Back from the Game - Villa

[alton-royal]

And what happened at the end, down the bottom of the east stand?

[PEARCEY]

Agree with you Zammo

[Big Foot]

Kebe, when he's on form, is pretty unplayable. It's a shame he didn't turn up in the second half.

Dickhead

Keyboard warrior Not the first time you've been out of order this week (Keith Alexander thread).

Anyway, he's right. Kebe showed nothing in the second half, despite him being very good in the first.

Bothered, I was having a laugh on the Keith Alexander thread. Call me what you like but I don't do faux passion or consideration very well amigo.

Yep, Kebe's shit. Awful. Sell him now, get him outta Reading - is that what all you idiots want?

[PEARCEY]

Big Foot. Why do you have to be so abusive all the time?
Some of have never wanted to see Kebe leave but recognise that whilst he had a superb first-half believe he was wholly ineffective in the second period.

[Maquisard]

We have a relatively young squad, and it really did show today after VIlla's 1st. We needed a cool, calm head out there to help control the team.

In a bored moment (lot of those this evening), I got the squad's ages off the OS, and we seem to have a pretty good spread of ages, including a good few in their mid 20s, which ought to be their prime. So I may have to take back my own comments from earlier in the day that they are young and will gain wisdom with experience. Next time I decide to check facts, I'll do it before I make statements

Gunnarsson 35
Ingimarsson 33
Rasiak 31
Griffin 31
Matejovsky 29
McAnuff 29
Khizanishvili 29
Armstrong 28
Hunt 28
Thorvaldsson 28
Howard 27
Rosenior 26
Cisse 26
Tabb 26
Mooney 26
Kebe 26
Federici 25
Mills 24
Long 23
Hamer 23
Church 22
Pearce 22
Davies 22
Andersen 22
Henry 21
Robson-Kanu 21
Karacan 21
Bertrand 21
Sigurdsson 21
Bozanic 21
Cummings 21
McCarthy 21
Antonio 20
Bignall 20
Vasilev 20
Bryant 20
Taylor 19
Bell-Baggie 18

[Dickie Davies]

Big Foot. Why do you have to be so abusive all the time?
Some of have never wanted to see Kebe leave but recognise that whilst he had a superb first-half believe he was wholly ineffective in the second period.

I genuinly believe for us to be as effective as we've been in the last 2 months we must keep hold of the entire squad, kebe no exception. infuriating as may be, he's a game changer, stats prove this. We can't afford Griffen as perm, but with a decent right back, 16 players who could quite easily start and with the backing of the 'ding faithful i believe we could mount a push next year. Congrats in defeat today guys, i thought you were immense. Reading 1 - Derby 3.

[Archie's penalty]

Well what to say about that? Villa were awful first half, we were very good. Confidence levels were clearly sky high. Kebe was a changed man. Astounded by his first half performance, superb creation of the 2nd goal. Ran 40 yards, got his head up and great pick out of Long. Then that 1st goal for Villa and everything goes wrong. Apart from those 12 minutes a great performance. Got many compliments from observers in the pub. Well done lads for turning our season round and giving me some wonderful memories. Now let's stay up. The future looks bright.

[Ian Royal]

Well, I'm not even sure if you could describe that as a game of two halfs.

First half everyone except Ivar and Feds were at least 8s if not higher for me, with those two 7s.
10 Minutes of woeful defending into the second half and it was game over. We lost our fluency, and that was that. We still made a contest of it, and weren't far from them if not matching them the rest of the half, but you could see our attacking threat was gonna mainly be from set pieces.

I thought Gunnarsson was exactly what we needed, although by the time he came on it was basically too late. But in actual fact he was woeful. Gave the ball away almost every time he had the ball. Holes all over the midfield. Thought Rasiak looked dangerous when he come on.

Federici - 6 good save on the one on one with Heskey, otherwise not a lot to do except pick the ball out the net. Couldn't really fault him for the last three goals (didn't see the first) defence was appalling.
Griffin - 7 little a fault for their third, but class for most of the game. Legs had realy gone by the end.
Bertrand - 7 good game on the most part.
Ivar - 5 shaky throughout and awful challenge for the penalty.
Mills - 7 shanked a few and may not have covered himself in glory for the goals, but looked class most of the game.
Tabb MOTM - 8 superb all game, Villa started doubling up on him with tall men for second balls outside our box second half and he struggled after that.
Howard - 6 great first half, non-existent second
Sig - 6.5 very good first, not a lot worked too well second.
Kebe - 6.5 dangerous first half, great ball for one of the goals. but seemed to stop trying second half. second to almost everything
Long - 8 very good game and ran Tabb close for motm. took his goals well and hassled.
Church - 7 worked hard, never quite did as well as you'd hope.

