The Snowball stat thread

[Snowball]

What the first stats most illustrate is that our starting strikers are needing at least four full games to notch a goal. Thank god we signed Roberts!

That's kind of a false statistic, I think, and coming from team set-up and team-orders.

We are set up NOT TO CONCEDE and for the most part haven't really gone for it in the first half.
Gone are the days when it was The Charge of the Light Brigade from minute zero.

And if the strikers (eg Church) are as accurate (% shots on target) and lethal (%goals from shots)
(which they are) it's more to do with team-orders/style of chances being made.

We have made 42 fewer chances this season. If those chances had been made and had all fallen to Church
at his hit-rate he'd be on 16-17 goals already! (If you merely extrapolate the stats.)

Other thing to remember is that Le Fondre (who equally I expected to have a better rate than Church) has suffered for the style of football we have played.
He is a penalty area goal poacher, and we at times we haven’t been creating many chances. That will have impacted on his ‘scoring rate’ more so imho than
Church or Hunt, who are more willing runners around the 30 yard line and on the wings.

I don't have much recollection of Le Fondre needing to shoot from 25 yards
and the fact is he has managed to get 34 shots/headers off in 1545 Minutes,
a chance every 45 minutes played, or 2 chances per game. If Alf was scoring
1 in 4 (as Church) he would be scoring a goal every 180 minutes.

It's possible (God knows how it could be measured) that the chances are not quite as good this season.
I can't say that's very obvious just watching games.

[Snowball]

I'd be more than happy with a front pairing that each scored a goal every 4 games!

11/12 goals each a season?

Thought we were aiming higher than that, tbh. We scored 70-odd goals last season, where are the remaining 45 going to come from?

It would be 23 goals for the pair in a season, a bit low unless you have an amazing defence.

[Snowball]

Or,

Church has less goals as he rarely gets himself in a position, with the ball, to shoot.

And yet two seasons ago people raved about his brilliant movement
as being his strength. Hmmmm...

Church works hard off the ball but is not smart enough as a footballer, certainly not a centre forward. He spends too much time chasing lost causes and closing down defenders who were going nowhere anyway.

Sometimes the best movement from a goalscorer is no movement. If you a running around like a lunatic, you are not only out of position much of the time but you are also out of the position that your fellow players would be looking for you to be in.

Or maybe he is under team order to try and do the Shane role, running hard for 60 minutes
and wearing down defenders. Hence we get few goals in the first half and almost all in the
last 30 minutes. Yet DESPITE this, Church is the best striker goals-wise whether as a starter
or as a sub.

[Snowball]

Michael Owen, or Jamie Cureton for Reading, were so deadly because they made the right movement at the right time. Cureton could hardly ever been accused of running around much.

Team Orders? Team Style?

We are hardly a silky midfield bring the ball out and feeding it to feet, are we?

[leicsRoyal]

Church is definitely not doing the Shane role!

Unless he finds another gear and muscles up a bit.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

It's The table since Doncaster, just like you, Ian Royal, a couple of seasons ago, agreed, when McDermott took over that it wasn't reasonable to judge the IMMEDIATE results after he took over from Rodgers, becaue (a) it takes a number of games for a manager to stamp his ideas into a side (b) it takes a few games to turn morale around (c) He had then not been made permanent.

Ignoring the fact that this quote is about McD the inference is that it applies elsewhere, so how come on many other occasions does a team turn around straight away? Sunderland anyone? Is that because it is a more experienced manager, O'Neill, or for some other reason. Who was it took over Palace one Xmas in the bottom 3 and took them to the playoffs?

[leicsRoyal]

Or,

Church has less goals as he rarely gets himself in a position, with the ball, to shoot.

And yet two seasons ago people raved about his brilliant movement
as being his strength. Hmmmm...

[quote]

And that should be his strength, brilliant movement.

[Snowball]

Just a comment on the general theme of 'form', which is a point I've made before.

Form isn't neceessarily something that can or should be measured over a set number of games. There are usually natural or obvious breaks in a teams run of form (a set of fixtures after a specific event, player coming back, or just change in form).

If a team is playing really well for 10 games and picking up results that are similar over that period of time then that's their current form. For another team their current form might only be over the last 3 games because something has suddenly clicked. Their performances and results after that change in form doesn't really effect their current form.

A form table helps to compare a number of recent results between teams to give an idea of who's doing well recently, and who isn't, but it doesn't necessarily reflect their current form because it uses a set number of games which might not be applicable for half the teams.

Very good point

Reading's 22-Game form is not the best way to view them
unless you take note that the ppg, while decent at the start
and great overall has been slowly increasing.

