Snowball Look at Long's most recent three seasons versus Doyle's two Championship seasons
"83.67 Games" 37 Goals = a Goal every 2.61 Games Doyle
"91.50 Games" 41 Goals = a Goal every 2.23 Games Long
And if you look at Long's games there you'll see it corresponds to two 46 game seasons, 41 goals
DOYLE
43 (08) = 44.33 Games = 19 Goals 2005-06
39 (02) = 39.33 Games = 18 Goals 2008-09
82 (10) = 83.67 Games = 37 Goals TOTAL (Championship)
LONG
46 (01) = 46.16 Games = 23 Goals 2010-11
24 (12) = 26.00 Games = 09 Goals 2009-10
15 (26) = 19.33 Games = 09 Goals 2008-09
85 (39) = 91.50 Games = 41 Goals
You cannot look at things simply in terms of statistics. Sekou Baradji set up a goal every two minutes, so if we'd have played him in midfield for the whole of 05-06, we'd have scored 45 goals per game.
In 05-06, Doyle played in a side where he was one of many avenues towards scoring a goal. He was one of three strikers, plus four midfielders, who were serious goal threats, and later the team were constantly trying to tee up Graeme Murty. We did not spend most of the match trying to get the ball to Doyle so he could score.
In 08-09, Doyle was our main striker for half the season. He scored 14-18 goals (I don't know how many he scored in the second half, I just know it wasn't many). Then teams realised he was the best player in the league and kicked him off the park. Referees did not award penalties for said fouls. Doyle would often get half a shot away as he was being fouled, and they would usually be on target. If those penalties had been awarded against Doyle, he might have scored some of them (or one of the Hunts or Kitson would have, I think Stephen was our full time taker by then but I also think Doyle might have been taking ones that he won), defenders would have been less keen to just foul him, and he would have scored more goals, probably finishing on a similar total to Long's this season.
Long is largely about power, and he has an unorthodox finishing technique. He also puts his fair of shots into orbit. Doyle had a very orthodox finishing technique, usually side-footing his shots. This is reflected in his ratio of shots on target to shots off target being better than Long's, but Long's ratio of shots on target to goals being noticeably better. Shots-to-goals are so close that it isn't worth making a thing of the difference. In my opinion, the fact that Doyle was betetr at getting his shots on target than Long means that he is more clinical. If you disagree statistically, you are only arguing semantics. If you disagree through your observation of players (something you don't seem to do), then... okay.
Additionally, you can't ask me to factor in Long's barren spell where he missed a lot of sitters if you won't factor in Doyle's spell of being kicked off the ball.
When Doyle was at the club, Long usually came off the bench, and played against tired players. No one would say that Stephen Hunt was a better player than Bobby Convey in 05-06, but iirc they had similar goal-to-minute ratios. The effect of pace against tired player is devastating.
I like Long, he just isn't on Doyle's level. People forget too easily just how could that team were. Comparing Long to Doyle is like comparing Mills to Sonko... there's a resemblance, both are good players, but there are key differences, and it should be obvious who the better player is if you've actually seen them play. "Ah, but we only concede 2.1 goals per game and keep a clean sheet every 4.3 games with Mills, whereas over Sonko's career..."
He has played PL football.