Long to WBA

[Ian Royal]

Tbf, he's hardly set the championship alight. He's struck lucky - I'll give him that.

I think that is extremely harsh on Shane. He is a good player at this level but I don't think he has developed as much or as quickly as some people would have hoped he would have done.

The older he gets the more "the potential" reduces. I remember when we signed him and Doyler and the Cork City fans were equally upset at losing Shane as they were Kev as they saw him as Kev's natural replacement and some tipped him to emerge a better player than Kev based on what they had seen of him. Trouble is, where kev could go on and play for a top 4 side and continues to develop, Shane's development seems to have levelled off a little.

I think it would cost more than £1m to adequately replace a still young goalscorer who is physically adept and experienced in this division.

Agreed - the crucial time for his development was 2-3 years ago, where a season on-loan with regular appearances could have made him as a player. Instead, we only used him as an impact sub and he was woefully under-played.

Definitely.

And in defence of Schards( ), I'd say that comment was quite obviously an exaggeration to emphasise how strongly he believed Long wasn't good enough for us, rather than a genuinely held belief that he couldn't make a career out of football somewhere at some sort of level.

For me he's a League One star / Championship also ran, who could have been so much more. He just can't deliver a consistent level of good performance with goals. He hasn't been bad since before January. But he stopped scoring after his flurry in Jan / Feb.

Yet again we're looking at going into a season saying it's Long's last chance to prove what he can do. He is the king of rescuing his Reading career from the pyre with a brief burst that promises he'll finally deliver.

[Big Foot]

But he stopped scoring after his flurry in Jan / Feb.

Saturday, 17 April 2010
The Coca-Cola Football League Championship

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading


Pearce (3)
Sigurdsson (pen 25, 76)
McAnuff (29)
Kebe (44)
Long (59)

6-0
(HT 4-0) Peterborough


Wednesday, 10 March 2010
The Coca-Cola Football League Championship

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading


Long (8)
Kebe (34)
Bertrand (69)
Church (84)

4-1
(HT 2-1) Derby


Sunu (21)


Sunday, 7 March 2010
The FA Cup

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading


Long (27, 42)

2-4
(HT 2-0) Aston Villa


A Young (47)
Carew (51, 57, pen 90+3)

[Ian Royal]

Right if you want me to be anally specific about:

He stopped really scoring after his flurry of goals from 30 Jan - 10 March, except for two outriders on 17 April and 13 January. So that's actually less than two months, making my point even stronger. Cheers.

You're worse than Spacey FFS.

And I thought you didn't want to talk to me.

[Tinrib]

Theres far more to Shanes game than scoring goals, and we're not a team that is purely reliant on our centre forwards scoring twenty a season, - his assets are other areas of his game. He's now put on a bit of muscle, is abrahsive to play against and puts himself about, and is much improved since Christmas.

A huge amount of our out balls are fired up to Shane, and I was impressed in the latter half of the season with his hold up play, the way he positioned himself, how he bought others into play in the attacking third, and his strength on the ball.

Of course, there are no meaningful stats that you can regurgitate for the above types of performance, so Shanes strong last half of the season would pass by the anally retentive on this board.

[W&E Royal]

Theres far more to Shanes game than scoring goals, and we're not a team that is purely reliant on our centre forwards scoring twenty a season, - his assets are other areas of his game. He's now put on a bit of muscle, is abrahsive to play against and puts himself about, and is much improved since Christmas.

A huge amount of our out balls are fired up to Shane, and I was impressed in the latter half of the season with his hold up play, the way he positioned himself, how he bought others into play in the attacking third, and his strength on the ball.

Of course, there are no meaningful stats that you can regurgitate for the above types of performance, so Shanes strong last half of the season would pass by the anally retentive on this board.

I agree.

[andrew1957]

Personally i hope he stays. Massively underrated on here and is our best hold the ball up player. No doubt if he goes this summer then next season there will be moaning on here that we have let him go!!

Unless of course we are offered silly money and can find a better replacement.

[RG30]

As in the Daily Express

[Row Z Royal]

LOL Sold.

[UpNorth]

Make em pay!

Nothing less than £4m

[ankeny]

Why would he want to step into that basket case

[NR_Royal]

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/219 ... -Long-term

This would make no sense, surely Long is no better than what they already have?

[leww_rfc]

Bugger off West Ham!

[RoyalJames101]

Please let this be untrue.

[leww_rfc]

West Ham are like playground bullies to championship clubs, but the laughable ones who secretly still sleep with a teddy bear!

[westongeezer]

Rumours are about that West Ham are coming in on Shane next month source not very reliable but pretty much on the button most of the time


OOPPS BEATEN TO POST

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

you could always delete if no replies.

[Row Z Royal]

you could always delete if no replies.

Good idea

[Ian Royal]

If we get a good price for him I can't see this being bad at all. He's not going to be good enough to help them, we get loads of dosh and can move on from a player who has never really made it here and hopefully pick someone to bring in who is tailor made for the style of play we want.

The rumour is not going to do his confidence any harm, in fact it's likely to boost it, which can only be a good thing in helping decide whether he can actually keep up this little scoring run this time and properly prove himself.

[Arch]

... source not very reliable but pretty much on the button most of the time...

But then we wouldn't get this carved in stone for posterity.

[Barry the bird boggler]

More made up cobblers to fill column millimetres....