Back from the match - Barnsley

[RFCUK]

Just watching the highlights.

Two very poor penalties. Poor positioning from Feds for Barnsleys second (I can now see why there is another 'drop Feds now' thread).

Third penalty looked to have been outside the box..? So perhaps lucky to the get it. Brilliant finish from HRK and presumably goes with a man of the match performance that I gathered from the radio commentary?

[RFCUK]

Oh, and Brynn. What the hell were you doing for that second goal?!

Two simple goals from Barnsley really exposing our shambolic defence. When McD says he's looking for 'an experienced player and a work in progress', I really hope it is an experienced CB/LB he is after who doesn't have a pension book and can actually command a defensive line..

Keep it tight at the back and the goals up front should (hopefully) take care of them selves. I see no point in having a striker when for every goal he'll score, we'll leak in 2/3 at the back

[manny96]

It's inexcusable for a professional footballer to miss one but two? That said, I've seen a lot worse penalties than those two and with the keeper at full stretch. I hope there'll be no arguments about who takes in the future - Hunt and and Harte can go jump on that count. I wonder if Harte's lack of pace will look quite as acceptable if you take away the penalties he scored last season...

...it was embarassing but so too was singing 'spend some fvcking money'. It needs to be done but doesn't need singing about. Shame we couldn't sing so loud to support the team. More critical I thought was some management there - why only use 2 subs in a game in which Hunt was clearly not producing? High pressure for a debut but why not throw Obita into the mix? Might well play with a bit more freedom than someone like Church who probably feels like he has a lot to prove.

Striker is less important. Centre back and full back cover with at least a smidge of quality. Never thought I'd pine for Shaun Cummings quite so much...

[Cypry]

Have to admit to leaving early yesterday - missed the last 20 minutes as my lad declared he was about to throw up, which he promptly did on the way back to the car - hope the guys in the row in front of us appreciate my sacrifice....

Not yet had a chance to watch the FL show, but in the light of the next day, I'm not feeling so down as I was yesterday evening. It's a poor result, yes, but I don't believe it was without it's positives, and without a great performance from Steele in goal we would probable have won it by a couple of clear goals.

Hunt showed some great touches early in the first half, thought we were really going to walk it at one point. Other than that , Kebe struggled to get into the first half, McAnuff was wasteful on a couple of occasions, and we gave away a soft goal from a set piece yet again....struck me as being very similar to the goal conceded at Pompey,the ball dropping in the six yard box - poor defending...

The part of the second half I saw comprised much better play from Reading (certainly whatever Brian said at half time didn't result in our usual dip immediately after half time. We threw everything we had at them, Kebe was a constant threat, HRK played well, and McAnuff gave the ball away less and threatened them on more than one occasion. Steele made a couple of great saves (one from Jobi, the other from a Harte free kick), then came the penalty debacle. Dunno what was going on with Hunt and Harte arguing over the first, but it can't have helped, as someone close to me said, surely they must decide on the penalty taker prior to the game?
In fairness it was a good save from Steele, had he not saved that I think we could have won the game comfortably. As it was, we only had a couple of minutes to wait before Hunt got his chance, another spot kick. At that point I really felt our luck was in (wasn't 100% sure that it was a nailed on pen), but then another good save from Steele.....OK, maybe it's not going to be our day after all. A feeling exacerbated further when Pearce appeared to clear a certain Harte goal from their goal line....

Then the sucker punch, through ball splits Harte and Pearce - pace was obviously a problem and it looked to me like each one thought the other would make the required tackle with the result that neither did resulting in a well taken one-on-one with Feds....

....and it was shortly after that I had to go - missed the substitutions and HRK penalty.....

Summing up, no, wasn't a good performance, particularly in the first half, but we got undone by two defensive errors, and a really good goalkeeping performance. I'm not "throwing the toys" yet - we obviously need work in the back line, but the club assures us that signings will be made, and until the window closes I'm not going to panic....still early days IMO


With reference to the wages argument, I posted about this a while back - yesterday's program shows that we have 27 players with squad numbers (can't remember many, if any, teams that we played last year with bigger squads than us), add to that the development players and we're probably talking a minimum of 40 salaried players - add to this the manager, back room staff, stewards, food counter staff (there must be 200 of those per home game (not including hospitality) so perhaps £5k per game on that alone if they each nett £25, it wouldn't surprise me if we're looking at £20k per home game on salaries required just to put the game on - best part of £0.5M per year), and everyone else needed to ensure that the club functions on a day to day basis - it's not hard to see where a wage bill of £15-20M comes from........