Gunnarsson - 4 gave the ball away far too much
Rasiak - 6.5 couple of good shots, but not enough to save us.

We gave them a bloody good match. To come away feeling a little robbed shows just how far we've come in the last two months. We dominated their midfield first half. Stay up, keep what we've got, and the future looks bright again.

[Dickie Davies]

Well what to say about that? Villa were awful first half, we were very good. Confidence levels were clearly sky high. Kebe was a changed man. Astounded by his first half performance, superb creation of the 2nd goal. Ran 40 yards, got his head up and great pick out of Long. Then that 1st goal for Villa and everything goes wrong. Apart from those 12 minutes a great performance. Got many compliments from observers in the pub. Well done lads for turning our season round and giving me some wonderful memories. Now let's stay up. The future looks bright.

Great post Concurred.

[Maquisard]

The future looks bright.

The future's orange:

[One Beer is never enough.]

Its an odd one. The one thing I dread from Reading, odd that it seems, is mid table mediocrity in any league. Obviously, I would be distraught if we go down but a slow canter towards the end of the season fills me with a horrible feeling of boredom. Cannot remember the last time we were going into the end of the season with nothing to play for.

As far as I can remember, the last game in which we played in which a positive result would have no bearing on our season's final positions / or us setting a record (ie points in 05/06 as we clearly were not going to improve on our position) was against Bournemouth 2000/01 .... feel free to correct me though - my memory isnt that great - and that game was worthwhile just to f ck over B'mouth at that time.

[parky]

Its an odd one. The one thing I dread from Reading, odd that it seems, is mid table mediocrity in any league. Obviously, I would be distraught if we go down but a slow canter towards the end of the season fills me with a horrible feeling of boredom. Cannot remember the last time we were going into the end of the season with nothing to play for.

As far as I can remember, the last game in which we played in which a positive result would have no bearing on our season's final positions / or us setting a record (ie points in 05/06 as we clearly were not going to improve on our position) was against Bournemouth 2000/01 .... feel free to correct me though - my memory isnt that great - and that game was worthwhile just to f ck over B'mouth at that time.

May not have been entirely our season decider, but that game decided who we played in the play-offs had we lost we would have played Bournemouth and technically because of the play-off final it wasn't our last game of the season anyway.

[M-U-R-T-Y]

Kebe, when he's on form, is pretty unplayable. It's a shame he didn't turn up in the second half.

Dickhead

Erm...

[PEARCEY]

^Spot on and we needed to avoid Bournemouth as they were the form team...so that was by no means a meaningless game.

[One Beer is never enough.]

I will concede that point, back to soccerbase ......... but 9 years is a fantastic period for us to have always had something to play for on the final day of the season (not counting play-offs)

[parky]

So the last time we have had nothing on the final game of the season is 1999/2000

[westongeezer]

Words taken from Villas fans page

thought it was a good game...
Reading played well and at half time when your lot sang
"you should have stayed at home" i was pretty much agreeing with them!!!!!

Would love to know what MON said in his half time team talk as it gave us the well needed kick up the ass! Thought there was a good atmosphere today and some good banter between the two sets of fans....

Respect also for the welcome back you guys gave to Sidwell - nice to hear.

Anyway - hope Reading push on now and have a good run in the league!

next one

i dont think weve had a harder game all season. Even in our one off hammering by arceholes at the emirates we played well first half. You were brilliant most of the match and you fans should be proud.

[One Beer is never enough.]

scrap the edit - 10 years it is then. Not bad at all really.

[Ian Royal]

So the last time we have had nothing on the final game of the season is 1999/2000

We're no Rochdale* that's for sure.







*hope I got the right club.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Took the missus to today's game and told her at half time that I was so proud of the performance/score, that even if we lost 3-2 or 4-2 i'd be happy enough with the day


.............what a stupid thing to say! I was gutted!