Shane Long

He started against Poland away also to be fair, (he started in the only 2 games we lost.....). Of the 9 games he was fit for he started 2, Murphy 3 and Keane 4.

It really is a stupid argument that his lack of gametime has held back his development, isn't it equally as possible that his lack of development has impacted his gametime.
I'd have started him in every game like I'd say most of the posters on here would have but arguing over it now it a bit pointless because at the end of the day:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...ea51e07b88.jpg

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

his lack of game time has cost him the chance to have been a highly accomplished international long before now. He'd been an even better player for us now if we had used him more in the past. I'd dispute that.

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Originally Posted by joe_denilson

It really is a stupid argument that his lack of gametime has held back his development

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Nobody is making these arguments.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

The arguments are hysterical and OTT.

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Who's being hysterical and OTT?
We have yet to see any evidence that Long is O'Neill's first choice, he hasn't been up to now.

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The team is better now than a year ago. I think Long is a better player now than a year ago. I'd bet you anything Ronald Koeman agrees.

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Ronnie would certainly agree about Shane as he has been taking the credit over the last 2 seasons for his improved performances.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

Nobody is making these arguments.

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Post 1773 and many before it.

The post you have quoted as the main offender doesn't make any claim, implied or otherwise, that he (Long) would be a better player for us (Ireland) now if we had used him more in the past. This was what you claimed was being argued and that Joe picked up on with his comments - but I haven't seen that claim anywhere. It would be ludicrous to make such a claim. His development as a player is not reliant on international games. The argument being made by the posterior referenced is that, in his opinion, worse players have been picked ahead of him through out the years. And it's accurate. Murphy is one example, there are many others.

You've never been a fan or thought he warranted a regular start and quite a few posters here agreed and quite a few disagreed with you over the years. And that's fine, that's the good thing about debate. But don't make up arguments that aren't being made.

Whatever about how good he'd be now if he'd played more international games, I think post 1776 is directly related to the first sentence that Stu quoted Stutts as saying. And it was ludicrous to compare Long's Ireland career to Hoolahan's. There are no 'What ifs' with Long really. He got plenty of chances, maybe he should have got even more but he didn't take some of the big ones he did get. And I'm a big fan of his.

I don't see it Del, unless I'm being very creative in how to reconcile the two statements. I can't speak to what TOWK really meant but to me it is lamenting what Ireland could have been with Long as a regular starter in the same way that we lament what Ireland could have been if Hoolohan hadn't been shut out for so long. I agree we shouldn't live too long in the what ifs.

On the plenty of opportunities piece...I think it's important to put his 60 odd caps (and 15 goals) into context. Roughly 2/3 of those caps have come from the bench. He has only made about 20 starts and maybe 6 or 7 of those were in competitive games. He made his debut in 2007. That's 9 years, maybe slightly more than two starts per year! Even less for competitive games!

I know the managers must have had their reasons but to me, as a huge fan of Ireland and a huge fan of Long, it doesn't seem right.

I haven't considered numbers really, I'm just going from memory and I know he started against Sweden twice and Austria twice in our last campaign, our four biggest matches. He did well in the first half of the Austria home game but was ineffective otherwise. He was ineffective in Glasgow in this campaign. I would have certainly started him ahead of Murphy in this campaign though, no doubt. It's not remotely comparable to the way Hoolahan was frozen out imo.

He made 9 starts in 2013. 1 sub appearance. 2 goals.

His average number of starts in the other 9 years of his career are 1.9 per year.

He has actually made 26 starts in his career so I understated the number in my last post and presumably competitive starts too.

I don't care how many games he came off the bench from or started, anyone with an educated eye can see he has missed plenty of good chances, which he has done at every level bar championship. It's his only real weakness, well apart from impetuous tackles when standing off would be the better choice. I don't give a hoot about stats. I love the guy, have always maintained he is a beast to play against and a really valuable asset. TOWK has made the point about his lack of selection in the past and it was strongly alluded to in the post defending him from MON's fair remarks.

Jeez, people complain when Long is second fiddle at club level to AN Other (alleged inferior player at X club) then when a manager says he hasn't always been first choice he's criticised.

As for the hysteria and OTT, it's the whole package. O'Neill makes an interesting selection, overlooks some promising players with little chance of making the Euros, makes a fair comment about a talented player who is in the best form of his career, and it's a "baffling" selection, or worse.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

He made 9 starts in 2013. 1 sub appearance. 2 goals.

His average number of starts in the other 9 years of his career are 1.9 per year.

He has actually made 26 starts in his career so I understated the number in my last post and presumably competitive starts too.

