Reading V Chelsea match thread

[Royal Rother]

In the acclimatisation tank.

[Royalee]

what a shock to see Royalee criticise our black player, Goater, Lita and now Cisse.
suppose it will be Fae next!!!

racist tosser

What? Read the thread you numpty, I've been sticking up for him!

[Hoop Blah]

Why do people expect us to have infinite levels of cover in all positions? At least Long is a forward (although not a very effective one at this level)
Man Utd had to put John O'Shea upfront on Sunday, not to mention Chelsea ending up with SWP at right back and Glen Johnson at centre-back, infact playing him at all.

I don't expect infinate levels of cover, but I would like some more balance and want to see the side improved where possible. Personally I can see areas that I think can and should be strengthened.

The fact that Fergie has gone against his previous prinicples and not built a squad with enough centre forwards in it and Mourinhio has been caught short trying to bring in a couple of defenders in time for the start of the season has no bearing on who I want to see playing for my club.

[Chaney]

what a shock to see Royalee criticise our black player, Goater, Lita and now Cisse.
suppose it will be Fae next!!!

racist tosser

What? Read the thread you numpty, I've been sticking up for him!

apologies, I only read through it quickly last night

[warrpp]

i think faes supposed to be a week or so a way from match fitness

for what its worth, i thought cisse played well 1st half, made some good tackles, and chipped one lovely ball over the top of the right back , which gave doyle (i think ) a shot on goal

saw plenty in that debut to make me think he's going to be a very good player for us.

[handbags_harris]

My one and only contribution to this thread is that, once again, our level of performance stepped up a gear in that first half. Unfortunately, with only one goal to show for the total domination we showed, I was almost convinced that Mourinho would resort to type by going 4-3-3 with Drogba on his own up front supported by Pizarro (who IMO was dump) and Malouda, and it would be a much harder 2nd half. I think it's a possibly fault of the management not to have a counter for this, and if we did they clearly got it wrong. To say there was no belief or passion is incredible, particularly from my fellow Row HH Y25 matey AndyRFC. Chelsea hit us immediately, we didn't know how to handle them, they scored twice then shut up shop by dropping deep, starving Long and Doyle of the kind of space they had in the first half. The opposition shutting up shop IS NOT our heads going down! It is a much more difficult beast to break down and leads instinctively to more primitive play. They had the extra man in midfield which is always difficult to counteract, and it showed. When we lost Cisse (still need to see that as I was unsighted and only have Wally's EP quotes to go by) that was it in my opinion. Despite the first half, I knew we had to be on our game to counteract the increased attacking threat in the 2nd half. Unfortunately, 2 poor goals to concede later (admittedly Drogba's strike was individually cracking) and we've lost the game. Undeserved win for Chelsea, but that's what they seem to get a lot of the time - undeserved victories.

[floyd__streete]

Undeserved win for Chelsea

Was it balls. They strolled their way through the second half against a lack-lustre Reading who seemed content to settle for a one goal defeat as soon as Drogba's goal hit the back of the net. That victory was in no way undeserved.

[Chaney]

Undeserved win for Chelsea

Was it balls. They strolled their way through the second half against a lack-lustre Reading who seemed content to settle for a one goal defeat as soon as Drogba's goal hit the back of the net. That victory was in no way undeserved.

depends which way you look at it, was our dominance more complete or was theirs?
well they scored two goals, but I thought we did enough in the first half to deserve a point at the very least.
would say a draw would probably been a fair result on the balance of play

[rob the royal]

if we had all their money we could send our players for acting lessons, looks like pizarro could retire now and get a job as a war film extra

don't worry everyone, by the time we get to stanford bridge hopefully they'll still be unbeaten at home and we can have the honour of being the first to beat them.

[The Goat was fed]

We let ourselves down last night. We should have been 2 maybe 3 nil up at half time but made some wrong decisions and missed some good chances. Going in only one up meant that we knew a storm was coming after the break. We should have played a temporary 4-5-1 dropping Doyle into midfield to ensure we did not concede an early goal. Weather the storm and then start playing the natural game again. Remember Blackburn last season? Went 1-0 up they changed formation and we didn't respond. I thought with our tactics at OT we were starting to wise up - we are still learning!

[Upper West Ginger]

Oster - pleased to see him starting in place of Seol, and managed to produce both moments of skill and predictably-interceptable passes. Had some of the chances that fell to him fallen instead for one of the strikers, we might indeed have been 3-0 up at half-time.

Long and Doyle both did reasonably well - although as commented earlier in this thread, they are pretty much in the same mould.Playing them together leaves us a bit short on variety up front.

Duberry was doing OK until he got injured.

Bikey. The more I see him, the more I like him. I think he's going to turn into a Royals legend. (By the way, did anybody else spot him shoving Cisse in the back after the 2nd goal and giving him an earful about something - or did I just imagine it?)

Cisse - early days yet, but I hope he improves (because there's certainly room for improvement on yesterday's showing). Let us hope he adapts to the Reading way of doing things, and the pace of Premier League football.

Harper also stood out for me, seemed to be everywhere (which is not to say he was "all over the place").

... and credit to Mourinho and the Chelsea team. Who would have thought of putting SWP at right back. (Hmm ... maybe we should try Bikey at Centre Forward!?)