckless a player he is and he still almost always seems to get picked when fit.
His slowness of thought and movement sum up all that is wrong with our side at the moment.
A poor decision IMHO and just as poor as Gunter's 3 year extension.
These guys are holding us back IMHO -rather than being essential parts of a side with ambitions of Premier League football again that we need to offer longer contracts to in order to keep them at our club I would sooner that they just weren't around.

Can't fault any of that (apart from criticism of Gunter)

I had wondered if it was just me who thought JVDB was such a liability in the play offs. Was so far off the pace clumsy and clueless

Forgot to add slow. My God he's slow!