Back from the Millwall (A) game

[Carlos]

Well in the car anyway. Complete lack of quality, totally insipid and predictable. No urgency and did not look like 11 v 10. Clarke set us up to not lose, even against ten men. Set the tone with no subs at half time and meandered meaninglessly for 15 minutes.

Fed - 8 - man of the match. They had best chance of second half well saved by fed.
Kelly - 6 - average.
Hector - 5 - goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. One minute great pass next minute shins out for corner.
Pearce - 6 - lost his man a few times but generally solid
Obita - 6 - crossing was poor but tried to get forward
Williams - 3 - complete lack of confidence. Completely different from lung bursting performance here last season.
Norwood - 6 - average
Chalobah - 5 - totally anonymous so hard to give more than 5
Blackman - 4 - expect nothing from that waste of space and delivers nothing
Kanu - 4 - decent first half but awful second summed up by trying to score from 40 yards.
Pog - 6 - tried hard but given no support.

None of the subs had any real impact. Mccleary huffed and puffed but offered very little. Needs to stick to the byline more.

Clarke's honeymoon period well and truly over.

[PistolPete]

Been to the Den before but didn't expect that small a crowd and that poor an atmosphere. Seemed to have the same impact on the players who really didn't seem up for it.

The game only got interesting when McCleary came on, yet he too often was central which left Kelly the job of attacking... .

Feds - 8 - Alert whenever needed
Kelly -6 - Untested defensively but not great going forward
Obita - 6 - A shadow of the player he was last season, definitely misses MacAnuff. Hopeful crosses
Hector 6 - Occasional lapses, would like to see him travel further with the ball when he is unchallenged
Pearce - 7 - Solid enough
Chalobah - 7 - Reminded me of Guthrie; played in front of the back 4, wanted the ball and was tidy...but no great impact.
Williams 6 - Seems confused as to what his role is, occasionally good, occasionally wasteful
Norwood 6 - A great shot but did not dominate the midfield even against 10
HRK - 5 - Sad to say it, but nothing worked for him
Blackman - 5 - there's a good player in there somewhere, but I think it's at league 1 level
Pog - 5 - Where is the player where the ball always used to stick to? Doesn't seem to be up for it

Cox - 6 - Decent link up play but couldn't unlock the defence
Mackie - 5 - Not an impact sub
McCleary - 8 - Best player on the pitch by a mile, but should have stayed wider and ran at the defence who were petrified of him!

[paultheroyal]

And home....

Never felt we were going to lose (but nearly did) and a frustrating night. Points to note.

New lad was decent and does the simple things well.
When Kelly plays you appreciate how better Gunter is.
Obita cannot cross for toffee ( apart from would would of been goal of the decade if Pogs header went in)
Strange selection omitting Mccleary. He is our only real attacking threat.
That five man in midfield does not work with a real box to box midfielder in the team.
Expect Williams to be dropped now and Karacan will get his chance on Saturday.
Never understand why more Reading fans do not make the trip. