Pogrebnyak

[Ian Royal]

File that under 'fail'.

Have to agree. IR, writing it from a very biased and deluded RFC fans point of view doesnt make it balanced or indeed accurate.

I have to disagree/agree with some of your points,

- For a big guy Pog is not very strong, and the strength he does have he doesnt know how to use.
- He doesnt have good control, and in particular his first touch is awful and he cant win headers despite his height.
- His shot is nothing special, poor finishing for a striker and dont forget he creates nothing for himself, and the few chances he does get he nearly always wastes.

IN FAIRNESS TO HIM - some of his problems, (like his poor finishing) are partly down to being low on confidence, and maybe we dont always play to his strengths (if there are any).

You clearly dont even rate Pogrebnyak, I dont understand why you suddenly feel the need to rush in and defend him.

Because I dislike people who think that "Pog has no 'quality'. At best he's a trier. One of , if not the worst signing made by RFC in the past 10 years. is anything other than mindless hypercritical nonsense with little reference to reality. And if I'm going to criticise a player I'm going to try to do it in a balanced way and consider both their strengths and their weaknesses.

[Ian Royal]

- His shot is nothing special, poor finishing for a striker ... and the few chances he does get he nearly always wastes.

This is not true - Pogrebnyak has an exceptional shots-to-goals ratio.
https://www.facebook.com/soccer.statist ... 5547690052

(I'm not trying to claim Pogrebnyak is as good as that statistic might imply, merely that it is inaccurate to say his finishing is "poor")

I tried to find some data for the Championship but I couldn't find anything suitable.

Pogrebnyak's weakness is that he doesn't turn half chances into full chances. To compare to some of our recent strikers, Roberts and Murray can bully opposing defenders out of their way and rifle a shot in, Long could outrun any defender, Le Fondre would gamble on trickier finishes. When he actually shoots he does very well.

I'd compare him to Kevin Doyle. Not particularly quick, not particularly strong, not likely to score from outside the box, willing runner, works the channels. Doyle had a much better scoring rate, and I'd attribute that primarily to superior (or more suitable) service. And, of course, Doyle played in much more successful sides.

Doyle was significantly quicker, and I'd say better in the air too. The quality around him does certainly play a part though. But it's otherwise a good comparison. Doyle certainly went on long shit runs scoring wise.

[Ian Royal]

- His shot is nothing special, poor finishing for a striker ... and the few chances he does get he nearly always wastes.

This is not true - Pogrebnyak has an exceptional shots-to-goals ratio.
https://www.facebook.com/soccer.statist ... 5547690052

(I'm not trying to claim Pogrebnyak is as good as that statistic might imply, merely that it is inaccurate to say his finishing is "poor")

I tried to find some data for the Championship but I couldn't find anything suitable.

Pogrebnyak's weakness is that he doesn't turn half chances into full chances. To compare to some of our recent strikers, Roberts and Murray can bully opposing defenders out of their way and rifle a shot in, Long could outrun any defender, Le Fondre would gamble on trickier finishes. When he actually shoots he does very well.

I'd compare him to Kevin Doyle. Not particularly quick, not particularly strong, not likely to score from outside the box, willing runner, works the channels. Doyle had a much better scoring rate, and I'd attribute that primarily to superior (or more suitable) service. And, of course, Doyle played in much more successful sides.

I'm not sure you can read that much into that particular statistic, Pog didnt have many shots in the PL. I'd be interested to see some similar stats for him in the Championship (pretty sure I've seen some woefully inaccurate shooting from a few times)

Agree that he is a bit like Doyle although worse I would say, (as I can't see him scoring 20+ goals even with a great creative team around him) and we saw how very average Doyle was in "not so" successful sides.

Last season:
34(5) shots per game 1.8, goals 13. 1 goal every 5 ish shots.
Ross McCormack
46, 3.1 shots per game, 28 goals = 1 goal every 5 ish shots.
Want more, it's here:
http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/7/Seasons/3859/Stages/9012/PlayerStatistics/England-Championship-2013-2014

[SydenhamRoyal]

One of , if not the worst signing made by RFC in the past 10 years.[/quote]
It always amuses me when people make hyperbolic statements without thinking about them at all - see the people who said the same thing about Drenthe.

We've had plenty of players who haven't made anything like the contribution Pogrebnyak has. Heck, we've had two called Williams in that time... Throw in Baseya, Sheppard, Mullins, Khumalo, Mooney, Fae, Akpan, Cywka, Thorvaldsson, Sodje, and (so far) Anton Ferdinand and it seems ridiculous to call Pog "one of" the worst signings we've made. And that's not including people who made small positive contributions like Mate, Halls, Dobson, Manset, Antonio, and Carrico. Left out Halford because we got our money back before he had a chance to do anything, left Fae in because he wasn't good enough and was a disruptive influence.

His wages have been expensive, yes, but at least we got a return on them. We probably threw away a comparable amount of money on the above in exchange for nothing, or outright bad performances.[/quote]

Im with ED on this one.
He's the club's top earner and, thus, he should behave like it. None of the people on your list are/were and Im not sure what your point about Drenthe is.
I have yet to see a game in 2+ years that he has won for us, and I would expect at least one such performance from a player who should be our star player. Likewise it 'always amuses me' when people congratulate him for 'putting in a shift'. Yeah, he's putting in a shift because he, quite literally, doesn't appear to like shooting. And that's a major fault for a striker.

Year 1 - He's bought on the back of a good strike rate at Fulham. He doesn't reproduce it for us.
Year 2 - We trust him to be too good for the championship. He isn't.
Year 3 - Even the manager is bored by him now. It takes Murray literally 3 games to show what we've been missing for TWO SEASONS.

For at least two years, he's been our main strike force and, consequently, we have no transfer policy in that area.
Also, whenever anybody gets good, we get a call for a new contract (to get in parity with the mediocre Pogrebnyak). Hell, Pearce and HRK weren't even playing that well when they demanded theirs.
And exactly how demotivating must it be for the duo of Pogrebnyak and Drenthe to be on top of your wages list?

Im sorry but it takes a bit more than winning a few headers with your back to goal and passing the ball sideways to justify his utter feebleness in the area of being a match winner. Murray is ten times the striker Pogrebnyak is - and he has a dodgy knee.

But hey! Remember that goal away to Chelsea!!!!

PS. Id be interested if his goals to strikes ratio is down to the fact that he has significantly less strikes than any normal striker.[/quote]


Just to go back to this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5X4eS1zAU[/quote]

Ah yes WBA scoring an own goal in the last minute to gift us a 3-2 win