So RFC have moved DURING this 22-game run from 1.55 ppg early on to 2.3 ppg now,
meaning they are close to 1.9 ppg overall and should they beat Coventry would be
48 from 23 = a 96 point season.

So I see this run 3 ways. A decent first half moving from 1.55ppg to 1.7 ppg
and then a second half going from 1.8 ppg to as high as 2.2 ppg but OVERALL
sustained for more or less half-a-season, a very healthy 1.83 ppg

What matters, IMO is that the form game-span is to-date without games omitted from the middle.
IMO even 6 games is a tad short (could involve 4-5 home games, games against low clubs) and I'm
happier with 8-12. Also the shorter the form guide the bigger the effect of a win or defeat.

[Snowball]

It's The table since Doncaster, just like you, Ian Royal, a couple of seasons ago, agreed, when McDermott took over that it wasn't reasonable to judge the IMMEDIATE results after he took over from Rodgers, becaue (a) it takes a number of games for a manager to stamp his ideas into a side (b) it takes a few games to turn morale around (c) He had then not been made permanent.

Ignoring the fact that this quote is about McD the inference is that it applies elsewhere, so how come on many other occasions does a team turn around straight away? Sunderland anyone? Is that because it is a more experienced manager, O'Neill, or for some other reason. Who was it took over Palace one Xmas in the bottom 3 and took them to the playoffs?

False logic, Harps.

Of course it CAN happen that results turn round immediately.

That might be feel-good factor of a new manager coming in
from outside, might be a signing happened at the same time,
might simply be that the club got some easier games and/or a bit of luck.

Plenty of new managers have a good start and then the honeymoon period is over and they flop.

It is nevertheless true that new managers will need time to bring in their people, their ideas, their style.

How did Rodgers do when he started? How does his first X games compare to his second X games?

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Shame he got a second six games here


Re the PPG info, if you take it to its extreme the improvement is even better if you include the first six games.

[cmonurz]

Michael Owen, or Jamie Cureton for Reading, were so deadly because they made the right movement at the right time. Cureton could hardly ever been accused of running around much.

Team Orders? Team Style?

We are hardly a silky midfield bring the ball out and feeding it to feet, are we?

Well exactly. Cureton had a perfect support cast in Forster (when he looked up) and Salako providing crosses, Sammy Igoe too, the likes of Hughes and Butler peeling off wide, Kevin Watson orchestrating play in the middle – with our full-backs bombing forward too the system worked perfectly for a goal poacher like Cureton.

I like goal-poachers, ALF is my sort of striker, I just hope we see the best of him while he is here. Our current more patient build up and relatively poor service into the box doesn’t suit his style at all – I’m hoping Roberts proves that missing link – the Butler role in my example above.

[Snowball]

I'd also love to see a stat for the number of times Church has fallen over in front of goal and totally wasted a decent chance before even getting it on or off target.

Apart from Manset he is our best converter of chances (according to the OS)

I'm not really going to get involved in this frankly embarassing borefest, but that's not true.

According to the OS it IS true.

What the stats record is the number of shots taken* and how many goals are scored from those shots. It doesn't count the number of chances or their actual conversion.
My opinion is that Church fails to get a shot off in a higher percentage of goal scoring opportunities (ie chances) than any of our other forwards. That's wasting a chance even if you don't shoot.

And yet Church is top-scorer! Hmmmm...

You know I'm not a Church fan, and certainly I don't think he's as brave as Longy
but I don't recall many instances (and you need to find about two dozen this season
before he starts to look poor), many instances of him getting a ball where he could shoot
and doesn't, is crowded out or robbed.

That happens, of course.

I mean here beyond what happens to most strikers.


It's more to do with chances created

Basically, if we had made the same amount of chances per game as last season (another 42)
we would have 5-11 more goals (depending on who they fell to). Almost certainly, (say 7 goals)
we'd be a LOT higher up the table (2nd or 3rd) and with a GD of 15+

[Wimb]

Martin Williams got 11 goals in 31 appearances in the 98/99 season.

No amount of stats will convince me he was a good striker he was average in a sub-par team.

I don't think a 6 goal return is dire, especially when he's not a set piece taker but when you consider that 2 of those goals came against 9 man West Ham who had lost their heads, 1 came from a horrendous gaff from the Leeds keeper and another was a touch in from 1 yard against Peterborough he's hardly striking me as being an effective striker this season.

