Reading Post Match Thread

[Jack]

We got what we deserved. We are going into games thinking we're gonna walk the league, fans and players and we've just been brought back down to earth.

[shen]

Not sure what's worse, the performance or reading the same old "we're doomed" posts on here.

Definitely Reading

[Guest shearfox]

We ending up with our best defender up top today which just shows how desperate we are for a striker, I don't think we need just one we need two.

[Webbo]

I wasn't a fan of 4-3-3 last season but I assumed Sven felt it necessary because of the squad he'd inherited. The amount of players we've bought this season we should be able to play any formation we want.

I thought Sven claimed he was a 4-4-2 man.

[MC Prussian]

your 5.6m donkey had one bad game today tunchev is on loan at crystal palace if you have already seen enough can I have your season ticket and in case you didn't check the line-ups today oakley wasn't even on the bench

[/quote Well that tells me everything about you an armchair supporter if you want my season ticket , go buy one you tight arse , I feel [b]I have the right to criticise I have paid my money[/b] so up yours knob

[Babylon]

Just got back from the match. It's hard to take something positive from the game but I'll try.

Kasper and Bamba played really well, KS saved this from being 4-0.

Our midfield looked tired and uninterested for a lot of the game with only Fernandes really putting a shift in.

However the main problem/piece of the puzzle that is missing is a decent striker. I lost count of the number of times we didn't have someone up front to play the ball to. We need a striker and fast even if we have to break the bank on it. Nugent looked fairly decent but is a second in command when it comes to our strikers, we can't simply rely on him to score goals. Anyone who thinks Nugent, Waghorn, Gallagher, Vassell, Howard and Kermo""" are a stike force that can get us out of this league is dreaming.

Quantity doesn't equal quality.

I think Nugent would be fine is he had the support, but most of his supply as utterly hopeless! Wellens was constantly telling people to get closer to each other, when the most glaring thing we missed was any kind of width.

[21st Century Fox]

Agree with this.

Am I the only one who thinks that schmichael shouting his mouth off every 5 mins could be detrimental to the team. If someone at my work was shouting and swearing at the top of his voice all the time I would soon either tell him to shut the feck up or smack him one

You do work in a Library.

[Heart-Shaped Fox]

I think it was Foxblogger who gave an interesting stat on the football forum saying that hardly any of so many teams who have been promoted have had strikers in the top goal scoring charts. You dont have to score absolutely loads to go up, you need to be hard to beat and organisde first and foremost.

I think the current strike force is adequate enough, not great but good enough. We just need to get the selection right.

4-4-2 with Nugent up front with Waghorn or Vassell could be a good pairing but do we have time to give them a chance, I'm not sure, but even with our current squad we should be in the promotion race.

[reynard]

The following summed it up for me.

No Width

No quality going forward.

No forward movement from midfield.

We simply didn't keep the ball.

No urgency at all.

Mills was truly terrible.

Defending at set pieces was yet again woeful.

Our set pieces were yet again woeful.

Danns/Abe/Fernandes/Wellens are all too similar to play together.

The full backs this season don't look anywhere near as good going forward as last season.

We looked set up to go for a 0-0.

Nugent was mainly completely isolated.

Reading were competent but really no more than that. Fair play though they played like a team and we didn't.

We need a striker desperately but not only that we need some creative midfield presence. Actually we really need a winger as well as a striker.

Performance summed up for me by one moment in the first half when for once Konchesky got into an attacking position and put in a half decent cross we had exactly 0 players in the box.

[Thracian]

For months I've pleaded with us to get an attacking coach. How much more obvious do we have to make it on the field? We played arguably our best two strikers in Nugent and Schlupp which seemed great because it should have meant some support for them. And what did we do? Sent Schlupp onto the wing which was not the way he was effective at Rotherham and left out all the players who might have offered him and Nugent some space and creative ammunition i.e. Gallagher, King and Dyer.

You couldn't make it up really. All we were left with from the middle backwards were the commendable Schmeichel and Bamba plus six spoiling journeymen who can harrass for possess well enough but cannot weight or play a final ball accurately or finely enough to have any regular effect.

