Welcome back Snodgrass.......................

[king canary 7,562]

@ldc

Exactly,same applies to crossing stats. These stats are entirely meaningless without context. Assists are a useless stat as a 5 yard pass to someone who spanks it in from 25 yards gets you an assist, while a pinpoint through ball that the striker balloons over the bar gets you nothing. Chances created is better as it doesn''t rely on the ability of someone else to finish it but it''s not perfect. No stat is without context.

[lharman7 39]

Hoola Han Solo wrote the following post at 21/07/2017 7:11 PM:

Worth noting that the majority of posters on this thread lambasting Snodgrass but defending RvW are the ones that don''t go to matches and just watch an illegal stream instead. You get a lot more viewpoints when you''re actually at the match.

Just to correct you big time Charlie, I''ve never watched an illegal stream.

Plus, this coming season I''ve paid for a subscription to iFollow. (its ok to be jealous).

Nice try though.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]Worth noting that the majority of posters on this thread lambasting Snodgrass but defending RvW .[/quote]I hven''t seen anyone doing that.  Anyone with any sense can see that both failed to succeed becuse we were relegated. What has been discussed is why they didn''t succeed. 

[Indy_Bones 441]

[quote user="lake district canary"]Depends on the quality of chances.  A lob of a cross into a packed defence (because of the delay in sending it in allowing everyone to get back) and a player managing to get a head to it does not constitute a good chance. It constitutes a park football type chance - amateurish and weak. [/quote]Whilst I agree with basis of this LDC, It''s only fair point out that this type of ''chance'' would ideally suit a player like Andy Carroll who thrives on that sort of supply, whilst it would be bloody awful for someone like Defoe etc.But did we have Andy Carroll or a similar player upfront for us? Nope, the closest we got was arguably Elmander, (and previous to this both Holt and Morison would have done ok with that), yet it appears that it''s all RvW''s fault if those sort of ''chances'' are missed, rather than Snoddy''s fault for slinging in pointless crosses that simply didn''t suit the strikers we were playing - be this Hooper, RvW, Elmander or whoever....

[lharman7 39]

Hoola Han Solo wrote the following post at 21/07/2017 7:13 PM:

Yet he did have a bettter cross accuracy than Llalana, an England international who is one of the best midfielders in the league when he''s on it. #context

Lallana is not a winger though is he? #verydumb

[Hoola Han Solo 448]

Lallana was playing as a winger for Southampton as part of a 4-3-3 in 13/14, the season in which the stats are from #verydumb

[writeronthestorm 4]

