Was waiting for someone else to start this, was there bad traffic?

Probably controversially I didn't think we were that bad today and not much blame can go on Clement.

Swansea were the better team first half but we did have a goal disallowed. Their goal came from a yiadom moment of madness that had let down his manager.

Second half we looked pretty reasonable going forward and created a number of chances but the finishing was terrible. Meite and Baldock both should have scored.

If any of those chances had gone in we wouldn't have conceded the second which was just a breakaway when we were pushing for a good.

That said Annsi made a number of decent saves to keep us in it.

Generally not the worst we've played this season and the margins were quite fine from taking something away from the game.

I got back a couple hours ago. We were utter pants and it was men vs boys. First 10 minutes could have been 1-1 and both sides looked threatening. Didn't see the offside as it was on the opposite side of the ground so can't say if it was the right call.

After 10 minutes we were awful and Swansea should have won by more (3 or 4 would have been fair). Swansea also should have had another penalty first half for a clear handball.

Yiadom, Meite, Swift, Bacuna and Blackett were really bad. Rest were ok. Bod missed a great chance, Meite missed 2 other ones a better striker at this level would have scored.

Sub timing was pathetic.

I've ran out of patience with Clement. He gets next week's game vs Bristol City. Lose that then his role becomes untenable.

Us not conceding a 2nd goal (if we had equalized) is an assumption that cannot be proven. It’s a common trait in here. It’s like saying if we had scored 2 goals we would therefor have got a point. And yet, we don’t know that, either. The flow of a game subsequently, and certainly its result, after a supposed event, cannot be predicted with any certainty. Swans could have thrown men forward, at 2-2, and maybe got a winner. It’s conjecture.

Stam out.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about, it would have happened exactly as I said.

Ok.

I'm not saying I want Clement out. He's a nice chap and ok feel for him with the horrible board situation.

But.

There comes a moment in any relationship when you know in your heart it's just not meant to be.

8 games. The whole summer. The whole preseason. All the games this season... And we're shit.

Whether its his fault or not I now know this isn't the man for us and it's just a question of time before he's gone.

Id love someone to dig this comment up in three years time when he's taken us to the PL and rip the piss out of me... Eg the Iranian might be his saviour. But let's face it we all know it's a case of waiting for the inevitable.

I just wish the clueless owners would have got rid of Stam earlier to give Clement more time.

And sadly for Clement I also hope that once the owners have lost faith they act quickly.

Yep that pretty much ^^^^

The current material that any manager of Reading would have to work with is substandard as a group.

Until that dynamic is considerably changed the playing side of the club will continue in a downward spiral.

If it was possible to move the whole group out and get a whole new squad in in January I’d do it.

Yesterday was just more of the same. Swansea are still a very good possession based side and as soon as they went 1 up they were content to let Reading have the ball knowing that the pace of Naughton and James would likely be more than enough to pick off a breakaway goal and look what happened.

Most, if not all, of the senior non league teams in Berkshire play more entertaining football and would probably seriously scare Reading in their current malaise.

The priority to fix first is the central midfield. Of the current bunch only Eza looks to be a building block we can move forward with. Bacuna just does not have any consistency and even in games he’s wildly inconsistent. Kelly is like a headless chicken continually searching for form, Swift is struggling for form and offers nothing defensively - which is OK when you have blood and thunder being offered by his midfield partners but not when it’s Kelly and Bacuna. That leaves Meyler and Edwards who, I think it’s safe to say, we’re all still waiting to see turn up for a game. Perhaps Rinomhota should get his chance - seriously do not think he could do any worse in there.

The transfer policy has been poor for a few years and now we're reaping what we sow. You can't keep signing injury prone players that clubs just don't want, some with proven bad attitudes and accept to progress.

People laughed whenever Brian went on about the correct DNA.

While Paul never was the right man for the job, any manager worth his salt will laugh at any approach from us when he's sacked.

Sad state of affairs.

Yesterday- we were never going to win and were pretty placid throughout.

We have poor players being coached poorly.

Eza is undoubtedly a huge loss

The balance of the side was so much better with him, even with him clearly not being fully fit

This side won't finish in the top half of the Championship again without being relegated and promoted.

