BFTG/OTWH Derby (H) 0-3

[3points]

I found Mackie really disappointing today, didn't support Gunter defensively or going forwards as he kept drifting inside
Maybe he is playing out of position or he doesn't really want to be here...

Adkins tactics are for the wingers to play narrow, not HRK's fault.

We play with wingers????? Come back Jobi, all is forgiven.

[windermere_royal]

We weren't dreadful, that much is correct, but Derby were not flattered by that score - they hardly had to break sweat to win that. After their second, I thought we were on for a bigger dicking than 3-0. We looked ok up until they got their first but weren't really threatening from open play. Even when we had a couple of chances at 1-0 and 2-0 I always felt Derby had another gear and ways looked comfortable.

It was odd really. I was sat there at 2-0 down thinking they really hadn't threatened and had nothing up front. They only had one up front and he fell over more than the Pog.

Adkins keeps sending out attacking teams. Perhaps he should look at teams like Derby who are difficult to break down and look to score from set pieces and on the break. We are just too easy to play against, especially when your midfield two is Taylor and Norwood.

This is true, you see us attacking for the first twenty, but in your head you know that when the opposition have any attack of note they will score, Feds didn`t have a shot to save in the first half but we wernt in 2 down, then apart from a 10 minute spell at the start the 2nd half followed the same pattern.

[sandman]

I found Mackie really disappointing today, didn't support Gunter defensively or going forwards as he kept drifting inside
Maybe he is playing out of position or he doesn't really want to be here...

Adkins tactics are for the wingers to play narrow, not HRK's fault.

Failing to score from a reboundl and not shutting your legs however is definitely HRK's fault.

[Bn2001uk1]

This was the first time I've been to see Reading all season. I used to be a season ticket holder for 8 years but for the last 2 years I've hardly attended a game due to kids and stuff.
Really disappointing to see the long ball tactic used so often. We seem incapable to just pass the ball about for a while, keep possession and be patient before we hoof it forward. I was looking forward to seeing Norwood as I'd heard all about his passing but I thought he was off today.
Why we didn't man mark Hughes after he was dictating play, I'll never know.
Derby weren't that great today, they were just more clinical when it came to it.
We are very much a confidence team and when we went 2-0 down, I just felt no-one try and step up to change things. Mackie had a go in all fairness but he was taken off soon after.
I just didn't understand Atkins' tactics today....long ball with knockdowns to supporting players is so obvious and Derby had some really good spells with nice short passes that we couldn't cope with - the second goal being an example.

[Y21]

I'm beginning to lose confidence in Adkins. We don't seem to be making much in the way of progress, and the defence is shite, and has been shite all season, but nothing seems to be changing. I wonder what the Thai's patience will be like?

[3points]

Think Feds makes us more of a long ball team. Plenty of times in the first half when he could have rolled it out, but waved everyone forward and hoofed it towards Murray

[harry]

Similar to many here. Derby are a good side. We created a load of great chances. On another day we could have scored plenty, however today was not that day. So given all that reasonably positive attitude why am I so hacked off?

Calamitous defending for the first goal. Unclear why Feds didn't come for it. Seemed more concerned with pushing people. I'd like to see replay but there looked to be a lack of marking/challenges.

At the other end it would have been a foul though! How Murray did anything wrong other than collect the ball when their keeper went over his own defender I don't know. Maybe replays will show something.

Other than first goal Feds was ok and pulled off one double save. Can't remember him being at fault for the other two.

Hector was on and off. Some great tackles, some poor decision-making. Pearce was Pearce.

Taylor may chip in with the odd goal but on today's showing he isn't strong enough for centre mid. Norwood had a quiet game by his standards. A couple of decent tackles and a few decent balls. I think it was his decent shot the keeper parried off HRK & back into his hands.

HRK started ok on the left and whipped a couple of decent crosses. Then drifted out of the game and inside.

Obita could do with crossing earlier rather than always looking to take an extra touch. At that point he was closed down and lacked support as HRK had gone walk about.