[Schards#2]

I didn't go to Leicester but have seen the other three games and whilst our forward are clearly inadequate, my main concerns are the back 5.

The first goal in all three gams have been from crosses landing on or around the six yard line where the forward has a free header. This HAS to be the keeper's responsibility and, it doesn't matter how many classy saves he makes, if he can't deal with this scenario he should make way for MccArthy who can.

Obviously, the full backs are too slow, but worse are the centre halfs, they cannot do the basics of defending. A long high ball downfield should be meat and drink to the centre half but these two rarely win such headers cleanly, at best, we might concede a throw. They are also failing to mark adequately at set peices where we are frighteningly vulnerable.

If we don't strengthen the forwards, we have no hope of a top six finish but if we don't sort out the defence, it will be far worse than that.

[Stranded]

Have to agree with most, going forward we're absolutely fine - if we continue to create anywhere near that number of chances (penalties excluded) we'll score plenty this year. But the back 5 are making too many mistakes and looking too shaky, we need to make one or two changes - a new CB or LB is a minimum. I also get the feeling that the defence have lost some trust in Federici at set pieces and as such would like to McCarthy or Andersen get a run.

Hopefully one of them will play at Charlton midweek and have a blinder.

[Man Friday]

EP Headline:

"Reading FC due to give Barnsley the chop"

Oh contraire. Having beaten them the last 4 times we've played them, they were due to give us the chop, surely?

Showing my comprehensive school education again..."Au", not "Oh".
Anyway, back to more serious matters...this is just typical Reading. If you hadn't seen this result coming, you haven't supported Reading for long. Give us a club on a bad run and we'll give them a helping hand. Even Portsmowf hadn't won in eleven matches (or something like that). See Sheffield Utd last season, Scunthorpe, Plymouth, etc.

[floyd__streete]

[b]Tbh, having watched Reading games for the past 25 years I am well aware that - apart from a few freak seasons - we are always going to be also-rans at best and dogsh*t at worst.

a playoff final 1995, playoff final 2001,playoff semis 2003, playoff semis 2009 and playoff finals 2011

..... losing in the play-offs = also rans.

[Ian Royal]

So watched the highlights through a couple more times. Decent penalties fairly close to the post, but perfect saveable height. I'd expect a Keeper to save one like that maybe 2 in 10, so to save two in a row is a great job from Steele. Great pen from HRK, sending the keeper the wrong way, but if it'd been saved he'd have looked very stupid.

First goal. Borderline keeper claim, was around the edge of the six yard box, again dropping below head height in the middle of the goal. Poor marking from Khumalo for his man to get there first, poor from defence to not win it near post, poor from Federici to not come and claim it.

Second, static defence, Khumalo nowhere in sight Pearce and Harte, the two slowest players on the pitch needed to check and chase back against someone already running at full pelt with no midfield tracker. Federici does his usual, half come, stop, look stupid. Worked against Millwall when Maquis gave him a chance, not yesterday.

How Pearce failed to score I have no idea.

We need to work on our defence, it's all over the place and excessively slow. Federici needs to command his box. Attacking didn't go our way, but I still see nothing to suggest we'll really struggle for goals this season. HRK looks bloody great... perhaps try him in the Sigurdsson role? Although I can't see that working with Hunt leading the line.

[Snowball]

I don't know whether I'm lucky or unlucky.

I follow Arsenal (son is a big fan) and had my day all planned out


Couple of hours working-out/swim in Nuffield, nice lunch in LSQ2
watching Arsenal scrape a win against Liverpool, then watch a
pleasing 3-1/4-1 win by Reading. Yeah, that'll do.

But forced to go to Wales.


Is that being lucky?

[RoyalBlue]

With reference to the wages argument, I posted about this a while back - yesterday's program shows that we have 27 players with squad numbers (can't remember many, if any, teams that we played last year with bigger squads than us), add to that the development players and we're probably talking a minimum of 40 salaried players - add to this the manager, back room staff, stewards, food counter staff (there must be 200 of those per home game (not including hospitality) so perhaps £5k per game on that alone if they each nett £25, it wouldn't surprise me if we're looking at £20k per home game on salaries required just to put the game on - best part of £0.5M per year), and everyone else needed to ensure that the club functions on a day to day basis - it's not hard to see where a wage bill of £15-20M comes from........

Maybe it's time they gave consideration to quality rather than quantity. And they certainly should have a good, long, hard look at the numbers of non-playing related staff.

