Long - Time to go.

[Snowball]

Christ.

Yes, my child?

A player who creates chances for themselves is superior to a player who has the same goals-to-games ratio but depends on other players to create chances for them. The former lightens the responsibility of the rest of the team.

Is that not clear? Is that too "esoteric" for you?

So THAT's it? That's the crux of this "amazing" argument?

So the argument is, instead of passing to a team-mate (poor assist record) I will take it totally on myself to score. I will be SO successful my hit rate will be one goal every 8.5 shots (not including the presumed hundreds of times when I dribble into a dead-end, get tackled without shooting, accidentally fall over or put the ball out of play.)

I will be SO successful that my goals-per game record will be 1%, maybe 2% better than a much-maligned footballer called Shane Long, who didn't play football until his teens, and is only 23 now.

Incidently if Forster, as he often did, received the ball from James Harper 30 yards from goal, ran past the centre-backs and scored, Harper would get the assist.

You KNOW that for a fact? You mean the last previous player to touch the ball gets the assist?

I don't think so

If that was the case that would mean that the number of assists should always equal the number of goals

This season we have 18 league goals but only 9 league assists (50%).(On target for 64 goals)

In 2009/10 it was 66 goals from 43 assists 65%
In 2002/03 it was 59 goals from 39 assists 66%
In 2003/04 it was 50 goals from 32 assists 64%
In 2004/05 it was 54 goals from 34 assists 63%

So pretty "standard" except we didn't score so many goals in those three seasons.

If Gunnarsson nutmegs the full-back and whips in a perfect cross that Long heads home from 6 yards, Gunnarsson gets the assist.
Are you satisfied that Harper and Gunnarsson deserve equal credit for the creation of the respective goals?

No, but then your original assumption was INCORRECT

[/quote]

If the point of the assist stat is "to show who was the player who gave the scorer the chance" then it does a poor job.

Who says it does? YOU.

When does an ssist turn into NOT an assist? If Player X plays a ball to player Y IN HIS OWN HALF
and player Y beats every single opposition player TWICE, then does it a third time just because
he can, I very much doubt that "X" gets the assist.

I suggest an assist is given when a player has a genuine part in a goal but is not the goal-scorer. But I don't know the official rules. For example if I shoot and the keeper saves and my strike partner taps the ball in. Do I get the assists? Why not, my too hard to hold shot "caused" the chance? What if I merely hit the post? What if I shoot a mis-hit, it rebounds off the defending centre-half and Kebe taps in?

In the above scenario no statistics we have to hand credit Forster with the creation of the goal, and his impact will necessarily appear equal to Long's.

Sounds like Forster should have been awarded 59 assists for his own goals, as he so clearly ploughed his own furrow

[Maguire]

Where does all this stuff about Long having a "phenomenal workrate" come from anyway? He's not exactly Carlos Tevez, is he?

[Snowball]

WHICH BIT OF, "I have zero desire to discuss one the crappiest underachievingest national teams in the world. (ENGLAND)" DID YOU NOT GET?

The bit where it means you would have to either make a(nother) ridiculous statement (Defoe), or backtrack on your entire argument (Sheringham).

As this is a football discussion board, my post is entirely relevant. So, Defoe or Sheringham, which was, or is, the better England forward?

Why are you calling me "Defoe or Sherringham"? I am Snowball. I am not a number.

[handbags_harris]

WHY? Y'gunna smack me?

I am absolutely sure Forster was a great bloke and a great player AT HIS LEVEL, and a hero to many, but his level was League 1/promotion from League 1 and then championship in the last three years of his Reading career, and, so it seems, he suited the 1 role in 451.

But Long is pilloried and "not fit to be mentioned in the same room" despite the fact that if he merely maintains his goals per game ratio, when he reaches the same total as Forster he will be 54 goals compared to Forster's 59

Forster got goals for Reading, sure, some brilliant ones, but against inferior defences. Not against Liverpool, Wigan, Villa, Man City, but half of them versus teams like Orient or Brentford. There is one hell of a difference. How many might Long get in a 4-4-2 set up in League 1?

Forster was at his peak, 26-31, Long is just approaching his better years and has 3 years, 3 seasons, 150 or so games before he ENTERS his peak years.