Down the right neither Mackie nor Gunter appear to be able to cross a ball. They can huff and puff and run to the ends of the earth but what I'd give for a fit McCleary right now. They both get into decent positions then look to pass inside until it breaks down. Is Mackie even a right-winger? I like his work rate but if he is playing there he needs to put the ball over or give it to someone who can (and that doesn't seem to be Gunter).

I wasn't impressed with Gunter when he arrived, but he won me over. However this season he seems to have been (worst case) at fault or (best case) nearest defender for a lot of goals. Their second was a decent move from his side. Couldn't tell how much was his fault in fairness. The third he actually won the ball then let the guy nick it back off him to score. There was one point he managed a decent tidy up when someone else (don't recall - Pearce? Hec?) was having a 'mare. Overall maybe he was unlucky but add that to some of the other goals we have conceded this season and a pattern starts to emerge.

Cox was again best player in hoops in my view. Works hard, links up play well.

Murray was unlucky not to score, hitting the bar and being whistled for nothing when he was about to score after their keeper clattered his own defender.

Subs:
Kuhl - one poor free kick. Otherwise ok. Still finding his feet at this level and given he was playing under 18s last season happy to give him time.
Blackman - couple of decent shots. One just over one saved resulting in Pog hitting side netting with rebound.
Pog - very little service. One rebound snatched chance that probably should have done better with.

Derby are a decent side. The ref was bizarre in some of his decisions that generally went against us. We had plenty of decent chances but at the end of the day we lost 3-0 at home. It felt like if we had got one we could have got a few but that was not to be.

[Cletus Van Damme]

Derby are the team we want to be. Balanced, powerful and with that bit of extra quality to make teams pay.

I think we'll get there in the end and I reckon Adkins is that man. He was made manager with a remit to change how we play and he's only been backed a little bit due to the ownership debacle. Norwood needs a partner in the middle, a left back so we can push Obita further on and at least one if not two centre backs. Once we have those players we can truly judge the manager.

Derby are a great team, but it's taken them 4 or 5 years to get there. They didn't totally play us off the park despite the score.

I could watch Will Hughes play football all day, kids an absolute baller. English academies seem to produce a lot of players in his mould. Reminds me a lot of Barkley on the ball.

OMG: Derby a great team-bit OTT ?

Goal scorer up front, pace out wide a balanced midfield and a strong defence. Most importantly a unit that have played together for a while. Great might be a bit strong, but there aren't many better teams in the league. Watford are top and they've have everyone including the tea lady incharge this season ffs!

[P!ssed Off]

HRK made a great cross in the early stages, and really deserved from that alone to have an assist to his name.
Certainly the bloke asking "has he ever made a good cross?" is talking bollocks.

I thought most of our decent chances came from crosses, which made Adkins' decision to go completely narrow with 25 minutes to go all the more bizarre.

Shout out to Pogrebnyak for not scoring a sitter for the 2nd game in a row. Though at least he didn't try and pass it this week.

Not a terrible performance from the Reading team today. Though this is very little consolation.

Not calling for Adkins' head as of yet. The Blackpool game might well be the turning point though. Can't see us getting a win at Bournemouth. And if come Saturday we're winless in 7 games, then a home match against the bottom of the league really is 'win, or out' for Nigel, as far as I'm concerned.

[windermere_royal]

3 goals conceded in each of the last 3 matches.

I take it the Leeds game never happened then?

[marlowuk]

Sorry about this but I appear to have been at a different game than most of those who have posted!

We will - correction - we have already played worse than we did today and taken 3 points. At HT I felt that I had experienced an entertaining game between two good well-matched footballing sides and that 2-0 very much flattered Derby. Both teams played at a high tempo, pressed the opposition high up the pitch and played the ball to feet most of the time.

I was not in a good position to see but it looked as if we conceded a soft first goal but we had plenty of chances to even the score before they scored a second well-worked goal. But, at that stage, we were unlucky and still very much in the game.

The second half carried on from where the first half ended but quickly became somewhat bad-tempered and disjointed. I think this may have stemmed from an incident at the end of the first half where the game was stopped for an injury to a Derby player when we were in possession. At the subsequent dropped-ball Derby fiercely competed for the ball when 'sportsmanship' (remember that?) dictated that they should have given the ball back to us. Maybe because of that, we didn't give Derby the ball back after another stoppage at the start of the second half much to the annoyance of the Derby players (and their supporters). In any event the match was punctuated by numerous silly fouls and the flow of the game disrupted.

