5 - 2

[Alan Partridge]

With regards to Birmingham I think they will improve now McSheffrey is fit, he will give them natural width on the left which is something they badly lack.

What I would also say is The Sky commentators cream themselves over Lee Carsley, now he's a decent old campaigner in the middle of the park, a better version of Gunnarsson but they both have 1 thing in common, they are incredibly slow. I heard Gary Birtles (dump) wax lyrically on Sunday about how 'essential Carsley is to the way Birmingham play' and I thought you know what Birtles, I think you may have stumbled on why Birmingham aren't very fluent and struggle to score goals.

Carsley in a 5 man midfield at Everton was fine because he would just sit in there, do his job with minimul fuss and allow the likes of Cahill and Pienaaer to bomb on with their youth and pace and make things happen.

Now Carsley is in a 4 at Birmingham, he slows everything down, the passing is slow, the movement is slow, he doesn't get forward as it's not in his nature. It's absolutely no wonder Birmingham despite having better individual players than anyone else in the league are struggling for that dynamic style ofplay to really open teams up. I watched them Sunday and whilst they were ruined by 1 particularly woeful refereeing decision, they didn't deserve anything. Sheffield Utd's backline isn't the quickest but Birmingham never really got round them enough, they did once and they scored, but the whole lack of pace and zip I suppose is what i'm trying to say throughout that side was evident throughout, and that came mainly from their lack of pace and urgency in the middle of midfield.

[Yellowcoat]

AP - McSheffrey has been loaned to Forest so will not be improving the Birmingham side!

[Negative_Jeff]

Jim Smith played five at the back and two in midfield (Mad Dog being one of them) in the mid eighties at QPR!

[Alan Partridge]

AP - McSheffrey has been loaned to Forest so will not be improving the Birmingham side!

I can only assume it's to sharpen his fitness up but I am still surprised by that!

[handbags_harris]

On the original subject of the thread, isn't it a better thing to win a game before the last 5 minutes than scrape by 1-0? Grinding out wins is a good quality to have, obviously, but a better team wins games earlier than the last 5 minutes...

[Focher]

ive got a sneaky feeling a certain Dave Kitson might pop up on loan there seeing as Phillips is injured and Mcsheffrey on loan. Just a thought.

[The whole year inn]

Brum have picked up 8 points with result changing 80+ minute goals.
RFC have picked up 4.
Not much difference.

Reading got an 87th minute pen at Watford to grab 2-2 (Thanks Shane for winning the pen), two goals in the last six minutes to beat Norwich,(thanks to Shane for winning the penalty 2 minutes after he came on, and then scoring himself two minutes later) a NINETY-SIXTH MINUTE goal to draw with Cardiff, and 84th minute goal (Thanks Shane) to get 1-1 at Southampton and an 81st minute winner (Thanks Shane) at Sheffield Wednesday


I make that SEVEN points grabbed at the death, and I fancy Fedders goal must be the latest points-winner?

Looking it like that, Long does win the Long vs Lita argument pretty convincingly and I am very pro-Lita

I think the fact Shane Long looks more like an athlete than a footballer works against him

[Y25]

So if we are desperate for a goal the answer is to put long on for the last ten in every remaining game this season!!!!

[Snowball]

Can I have 20?

[Ian Royal]

So if we are desperate for a goal the answer is to put long on for the last ten in every remaining game this season!!!!

Longs league sub appearance, goal scoring record suggests that might get us 1.5 more goals this season. I think we may need another plan to win the other 10 games (being generous and rounding up).

23 - 3

We'd be much better off starting him given his 1 goal in 3 starts. That will net us 4(yes FOUR) in those twelve games. Of course if you factor in cup starts that goes down to 1.7. Oh dear.

Of course, all of the above is bollocks.

[Snowball]

Brum have picked up 8 points with result changing 80+ minute goals.
RFC have picked up 4.
Not much difference.

Reading got an 87th minute pen at Watford to grab 2-2 (Thanks Shane for winning the pen), two goals in the last six minutes to beat Norwich,([b]thanks to Shane for winning the penalty 2 minutes after he came on[/b], and then scoring himself two minutes later) a NINETY-SIXTH MINUTE goal to draw with Cardiff, and 84th minute goal (Thanks Shane) to get 1-1 at Southampton and an 81st minute winner (Thanks Shane) at Sheffield Wednesday


I make that SEVEN points grabbed at the death, and I fancy Fedders goal must be the latest points-winner?


1 2-2 WATFORD 87th
2 2-0 NORWICH 84 & 86th
1 1-1 CARDIFF 96th
1 1-1 SAINTS 84th
2 2-1 WEDNESDAY 81st

Is a penalty given for handball ever really won by a player...

Not specifically and directly, but attacker-pressure can have a strong input.

It was Noel Hunt's pressure that got us the OG against Wolves. He gets no formal credit for that.

