Blackburn (H) - Back from the game

[Caversham Royal]

So.... we are blaming McAnuff for 'not wanting to win the game' because he decided to kick out the ball for an injured professional? SHAMBLES.

Not his job

No, you're right. Stuff sportsmanship. It's hardly like we were through on goal..

Yes, & I'm sure they all sat round together & sang "Kum Ba Yah" afterwards too. After all, it's not the winning it's the taking part that counts.

[Cureton's Volley]

WTF was the stewards problem? Not only being dicks during the game but shoulder barging through the concourse at half-time

What's funny is that they wade into the skinny kids in the front few rows for standing, yet the larger geezers further back spend the entire game stood making cut-throat gestures at the away fans and get a wide birth

[Loyal royal 247]

How can you win at qpr away and then lose to Blackburn at home.

[Loyal royal 247]

Bracknell town on the pitch at half time doing the penalty shootouts was more interesting than the game.

[Pandoras Box]

It was a bad day at the office for the team and jobi in particular and another game we shouldnt have lost but there are too many of these this season

If I had had as many 'bad days at the office' as this lot, I would have received my P45 weeks ago.

[Handsome Man]

That was all a bit of a surprise. Jobi MacAnuff summed it all, starting off brightly, making a horrendous error for the goal and then trying too hard with little success to get the equaliser.

Blackburn thoroughly deserved the points with a classic away performance. The referee should have given us a penalty, but I don't know what he can do when players just lie on the floor and demand the trainer comes on, and it was that that held up the game persistently and never let us get up any momentum.

MacCarthy 6 doesn't seem like an England international anymore

Gunter 7 possibly man of the match
Obita 7 very good again at both parts of the game
Pearce 6 OK
Gorkss 6 strong

Williams 7 our best player at the moment
Akpan 7 improving every game
McAnuff 5 lost us the game having been our most promising attacking threat
McCleary 5 invisible

Pogrebnyak 5 not his day
LeFondre 7 one of his better non-scoring performance

Guthrie 4
Drenthe 3
HRK 5

[Wimb]

My player ratings over on The Tilehurst End.

http://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/pla ... ampionship

Obita running away with the POTM vote which is understandable.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Anyone seen the highlights yet? Was the pen as bl8ant as it looked?

[windermere_royal]

Anyone seen the highlights yet? Was the pen as bl8ant as it looked?

on the FLS he certainly looked to scoop the ball away with his hand while on the floor

[Wimb]

Watched it a few times now, It's a handball no doubt about it, the problem comes from him handling it while on the floor and his back to the ref in front of a crowd of players, that's why the ref can't see it. To defend the lino as well, the handball happens as Alfie is blocking the view so it would have been hard to spot it.

Sadly it's a blatent handball and the player should have gone because he's deliberately stopped it running away from him so he can clear the ball while he's prone on the floor.

Poor decision but defensible given the views of the officials IMO

[Pepe the Horseman]

Overall record under Adkins:

W 15 D 10 L 17

Anyone got stats for our previous managers in their first 42 games? Expect Brian's to be much better, but would like to see how it compares to Coppell.

[Winnershroyal]

The only real conclusion I reached today is that Guthrie needs an oxf*rd haircut!!!

I do wonder how the 2 season ticket holders at the back of the North Stand will cope with each other for the rest of the season after the "fight"....

Will be interesting for Yeovil, tbf it was a new fella who turned up, catweasel lookalike, he turned up in the 2nd half, and started spouting off, mostly harmless in my opinion, drivel.

For instance when obita pulled the player back who was clearly breaking away, 99.9% of the ground knew it was astonewall card, he felt the yellow card was ridiculous.

One Mexican stand off later and one terribly executed punch and it was all over.

More exciting than the 2nd half to be fair..just.

[PistolPete]

My player ratings over on The Tilehurst End.

http://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/pla ... ampionship

Obita running away with the POTM vote which is understandable.

Loving the website and overall like your ratings. I do however shake my head in disbelief when people say Akpan was anything more than a bystander today. You said he made tackles, in my opinion Macanuff made tackles, Pogrebnyak made tackles, Williams made many tackles but Akpan seemed to 'hold his central position well' (maybe more important than I'm giving him credit for as Williams does seem to follow the ball a lot) but not actually get close enough to his man to make a tackle. Yes, he picked up a few lose balls but he didn't WIN the ball often. When he had the ball at his feet I don't feel he played progressive football. He needs too many touches to get it under control and then plays the first pass he sees which is usually the second or third best option in my opinion. I actually think there's a good player in there somewhere, but I'd rather he went on loan to get confidence and meanwhile we give the position back to Guthrie to see if he can play a genuine box to box role/higher tempo game with Williams and, if not, to one of the youngsters until Legs is back.