All the same we were pressing hard for a goal and when a team does this they are vulnerable to a counter attack and thus it was that we conceded again. I don't think any of our players had a bad game but, conversely, none of them had an outstanding game! I was surprised by the substitutions as we were a constant threat to their goal at that stage of the game (around 60 mins). In the event Pog hardly saw the ball (except to miss a good chance) and Blackman and Khul, although effective, did no better than Mackie and Norwood.

On their second half chances I think Derby just about shaded it but a draw would have better reflected the relative performances of the two sides. But I am not downhearted. We need a ball-winning mid-fielder like Karajan back and together with Williams, McCleary, Guthrie and Norwood with Blackman and Mackie as well we will have have good options. In defence Hector will come better with more experience and is already playing well. Pearce is the weak link in my opinion. Although good in the air he is the one player we have who is not confident with the ball at his feet. Maybe Cooper (who is also good in the air) can do his job or maybe we need to go into the loan market.

So - disappointing result? Yes. But an encouraging performance!

[LUX]

Where did you read about that Leeds game, the BBC I bet

Don't you realise they have an agenda?

Surprised to see Floyd having a go at the gaffer, he loves Nigels.

[Unbelievable Jeff]

Just to echo many:

Never a 3-0 game and can't really come away feeling disappointed or frustrated just one of those days.

I thought we actually played pretty well creating 4 or 5 glorious goal scoring opportunities throughout the game which on another day, we would have buried them all. If Cox scores with his chance at 0-0 same for Murray, if Pog scores to make it 2-1 we're looking at a different game.

We made ,arguably, the best team in the league look very average first half, second half was similar but Derby looked more comfortable on the ball. We will play 10x worse this season and win the game.

My MOTM was probably Hector bar a couple of errors.

I think the easiest way to sum it up is that we look decent going forward but very weak defensively.

[handbags_harris]

Anyone who couldn't see a heavy defeat coming when that team sheet was released at 2pm is either clueless or optimistically deluded. We concede soft as shite goals AGAIN, (9 eminently preventable ones since the infamous half time sub against Wolves) and are expected to get something from the game. The fact remains we have just suffered our heaviest home defeat at Championship level since Boxing Day 2003, against a team that had won just once in Reading in 16 previous attempts (and they'd only scored more than once in Reading once).

[Whore Jackie]

Thought the first 15 from us was pretty encouraging, Cox and Murray, HRK and Obita looked good in tandem and then we concede another soft, soft goal and quite frankly it's downhill from there. HRK kept drifting into the middle, so we lost any semblance of width - Mackie offers little of any quality - Taylor and Norwood are not strong enough in CM and the back five just look ripe for plundering. There was a complete lack of tackles, the game was crying out for Akpan and then Atkins makes another of his un fathomable triple substitutions.

After the two quite encouraging games against Fulham and Milwall, we've regressed to the sloppy, poor football Nigel treated us to last year.

[marlowuk]

The fact remains we have just suffered our heaviest home defeat at Championship level since Boxing Day 2003, against a team that had won just once in Reading in 16 previous attempts (and they'd only scored more than once in Reading once).

Their past record against us is irrelevant. This Derby side have only lost one match in the Championship this season and that was back on Aug 19th by 3-2. They are a good side. We are a side riddled with injuries.

[Martin41]

Well might as well have my say , probably similar to many.
Patches were good, but defence is the big problem. I beleive that Pearce or hector are good enough, but are crying out for some more experience alongside them.
Also without someone like williams driving forward it makes there lives even harder as there is no one breaking down play in the centre......Akpan can do this.
Gunter, Christ he gets a rough time......... Yes not great but who was???
For me, and I don't hate these players , but what does Taylor offer??? And hrk......has had chance after chance over the years and still not up to it, for me Blackman should be ahead of him.
And Adkins......well I never wanted him in the 1st place and strangely have still not changed my mind.......and please in his interviews someone get him to stop saying there were lots of oohs and aahhs!!!!
But hey it's just a defeat and no one died!
Oh well on to bournemouth!!