As others have said he's hardly doing the Shane role either, he's not pushing defenders around and he's not creating chances/winning penalties/free-kicks. He may be tiring them out with pace but if that's his job then we might as well put Mills or Tabb up there who can run around all day

Perhaps a little harsh and the guy does have the quality somewhere in his locker, he's just not shown in on a consistent level since Brian took the job.

[Snowball]

Interestingly*, we've not had the best form (in Pts or PpG) in any calendar month this season:

http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/teams/Reading.html

Yes I saw that, kinda weird. Sometimes short runs can have a weird effect

I wonder how it would look for TWO-month form?

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Also re new managers there is a difference betwee having the summer, as Rodgers did, and taking over during a season, no idea what the difference is historically, BUT I would assume a manager taking over in the summer is more settled first game. Though if he is the wrong man then he is the wrong man.

[Snowball]

Still going for the character assassination? Bizarre.

And you need a lesson in chronology. Whilst I’ve written all those things they have all followed your over-reactive, angst-filled replies to my reasonable questions.

Character assassination? How many times have you referred to my mental health?
How many times have you said or implied that I'm a liar and/or DELIBERATELY distort truth?

You're behaviour is classic passive-aggressive. You post "little" slights that you know PRECISELY will work. For example, you first post in this thread, immediately on the P-A offensive, just done in a sly way.

"So now the form table is 16 Games".

Ask what that implies. It certainly DOESN'T mean, "Oh, I see we have a genuine new standard."

You're implying. "This is Snowball AGAIN, making it up as he goes AGAIN, choosing a stat to suit, AGAIN. Snowball "cheating" AGAIN, Snowball being unreasonable, AGAIN."

You know precisely what you're doing. It's easy to make cowardly seemingly-trivial remarks
and then appear "aghast" when someone reacts.

Have I called you insane, or paranoid, or having a mental breakdown?

[Maguire]

0,077 Start for 1 Goals = 0.077 Mins per Goal Roberts (Added for future reference)

That's incredible - if he keeps that up he'll score 1169 goals against Coventry.

[Snowball]

Church is definitely not doing the Shane role!

Unless he finds another gear and muscles up a bit.

He may not be good enough to do it, but he's been in that role

[Hoop Blah]

but I don't recall many instances (and you need to find about two dozen this season
before he starts to look poor), many instances of him getting a ball where he could shoot
and doesn't, is crowded out or robbed.

That happens, of course.

I mean here beyond what happens to most strikers.

Really? I know you struggle to see things with your own eyes at times but this happens all the time with Church, he's just too easy to defend against.

I can't list you a dozen instances because I don't catalogue them away, but suffice to say that I see it every game and it's one of my over riding impressions of him.

Of course it happens to other forwards too (see Hunt failing to convert Antonio's cross the other day) but Church just makes more of a habit of it.

[Snowball]

I don't think a 6 goal return is dire, especially when he's not a set piece taker

Important point.
How many of Gylfi's 16 goals were penalties? About 8-9?
Take them out and his finishing was worse than McAnuff

How many of Shane's goals were pens?

but when you consider that 2 of those goals came against 9 man West Ham who had lost their heads

The first was against ten men wasn't it?

And none of the other 9 outfield players managed to score when it was "really easy" Why was that?

1 came from a horrendous gaff from the Leeds keeper

I'm not having THAT.

If that had been Rooney, or Ballotelli, or Messi or Henry the world would've creamed itself.
Sure the keeper was it fault but give the kid credit for a great chip

and another was a touch in from 1 yard against Peterborough he's hardly striking me as being an effective striker this season.

True and I think he stole Kebe's goal, but he nevertheless GOT the goal, and that's what good goal-scorer's do.

I also believe he should have been credited with McAnuff's second goal v (Brighton?)

Really surprised the manager didn't make sure Church got it. Better for morale

As others have said he's hardly doing the Shane role either, he's not pushing defenders around and he's not creating chances/winning penalties/free-kicks. He may be tiring them out with pace but if that's his job then we might as well put Mills or Tabb up there who can run around all day

That is MY subjective opinion too.

So I ask myself, how come McDermott keeps preferring Church to Le Fondre AND praising Church (pre Roberts, it might all change)

and then I look at the stats and I'm really surprised.
I would have EXPECTED Alf's figures to be miles better than Church's
not the other way round

Better on goals/min starting
Better on goals/min coming on as sub
Better on accuracy
Better on lethality

Too many "better thans" to be an accident.

Perhaps a little harsh and the guy does have the quality somewhere in his locker, he's just not shown in on a consistent level since Brian took the job.

Maybe he has. As I've shown, he'd be on for 15-16 goals if he'd played Long's minutes
and secondly he's still out-scoring the rest of them.