Oh yes and we had Matt Mills. Captain? The first thing I'd like to know is how the hell he gets in the team. He's a poor man's Hobbs. Big, okay in the air, but slow, ponderous and with the passing subtlety of an elephant's left foot.

So much for going with an impenetrable defence and building from there. Reading were organised, committed and had one or two players where it mattered who could take a man on and cause trouble. And they didn't pump aimless high crosses into the box. Their goal came from a brilliantly driven cross, they almost added a second in comparable style which was disallowed for offside and finally added a third from a ball hit hard into the goalmouth.

We just floated pointless crosses into the penalty area where no-one was likely to win them because we don't have aerial specialists and the crosses were so pathetically inaccurate anyway. A couple aimed for the goalmouth ended up a bigger threat to the corner flag.

Kingy had our only worthwhile shot on target as I can recall and he did try to pass the ball fast enough and positively enough to make something happen. Not that it worked especially well but the thought was there and how he can be a part-timer in such a pathetic midfield I don't know.

Abe was awful, Wellens not much better and I wasn't much impressed with Danns and Fernandes either cos they collectively didn't threaten to make anything happen at all. In our two matches when Wellens and Abe have played we've scored one goal and created very few chances. In the one game they didn't play we scored four times and created lots of chances. Yes, I know it was League Two opposition but we created the chances because we had width, movement, pace and penetration.

"Two-nil up and we spent feck-all," was so mockingly telling from the Reading fans and it's not about giving the team time to gel either.

Our starting team today will never score enough goals and an attacking coach would have a nightmare trying to make it any different.

Biggest reason why from those I've already mentioned? There's no-one to drive forward into spaces from central midfield. Neither Wellens nor Abe have the pace. Our full-backs now offer no notable attacking impetus either, they're just not accurate enough on the ball. Altogether I'm underwhelmed and mostly because we simply didn't threaten to get enough from our squad, and the squad in any case, is showing itself to be distinctly limited.

[21st Century Fox]

For months I've pleaded with us to get an attacking coach. How much more obvious do we have to make it on the field? We played arguably our best two strikers in Nugent and Schlupp we seemed great because it should have meant some support for them. And what did we do? Sent Schlupp onto the wing which was not the way he was effective at Rotherham and left out all the players who might have offered him and Nugent some space and creative ammunition i.e. Gallagher, King and Dyer.

You couldn't make it up really. All we were left with from the middle backwards were the commendable Schmeichel and Bamba plus six spoiling journeymen who can harrass for possess well enough but cannot weight or play a final ball accurately or finely enough to have any regular effect.

Oh yes and we had Danny Mills. Captain? The first thing I'd like to know is how the hell he gets in the team. He's a poor man's Hobbs. Big, okay in the air, but slow, ponderous and with the passing subtlety of an elephant's left foot.

So much for going with an impenetrable defence and building from there. Reading were organised, committed and had one or two players where it mattered who could take a man on and cause trouble. And they didn't pump aimless high crosses into the box. Their goal came from a brilliantly driven cross, they almost added a second in comparable style which was disallowed for offside and finally added a third from a ball hit hard into the goalmouth.

We just floated pointless crosses into the penalty area where no-one was likely to win them because we don't have aerial specialists and the crosses were so pathetically inaccurate anyway. A couple aimed for the goalmouth ended up a bigger threat to the corner flag.

Kingy had our only worthwhile shot on target as I can recall and he did try to pass the ball fast enough and positively enough to make something happen. Not that it worked especially well but the thought was there and how he can be a part-timer in such a pathetic midfield I don't know.

Abe was awful, Wellens not much better and I wasn't much impressed with Danns and Fernandes either cos they collectively didn't threatened to make anything happen at all. In our two matches when Wellens and Abe have played we've scored one goal and created very few chances. In the one game they didn't play we scored four times and created lots of chances. Yes, I know it was League Two opposition but we created the chances because we had width, movement, pace and penetration.