I would counter that argument with the fact that the team that surrounded Forster for the majority of his Reading career was inferior to the one we have now, and Forster absolutely lit up that team. I put it to anybody that we would have gone down had Forster not been a significant part of that team. Yes, a big chunk of his goals came against lower league opposition, but he was playing in a League 1 team as well. The thing is this: Nicky Forster absolutely lit up the team he played in due to his ability both with and without the ball, his ability to create space or drop into space, take on a defender, run with the ball, hold the ball up, create a chance for a team-mate (whether missed or scored is irrelevant, he created it), get on the end of a pass or cross and get into a goalscoring position and create a chance from nothing for himself against anyone. Shane Long, in the same team as Forster had around him, will not light that team up in the same way. Shane Long doesn't create space or drop into space very well, he can't take a man on, he can't run with the ball particularly well, admittedly he's starting to hold the ball up reasonably well once he gets it under control (something which Forster had the ability to do instantaneously, Long doesn't), he doesn't create many chances for team mates and if he does it's generally as a result of an attempt to get on the end of a cross or pass intended so he can shoot, rarely gets into goalscoring positions, and has never ever created a chance for himself out of nothing in a Reading shirt. Yes Forster played in an inferior league, but when in the Championship he also played in an inferior team and was the focal point of that team.

Your argument has a very flimsy base because there are so many other intrinsically linked variables to any position on a football pitch that raw end product statistics simply cannot and will never measure. I'll give you a primitive but no less important one: if Shane Long merely stood on the penalty spot all game every game, did nothing else but respond to crosses and passes into the box, and got on the end of 20 of them, would that make him a more valuable player than a man who closes down defenders, picks up the ball in a deep-lying position, runs with the ball and created chances for himself and others? I suppose the most high profile question here is: Henry or Van Nistelrooy? You see, statistics can measure the cost of a player in raw terms, but they will never measure the value of that player to a team.

[Snowball]

Quite. And going back to Snowball's curious stat about Forster needing 11 chances to score 1 goal as opposed to Long's 1 goal for every 5 shots, do we also have the data for:



I can't remember many ocassions where Long has fashioned a chance for himself out of nothing. I can't recall many ocassions of late where I can recall Long being denied by a quite superb piece of goalkeeping. I can, however, recall him hitting the crossbar from 1 yard when placed with an open goal against Peterborough last season

Where did this "11" spring from? The official stats, from the RFC site are:

135 104 9 248 30 8.27 Forster

That's 1 goal every 8.27 shots/headers (not including fluffs)

a) How many of those chances Forster created for himself, sometimes receiving the ball on halfway going on a subsequent lungbusting run.

Precisely, got knackered and his final shot wasn't good enough.
Maybe if he had used a team-mate more he, and Reading would have done better.
Don't many people say he was seflish and frustrating? And maybe a liability?

b) (i) How many of those 11 chances forced an excellent save from the keeper

or, to put it another way, ALLOWED THE KEEPER TO SAVE, ie was not deadly enough.

or is forcing the opposition keeper to save now better than scoring?

(ii) How many of those 11 wasted chances were subsequently tucked in on the rebound by a Reading player for a goal

CLEARLY not that many as the total goals wasn't that high, his assists are not high, and the deadliness of the other players is...


2002-03 60 48 05 for 16 goals

That's 113 actual shots/headers, 60 on target, 44 saved, 48 missed, 5 hit the woodwork he scored with 16/113 shots = 14.15% 16/60 on target =26.67%

In 2008-09 Shane had 30 shots 14 on target 13 missing, 3 saved, but a massive 9/14 were goals. 9 goals out of 30 = exactly 30% better than TWICE Forster 9/14 on target... 9/14 on target 65.29% are goals

I'll line those up to show how much more deadly Shane is

113 Shots 60 ON 53% 48 OFF 05 Hit Woodwork: 16 Goals = 14.15% Overall Deadliness. 26.67% of on target shots become goals, 63.33% of on target shots were saved. 29-30 years old FORSTER = Wasteful
030 Shots 14 ON 47% 13 OFF 03 Hit Woodwork: 09 Goals = 30.00% Overall Deadliness. 64.28% of on target shots become goals, 35.72% of on target shots were saved. 21-22 years old. LONG = CLINICAL

09 league goals in 11 Starts (26) sub appearances = 13.33 games = 1 goal every 1.48 games aged 20-21 LONG
16 league goals in 35 Starts (05) sub appearances = 35.80 games = 1 goal every 2.24 games aged 29-30 FORSTER. This is in the season that FORSTER says was his best-ever

[Snowball]

I would counter that argument with the fact that the team that surrounded Forster for the majority of his Reading career was inferior to the one we have now.