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For me the numbers are a bit irrelevant. Keane and Doyle were generally considered our best forward options up until the last Euros. As I mentioned, Long got a good run of it in the next campaign. It's only this campaign really where he can feel a bit hard done by, but that's a very short time frame to be fretting over, if he is our first choice now, which going by O'Neill's comments and the recent friendlies I believe he probably is.

This is what O'Neill said:

“When Shane was in the squad, at times I wondered if he had a great belief in himself at club level. He was at Reading, West Brom, Hull, not at Hull that long, and he might start to think, ‘do any of the club managers fancy me?’ So maybe he had that to overcome.

“Shane has to take great credit for himself. His goal against Poland, when he was only on the field a few minutes, that gives him a lift, but the Germany game has definitely given him a lift. I don’t mean there was a contentment about Shane thinking, ‘Well, I’m not in the starting line-up, but maybe I can make a real impact as a sub’.

Anyway, anyone who was at the Italy game at Craven Cottage where Shane missed a couple of good chances, and in a run of games when he had fluffed a few chances for us, could see that the guy's head had gone. Everyone really felt for him. At the FAI breakfast in London (where Paul by popular consensus asked the best question ever put
to O'Neill and in an articulate and erudite manner unbefitting of a Rozzie) I asked O'Neill precisely this: "you're very well known for your motivational work, Shane looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders the other night, how do you help him?" He gave a bit of a waffly answer but it was clear he agreed with the premise: Long was doubting himself.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I don't care how many games he came off the bench from or started, anyone with an educated eye can see he has missed plenty of good chances, which he has done at every level bar championship. It's his only real weakness, well apart from impetuous tackles when standing off would be the better choice. I don't give a hoot about stats. I love the guy, have always maintained he is a beast to play against and a really valuable asset. TOWK has made the point about his lack of selection in the past and it was strongly alluded to in the post defending him from MON's fair remarks.

Jeez, people complain when Long is second fiddle at club level to AN Other (alleged inferior player at X club) then when a manager says he hasn't always been first choice he's criticised.

As for the hysteria and OTT, it's the whole package. O'Neill makes an interesting selection, overlooks some promising players with little chance of making the Euros, makes a fair comment about a talented player who is in the best form of his career, and it's a "baffling" selection, or worse.

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Calm down Stutts. You're only being challenged by me on what you tried to state was TOWKs argument when he made no such argument.

Of course you don't care about the numbers because they aren't relevant to your argument. The numbers, by the way, were actually brought up by me in response to Del who talked about having plenty of opportunities. Del, I think that having less than 2 starts per season (less than 1 competitive start per season) does not constitute a fair crack at the whip at finding your feet in the team and gaining confidence as an international player. That he did not do well in 2013 is not surprising as he was really only being given a prolonged run of starts for the first time since 2007 and his exposure had been stop-start before that. Just because Long was behind Doyle for that long doesn't mean that he should have been.

Look lads, anyway, is it not okay to be able to debate the opinions with stats or call out statements without folks getting in a tizzy and upset? I don't know, I thought we were all fairly good with each other that way for the most part.

Where's Crosby when you need him?

Actually, can someone ban Delorean and Stutts too?

Towk has made such an argument, directly in the past and alluded to above. He got hot under the collar at O'Neill's quotes which were fair and complimentary and he went OTT on the O'Dowda and Doherty /Cunningham things, and totally and utterly contradicted himself in his justification. I get fed up when every minor value judgment made by management is torn to shreds like some scandal has occurred. I actually had no issue with what you said :)

He has a goal every 185 minutes for Ireland. The other options of recent years have inferior records. Long will probably finish his career as our number 2 all-time goalscorer. The argument about Long not taking chances would only make sense if we had superior players coming in ahead of him who were doing a better job. I don't think that has been the case for a long, long time.

Walters this season?

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

Walters this season?

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Walters had a great period of form and sent us through. 5 goals in 6 games is fantastic. If you remember though, he wasn't exactly taking the front role in those games. Of that spell of 6 games for Walters, Murphy started 3, Keane 2 and Long 1. Long was even behind Murphy and Keane. A player who has never scored for us and a player who has only scored against Gibraltar in the last 30 months. I simply can't explain this.

Also before this run, Walters hadn't scored in 6 and had 1 in the last 15 games for us. He was always first choice though and would 'do a job', sometimes from the right. Our main goal threat at PL or international level in terms of minutes per goal or even simply as a running nuisance is Long and this has been the case for several years. There is no doubt in my mind that he has been underused in his international career. To illustrate this Walters nearly has the same amount of minutes as Long, despite Long being in the squad 3-4 years more than Walters.

Also, to re-state my position clearly, this shouldn't be a Walters vs. Long thing. They are our only two PL forwards and this has been the case for years. Both have a goal threat and a physical threat. When we played with 2 up in the last few years it should always have been these two and if Walters was playing from the right, then Long should have been the man up top.