We're going down and no amount of manager change is going to stop that, the problem us the squad. Too many mediocre or subsrandard players and even the good ones have no mental strength and are used to losingn

As much as I am pretty miffed about our current plight. With a little luck we could have had something out of yesterday.
The penalty was pretty soft and we had a goal given offside from a corner It was up the other end but Its difficult to see how it was offside.
Their other goal was after Baldock scuffed a volley and they went up the other end and scored. On another day Baldock's shot would have gone in and things would be different today.
Swansea had a couple of shots that forced Annsi into a save. They were nothing special. They had a little winger that caused Yiadom problems and a typical lower league lump at front. He just bullied his way around and somehow scored both their goals
Thought O'shea was better that Illori (Never thought I would say that) although he did make a few errors.

Meite had a few headers that went everywhere except goal bound.

Oh and the ref. What an absolute tool! Little man syndrome I reckon. Gave us the square root of Zilch all afternoon

We have had too many posts like this-it can't be luck.
We had luck v Millwall but got 3 points and showed some battling qualities.
It's the battling qualities that are missing in most games and that is down to the players being soft and the manager failing to get them to fight.

The fact is we are relying on a new mainly unknown Iranian (now injured) to be the Messiah and that is a big ask.

Shocking recruitment particularly the last few seasons.

Shocking recruitment particularly the last few seasons.
I maintain this summer was a step in the right direction, but the previous two or three where wed bring in 13 new players and bet on talented wasters suddenly changing their spots were awful.

God I miss Hammond.

I went along expecting the worst and it wasn't as big a thrashing as I feared. I was down quite close to the action (in Swansea end, since I went with a local) and one thing became clear, as soon as a Reading player received the ball Swansea had 1 or often 2 players on him straight away, with no time at all to settle.

But when a Swansea player got the ball Reading players would initially run over to him and then back away every time, allowing the Swansea player to choose his next pass.

It doesn't seen to require more skill than we have to simply hustle the opposition and not allow them the time to play, especially if they rely on a passing game as Swansea does.

But what do I know compared to the manager.

Tevreden's first summer was probably our best since the one before the 106 season - Beerens, Joey, Swift, Moore, Harriott, and Blackett all proved to be shrewd acquisitions. There were some shots in the dark which didn't come off but I don't have a problem with that. Don't think Wieser or Gravenberch did us any harm.

Think this summer unfortunately has to go down as our worst for a long time. Meyler in particular was signed as an upgrade on Evans and Joey but so far as failed horrifically. The result is a hugely unbalanced squad. We're also trying to play with a lone striker despite two of our three strikers not being suited to it, so an excess winger is leading the line while one of our strikers plays on the wing. Our two best full backs are both right backs.

Meyler out for Evans, Aluko out for Sims, McNulty out for Novakovich, and Obita fit, and this squad would be looking really good. But there are too many square pegs right now.

Tevreden's first summer was probably our best since the one before the 106 season - Beerens, Joey, Swift, Moore, Harriott, and Blackett all proved to be shrewd acquisitions. There were some shots in the dark which didn't come off but I don't have a problem with that. Don't think Wieser or Gravenberch did us any harm.

Think this summer unfortunately has to go down as our worst for a long time. Meyler in particular was signed as an upgrade on Evans and Joey but so far as failed horrifically. The result is a hugely unbalanced squad. We're also trying to play with a lone striker despite two of our three strikers not being suited to it, so an excess winger is leading the line while one of our strikers plays on the wing. Our two best full backs are both right backs.

Meyler out for Evans, Aluko out for Sims, McNulty out for Novakovich, and Obita fit, and this squad would be looking really good. But there are too many square pegs right now.
Meyler has certainly been a failure and I'd rather have Evans, but I don't expect every signing to be a success and Clement fixed that sharpish by signing Ezatolahi.

I don't think it's fair to call Meite an excess winger, he was clearly included as cover for Bod and the wings.

You have to remember Clement is limited by the injuries and already bloated squad. McCleary, Obita and Harriott's lack of fitness but cost has limited what we canafford to bring in without bloating.

