Hey Slammer,
historically the only player being that affects Pendles is Swan.
In the last 3 seasons Pendles has averaged 107 in the 9 games where Swan didn't play, and 129 in the 52 games where Swan did play.
If we look at Pendles lowest scoring games in that period we can see that of his 7 worst scores (his only sub 100 scores in those 3 seasons) 5 were in losses, and generally in bigger losses. He has another 6 scores in the same period, that were between 100 and 110, and they were all in winning teams.
Looking at the table, it's not a case of another player dominating, and putting Pendles in the shade. When you look at the top, where we see the other players season averages, for the most part, when Pendles had a quiet day, they still played at about their season averages.
This next table shows how he performed if one of them wasn't playing.
We can see that apart from Swan missing dropping Pendles average considerably, the other missing have little affect on him.
Pendlebury has scored 110+ in 48 of his 61 games in the last 3 seasons, and while he can score lower in losses, particularly bigger losses, it's hard to see him dropping below something like 117 this season. The loss of another Midfielder would appear to have little affect on him, going by these tables.
As to Swan running through the Middle more, it might happen, but I don't think it will boost his mid time that much. I'm not a collingwood person, so I can't confidently say how much prime Midtime J Thomas would have had, and how much Swan would have had with Thomas there anyway. My gut feel is we are only talking possibly minutes/game extra Mid for Swan due to the other missing Midfielders.