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The Rory Conundrum (split from Rory Appreciation post)


Stefanus

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53 minutes ago, Longballexpert said:

- I want him to stay wide when play is building up his side and Do what he does best a drive at people. Game intelligence would tell you to attack the back post when the play is over the other side.

- you can anticipate flick on running in from the wing see Murray’s goal against Falkirk when he ran in from the wing to anticipate the flick on.

- I don’t want him to get booked for punching the ball out of peoples hands when it puts him on tight rope for the rest of the game.

- he’s should be splitting the lines assisting more scoring more he’s had ten years to do that but he just doesn’t. 

Do you think his goals and assists and chance creating is good ? 

Maybe you should take up coaching, you seem to know more than any manager we've had the past decade. 

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9 minutes ago, Lorielus said:

Goals, absolutely not, though he's rarely if ever played as a striker he absolutely should have contributed more than he has.  I'm also on record as saying he plays far too safe in my opinon for the technical ability and understanding he has.

Chance creating yes, he was behind Burke, Kiltie and Lafferty last season for key passes per 90 and expected assists.  In the Clarke years he was only behind Burke, Stewart and Jones, which I'd hope you'd agree there's no shame in, all while doing a hell of a lot more defensive work than any of them.

"Game intelligence" doesn't tell you to attack the back post when the play is on the other side - that can leave your side open to counterattack - something we got caught out on a lot in the Wright portion of last season since we had zero recovery pace in our team.  Game intelligence (also known less pretentiously as situational awareness) tells you to attack the back post if there's an overload on the other side because otherwise there's no space to attack in the first place if their defense hasn't had to shift to cover a gap by a beaten or out-of-position player or players.  Creating an overload outside of a counterattack is one of the most difficult and rewarding (since it generally leads to a shot at goal) problem in football and, short of having players with huge pace advantages or next-tier dribbling skills, requires structured movement, which McKenzie is excellent at.   This is what people are referring to when they talk about having to break through a low block, something we're going to have to do a lot of this season.

To give some examples of this, in the first half against Hamilton, the ball would come up to McKenzie on the left - if McKenzie stayed wide, Haunstrup was moving inside, if McKenzie went inside, Haunstrup went wide.  In both instances, as soon as McKenzie got the ball, Robinson planted himself on the near-side centre half and then drifted to the middle, pulling the centre half with him.  McKenzie, Haunstrup and Robinson created several chances that way in the first half at Hamilton (and a couple in the second, but less effectively in my opinion as it looked like McKenzie had been asked to try to drop in behind Robinson more), and with better finishing from the midfield, we should have been a couple of goals to the good.  The point being that those chances don't get created with the awareness and movement of all three of them as a unit.  If we'd scored the best of those chances, McKenzie would be sitting with two or three assists from that half of football, but more importantly - Robinson and Haunstrup would have had as much responsibility for those goals as McKenzie would have had or even the guy scoring them would have had, but one guy would have a goal and the other an assist and the other two with no recorded contribution to the play.  This is why current football stats, which I'm an avowed user of, are ok are telling you certain things that players are doing right and wrong, but missing whole contributions that are absolutely vital to structured play but are near-impossible to quantify.  There's no available count for "times Robinson forced the centre half to hesitate/times Broadfoot took out his own defensive partner".

You could similarly see this same structure on the right in the first half at home last week - if McKenzie stayed wide, Naismith went inside, McKenzie goes inside, Naismith goes wide, with Shaw giving the centre half the choice to stay in position and cover the inside run, or risk Shaw collecting unchallenged at the edge of the box.  It wasn't as successful as the first half against Hamilton, but it was the same structure.

In the goal against Morton, McKenzie's run was excellent anticipation because it basically started as soon as the overload on the left was clear - just as the turn from Murray took place, forcing their defense to shift to cover the drive into the box.

I've no idea why you think McKenzie is doing something other than Wright is telling him to do.  You might want him to hug the touchline and try to skin fullbacks, but that's not how our team is setup - we don't play with straight wingers or even inverted ones - even Chris Burke wasn't playing as a straight winger, all the wide players are playing in triangles with the fullback and one of Alston/Polworth/Robinson/Shaw depending on the context of the team, and trying to fashion real chances by creating overloads with the wide players coming inside as much (probably more) as going wide.  Even when players are hitting the goal line they've been taking extra touches and trying come inside from there rather than just hitting a cross - we can see from our corners how ineffective we are at attacking them.

Great post. 

