Barnsley - in the car

[winchester_royal]

It was a very narrow 3 in the middle so I guess NA's defence would be that he was brought on as a right sided central midfielder rather than a winger. I can understand why the substitution was made, I was thinking at the time that fresh legs in the middle were needed, but the problem we have is that once Guthrie is off the pitch we don't have anyone that takes charge of the midfield and we just ended up hitting long balls that came straight back at us or dithering around at the back with no purpose. This is where Baird disappointed me yesterday, we were crying out for an old head to take charge towards the end and he went missing. I'll let him off though as he's clearly still way off 100% fitness.

[Brum Royal]

Remember 2005/06? The two games we lost there were to Plymouth and Luton. Luton were relegated, and we were 2-0 up in that game too.

2011-12 we lost at relegated Pompey, drew at relegated Coventry, and drew at home to relegated Doncaster.

We have form in not taking maximum points against the bottom 3. Our record against the current bottom three is P3 (all away), W1 D2. 5 points out of 9. Not bad, but not disastrous either.

Luton finished 10th in 05/06. We were 3-1 down just after half time at Kenilworth Road that season and only got the second on 90 minutes.

We beat Doncaster Rovers 2-0 at home with goals from Church and Le Fondre (his first for the club).

Other than that, the point stands.

Sorry, you're right. We were 1-0 up at Luton. I'm surprised Luton finished as high as that, I thought they were only up for the one season. Evidently not.

Drew away at Doncaster?

[LoyalRoyal22]

Not a bad result but not a good one either. Cant see why we played 442 again, the football had really been progressing (Leeds home, Derby away). We look a much better team when we play 451/433 with Guthrie playing deep. Switched to a diamond at HT which gave us our best spell though. Thought Akpan looked good when we came on. We badly miss Bridge.

McCarthy- 8
Gunter- 7
Kelly- 5
Morrison- 6
Pearce- 6
McCleary- 6
Robson-Kanu- 7
Guthrie- 6
Baird- 6
Le Fondre- 7
Pog- 7

[handbags_harris]

Luton finished 10th in 05/06. We were 3-1 down just after half time at Kenilworth Road that season and only got the second on 90 minutes.

We beat Doncaster Rovers 2-0 at home with goals from Church and Le Fondre (his first for the club).

Other than that, the point stands.

Sorry, you're right. We were 1-0 up at Luton. I'm surprised Luton finished as high as that, I thought they were only up for the one season. Evidently not.

Drew away at Doncaster?

Two seasons. Had a promising start to 06/07 before the whole Newell implosion and they went down the sh*tter from there, eventually down to non-league.

That's it. Pearce header early second half to cancel out a Kyle Bennett opener.

[floyd__streete]

God that was awful. Really, really poor. I have to be honest, apart from the first 45 against Watford and chunks of the game at Derby, I don’t find this Reading side particularly fun to watch. For all the pathetic snobbery at our supposed superior style of football these days I find us excruciating to watch because we always seem to be one sloppy, needless and telegraphed pass across the back 4 away from putting ourselves in trouble. We’re best summed up by the fact that the Reading playing with most touches of the ball in the first half (in terms of ball at his feet) was Alex McCarthy. We’re one paced and too easy to play against. Last night we gave away the ball like it was going out of fashion and allowed Barnsley to pin us back for long periods. Not good enough.

I’m not seriously advocating any nonsense like Adkins being under pressure (if we’re going to sack him, the best excuse would be his ludicrous substitutions) but I feel as if he is expecting sub-standard footballers like Hope Akpan to play in a style which is unsuited to them and while this is the case progress – and the style of football itself – will be slow.

[Z175]

How can he stop play when a Barnsley player is off the field of play (He flew over the side hoardings through his own fault) and we were attacking. Totally

Yeah what on earth is going on this season?!

It wasn't as bad a waste of an attackign situation as Birmingham where we were through on goal, but at least then their player went down challenging for the ball. The Barnsley bloke last night just took an impressive leap into the stands and it was only when he failed to emerge the ref stopped play!

Also whats going on with the amount of stoppage time? Always an inevitable 5,6 minutes these days. Still makes the trip more worthwhile!

Agree that Adkins change of formation looked a masterstoke, but it did open the game up somewhat. I thought a second was coming before the substitutions, and to have three players who have barely played for weeks in the team did help to switch the momentum but then Barnsley made their own subs and looked pretty handy at times so credit to them.

[Brum Royal]

5 minutes added on, 4 minutes played last night in the second half.

[handbags_harris]

I'll just drop this in here...

http://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/201 ... r-two-lost

[kwik-silva]

Just seen the highlights. That goal was awful to concede, should have been cleared before then. And how on earth did Morro miss that?!

[Rollerbob]

Anyone know a site with the highlights?