[holsgrove breaks a leg]

Tbh, having watched Reading games for the past 25 years I am well aware that - apart from a few freak seasons - we are always going to be also-rans at best and dogsh*t at worst.

Well apart from 1993/4 champions, a playoff final 1995, playoff final 2001,runners up 2002,playoff semis 2003 promotion 2006, playoff semis 2009 and playoff finals 2011, i would worry for your health if you had ended up a coventry or bristol city fan.....

'performance' at home to Barnsley thoroughly noted mind.....

Yep, we are world class when it comes to choking in the playoffs.....

I find it really odd that some people see playoff failure as the indication of a successful season.

Or would you have have preferred to revell in mundane lower to mid table existence, which we clearly have not done in the past 20 seasons hmmm

[handbags_harris]

Federici does his usual, half come, stop, look stupid. Worked against Millwall when Maquis gave him a chance, not yesterday.

I generally agree with your whole post Ian but to be fair to Federici he has turned out to be an exceptional one-on-one shot stopper. Our defence leaves him horribly exposed at times, particularly under McDermott's stewardship - it was prevalent very early on - yet if there's one thing I'm confident Federici will now do well it's stand up in the face of an oncoming attacker in a one-on-one situation. I'm sure there are some stats on these but I would be confident in saying since McDermott took over the reins he saves more than get through.

[The Quiet Man]

I find it odd that a club whose chairman is midtable in terms of ownership finance and whose support is solidly midtable in terms of numbers appears to think that it should finish anything other than mid table unless is considerably overachieves.

[Ian Royal]

Federici does his usual, half come, stop, look stupid. Worked against Millwall when Maquis gave him a chance, not yesterday.

I generally agree with your whole post Ian but to be fair to Federici he has turned out to be an exceptional one-on-one shot stopper. Our defence leaves him horribly exposed at times, particularly under McDermott's stewardship - it was prevalent very early on - yet if there's one thing I'm confident Federici will now do well it's stand up in the face of an oncoming attacker in a one-on-one situation. I'm sure there are some stats on these but I would be confident in saying since McDermott took over the reins he saves more than get through.

Just frustrated the way he's timed his run out on the last couple I've seen. I was always told you come or you stay, you don't come and then stop. Both those chances he's rushed out and then stopped a good two or three yards from the striker, putting himself on the back foot. Yes, he's made himself big, and I don't think he had a lot of chance, either way, but I'm just not very impressed with him.

Think he's a good shot stopper, but I don't agree he's particularly good at rushing out and stopping a one-on-one.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Saw the highlight clips this morning and just laughed at Pearce for the 2nd goal. Not to mention his almost impossible miss at the other end. Championship footballer my arse. Along witht that excuse of a player from Spurs we currently have the worst CB pairing for about a decade. Harte has been poor this season, but he has to be a better option at CB than those 2. At least the guy has ability.

[Royalee]

Had a free ticket for this one yesterday otherwise I wouldn't have gone. All I could think about during the game was how thankful I am I've not renewed my season ticket - woeful. Federici suspect again with dreadful distribution, Harte still crap at defending, dear old Brynjar showing why we should have got rid of him 3 years ago and the new guy from Spurs didn't look much cop.

Kebe reminds me of a poor man's Theo Walcott, all the pace in the world but no brains or technique - I lost count of the times he got past his man with ease only to put in an atrocious final ball. McAnuff was the opposite - much more intelligent but fades in and out of games and needs to put more effort in. Lack of thought in the middle with Jem and Leigertwood needing a bit of creativity in there which of course we lost with Gylfi a year ago and still haven't replaced, it's just that Long's no longer here to mask that by scoring goals out of nothing for fun.

I'm normally a Noel Hunt fan but his movement and general intelligence was poor and Robson-Kanu only turned up in the second half.

You can't go year after year asset stripping like Madejski has (about time the East Stand gave him some stick yesterday, he's got away with it for long enough and I actually think it's a curse that we did so well last year as it's papered over the cracks) and expect to get results. I don't care how many times the likes of Ian Royal and brendywendy try and detract from the facts, we got relegated because we didn't invest, we failed to go up the year after because we failed to reinvest, we sacked Rodgers because Madejski didn't want to invest in him and took the cheap route with McDermott, we didn't go up last year because we failed to reinvest and we'll finish midtable this year if we don't reinvest. Stop mocking the fans Madejski and actually use some of the transfer funds you're raking in (not to mention the savings in wages as half our squad our now academy players and all our big earners are gone or f*ck off.

[Victor Meldrew]

Just watching the highlights.

Two very poor penalties. Poor positioning from Feds for Barnsleys second (I can now see why there is another 'drop Feds now' thread).