[quote user="Indy_Bones"][quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]For all his weaknesses, Snodgrass contributed a hell of a lot more to Norwich City than van Wolfswinkel ever did, yet you bend over backwards to defend him. Is it maybe because however you try and paint it, RvW was a complete failure and you just don''t want to admit it, whereas Snodgrass was obviously not? Maybe a case of bruised ego.[/quote]I can''t speak for LDC, but certainly in my case it''s nothing to do with ego, and simply that I don''t see it the same way as some other fans do.You say Snoddy contributed more, but in truth what was RvW meant to do with the shockingly poor supply we gave him whilst being asked to perform a role that pretty much any of the posters on here would know was never going to suit the player? You wouldn''t have asked Bellamy to be a target man, or Eadie, or Robins etc, etc, yet when RvW is asked to do it, all we got were snide comments about how he should adapt to the requirements, rather than admitting that it was ridiculous signing a goal poacher and expecting an Andy Carroll type performance from them!Also, the vast majority of our play was through Snodgrass, yet compared to other players given that much of the ball, his return was pretty weak. Remember the side that came up under Lambert? Remember Pilks playing on the opposing wing and seeing a lot less of the ball than Snoddy did (and having just signed from a League 1 club and having been injured previously to boot), yet he scored more, was more accurate with his passing (81% vs 76%) and in particular his crossing was far more composed and where it needed to be than Snoddy ever was, yet Pilks is often met with apathy on the forums whilst Snoddy who was given more to work with yet did less with it is somehow lauded despite his failings???I honestly don''t care how often, or how long I belabour the point, but RvW was setup to fail by Hughton, the problem was compounded by Snoddy (and some of the other midfielders to be fair), and RvW was made a scapegoat in the process. Ask a fishmonger to fillet a fish and they''ll do it no problem, ask them to lay a brick wall and chances are that it isn''t staying up for long (if at all), yet when we told a goal poacher to not poach goals, but to be a strong, hold-up style target man, the blame was placed on the player for failing to do a great job (despite it not being, and never will be their role), rather than the clown who caused the issue in the first place!If you had a goalkeeper conceding 10 goals a match you''d argue that he''s not a good player, but what if we then pointed out that he was in a team playing a 0-0-10 formation and he had absolutely no cover or support whatsoever, is it then the fault of the keeper, or in fact the fault of the team/manager for letting that situation occur constantly?RvW was making some great runs in the early games before his injury - they were ignored, he still kept trying to make them on his return - they were ignored again, eventually he lost confidence, which combined with the pi$$ poor supply and being told to play a stupid role, meant he was next to useless in many games - but not because he was a bad player, but rather  because the circumstances surrounding him, made it almost impossible to succeed. Hell, even Grant Holt who was great at holding up the ball and using his strength, found his goal tally halved under Hughton - and that''s a player that actually COULD play the target man role ffs, never mind a lightweight striker more suited to putting a final touch on a ball than he is jostling with some of the massively built CB''s in the prem!The stats around RvW don''t lie, his goal return was terrible for us, and in relation to his transfer fee was even worse, yet I don''t (and never will) blame the player for this, I squarely blame Hughton, and also feel that other players in the team let the guy down by giving him nothing he could work with (although if they were following Hughton''s guidelines, can we fault them too much in the process?), and that if instead we''d have played a more dynamic game - which didn''t involve giving the ball to Snoddy so he could slow the game down to a snail''s pace every chance we got, and instead worked on letting players like Wes pick RvW''s runs out, we''d have seen a VERY different player, and a VERY different goal return.It''s just so wrong to put all the blame on RvW, when he was in fact a victim of bad management and shocking tactics, rather than a bad player, it really is that simple for me.[/quote]

Excellent stuff - sums up my thoughts on RVW too

[Iwans Big Toe 312]

[quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]Stats are irrelevant without context. Wingers are famously I consistent and to provide a fair assessment you would need to compare Snodgrass to similar players, both at Norwich past and present and similar clubs.[/quote]

[quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]12 Norwich goals in 67 league appearances for Snodgrass. One every 6

games. RvW one league goal in every 28 appearances. 3 or 4 million

profit on sale of RS. A loss of at least 5 million on RvW.

[/quote]It''s hard to tell with people on here, but is this intentional or accidental irony? You say to provide a fair assessment Snodgrass should compared with similar players, then you compare RVW to him, who is nothing like Snodgrass!

[lharman7 39]

Hoola Han Solo wrote the following post at 21/07/2017 7:25 PM:

Lallana was playing as a winger for Southampton as part of a 4-3-3 in 13/14, the season in which the stats are from #verydumb

Lallana is about as much a winger as our Wes is! Again, he is not a winger. He was playing out of position.

The fact that he was only 1% worse off than Snodgrass only adds to the fact Snodgrass was poor seeing as though Snodgrass is classed as a winger!

#tryagainverydumb

[king canary 7,562]

@indy

This is the point though - you''ve taken your stat to mean he was just drifting aimless crosses in for a Carroll type which the stats don''t actually show.

This is where you have to combine stats with what you see on the pitch. The tactics from Hughton didn''t really suit Snodgrass or Ricky yet Snodgrass displayed a lot more all round ability the Ricky did that season.