"Two-nil up and we spent feck-all," was so mockingly telling from the Reading fans and it's not abut giving the team time to gel either.

Our starting team today will never score enough goals and an attacking coach would have a nightmare trying to make it any different.

Biggest reason why from those I've already mentioned? There's no-one to drive forward into spaces from central midfield. Neither Wellens nor Abe have the pace. Our full-backs now offer no notable attacking impetus either, they're just not accurate enough on the ball. Altogether I'm underwhelmed and mostly because we simply didn't threaten to get enough from our squad, and the squad in any case, is showing itself to be distinctly limited.

[MikeyT]

Pantsil was, Well just pants he kept kicking the ball to no one . And before some eternal optimist tells me not to be so negative please tell me any footballing positives out of this game for us .

Schmeichel

[Brown Fox]

Let us get over this 'over reaction' tag that seems to be placed on anybody critical of the side's performances under Sven. It is hardly early days in his reign, albeit early days in a season where he can say that the side is 100% his.

What we saw from Sven today is a continuation of not just last seasons faults, but the ineptitude that has characterised Sven's management career; lack of motivation, lack of charisma, poor tactics and poor team selection.

Yet again Sven changes a winning side, could not motivate the players after going a goal down and resembled a children's entertainer in the dugout by standing up every once in a while to clap his hands.

Criticism of the manager is not criticism of the club. The emperor has no clothes but the blinkered naivety of the gullible masses with very short and fickle memories is preventing our club from moving forward.

I stopped listening to that load of bull when you said don't change a winning team which was impossible. So we should have played an injured Peltier and a suspended Vassell yep? Good one mate.

[The Doctor]

Granted we were poor today but the "fans" really disappointed me.

The small group behind me who spent the entire match checking their bets and criticising every pass that didn't go forward, complaining about every tackle we attempted & calling for a shot whenever we got into the reading half - kindly **** off, why you bother going to the match is beyond me when you seem to have the expectation that we should walk every game.

Booing at the end: yes we were poor today but it is one ****ing game, try getting behind your team for once.

[Petchy]

Annoying game to watch to be honest, it seems like we still lack any true attacking threat. Far too many passes around the box instead of decisive passes to play someone through. It got that bad that we seemed to resort to our old game of crossing every time we had the ball on the flanks which was useless when we don't have a target man. Also seemed strange that we shifted to a 4-4-2 diamond after 10 or so minutes.

Quite glad that this has happened earlier in the season though as the players, and fans, need to understand we won't 'walk' this league.

[Matt]

Agree with this.

Am I the only one who thinks that schmichael shouting his mouth off every 5 mins could be detrimental to the team. If someone at my work was shouting and swearing at the top of his voice all the time I would soon either tell him to shut the feck up or smack him one

You need to grow some balls and stop being so sensitive then.

Or is stating the bleeding obvious offensive now.

[Joe.]

A few (many) thoughts on today:

1. I don't think we particularly deserved to lose 2-0 in a fairly dreadful match, but I will make no qualms about such an inept display. Far too many simple passes going astray, appalling defending for the goal and a general lack of quality in the final third.

2. Sven got it wrong from the start - 4-5-1 at home? Two defensive midfielders? With Schlupp on the wing? Erm, not for me thanks. In fairness he quickly realised it wasn't working and changed things around for the better, but all in all I was questioning his logic from the off.

3. Baffles me that we leave our most creative and potent players on the bench in Gallagher and King respectively. Danns, for all his efforts today, was poor and he'll probably know it himself this evening. It's a similar story for Abe who huffed and puffed and was better than his fellow midfielder, but was also let down horrifically by his own passing.

4. Matt Mills - what better way to say "thanks for the £5 million!" with a performance like that. Shoddy, he can do better and must.

5. It's not all bad. Schmeichel has already endeared himself to the home crowd with his eagerness to run 40 yards and shout a lot, but I also thought he was one of the few to do himself a good turn today. Bamba was on hand to mop up where everybody else was going wrong, Fernandes was probably our best player once again and Nugent battled superbly once more. Disappointing for him that he couldn't avoid the post again, and it would have been a different game had that gone in.

