Simon Cox

[Alan Partridge]

I'm with AP too.

Anyone saying they want a striker to guarantee you 20 goals a season is an idiot. That very very rarely happens. How many times have we had a striker who scored 20 goals in a season in the last 20 years? 5 maybe? And that's with 3 promotions and plenty of other promotion challenges.

Kitson and Doyle, arguably our two greatest strikers ever, both failed to get 20 goals in a season for us despite playing for about 9 or 10 seasons in total.

15 goals is a good return for a striker in a season. 20 is outstanding and 30 is exceptional.

Very good points there, i would say that had Kitson, Doyle or Lita played every game in that particular season then one of them would have got 20. They rotated quite a bit.

But otherwise yep, 'simply a statement that if what we need is someone to GUARANTEE us 20 goals there's not a huge amount to go on with Cox YET' as IR says it's hard to find such a player, Reading certainly don't have any in their current ranks.

[Sun Tzu]

I'm with AP too.

Anyone saying they want a striker to guarantee you 20 goals a season is an idiot. That very very rarely happens. .

If 6 players in Div 1 scored 20 gaols last season then that is actually not 'very, very rare' is it ? 25% of teams had a goalscorer on that figure (assuming no one had the incredible fortune to have 2 !).

People constantly talk about the need to have a 20 goal a season striker, there is nothing idiotic about it at all. i don;t think it makes sense to get too hung up on the exact number though. It's shorthand for someone who will regularly and consistently knock the goals in, whether in fact that means 16 or 23 isn't the point. Is Cox going to be a regular scorer at or around the 20 mark in the Championship ?

[Alan Partridge]

I'm with AP too.

Anyone saying they want a striker to guarantee you 20 goals a season is an idiot. That very very rarely happens. .

If 6 players in Div 1 scored 20 gaols last season then that is actually not 'very, very rare' is it ? 25% of teams had a goalscorer on that figure (assuming no one had the incredible fortune to have 2 !).

People constantly talk about the need to have a 20 goal a season striker, there is nothing idiotic about it at all. i don;t think it makes sense to get too hung up on the exact number though. It's shorthand for someone who will regularly and consistently knock the goals in, whether in fact that means 16 or 23 isn't the point. Is Cox going to be a regular scorer at or around the 20 mark in the Championship ?

Is Long? Is Church? Is Noel Hunt?

There is far more evidence to say Cox will be than those because he's scored a lot of goals in a season before.

1 team did have the luxury of two of them, Peterborough I believe, McClean and Mackail Smith?

[Sun Tzu]

I'm with AP too.

Anyone saying they want a striker to guarantee you 20 goals a season is an idiot. That very very rarely happens. .

If 6 players in Div 1 scored 20 gaols last season then that is actually not 'very, very rare' is it ? 25% of teams had a goalscorer on that figure (assuming no one had the incredible fortune to have 2 !).

People constantly talk about the need to have a 20 goal a season striker, there is nothing idiotic about it at all. i don;t think it makes sense to get too hung up on the exact number though. It's shorthand for someone who will regularly and consistently knock the goals in, whether in fact that means 16 or 23 isn't the point. Is Cox going to be a regular scorer at or around the 20 mark in the Championship ?

Is Long? Is Church? Is Noel Hunt?

There is far more evidence to say Cox will be than those because he's scored a lot of goals in a season before.

Hunt's got 13 in 46 at this level and 23 in 64 in the SPL.

I'd say there is enough evidence there to challenge your claim that there is 'far more' evidence that Cox can do it !

Long you'd have to have big doubts about sustaining a run of scoring across a whole season and Church certainly doesn;t have the track record to judge yet.

Cox certainly has had that great season at Swindon. Would be good to see him play 46 games at this level and show us what he can do so we can know for sure rather than guessing.

1 team did have the luxury of two of them, Peterborough I believe, McClean and Mackail Smith?

[Alan Partridge]

But would that even be enough his first season at this level, will it make or break his career? No is the answer to both.

