The Summer clearout / Coming in thread. Updated 27/8

[Snowball]

Snowball, I mis-read the first bit and didn't get the point where you were including Sigurdssons goals as well as discounting Harte's. Personally I don't think we'd have scored less with the same attack plus Sigurdsson no. Would we have conceded more? Totally hypothetical but I don't think we'd have failed to purchase reinforcements to an under quality defence and midfield.

How would we have paid for these other players?

Plus either we play with 12 men or we have to drop Hunt (10 Goals in 2/3 of a season)

And you still have the point that either Siggy gets less
than 20 (not taking pens) or Long score 7 less...

[Snowball]

So presumably you're saying we'd've scored 90+ this season with Gylfi in?

Not sure that was said by anyone except you. As ever in football just a few goals can get the points difference, depending on which games they come in. No need to score more in games we won , but had a few extra come in games we didnt win it COULD have been different

Hoop implied we'd get more goals from the wingers, therefore more goals than the 85

[Hoop Blah]

Snowball, I mis-read the first bit and didn't get the point where you were including Sigurdssons goals as well as discounting Harte's. Personally I don't think we'd have scored less with the same attack plus Sigurdsson no. Would we have conceded more? Totally hypothetical but I don't think we'd have failed to purchase reinforcements to an under quality defence and midfield.

How would we have paid for these other players?

Plus either we play with 12 men or we have to drop Hunt (10 Goals in 2/3 of a season)

And you still have the point that either Siggy gets less
than 20 (not taking pens) or Long score 7 less...

How would we have paid for them? I think we'd have found a way of affording a player such as Legiertwood on loan. Whether that would've meant farming out Howard or Gunnarsson or the club just taking a little bit of a punt I don't know. I just think it was that obvious a requriement for the team that we'd have done something about it.


As for Hunt's goals being taken out of the team. He might not've got them but the whole dynamic of the team will have changed and I don't think it's a really valid discussion to be honest. It's not comparing like for like and I think a side with Sigurdsson in it would've produced as many goals as the one we saw lumping it up to Long to work the channels.

I'd certainly have enjoyed watching it more anyway.

[Extended-Phenotype]

On the topic of being better off with or without our best player, statistics show Gylfi scored 10 in 13 for Hoffenheim, which makes him nearly twice as prolific as Hunt.

What would you like me to do with your sword once I’ve pulled it from your body, Snowball?

[ZacNaloen]

Hoffenheim are a better team with better players

[brendywendy]

plus he was rested lots, so would have been fresher

[SCIAG]

Why would you need to cancel all Harte's penalties and free kicks?

Siggurdson's twenty goals were largely penalties and free=kicks.

Either HE takes them, or Harte takes them or Long takes them (pens).

So obviously, If Siggy had played and taken the free's Harte would have scored less.
Or, if Harte had taken them, Siggy would have scored less.

Same issue with penalties.
You can't have three guys scoring the same penalties.

Between them Sigurdsson and Long have pretty good penalty records (I'm sure you haven't forgotten that 7 or 8 of your hero's goals from his 25 this
season came from the penalty spot) and Sigurdsson on the free kicks might've been more productive than Harte.

I think you'll see I mentioned (7)

As for Gylfi's frees, you're kidding, right? Harte has a better shot-conversion record than Gylfi, Gylfi was wasteful

131 Shots = 71 On Target 53 Off Target 7 Hit Woodwork, 20 Goals, 1 every 6.55 shots 2009-10 Gylfi
060 Shots = 30 On Target 21 Off Target 9 Hit Woodwork, 11 Goals, 1 every 5.45 shots 2010-11 Harte

With Sigurdsson in the side I think we may well have seen more goals from McAnuff and Kebe too (not to mention Long)
as they'd have benefited from his creativity and the extra space a player of his quality could've created by mainting
possession a bit more and attracting opposition defences attention away from them.

You THINK. Yet we scored more goals without Siggy (and conceded a lot less) 84+5 versus 82.

So presumably you're saying we'd've scored 90+ this season with Gylfi in?

Several flaws there. Firstly, you can't say "Harte and Long scored 17 goals from free kicks and penalties, Sigurdsson scored 20 goals, therefore Sigurdsson scored 3 goals from open play" (which you have effectively said). We were quite possibly awarded more penalties this season than last, and Sigurdsson already managed to score 2 goals from open play.

It would be more valid to say, for example, "Sigurdsson scored 12 goals from open play in the second half of 09-10, so would have scored 24 goals from open play last season". Add on the penalties and suddenly he's breaking records!

A "shot" is not the same as a "free kick". Your statistics only prove that Sigurdsson was more wasteful with his shooting, which was to be expected given that he plays as a second striker and has to shoot more often. He's actually better at getting his shots on target according to your stats.

We (particularly Long) started to struggle for goals towards the end of the season relative to our great run of form in the middle of the season, largely because teams were sitting deep after the Leicester match because they knew Long and Kébé would punish them. With Sigurdsson in the side, they wouldn't have been so prepared to sit deep because we'd have a long shot specialist. Either they allowed Sigurdsson to get shots away, or they allowed him to play Long through on goal.

Quite frankly, I think the only legitimate challenge to "we'd have been better with Sigurdsson" is pointing out that we wouldn't have had Legs, Zurab or Harte (possibly not Brett Williams or Morrison or Manset), and there would have been spells with only six fit defenders and central midfielders (think Man City away, but without Zurab). We would easily have been better going forward with him and only a loon would claim otherwise.

[Royal Rother]

If Siggy was with us we could be very likely be talking about visitin Man United, LIverpool, Everton etc right now. But then would we have bought Legs, who to my mind made all the difference?

One thing is for sure though - we were never going to keep hold of Siggy and buy someone like Legs.

