Jamie Cureton or John O'Flynn?

[DaveE]

John O'Flynn is a decent League 2 striker. I have seen worse and I've seen better. He should have scored from the the first chance he had on Saturday (which PT acknowledged in the post match interview) but there you go. That's why he's League 2. Would Curo have scored? None of us will ever know, because, shocking though this is, Curo missed some sitters whilst with us. His image however, has passed into a golden memory of hazy better days. Mackie has fulfilled his potential and gone onto better things. Stanno was a fan on the pitch who we all loved. I don't think it's fair to compare JO'F to either.

 

[John William]

Extra time or stoppage time? I would guess extra time could be a golden goal result but we haven't had a game end in such a fashion. If you mean stoppage time then technically it's time that's been missed during the game - treating an injury for instance - so its just making up lost time with the game still finishing on 90 minutes.

13 games x a fraction over 94 minutes actually played = 1223.

Added time is still time in which a goal can be scored - in fact I think more goals are scored in added time, proportionately, than during regulation play. If you deduct all the time the ball is out of play, and therefore when a goal cannot be scored, I think you then take 5-10 minutes of every game - for throw ins, corners, goal kicks, time between the whistle blowing and a free kicks being taken, substitutions etc. I'm sure you can do this for televised top level games, but I doubt if in League 2 anyone puts a stopwatch on this.

So the fairest way practical way you can judge a striker's productivity is the number goals he scores in the time he is on the field in relation to the time game actually lasts, which is what these statistics show. It's not perfect, but more accurate than if you look at only the raw number of games you take part in, even if it's only for a couple of minutes as a sub to run the clock down. If a player has 10 minutes as a sub in every game and scores half as many goals as one who plays the whole of each game, his productivity is higher. This doesn't mean he'd score 9 times as many goals if he was on the pitch the whole time, of course.



Is all.

 

[Red Devon]

A lot of credit must go to the Burton keeper Pickford yesterday he was excellent...he made himself very big for O'Flynns first chance and came out and closed Gow down so quickly before he could get his shot off for his one on one.......also he did very well to tip that 40 yard effort from Gow over the cross bar....O'Flynny is a good striker when 100% fit, he's not the same player when not fully fit!!!

 

[John William]

A lot of credit must go to the Burton keeper Pickford yesterday he was excellent...he made himself very big for O'Flynns first chance and came out and closed Gow down so quickly before he could get his shot off for his one on one.......also he did very well to tip that 40 yard effort from Gow over the cross bar....O'Flynny is a good striker when 100% fit, he's not the same player when not fully fit!!!

Jordan Pickford is on loan from Sunderland, who I suspect rate him highly and want him to gain experience. He's only 19 and may well be one to watch for the future; goalies typically don't reach their peak until their late 20s (Artur is still only 24). On yesterday's evidence Pickford is a good shot stopper and also comes out well and has a good command of his area. He certainly kicks the ball a long way!

He's represented England right up to U-19 level.

 

[Red Devon]

Jordan Pickford is on loan from Sunderland, who I suspect rate him highly and want him to gain experience. He's only 19 and may well be one to watch for the future; goalies typically don't reach their peak until their late 20s (Artur is still only 24). On yesterday's evidence Pickford is a good shot stopper and also comes out well and has a good command of his area. He certainly kicks the ball a long way!

He's represented England right up to U-19 level.

Didn't know that...he was very,very good and he kicks with his left foot.

 

[Antony Moxey]

13 games x a fraction over 94 minutes actually played = 1223.

It's not added time though. If a match lasts 94 minutes it's because the ref decided that during the course of play four minutes were lost to things like injuries, substitutions or time wasting for example. Therefore he stops his watch and restarts it when the incident is over and thus the 94th minute is in reality the 90th minute. You'll notice that goals are never accredited as being scored in the 94th minute, they're always the 90th minute.

 

[STURTZ]

I also thought Pickford was a very good keeper, his speed at coming out definitely saved a couple of goals yesterday.

Back to topic, O Flynn has more miles in him than Cureton but he hasn't got that instinct to shoot on site. He tends to deliberate for a fraction too long and then just be happy to make sure his shot is on target, too often comfortably for the keeper. Cureton would just blast it in the general direction of the goal as often as he could, more goals resulted.

 

[John William]

It's not added time though. If a match lasts 94 minutes it's because the ref decided that during the course of play four minutes were lost to things like injuries, substitutions or time wasting for example. Therefore he stops his watch and restarts it when the incident is over and thus the 94th minute is in reality the 90th minute. You'll notice that goals are never accredited as being scored in the 94th minute, they're always the 90th minute.

Not so. I was pretty sure I'd seen an explanation of the procedure, and a quick search on Google found it. The Professional Game Match Officials Board explained this in a Q&A on the BBC website, it's at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20159223

So the referee never stops the watch and does add time, which is part of the playing time. It is officially called added time. And I don't think it's the case that goals in added time are all credited as 90 minutes.

In any case, the real world everyone from players to managers and the media talk about injury time or stoppage time goals. And as the referee rarely if ever explains publically when the incidents which caused him to add the time back occurred, though if the club is that concerned the fourth official will set this out for them as they do keep a note.

Us ordinary mortals can't analyse this any further, though the Q&A above explains the rule of thumb for their thinking.

So the way the Guardian do this, recording each player's time on the pitch, is the nearest we can realistically get to assessing striker's productivity. And to get back on track, though it does make O'Flynn's goal record appear better, Cureton's is still almost twice as good.

 

[Antony Moxey]

Find an example of a goal officially credited as higher than 90 minutes then (other than, obviously, one scored during extra time before some smartarse pipes up).

 

[John William]

Find an example of a goal officially credited as higher than 90 minutes then.

Depends on what you mean by "officially"? The Football League website doesn't "officially" list goalscorers at all, let alone when they scored. It links however to the club "official" websites; as a quick and dirty example, their link to the Pl*mouth Arg*le website lists their goal yesterday as being scored in the 93rd minute.

http://www.player.pafc.co.uk/last-match

The Mansfield one puts it as 90+3, but this is really unimportant stuff. Nit-picking about whether a goal is scored after 90, 90+3 or 93 minutes doesn't alter the fact that the games are still going on for longer than 90 minutes and goals are scored then. There is no "right" way of doing the stats, and a I doubt if John O'Flynn would care, if he scored an added-time goal, how it was recorded.

Now I need a pint.