[72 bus]

Anyone know a site with the highlights?

http://www.player.readingfc.co.uk/lates ... le/2123596

[Kebe's apprentice]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but Guthrie is one booking away from a suspension (I think), and had already committed at least 4 or 5 fouls. How he was not booked before he went off was incredible

McCarthy - 7. Good saves but distribution was poor.
Gunter - 6. Went backwards after a great performance on Saturday
Morrison and Pearce - 5. Struggled to deal with physical strikers
Kelly - 6. Good defensively, but we lose so much going forward with him at left back. If Bridge is injured I would like to see Gunter Left back, he actually uses his left foot

Guthrie - 5. Worst performance of the season for him. Lost the ball a lot. However, thought we looked much worse with him off the pitch.
Baird - 5
HRK - 6. Scored a goal, but was poor for the rest of the game. Also think Guthrie provides a far better set piece delivery, not sure why HRK was taking them tbh.
McCleary - 7. When we actually got the ball on the floor, him running at defenders was our only threat first half. Poor final ball.

Pog - 7. Love him.
Alf - 6. Unlucky.

Akpan - 6
McAnuff - 5
Sharp - no time.

Overall, worst 90 minutes that I watched this season (not seen Blackpool or Yeovil) Should have won after going 1-0 up, ALF should have scored at least once, Morro should have scored also.

[URZZZZ]

What has alf done in the last couple of games to justify a start. For me back to 4-2-3-1 with pog up front and sharp coming off the bench. Alf on for the last 5 minutes

[Victor Meldrew]

Did we sit back on the 1-0 lead as we did on Saturday?
Possession stats were 59/41 in Barnsley's favour which is unusual for a club at the bottom of the league.
Still , we remain on the unbeaten run and if that is still the case on Saturday it will be a decent first quarter of the season.

If only we didn't play HRK eh?

It's October and he has scored his first goal-a few more please.
Also every report above said that he was poor.
I'll accept the opinion of those that went.
Good goal though but the rest of his game must have been pretty bad if people came to the conclusion that he was poor.

[Westwood52]

Utmost respect to anyone who made that journey last night-did someone really get back in three hours !

Just saw Barnsley's goal-they all stood around like statues.

Was the elbow in Gunters face a sending off-apparently Dim Tellor said the ref did not even speak to the Barnsley player about it ?

Anybody have any idea when we are going to put in the complete performance-or is this going to be like this until the Play Offs ?

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Utmost respect to anyone who made that journey last night-did someone really get back in three hours !

Just saw Barnsley's goal-they all stood around like statues.

Was the elbow in Gunters face a sending off-apparently Dim Tellor said the ref did not even speak to the Barnsley player about it ?

Anybody have any idea when we are going to put in the complete performance-or is this going to be like this until the Play Offs ?

We didn't ever get one 2 years ago & we won the league

[CrispyRoyal]

Utmost respect to anyone who made that journey last night-did someone really get back in three hours !

Just saw Barnsley's goal-they all stood around like statues.

Was the elbow in Gunters face a sending off-apparently Dim Tellor said the ref did not even speak to the Barnsley player about it ?

Anybody have any idea when we are going to put in the complete performance-or is this going to be like this until the Play Offs ?

We didn't ever get one 2 years ago & we won the league

What, not get a red card? I know its easy to forget him right now, but Jason Roberts was sent off in the 2-2 draw with Palace that at the end of the day got us the title.

[floyd__streete]

Anybody have any idea when we are going to put in the complete performance-or is this going to be like this until we lose in the Play Offs ?

Be fair, Nigel has only had 6 months to try and turn this modest bunch of plodders into Real Madrid. I expect plenty more disjointed, one-paced, excrutiating crud yet. Luckily this league is so diabolically mediocre I think this Reading squad should expect to be top 6 with our without Adkins tbh.

[RoyalBlue]

Just seen the highlights. That goal was awful to concede, should have been cleared before then. And how on earth did Morro miss that?!

I reckon Morrison must be well up amongst our leading culprits when it comes to missing gilt edged chances for us this season. Several of the headers I have seen him miss this season appeared harder to miss than score!

I really hope they are giving him lots of extra practice with his heading from our attacking corners!

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Utmost respect to anyone who made that journey last night-did someone really get back in three hours !

Just saw Barnsley's goal-they all stood around like statues.

Was the elbow in Gunters face a sending off-apparently Dim Tellor said the ref did not even speak to the Barnsley player about it ?

Anybody have any idea when we are going to put in the complete performance-or is this going to be like this until the Play Offs ?

We didn't ever get one 2 years ago & we won the league

What, not get a red card? I know its easy to forget him right now, but Jason Roberts was sent off in the 2-2 draw with Palace that at the end of the day got us the title.

No was referring to the 'complete performance' part