Because we're a nearly club as I pointed out and predicted months ago, much to the pram-emptying of the Rectum Crew.

We are a small club with a chairman who is interested in his other businesses and who has little interest in our club *at the moment*. [Nothing wrong with that - his choice and his right. And I am grateful for what he's done so far if he just leaves now and takes the well-deserved plaudits/statue/deification.] But it means this club is not going to be doing anything exciting except for if by some luck we happen to do it on the cheap. [Again nothing necessarily wrong with that - thanks to Madeski we are extremely financially sound I believe.]. More likely, we're being held in that financial sweet-spot of not having to break the bank but reaping in the rewards and excitement of being a club with an affordable but real outide chance of making it to the Promised Land. As things stand therefore we are designed to be a nearly-club. [Again nothing wrong with this except it's annoying for the likes of us who want more. But it ain't my money so it's easy for me to say. And yep I'm greedy. Actually it is my very hard earned money every week... but still] Getting rid of Sig but getting a loan player instead managed exactly that - nearly get us promoted. Holding onto our star and maybe making a decent purchase (eg Legs) or two would mean Prem footy now without a doubt.

It was shocking that either we lost Siggy - or - we had really no choice in which case the unexpected surprise lottery windfall of £7.5million (plus saved wages, but minus taxes etc) was not immediately ploughed straight into the squad. Welcome to Reading NC. [Again nothing wrong with this but it's so plain to see that the only having ones head up Madeski's Rectum stops anyone from seeing it.]

Unlike your ongoing fascination with SJM's, I'm not interested what you've got up YOUR rectum; but I do know where it is. Poised over your keyboard.

[Terminal Boardom]

Sig is perdominantly right footed whereas Harte predominantly left. Therefore, free kick opportunities around the box could easily have been shared. had Sig not been sold, there would still be that £4m hole - probably bigger taking interest into account. There would also have been no additional signings. Anything else is mindless speculation and tomfoolery.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Hoffenheim are a better team with better players

You may have had a point had they not been 11th in a tougher league.

plus he was rested lots, so would have been fresher

Or maybe struggling for match practice...

[Ian Royal]

Sig is perdominantly right footed whereas Harte predominantly left. Therefore, free kick opportunities around the box could easily have been shared. had Sig not been sold, there would still be that £4m hole - probably bigger taking interest into account. There would also have been no additional signings. Anything else is mindless speculation and tomfoolery.

We would have made signings, we do every window without fail. Whether we'd have had as many, or the same players is an entirely valid point of course. But we could probably have managed one or two of those signings... we probably wouldn't have the money to make Legs move permanent (if we'd not gone up) certainly. Of course, if we'd kept Sigurdsson we wouldn't have needed to sign Williams or Manset.

Howard could have gone in January to free up some cash and we'd have had much less need for him with Sig available. I'm not convinced we desperately needed Harte with Cummings as a potential convert to left back... and Harte probably wasn't really that expensive. Pearce was available for much of the time Khiz was and performed pretty well.

It seems pretty likely to me that we'd have started the season better if we'd had Sig for more than 4 games ( cue snowstat banging on endlessly and pointlessly about ppg and missing anything relating to a qualitative argument), but then I suspect we wouldn't have had as good a middle of the season. We might have made automatics, but I think we would have made play offs and had a far better chance of beating Swansea. Though possibly less chance against Cardiff.

[Snowball]

!

[Snowball]

It seems pretty likely to me that we'd have started the season better if we'd had Sig for more than 4 games ( cue snowstat banging on endlessly and pointlessly about ppg and missing anything relating to a qualitative argument), but then I suspect we wouldn't have had as good a middle of the season. We might have made automatics, but I think we would have made play offs and had a far better chance of beating Swansea. Though possibly less chance against Cardiff.

You call that a qualitative argument?

[floyd__streete]

It seems pretty likely to me that we'd have started the season better if we'd had Sig for more than 4 games ( cue snowstat banging on endlessly and pointlessly about ppg and missing anything relating to a qualitative argument), but then I suspect we wouldn't have had as good a middle of the season. We might have made automatics, but I think we would have made play offs and had a far better chance of beating Swansea. Though possibly less chance against Cardiff.

You call that a qualitative argument?

It is an opinion on a football message board. Opinion on a football message board > reams of stats on a football message board. One of the joys of football is arguing spurious opinion, safe in the knowledge that the game itself let alone the opinions uttered matter one whit in the grand scheme of the utter pointlessness of existence. Once you start spamming football message boards with stats the dialogue becomes so unreadable that you might as well just draw a chain of fox heads on sticks. And if you do that, an interesting thing happens: the word 'cruel' starts flashing.

[Ian Royal]

You missed pretty likely snowball. Fail.

[Snowball]

That wasn't "opinion" Floyd.

That was double-talk hedging its bets
while woffling, while sitting on the fence

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

So presumably you're saying we'd've scored 90+ this season with Gylfi in?

Not sure that was said by anyone except you. As ever in football just a few goals can get the points difference, depending on which games they come in. No need to score more in games we won , but had a few extra come in games we didnt win it COULD have been different

Hoop implied we'd get more goals from the wingers, therefore more goals than the 85

Table says we scored 77 goals though.

[Ian Royal]

No snowball. It was opinion which acknowledged that no one can know exactly what would have happened, only talk in probabilities based on their reading of the situation and opinion. But it is clear where I'm leaning and what I think was more likely.

I'm not going to say anything definite would have happened, I don't have access to the parrallel dimensions of "what if" to prove anything. In the "what if" game you can easily add other things, like "what if" Gylfi broke his leg in game 5, "what if" McDermott died in a car crash, blah blah blah.

[No Hoops]

H R-K signed new 3 yr contract. (Text)

[brendywendy]

now that is good news.

well done HRK

well done NH