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28 minutes ago, Lorielus said:

Goals, absolutely not, though he's rarely if ever played as a striker he absolutely should have contributed more than he has.  I'm also on record as saying he plays far too safe in my opinon for the technical ability and understanding he has.

Chance creating yes, he was behind Burke, Kiltie and Lafferty last season for key passes per 90 and expected assists.  In the Clarke years he was only behind Burke, Stewart and Jones, which I'd hope you'd agree there's no shame in, all while doing a hell of a lot more defensive work than any of them.

"Game intelligence" doesn't tell you to attack the back post when the play is on the other side - that can leave your side open to counterattack - something we got caught out on a lot in the Wright portion of last season since we had zero recovery pace in our team.  Game intelligence (also known less pretentiously as situational awareness) tells you to attack the back post if there's an overload on the other side because otherwise there's no space to attack in the first place if their defense hasn't had to shift to cover a gap by a beaten or out-of-position player or players.  Creating an overload outside of a counterattack is one of the most difficult and rewarding (since it generally leads to a shot at goal) problem in football and, short of having players with huge pace advantages or next-tier dribbling skills, requires structured movement, which McKenzie is excellent at.   This is what people are referring to when they talk about having to break through a low block, something we're going to have to do a lot of this season.

To give some examples of this, in the first half against Hamilton, the ball would come up to McKenzie on the left - if McKenzie stayed wide, Haunstrup was moving inside, if McKenzie went inside, Haunstrup went wide.  In both instances, as soon as McKenzie got the ball, Robinson planted himself on the near-side centre half and then drifted to the middle, pulling the centre half with him.  McKenzie, Haunstrup and Robinson created several chances that way in the first half at Hamilton (and a couple in the second, but less effectively in my opinion as it looked like McKenzie had been asked to try to drop in behind Robinson more), and with better finishing from the midfield, we should have been a couple of goals to the good.  The point being that those chances don't get created without the awareness and movement of all three of them as a unit.  If we'd scored the best of those chances, McKenzie would be sitting with two or three assists from that half of football, but more importantly - Robinson and Haunstrup would have had as much responsibility for those goals as McKenzie would have had or even the guy scoring them would have had, but one guy would have a goal and the other an assist and the other two with no recorded contribution to the play.  This is why current football stats, which I'm an avowed user of, are ok are telling you certain things that players are doing right and wrong, but missing whole contributions that are absolutely vital to structured play but are near-impossible to quantify.  There's no available count for "times Robinson forced the centre half to hesitate/times Broadfoot took out his own defensive partner".

You could similarly see this same structure on the right in the first half at home last week - if McKenzie stayed wide, Naismith went inside, McKenzie goes inside, Naismith goes wide, with Shaw giving the centre half the choice to stay in position and cover the inside run, or risk Shaw collecting unchallenged at the edge of the box.  It wasn't as successful as the first half against Hamilton, but it was the same structure.

In the goal against Morton, McKenzie's run was excellent anticipation because it basically started as soon as the overload on the left was clear - just as the turn from Murray took place, forcing their defense to shift to cover the drive into the box.

I've no idea why you think McKenzie is doing something other than Wright is telling him to do.  You might want him to hug the touchline and try to skin fullbacks, but that's not how our team is setup - we don't play with straight wingers or even inverted ones - even Chris Burke wasn't playing as a straight winger, all the wide players are playing in triangles with the fullback and one of Alston/Polworth/Robinson/Shaw depending on the context of the team, and trying to fashion real chances by creating overloads with the wide players coming inside as much (probably more) as going wide.  Even when players are hitting the goal line they've been taking extra touches and trying come inside from there rather than just hitting a cross - we can see from our corners how ineffective we are at attacking them.

Some very interesting stats there and there no shame in the Jones Stewart and Burke debate. I always think with stats tho like that you play a dangerous game.

 

Mitch pinnock wasn’t the greatest player we have ever had but also got a lot of stick on here but if your going with stats. 
 

Rory played 35 games last season scored 2 goals 0 assists.

Mitch pinnock played 34 games last season scored 5 and got 3 assists.

So he contributed more to our terrible season than Rory did who plays the same position 

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2 hours ago, Lorielus said:

I can't speak for anyone else, but to reiterate, he got booked three times last season, two of which were for doing the above.  In the list of catastrophic, hilariously amateurish and downright stupid decisions our players made last season, that should very much be filed under "who cares", particularly when neither led to sendings off or suspensions.  It's a really odd thing to fixate on, particularly as he'd never done it before last season and hasn't done it since, so it's not like there's a pattern of behaviour either.