Even though Curo got a few goals for us in 2003, I thought he lacked the game and the pace to score regularly at that level. At 32 he went to Colchester and won the Golden Boot in this division.

Noel Hunt isn't fit enough to play 46 matches so I doubt he'll ever get 20 goals in this division (He has completed 90mins on just SEVEN occasions for RFC 2 of which were league cup ties at the start of last season). He's also not really very good at football. I quite like Noel Hunt, gives it his all, gets in decent positions, he's brave but he benefitted from playing next to Kevin Doyle at his best at the start of last season. No surprise that he struggled as Doyle struggled. Doyle made space and chances for him and when that stopped, Hunt's goals dried up likewise. Also the 2nd half season form of his brother didn't help!

[Hoop Blah]

13 is quite a difference to 20 though (even if by 20 you mean someone who'll get you 18).

Potentially those 7 extra goals could be another 10-20 points. The difference between being 15th and 5th.

I think getting 6 at 20+ is actually quite rare too. I think 3 is probably closer to average, but I haven't looked into it.

[Sun Tzu]

13 is quite a difference to 20 though (even if by 20 you mean someone who'll get you 18).

.

Indeed, in the same way as there is quite a difference between scoring goals in Div 1 and in the Championship !

Lots of variables, no certainties !

Come May let's see if Cox has managed many starts and then how many goals he's got. We'll have a bit more to go on then, although it will be tough to write him off if he ends up with say 12 starts and 3 goals.

[Blue_Elm]

He couldnt do any worse than the 11 we have out there at the moment

[andrew1957]

All teams would like a 20 league goal a year striker but in the last 7 Championship seasons put together only 22 players have managed more than 20 league goals in a season (an average of 3 per season) - only Harewood and Ebanks-Blake appear on that list twice and no Reading FC player has managed the feat yet since we left league one.

20 goal a season strikers are hard to find.

[UpNorth]

WBA lost tonight and Cox missed a sitter by all accounts.

Not so easy in the Championship.

[Alan Partridge]

WBA lost tonight and Cox missed a sitter by all accounts.

Not so easy in the Championship.

We lost 4-1 and had 2 lads totally not good enough for this league up front, including one whose been on the Caskey diet.

[FiNeRaIn]

OK, long is poor but you are going overboard on the weight front. Honestly. I'll give you all the other comments but he is pretty stocky and bulky with muscle, not fat at all.

[Royal Rother]

Indeed. It always amused me that people were certain that Bikey was fat until he ripped his shirt off against Burnley.

[Ian Royal]

Indeed. It always amused me that people were certain that Bikey was fat until he ripped his shirt off against Burnley.

Having seen Long take his shirt off and walk to within about 10 - 15 feet of me I can assure you he is not all muscle. He has an arse the size of the moon as well.

[1871royals]

Having seen Long take his shirt off and walk to within about 10 - 15 feet of me I can assure you he is not all muscle. He has an arse the size of the moon as well.

+1 I was at QPR yesterday and Long looked very very out of shape for a professional footballer.

This season was his chance with Doyle leaving and he couldn't even be bothered to stay in shape.

Been here over 4 years, never started regularly because no-one ever rated him.

[Ian Royal]

Having seen Long take his shirt off and walk to within about 10 - 15 feet of me I can assure you he is not all muscle. He has an arse the size of the moon as well.

+1 I was at QPR yesterday and Long looked very very out of shape for a professional footballer.

This season was his chance with Doyle leaving and he couldn't even be bothered to stay in shape.

Been here over 4 years, never started regularly because no ever rated him.

It's the boxing training he's started to improve his strength. He's obviously working up to super heavy weight rather than going for one of the more agile speedy weight classes.

[brendywendy]

injured for a while striker in gains a few pounds shocker

[Jackson Corner]

Another example of a div one striker not cutting it at this level.

[Elmer Park]

With Coxy struggling at West Brom and Brendan publicly criticising our attacking players I wonder if we might be seeing him back at Reading on loan shortly.

[UpNorth]

No sooner said....

Papers today are claiming we want him back on loan (Sun, Mail & Express).