[Yellow Wal 314]

Hoola Han Solo wrote the following post at 21/07/2017 12:11 PM:

Worth noting that the majority of posters on this thread lambasting Snodgrass but defending RvW are the ones that don''t go to matches and just watch an illegal stream instead. You get a lot more viewpoints when you''re actually at the match.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

You must be very fortunate to be surrounded by knowledgeable football supporters.

There are many people who watch matches at Carrow Road but see very little.

This is reflected by the idiots'' remarks who sit near me. Every week of the season they prove they know jackshit about football but still consider themselves to be experts (well they are there, at the ground, watching the match, so they must know better than people who are sitting at home).

Perhaps I''m getting less tolerable in my old age but every match I find myself biting my tongue when yet another idiotic, crass remark is made.

I will agree that more can be seen if you are at the match but to make a general comment is very wrong.

I have seen enough both live and on television to know that I did not like what I saw of right winger Robert Snodgrass and would not want to see his return.

Perhaps we should swap seats Hoola!

[Mr Apples 1,315]

What were Snod''s running stats like and how did they compare to other people running?Apples

[Indy_Bones 441]

[quote user="king canary"]@indy

This is the point though - you''ve taken your stat to mean he was just drifting aimless crosses in for a Carroll type which the stats don''t actually show.

This is where you have to combine stats with what you see on the pitch. The tactics from Hughton didn''t really suit Snodgrass or Ricky yet Snodgrass displayed a lot more all round ability the Ricky did that season.[/quote]If we''d signed a ''complete striker'', as in a player who can create their own chances out of very little, you''d have more of a point KC, but that''s simply not the type of player we signed in RvW. He''s a player who absolutely relies on good supply to make something happen, much like how players such as Lineker or Inzaghi often offered very little outside of finishing and a bit of work rate, the difference being that they got good supply to work with whereas RvW simply didn''t.That season, Snoddy had more inaccurate crosses than any other player in the league, and it didn''t matter if we had RvW, Hooper, Elmander or whoever upfront, the same meaningless crosses kept being swung in regardless. Also bear in mind that Snoddy was notorious for slowing down the play, so that by the time he did finally put a ball over, 95% of the time the opposing team were back in numbers to defend, and again we didn''t have a Carroll type player that is going to work under those circumstances.I agree that stats can be interpreted differently, and that they do need to be used in conjunction with other things such as match footage etc, but as I said earlier, it didn''t matter whether RvW was upfront or not, Snoddy was still sending over far more crosses that achieved nothing regardless, and whether or not you can appreciate Snoddy''s other qualities, this was a key component in why we scored far fewer than previously.To put it another way, if 50% of the time the distribution was being done by Snoddy, and 75% of his crosses were doing nothing, how on earth did you expect our forwards to perform well with such dismal supply???

[Indy_Bones 441]

[quote user="Mr Apples"]What were Snod''s running stats like and how did they compare to other people running?[/quote]Usually pretty good in terms of distance covered, although again the ''context'' phrase comes into play, as generally speaking, the players that cover the most distance on average per game tend to more defensive midfielders/defenders than attacking players, so it''s not always easy to translate running into how effective and relevant it is.On one hand you have save a Kante, who runs himself into the floor and provides incredible coverage and work rate in the middle, on the other you have players like Andy Hughes and Lee Croft, who worked hard but frequently achieved nothing with it.I''d argue that a reasonable percentage of Snoddy''s running data came from not only running down blind alleys towards the corner far too often, but because he also liked to try to beat his man repeated times in a row, thus increasing distance for no discernable effect.Can''t fault his work rate regardless, I just wish he''d spent more time doing something useful with it...

[lincoln canary (& Golden Coppel) 0]

Have him back? Hell yes.

Will it happen? No chance.

[Highland Canary 76]

A technically gifted player with quality who tried. Why would we not wish for an upgrade midst the fire sale.