Are you serious? Look at the 2002-3 team... the following season we added Goater, Kitson and Ingamarsson, the next Sonko and Convey

Nicky Shorey
Graeme Murty
Marcus Hahnemann
Nicky Forster
James Harper
Steve Sidwell
Matthew Upson
Glen Little
Ady Williams
Jamie Cureton
Andy Hughes
Tony Rougier
John Salako
Kevin Watson
Ricky Newman
John Mackie
Steve Brown
Martin Butler
Luke Chadwick
Nathan Tyson
Sammy Igoe

[RobRoyal]

So THAT's it? That's the crux of this "amazing" argument?

So the argument is, instead of passing to a team-mate (poor assist record) I will take it totally on myself to score. I will be SO successful my hit rate will be one goal every 8.5 shots (not including the presumed hundreds of times when I dribble into a dead-end, get tackled without shooting, accidentally fall over or put the ball out of play.)

I will be SO successful that my goals-per game record will be 1%, maybe 2% better than a much-maligned footballer called Shane Long, who didn't play football until his teens, and is only 23 now.

I'm not sure what part of this you're finding hard to understand. A player that creates chances as well as scoring can be considered to be of superior worth to one who only scores chances others create. You've returned to your (only) argument, which is the goals-to-games ratio of the two players. But if most of Long's goals were created principally by the skill of a teammate, and many of Forster's were created from nothing by his own skill, it seems to me Forster deserves more credit than the bare goals figures allow. Do you actually disagree with that? It's rather bizarre to duck that question by saying "if he was so good at creating chances he should have a better goals-to-games ratio that Long." Yes he ran into dead ends, and shot when he should have passed at times - hence he was often a frustrating player to watch. But the "amazing" argument is that an average Championship forward would have taken the chances Long has taken in his Reading career (and more, I would suggest). An average Championship forward in Reading's 2001/2 team would not have created, or scored, as many goals as Nicky Forster.

You KNOW that for a fact? You mean the last previous player to touch the ball gets the assist?

I don't think so

If that was the case that would mean that the number of assists should always equal the number of goals.

Well, I don't know how the statistics you have are correlated are worked out but I do know for a fact that many assist statistics are exactly this straightforward, yes. For someone whose entire contribution to this board is the regurgitation of stats you have exposed a rather striking naivety here. To take two examples, the BBC credit the assist to whoever touched the ball, regardless of deflections by an intervening player or rebounds off the post. Yahoo Fantasy Football (who get their stats from Opta) discredit any assist that touches the post, or an intervening player, before reaching the scorer. Both credit the assist to the last teammate to touch the ball, whether it was 50 yards away from where the goal was scored, and regardless of whether the "pass" was intentional. As to your last point, most statistics would discredit any assist that deflective off an intervening player, or the post, so obviously assists will not equal the number of goals. Then there are all the penalties and set-pieces (where the fouled player is rarely credited with an assist, as it should be) and goals that come from misplaced opposition passes. I'm rather amazed I had to explain this to you.

Quite apart from all that, obviously no player gets an assist for scoring their own goal. So no matter how you think assist stats should work, no player is ever credited for creating and scoring a goal themselves. That alone should stop you from quoting assist stats as if they are a particularly useful measure of a forward's creativity.

Sounds like Forster should have been awarded 59 assists for his own goals, as he so clearly ploughed his own furrow

Pretty much. Apparently now you've resorted to misplaced hyperbole to mock something you've confessed you know nothing about.

[floyd__streete]

Why are you calling me "Defoe or Sherringham"? I am Snowball. I am not a number.

The earlier one was quite funny, but you're getting a bit desperate now and should change the record. Ironically enough.

[RobRoyal]

It won't change Snowball's mind, but this is a nice watch (sorry about the music):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssxKVAUQQI

Don't think Long would have scored many of those

[floyd__streete]

LONG = CLINICAL

[Ian Royal]

LONG = CLINICAL

Missed another good chance against Burnley. Of the two games I've seen all of (recorded or live) that's at least three simple chances that should be scored or at least on target and no occasions when Long looked like he might actually score, except from the spot.

Good performance on the whole and an assist, but Brian can't keep justifying picking him on the basis of good hard work and not much else. Not that the other two are exactly battering down the door.

[Ian Royal]

It won't change Snowball's mind, but this is a nice watch (sorry about the music):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssxKVAUQQI

Don't think Long would have scored many of those

That was a bloody joy to watch! I can see Long *maybe* scoring two of those.