I don’t really care either. It was last season, a season to forget.
 

My point is this forum is more about point scoring than it is discussion. But that’s the world we live in now. People see a name and without even thinking they’ll downvote them out of spite. Works the other way as well for the more “popular” posters. What is the point in the voting system? This isn’t Facebook or Instagram. Imagine logging on here and just sitting liking or disliking posts yet not actually bringing anything to the table in terms of discussion/arguments? 
 

Not one person on here is perfect. It’s sad and it needs binned. 

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27 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

I'll trust the judgement of every manager he's played under tbf. 

With a notable mention for @Lorieluscracking post above - it all boils down to that sentence really

Long believed that reasonably consistent Scottish Premiership players are much harder to find than fans tend to think 

Guys that skin a man one game and are as good as a man down for the next three are ten a penny. A Jordan Jones free agent is rare. So much dross has churned through us and our rivals that is so much worse than McKenzie. 

Good squad player that loves the club is a good thing in my eyes 

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4 minutes ago, Guff92 said:

I don’t really care either. It was last season, a season to forget.
 

My point is this forum is more about point scoring than it is discussion. But that’s the world we live in now. People see a name and without even thinking they’ll downvote them out of spite. Works the other way as well for the more “popular” posters. What is the point in the voting system? This isn’t Facebook or Instagram. Imagine logging on here and just sitting liking or disliking posts yet not actually bringing anything to the table in terms of discussion/arguments? 
 

Not one person on here is perfect. It’s sad and it needs binned. 

I'd certainly have no objection to binning it.

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21 minutes ago, Longballexpert said:

Some very interesting stats there and there no shame in the Jones Stewart and Burke debate. I always think with stats tho like that you play a dangerous game.

 

Mitch pinnock wasn’t the greatest player we have ever had but also got a lot of stick on here but if your going with stats. 
 

Rory played 35 games last season scored 2 goals 0 assists.

Mitch pinnock played 34 games last season scored 5 and got 3 assists.

So he contributed more to our terrible season than Rory did who plays the same position 

First, Rory McKenzie and Mitch Pinnock to do not play the same position.  Last season McKenzie played right wing, right midfieler left midfielder, central midfielder, support forward, right-back, and right wingback.  Mitch Pinnock played left wing and (for a half) left back.

You are absolutely free to argue that Pinnock contributed more, but you can't do it on the back of only goals and assists as that would presume the idea that those are the only valid contributions the 11 players on the field can make.  If you contextualise with as many disparate stats as are available, they still won't tell the whole picture as I mentioned in my post, but it would at least be a more reasonable basis for debate.

Edited by Lorielus
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1 minute ago, Lorielus said:

First, Rory McKenzie and Mitch Pinnock to do not play the same position.  Last season McKenzie played right wing, right midfieler left midfielder, central midfielder, support forward, right-back, and right wingback.  Mitch Pinnock played left wing and (for a half) left back.

You are absolutely free to argue that Pinnock contributed more, but you can't do it on the back of only goals and assists as that would presume the idea that those are the only valid contributions the 11 players on the field can make.

Of course you can do it on goals and assists that’s just as valid as saying how many forward runs or recovery runs someone does. So if a player scores 50 goals in a season for us and those goals win us the league those stats don’t matter because  never tracked back into his own half ? 

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2 hours ago, Longballexpert said:

Of course you can do it on goals and assists that’s just as valid as saying how many forward runs or recovery runs someone does. So if a player scores 50 goals in a season for us and those goals win us the league those stats don’t matter because  never tracked back into his own half ? 

That's nowhere close to what I said - you can use goals and assists, but you can't limit a statistical analysis of players to goals and assists (or any other random couple of unadjusted, unweighted stats) to have any kind of reasonable estimation of a player's value to a team.  In fact unweighted goals and assists are a particularly poor indicator of a player's value as, unless they're an outlier (e,g. Kris Boyd who scored goals well above his expected goals), they disproportionately depend on the actions of players you are not trying to value, i.e. goalscorers are generally reliant on the quality of service, and them scoring fewer goals is heavily influenced by the chances created for them (e.g. Sammon before/during Eremenko), and similarly if your team have poor finishers, you can end up with players getting no assists in spite of creating perfectly reasonable chances.