Third penalty looked to have been outside the box..? So perhaps lucky to the get it. Brilliant finish from HRK and presumably goes with a man of the match performance that I gathered from the radio commentary?

No,no,no,no,no.
HRK scored a penalty and that was about it so don't start thinking that he is the answer to our striker problem.
He really doesn't have the mobility to play there,his legs seem to get tangled up his reaction time is slow and he is all left foot..
He MIGHT just make it as a winger as he can run (once again when he gets his feet sorted)at full-backs and has a trick or two.
Somebody earlier described him as "strong" which I feel is way off the mark as (despite a decent physique) he is powder-puff when challenged.
How on earth Hunt got in ahead of Manset after Tuesday night is beyond me and Marcus Williams must be the worst left-back in the whole football league if he can't get in ahead of Harte.
There is so much wrong at the moment,almost as if there were no pre-season and snowball is right under another topic to raise the question of who is undroppable with the Irish duo leading the way.

Our one tactic of "give it to Jimmy" works some weeks but when it does it just papers over the cracks for a side that lacks imagination as shown in the Pompey game where their players passed and moved whereas ours just passed in the hope that the other players would just get on with it.
All I would say to those who suggest that this is how we started this season therefore we will automatically improve (blind faith) is to relate that to our signing of young Irish players-for every Doyle and Long there are many Mooneys and Bennetts.
The new signings will be interesting and it wouldn't surprise me if the club brought in a midfield playmaker (something that Howard hasn't done consistently enough or arguably not given enough opportunities to do so)just so that we have a plan B as opposed to the ludicrous moving Jobi into central midfield to accommodate a different winger,something that the manager does so often but with so little effect because Jobi is ineffective there-you are allowed to take him off Brian if he is underperforming,as you can with our left-back rather than always ditching Jem.

[tlcs]

Had a free ticket for this one yesterday otherwise I wouldn't have gone. All I could think about during the game was how thankful I am I've not renewed my season ticket - woeful. Federici suspect again with dreadful distribution, Harte still crap at defending, dear old Brynjar showing why we should have got rid of him 3 years ago and the new guy from Spurs didn't look much cop.

Kebe reminds me of a poor man's Theo Walcott, all the pace in the world but no brains or technique - I lost count of the times he got past his man with ease only to put in an atrocious final ball. McAnuff was the opposite - much more intelligent but fades in and out of games and needs to put more effort in. Lack of thought in the middle with Jem and Leigertwood needing a bit of creativity in there which of course we lost with Gylfi a year ago and still haven't replaced, it's just that Long's no longer here to mask that by scoring goals out of nothing for fun.

I'm normally a Noel Hunt fan but his movement and general intelligence was poor and Robson-Kanu only turned up in the second half.

You can't go year after year asset stripping like Madejski has (about time the East Stand gave him some stick yesterday, he's got away with it for long enough and I actually think it's a curse that we did so well last year as it's papered over the cracks) and expect to get results. I don't care how many times the likes of Ian Royal and brendywendy try and detract from the facts, we got relegated because we didn't invest, we failed to go up the year after because we failed to reinvest, we sacked Rodgers because Madejski didn't want to invest in him and took the cheap route with McDermott, we didn't go up last year because we failed to reinvest and we'll finish midtable this year if we don't reinvest. Stop mocking the fans Madejski and actually use some of the transfer funds you're raking in (not to mention the savings in wages as half our squad our now academy players and all our big earners are gone or f*ck off.

Spot on with this post

[Royal Prince]

we sacked Rodgers because Madejski didn't want to invest in him and took the cheap route with McDermott, we didn't go up last year because we failed to reinvest and we'll finish midtable this year if we don't reinvest. Stop mocking the fans Madejski and actually use some of the transfer funds you're raking in (not to mention the savings in wages as half our squad our now academy players and all our big earners are gone or f*ck off.

Firstly, how was getting rid of Rodgers the cheap option?! That was an expensive decision, but one that shows the club aren't afraid to make big calls when needed.

Secondly, I agree that we need to re-invest, we particularly need to strengthen in a couple of key areas, but it must be said that we don't necessarily need to spend big. Money does not always equal success.

Thirdly, back to the thread itself, I can't believe how people's opinions of yesterday's game can be so different! Yesterday is the first home game I've missed in donkeys years as I was on a flight, and I also missed the highlights on TV as I subsequently passed out on the couch when I made it home! Came on here to find out how we got on and I'm not sure now whether we played the better football but got unlucky, or if we're doomed and heading for League One!