The dream scenario for me would be Karacan and Williams snapping away at players - can't see many opposition teams enjoying playing those two!

[RoyalBlue]

I do, however, sadly agree that it is time for the whole club to be no longer Mr Nice Guy - what a great job the FA and their useless officials have done to allow standards in our leagues to deteriorate to the point that you have to cheat in order to succeed.

But playing on is not cheating, it's just playing to the rules. The ref should blow if he thinks it's needed.

I agree we are too nice though, but when we try gamesmanship it doesn't usually come off, with players getting booked for diving for example. I also don't recall us faking injuries and time wasting in the manner of Blackburn or Wednesday.

I am convinced that one reason we don't get home decisions is because it's just not an intimidating place. Refs seem to have no misgivings about upsetting the home crowd.

When talking about cheating I was referring to Blackburn's and other team's approach in general rather than playing on when a player appears to have been injured. As I said earlier, I do think Job I should have played on but, at the point that he clearly hesitated, the twat of a referee should have taken control and made players aware that his decision was that play should continue.

Another game lost and it was all our own doing.

Unfortunately the goal itself was mcanuffs fault. But these things happen.

I was more pissed off with the good opportunities that mcanuff didnt take and the fact that he has to be involved with all set pieces. Obita has a better freekick than jobi and what was he doing stepping in front as royston and buggering the whole thing up.
.

But that wasn't what actually happened was it?

The way I saw it, Jobi feinted as though to take tge kick and then Royston for some reason decided to run over the ball without kicking it. So the way I saw it Royston was the man responsible to messing things up. Still, let's keep blaming Jobi for everything that goes wrong!

[PistolPete]

MacCarthy 6 doesn't seem like an England international anymore

I haven't seen a replay of he goal, but I thought he dealt with crosses well and made one superb save.

Akpan 7 improving every game

Equal man-of-the-match

LeFondre 7 one of his better non-scoring performance

Equal man-of-the-match? Sure he worked hard but he created nothing and scored nothing, how does he get the same as Obita and Williams?!

Drenthe 3

Did you miss the closest we came to a goal when he sold his man a dummy and then went inches over the bar? Looked really keen to prove a point and he clearly the most skilful player we have. STILL unfit though!!

HRK 5

2 marks better than Drenthe? Wow

[Maguire]

Interested to see Conway has been awarded the goal - admittedly I was down the other end of the pitch but I thought McAnuff absolutely buried it

[windermere_royal]

Interested to see Conway has been awarded the goal - admittedly I was down the other end of the pitch but I thought McAnuff absolutely buried it

I was dead in line with that cross/shot, and without Jobi`s touch it would have gone 2 yards wide at least, OG every day of the week

[THE HUMAN BISCUIT]

Did anyone else hear Gorkss in the post-match interview with Deller say something like ..'perhaps we should have gone for it from the start'.. implying that the team was under instructions to hold back at the beginning of the game? I'm sure he said something like that.

Did it have something to do with the low sun, and the change of ends? Was that why Obita wasn't making his usual runs to overlap Jobi at the beginning of the match? Did Reading abandon the full-pelt philosophy which has served them so well in recent games because they were instructed to?

[Pepe the Horseman]

I thought we did go for it from the start. We were all over them until they scored.

[Kingsley Junior]

There was a scuffle, albeit a one punch scuffle, at the back of the North stand today, strange atmosphere, sheeite game.

It was a two punch scuffle...

What I can only describe as a drunk hobo appeared after half time, and started berating the referee with a complete lack of wit or perspective. It was all rather funny and more interesting than the game to start with, then eventually a middle aged bloke in front dared look at him, hobo yelled at him, middle aged said he was leaving and got his phone out, hobo started telling him to oxf*rd off and die, then the bloke next to middle aged, something of a bantam weight, stood up and had a go at hobo, presumably because hobo was muttering about how they let lowlifes in - irony - and then hobo told him to "sit down! I can't see the match" - more irony as hobo was standing every time he berated the ref - and after a few exchanges bantam weight suddenly threw what looked like a left jab at hobo, and repeated the gesture about 30 seconds later, with hobo both times correctly exclaiming "he just hit me!" Someone from another section of the crowd then turned up and managed to calm hobo down, the old folks next to hobo tutted generally about bantam weight secure in the knowledge that their friend hobo was beyond reproach, and eventually bantam weight and hobo shook hands before both leaving at the start of 9 minutes of stoppage time. I left at full time and hobo was still barely out of the stadium, asking a bloke "are you Scottish?"

Funniest thing I've seen among home fans since myself and Dan - B15 Royal went to see Southampton v Ipswich in the Ipswich end a few years ago (we both lived in Southampton at the time and he was born in Ipswich so seemed a good idea) and the Saints fans near us had a punch up among themselves.