Is a penalty for a bad tackle ever "REALLY" won by the attacker? No, the defender can let Ronaldo through on goal. Shame we say "Ronaldo won a penalty" isn't it?


I suppose you think the Watford pen had nothing to do with Long, too?

With five minutes left, sub Shane Long showed a clean pair of heels inside the box ans was hacked down by Eustace, a stonewall penalty and an easy decision.


And he obviously had no input into the win against Norwich

It was not quite desperation time, but we were hugely relieved when winning and scoring a penalty on 84 minutes.

Long battled with City skipper Mark Fotheringham inside the area, and the Canary tried to get his arm in front of our striker, but instead saw the ball hit him on the upper part of his arm for a penalty, a pretty soft one at that.

Fotheringham may have had a case for a nudge in the back from Shane, but referee Trevor Kettle judged in our favour. Stephen Hunt stepped up, and keeper David Marshall got a hand on it when diving right but thankfully it snuck in.

Then the result was quickly out of sight when we added a second. Henry did really well to take possession and get out wide, then whipped in a fabulous cross, matched by a cracking header from LONG at the near post.



Our subs had made a real impact and helped change the game in our favour. It was not pretty, but the three points were most welcome after a scrappy and edgy affair.

[Snowball]

So if we are desperate for a goal the answer is to put long on for the last ten in every remaining game this season!!!!

Longs league sub appearance, goal scoring record suggests that might get us 1.5 more goals this season. I think we may need another plan to win the other 10 games (being generous and rounding up).

23 - 3 We'd be much better off starting him given his 1 goal in 3 starts. That will net us 4(yes FOUR) in those twelve games. Of course if you factor in cup starts that goes down to 1.7. Oh dear.

Careful, IR, that's statistics, that is.

Long, if he only maintains his record this season, would get a goal every 179 minutes (180 to you).
Thus if he came on at half-time every game for the next 12 games = 12 x 45 minutes = 3 x 180 minutes = 3 goals

We know he gained us 2 points at Sheffield (scored the winning goal AND cleared off the line)
We know he gained us 2 points v Norwich, (winning 84th min penalty and scoring in the 86th)
We know he gained us a point at Southampton with his late header
We know he gained us a point at Watford when he won a late late penalty

He gained us at least these points.

That's 6 points in 3+23 (approx 720 minutes) If he were to play every second half from here in that's 540 minutes

(540/720) * 6 = 4.5 POINTS. These are not mere points, these are EXTRA points


"This is not mere extra points these are S + L points"

[Snowball]

Shane's total minutes (compared to, for example, Kevin Doyle) are few.

Here are goal contributions to Reading FC, (EXCLUDING OG's) almost half coming from Doyle-Hunt

30.00% Kevin Doyle
16.67% Noel Hunt
10.00% Stephen Hunt
08.33% Kalifa Cisse
06.67% Shane Long
05.00% Ibrahima Sonko
05.00% Andre Bikey
03.33% Brynjar Gunnarsson
01.67% Leroy Lita
01.67% Adam Federici
01.67% James Harper
01.67% Ivar Ingimarsson
01.67% Jimmy Kebe
01.67% Chris Armstrong


AND THIS IS THAT CONTRIBUTION WHEN TIME ON THE PITCH IS FACTORED IN

03 03 26.31% Ibrahima Sonko It may well be we will owe a debt to Sonks!
06 04 17.54% Shane Long
34 18 13.93% Kevin Doyle
25 10 10.53% Noel Hunt
20 05 06.58% Kalifa Cisse
14 03 05.64% Andre Bikey
34 06 04.64% Stephen Hunt
12 02 04.39% Brynjar Gunnarsson
06 01 04.39% Leroy Lita
12 01 02.19% Adam Federici
24 01 01.10% James Harper
26 01 01.01% Ivar Ingimarsson
29 01 00.91% Jimmy Kebe
31 01 00.85% Chris Armstrong



100.00%

[readingbedding]

Wolves own goal for us was initially due to Doyle (again) seemingly lost causes.

[Ian Royal]

Is it just me that see most of the first two posts by snowball there as irrelevent nonsense? The first one appears to be arguing with no one seeing as most of what he's saying has nothing to do with what Stranded has actually said.

[Snowball]

Wolves own goal for us was initially due to Doyle (again) seemingly lost causes.

Wasn't it Noel Hunt?

[Ian Royal]

Wolves own goal for us was initially due to Doyle (again) seemingly lost causes.

Wasn't it Noel Hunt?

No Doyle ran the ball down in the corner, won it and passed it to stretch to cross in towards Hunt. Followed by a poor header from Collins into the net.

So in a very legitimate way you could attribute the creation of that goal to Doyle. Without him we wouldn't have had the ball to cross in the first place. One of the reasons why he's worth playing even considering his goals have dried up a fair bit since Xmas.