[PEARCEY]

Yes that link was a joy to watch. Fozzy is my favourite player to wear the shirt alongside Gilksey. He really should have played in the Premiership at some stage in his career.
Certainly the best player to play the lone striker role for us that I can recall.

[Avon Royal]

It won't change Snowball's mind, but this is a nice watch (sorry about the music):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssxKVAUQQI

Don't think Long would have scored many of those

God I miss Fozzy

[Victor Meldrew]

Yes that link was a joy to watch. Fozzy is my favourite player to wear the shirt alongside Gilksey. He really should have played in the Premiership at some stage in his career.
Certainly the best player to play the lone striker role for us that I can recall.

IIRC he did play for Birmingham Pearcey but whether that was at the top level I don't know.

[PEARCEY]

Yes that link was a joy to watch. Fozzy is my favourite player to wear the shirt alongside Gilksey. He really should have played in the Premiership at some stage in his career.
Certainly the best player to play the lone striker role for us that I can recall.

IIRC he did play for Birmingham Pearcey but whether that was at the top level I don't know.

Don't doubt you Victor but think he may have played for them in the second tier...I may well be wrong though and it won't be the first or last time thats the case.

[Ian Royal]

Yes that link was a joy to watch. Fozzy is my favourite player to wear the shirt alongside Gilksey. He really should have played in the Premiership at some stage in his career.
Certainly the best player to play the lone striker role for us that I can recall.

IIRC he did play for Birmingham Pearcey but whether that was at the top level I don't know.

Don't doubt you Victor but think he may have played for them in the second tier...I may well be wrong though and it won't be the first or last time thats the case.

Correct, all tier two.

[cmonurz]

Join us next week, where Snowball will compare the music of Kings of Leon to music he has never heard before, and then prove mathematically that Ghengis Khan was shit at chess.

[Snowball]

I'm not sure what part of this you're finding hard to understand. A player that creates chances as well as scoring can be considered to be of superior worth to one who only scores chances others create. You've returned to your (only) argument, which is the goals-to-games ratio of the two players. But if most of Long's goals were created principally by the skill of a teammate, and many of Forster's were created from nothing by his own skill, it seems to me Forster deserves more credit than the bare goals figures allow. Do you actually disagree with that?

ABSOLUTELY I disagree

It's rather bizarre to duck that question by saying "if he was so good at creating chances he should have a better goals-to-games ratio that Long." Yes he ran into dead ends, and shot when he should have passed at times - hence he was often a frustrating player to watch. But the "amazing" argument is that an average Championship forward would have taken the chances Long has taken in his Reading career (and more, I would suggest). An average Championship forward in Reading's 2001/2 team would not have created, or scored, as many goals as Nicky Forster.

CAN BE CONSIDERED.

Personally I STRONGLY disagree that this is a given. Fact is Forster wasted a VERY VERY high proportion of chances. Christ his conversion rate is worse than Lita and Lita had two seasons where he only scored ONE goal.

It absolutely does NOT follow that a player who can dribble, burst through, or in any other way create his own chances MUST BE a better player. Dixie Dean (I think) used to say he relied on his wingers and HIS JOB was to score from THEIR crosses. What did he say? "Hard, fast, eight yards out, laces goalwards, please." And did he not score 60+ in a season? If he failed to create ONE of those goals, does that mean he's inferior to the man who can create some of his own?

More than a few have mentioned he was selfish. That suggests there must have been many times where he tried for goal himself rather than make the killer pass. And he missed 88% of his chances. If you look at his seasons it wasn't as if THE TEAM were scoring shedloads of goals. Check the numbers. Seems to me that his single-mindedness very probably COST the club goals overall.

You could have a player, midfielder or striker, who is selfish to the point of degrading the team's scoring potential, another striker who knows when to take the shot, when best to pass, or you could have the striker who passes TOO OFTEN, like Arsenal wanting the perfect goal or to walk the ball into the net.

Do you believe you could not imagine the supremely UNselfish striker who takes ten goals for himself, but also makes 10-15 a season, and he could be better than his twin brother who takes all 25 chances and scores 16?

[Snowball]

Why are you calling me "Defoe or Sherringham"? I am Snowball. I am not a number.

The earlier one was quite funny, but you're getting a bit desperate now and should change the record. Ironically enough.

Just as soon as he stops asking.