To give you a specific example of this using Jordon Jones - Jones had much higher expected assists than assists, and it was always a bugbear of mine that people would comment "nae end product" for him, when he was actually created perfectly decent chances, usually by getting to the goal line just inside the box and cutting back on his left foot (because trying to cross on your weak foot while running at a dead sprint is, contrary to football fandom opinon, really fecking hard), and nobody but Boyd would ever make a front post run.  Brophy in particular seem to avoid the front post like it abandoned him as a child.

Another great example of that is the Motherwell "Covid" game from last year - McKenzie and Burke both had 2+ expected assists from that game, namely because we spent the whole game raining perfectly decent crosses into the Motherwell box toward two different completely static strikers.  In other words, the lacks of assists gained in these circumstances isn't always reflective of the person trying to create the chance, but on the person standing with their thumb up their proverbial when a cross comes in.

The point here being is that these are weak stats to analyse by to start with, and removing them from context makes them functionally meaningless.

To use your example, if the player scored 50 goals in a season, that would be an incredible contribution, but it wouldn't necessarily make him the most valuable player.  When Sammon was prolific for us, he wasn't the most valuable player, Eremenko was, who scored 3 times in the same timeframe.

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1 minute ago, Armstrong86 said:

Don’t think I can remember another Killie player get the same level of scrutiny that McKenzie does. 

I can. Fowler was the whipping boy for years until he was moved into central midfield. McKenzie clearly is given a specific role in the team and does it well. If Wright wanted him staying wide, running at players and not drifting inside he would be playing Armstrong and McKenzie wouldn't be in the team for not following his previous seven managers instructions.

This is a guy who has played every single position except left back, central defence and goalkeeper... yet folk are talking about his stats, goals to game ratio etc when he played with some of the worst Killie sides in recent years, under dross management and playing out of position... but hey, "stats and that.." 

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18 hours ago, Lorielus said:

Invincible and Nish were the two that jumped to my mind.  Gary Holt to a slightly lesser degree in his early days when Totten was playing him wide.

Going further back, I remember Ian Bryson copping it in a similar manner to Gary Holt and McKenzie.

Bryson went on to a very successful career in England, playing top flight football with Sheffield United, and Holt was an international. Plenty of people weren't too happy about Mark Reilly for quite a while either.

Along with Rory, they were all 100% effort players who had their limitations but gave their all for the cause. 

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On 9/20/2021 at 1:54 PM, Lorielus said:

That's nowhere close to what I said - you can use goals and assists, but you can't limit a statistical analysis of players to goals and assists (or any other random couple of unadjusted, unweighted stats) to have any kind of reasonable estimation of a player's value to a team.  In fact unweighted goals and assists are a particularly poor indicator of a player's value as, unless they're an outlier (e,g. Kris Boyd who scored goals well above his expected goals), they disproportionately depend on the actions of players you are not trying to value, i.e. goalscorers are generally reliant on the quality of service, and them scoring fewer goals is heavily influenced by the chances created for them (e.g. Sammon before/during Eremenko), and similarly if your team have poor finishers, you can end up with players getting no assists in spite of creating perfectly reasonable chances.

To give you a specific example of this using Jordon Jones - Jones had much higher expected assists than assists, and it was always a bugbear of mine that people would comment "nae end product" for him, when he was actually created perfectly decent chances, usually by getting to the goal line just inside the box and cutting back on his left foot (because trying to cross on your weak foot while running at a dead sprint is, contrary to football fandom opinon, really fecking hard), and nobody but Boyd would ever make a front post run.  Brophy in particular seem to avoid the front post like it abandoned him as a child.

Another great example of that is the Motherwell "Covid" game from last year - McKenzie and Burke both had 2+ expected assists from that game, namely because we spent the whole game raining perfectly decent crosses into the Motherwell box toward two different completely static strikers.  In other words, the lacks of assists gained in these circumstances isn't always reflective of the person trying to create the chance, but on the person standing with their thumb up their proverbial when a cross comes in.

The point here being is that these are weak stats to analyse by to start with, and removing them from context makes them functionally meaningless.

To use your example, if the player scored 50 goals in a season, that would be an incredible contribution, but it wouldn't necessarily make him the most valuable player.  When Sammon was prolific for us, he wasn't the most valuable player, Eremenko was, who scored 3 times in the same timeframe.

I play and manage teams in FIFA pro Clubs and generally pay little attention to player ratings and stats as they tell so little of the picture. The good players are creating space and doing simple things to create and close down space. Pressuring a player does not have a stat unless you make a tackle or block but so often the player will miss a pace or run into another defender. 

Mitchell is not comparable to McKenzie in any way but yes please shut down some of this nonsense. 

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