6. Reading fans - fuck off. Sit on your arses for 75 minutes silent with the all-too regular and only chant of 'Millsy what's the score'. Embarrassing.

It's no time for knee-jerk reactions by any stretch. But that was shite.

[Clazie]

We're going down!

£50million bid for maynard please.

[Nocturnal]

Granted we were poor today but the "fans" really disappointed me.

The small group behind me who spent the entire match checking their bets and criticising every pass that didn't go forward, complaining about every tackle we attempted & calling for a shot whenever we got into the reading half - kindly **** off, why you bother going to the match is beyond me when you seem to have the expectation that we should walk every game.

Booing at the end: yes we were poor today but it is one ****ing game, try getting behind your team for once.

I thought 23,000 was really poor for us as well.

[Guest shearfox]

Schmeichel

Bamba and Fernandes the rest were truely shocking, embarrassing to lose so easily after spending so much money. Just don't look comfortable going forward at all, totally clueless.

[Heart-Shaped Fox]

The following summed it up for me.

No Width

No quality going forward.

No forward movement from midfield.

We simply didn't keep the ball.

No urgency at all.

Mills was truly terrible.

Defending at set pieces was yet again woeful.

Our set pieces were yet again woeful.

Danns/Abe/Fernandes/Wellens are all too similar to play together.

The full backs this season don't look anywhere near as good going forward as last season.

We looked set up to go for a 0-0.

Nugent was mainly completely isolated.

Reading were competent but really no more than that. Fair play though they played like a team and we didn't.

We need a striker desperately but not only that we need some creative midfield presence. Actually we really need a winger as well as a striker.

Performance summed up for me by one moment in the first half when for once Konchesky got into an attacking position and put in a half decent cross we had exactly 0 players in the box.

No forward from midfield I think happened because the way we were setup. As we had no width CM's had to cover the wide postions leaving us more defensive (although not very good at defending). King is important to us beacuse of hisattacking runs, giving support to Nugent which leads to your later point.

The set piece situation is very frustrating and I blame both the players and Sven and the management. Its like we dont work on these things, time and time again we dont defend properly and get punished for it in the air. We dont look any more organised at defending set pieces than last season which suggests either the players dont know what they are doing or we arent working on it in training, which is similar to attacking set pieces.

The full backs looked poor because they were more like wing backs. But with wing backs you need three central defenders which we didnt have, meaning if they go too far forward we were exposed. This tactical fault is down to Sven in my opinion.

[ta-fc]

10m spent and no discernible difference between this season and last... Reading had the measure of us today and unless we learn how to break teams down its going to be a long, long season!

[Bilbo]

I think it was Foxblogger who gave an interesting stat on the football forum saying that hardly any of so many teams who have been promoted have had strikers in the top goal scoring charts. You dont have to score absolutely loads to go up, you need to be hard to beat and organisde first and foremost.

I think the current strike force is adequate enough, not great but good enough. We just need to get the selection right.

4-4-2 with Nugent up front with Waghorn or Vassell could be a good pairing but do we have time to give them a chance, I'm not sure, but even with our current squad we should be in the promotion race.

Current strike force adequate? No chance. As much as I do like Waghorn he didn't anything today that a striker is supposed to. Howard is too old to play a full game and looks to be going out on loan. Vassell is decent but needs to be played on his own up front and even then he won't get 15 + goals. Kermogant......enough said and that just leaves Gallagher and Nugent. We need to sort this out now.

[bluebeau]

Bamba was the best of the outfield players imo, he had a very good game.

Schmiecal gives 100% dedication & is a great signing, don't understand why Grayson was so keen to get rid of him from Leeds?

Mills had a shocker, but he will know that & I'm sure that he will give a good account of himself in future games.

I thought Pantsil played quite well for saying it was his first game.

But sorry to say we were dire today.

If we are the bookies favourites for promotion, then get some wonga on Reading!

[Guest shearfox]

Gally and King are important, King is our goals and Gally the creative spark, to start without either was wrong in my view.