[ShaunTheRam]

Derby fan opinion here, having just got back from the game and looked down this thread.

Firstly, am amazed that we have won at Reading - doesn't happen often.

I agree with some on here that the game itself didn't really seem like a 3-0. If the header that hit the bar early, the one that went over the bar early when it seemed easier to score, and the rebound had gone in it might have been different. However, we have built up a spirit such that going a goal down doesn't seem to affect us that much, so I wouldn't have ruled us out until that fat lady was singing.

We didn't play that well today - two enforced subs in the first half disrupted our rhythm, and we never really played the fluent stuff we can. Playing away from home suits us more at the moment, as at home teams just line up with 9 defenders in two banks and try to stifle the life out of the game.

Thought the two ball retention incidents spiced things up somewhat - I have to say, until reading this, I hadn't realised about the contested bounce up, but from our point of view, the one in our favour was poor - maybe just retaliation for the first.

Interesting to see the comments on some of our players. Will Hughes has just come back into top form - his awareness and ball control and skill are outstanding - he's signed a new 4 year deal, as have all our key players from last season, so at least we should get a fee if he goes. One post above refers to us having nothing up front except a guy who falls over - 20 goals last season and already 9 this season - and the difference between the teams today would be my opinion on that. We wouldn't swap him for any other striker in the division.

So for us, we take the win and move on despite feeling we weren't that great. For you, your teamsheet when it was read out sounds better than the fairly route one stuff played, but I'm not surprised you caused us problems. No need to be too negative as a Reading fan - I was at Bolton a couple of weeks ago, witnessing Freedman's last game and a bunch of players who clearly had no interest in playing for them. I thought you played well today - but we were clinical, which we haven't always been this season. The goals changed the game.

Finally, like coming to Reading (except for the results usually - friendliest staff in the league.

Good luck for the rest of the season - see you at the IPro later.

Shaun

[Bill Oddie]

Thought bar a couple of defensive mistakes we played very well. At halftime I had never seen a side so undeserving of a 2 nil lead. And in the second half it was scandalous that it was Derby who scored, we could easily have put 4 past them. They were without doubt one of the most fortunate team ever to rob us at the Mad Stad, their fans must have been highly embarrassed by that. Thought we played much better than when we beat Fulham and everyone bleats on about that being so good. Not especially an Adkins fan but thought today could and should have been three points for us. Their performance reminded me of when we won the league last and half the games we won I came out asking "how the hell did we win that one". Confidence and luck won that game for Derby, not because they had a better team or played better. Derby would have been lucky to walk away with a point today, that result was a scandal !

[Adkins Evolution]

Similar story to recently. Played fairly well. Looked quite good, created chances. Didn't take them and got punished on virtually everything going. Ref was shit. Highlights were giving a freekick to derby for their defender climbing all over murray and falling over him when he didn't jump. Fk against murray for their own defender fouling their keeper. Derby contesting a drop ball when the ref stopped play for a nothing 'head injury' and we had clear possession of the ball. Plus obita getting booked for telling the ref how shit he was when he should have given us a pen/fk on the edge of their box.
Was with a mate who hasn't seen us much this season who was amazed we got beat by three despite playing well. And spoke to a derby fan on the bus who thought bar some poor finishing we'll be right up there.

Get a fit mid field and we'll be fine.

Fed 6 felt he could have done better
Gunter 6 rescued hector early on, otherwise weak
Obita 6 ok
Pearce 6 ok
Hector 6 class and mistakes
Norwood 7 some poor balls, harder in the challenge than normal and surprised he went off
Taylor 6 anonymous on the whole but most what i noticed was actually good. Not a cm or lw
Cox 6 not as good as he has been
Hrk 6 not great, not much chance with the rebound, just came on to him too quick.
Mackie 6 ok nothing special
Murray 6 ok, apparently well parried onto the bar

Kuhl looked tougher and still quality. Blackman got everything wrong. Pog had one chance and should have scored.

Not our day but there's plenty of promise there. Midtable is right, even with the injuries.