[king canary 7,562]

@indy

One of these reason these debates are so frustrating is we essentially agree- we really didn''t play to Ricky''s strengths and if we wanted to use the tactics we did we should never have signed him.

Where we differ is whether the strengths he has are all that useful. A pure finisher is a hugely rare thing these days and I don''t see any in the Premier League - the most obvious comparison I see is Jordan Rhodes, a player Boro were happy to sell as soon as they hit the big leagues.

I don''t believe a player like him offers enough to play in the big leagues and he showed no ability to offer anything else. Gary Hooper is a ''poacher'' typecplayer but he managed a few goals and showed something more. Snodgrass wasn''t suited to the tactics but still showed good ability on the ball, expertise from set pieces and an eye for a goal from midfield, hence why he consistently plays in the Premier League. Ricky offered nothing and we''re reliant on YouTube videos to view the fabled poaching ability he reportedly possessed.

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="king canary"]Ricky offered nothing...[/quote]Summed up in those three words.

[Indy_Bones 441]

Good response KC, much appreciated [url=http://www.desismileys.com/][img]http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_6666.gif[/img][/url]You''re absolutely right in saying that pure finishers are very much a dying breed and pretty much non-existent in many top leagues, and that''s what was so frustrating about both the situation at the time, and the responses to RvW since. All I''ve heard from a number of people is stuff like "He was just s**t", and "Had no strength or real pace etc", and my argument has always been that this type of player isn''t lighting quick, they''re not built like tanks or superb in the air, what they are however is massively reliant on good supply to be able to perform, and I don''t think many people can really argue that the supply he received was frequently poor, and almost never the type of ball he ideally should thrive on.RvW is not the sort of player to really be able to adapt his game very much, in fact he''s almost a one-trick pony, and we consistently asked him to perform completely different tricks, and then moaned when he couldn''t do them, instead of getting him to do the one trick he is good at!I''m not a big Snoddy fan, and even on the board, opinion seems somewhat split on the guy (compared to the almost universal condemnation of RvW), but I''m happy to accept that I may well be in a minority with my views on him, but I''m just sick and tired of people slating RvW for being the player he is, rather than the player they wanted, and the player that the manager should have known how to get the best from. It is NOT the players fault that he wasn''t Aguero or Lukaku, it''s NOT the players fault that the manager set the team up in such a way as to minimize his chances to perform whilst being asked to do a role that he''d never played, and simply wasn''t suited to, it''s NOT the players fault that he cost us a club record fee at the time, and it''s NOT his fault that instead of picking out his runs, his teammates instead held onto the ball and then finally passed it in a completely unsuited way for him to really do anything with.If we''d given him the type of balls and supply he should have been able to make something from and then subsequently failed, I wouldn''t be defending the guy in the slightest, but that''s not what happened, and whilst he may well not be as decent a player as I feel he is, he certainly isn''t anywhere near as bad as others want to suggest either.

[Hoola Han Solo 448]

Is this STILL going on? 😂😂

[Highland Canary 76]

RvW was the least effective striker I''ve witnessed in a Norwich shirt; Snodgrass, on the other hand, was a competent, and sometimes exceptional, player in an otherwise disappointing side.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Highland Canary"]RvW was the least effective striker I''ve witnessed in a Norwich shirt; Snodgrass, on the other hand, was a competent, and sometimes exceptional, player in an otherwise disappointing side.[/quote]Snodgrass''s goals were welcome of course, but it was in a season of performances that saw him run into so many dead ends, hit so many poorly hit shots and delayed crosses at the expense of his colleagues.  It''s as I have been saying all along and as Indy Bones has shown time and time again with his detailed analysis.  RVW was not good enough either, but if he had had better service to match his early season enthusiasm, he might have scored one or two goals and got a run of form and confidence going. The penalty incident early in the season just compounded the situation.....Snodgrass again at the expense of the greater good.

[hogesar 9,611]

Not too often I agree with Highland but that last post is spot on.

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

Haven''t I read all of this before, maybe more than once.