This summer hasn't been perfect, but it had a clear strategy and minimised changes to a sustainable level.

It's very far from our worst summer of business.

Absolutely this. It has been noticeable that in most games were are being closed down by the opposition very quickly. Yet opposition players seem to have more time on the ball. In his defence Kelly did close down Millwall players in the second half last week but he was the only one doing it.

Absolutely this. It has been noticeable that in most games were are being closed down by the opposition very quickly. Yet opposition players seem to have more time on the ball. In his defence Kelly did close down Millwall players in the second half last week but he was the only one doing it.
It's been noticeable for years how much time and space the opposition have compared to us, especially in the final third.

Nice 3 days golf in South Wales followed by an afternoon at the Liberty Stadium. Should have made it 4 days golf instead The only difference to Brum was that we at least changed shape in the second half and had a go. In fact, we could easily have got something from the game as we looked a genuine threat when we got balls into the box. Unfortunately we spent the first half in a 4-5-1 system that the players aren't good enough technically to play. I like Clement (honest bloke, giving it his all) but he is used to working as a coach with very gifted technical players and is setting us up in a way that isn't going to work. If he is going to go then let's hope he at least has a real go in the next two home matches as we did in the second half at Swansea.

I enjoyed the golf also mate.

Clement won't be here for Bristol City.

Do the players available perm into any formation?

Do the players available perm into any formation?

Yes but they don’t know what it is either - and it probably involves decimal points.

Do the players available perm into any formation? It's a fair point but you'd have to argue yes based on the second half yesterday. We got in behind them, we got our full backs forward, we got crosses in and we got people on the end of them. I wouldn't advocate playing direct Millwall style but getting the ball into the final third bit quicker would suit a lot more of our players than playing triangles around the back does.

I don't recall anyone predicting that at start of season. I remember quite a few predicting Top 10, however. And, how the division was in part bang average, and in part crap, and how any team could get promoted, etc.
And, you think the summer signings were good, too.
So, somethings gone awry, somewhere...

I don't recall anyone predicting that at start of season. I remember quite a few predicting Top 10, however. And, how the division was in part bang average, and in part crap, and how any team could get promoted, etc.
And, you think the summer signings were good, too.
So, somethings gone awry, somewhere...
Name and shame! Predictions tend to lean towards the optimistic end.

We're too far gone, losing mentality and habit., failure to recognise / care about the predicament we're in by the players. Too much rebuilding required. And I do think Clement has tried to do the right thing with the summer. And he's made some good signings. It's just not enough though.

The division is bang average. It always is. It's always got plenty of crap. We're some of it. Most teams, with a couple of top signings, the right mentality and a bit of early form can get promoted.

I don't recall anyone predicting that at start of season. I remember quite a few predicting Top 10, however. And, how the division was in part bang average, and in part crap, and how any team could get promoted, etc.
And, you think the summer signings were good, too.
So, somethings gone awry, somewhere...
Name and shame! Predictions tend to lean towards the optimistic end.

We're too far gone, losing mentality and habit., failure to recognise / care about the predicament we're in by the players. Too much rebuilding required. And I do think Clement has tried to do the right thing with the summer. And he's made some good signings. It's just not enough though.

The division is bang average. It always is. It's always got plenty of crap. We're some of it. Most teams, with a couple of top signings, the right mentality and a bit of early form can get promoted.

You don’t need early form to get promoted. We’ve shown that in the past.

This team is incredibly unbalanced , signings haven’t fixed it, but Clement emphasises this every time he plays a midfield with Swift and Kelly in it and sets us up to not protect our defence.

Mccleary coming back will help however the team has no leadership or backbone and I suspect fitness. Second half we concede goals and we really seem to lose our focus.

I think the first team could be balanced fairly well

The issue is, out of our 2 defensive holding midfielders, one is injured and one is on rancid form and not even making the match day squad

Obvs there’s a shed load of rubbish knocking about the squad, esp in the wing positions, which make the overall squad appear unbalanced

Who was it last season after 12 games said we would be in a relegation battle for 2 years due to the shite st8 of the team but got laughed at and verbally abused by the regulars?

Double D wasn't it?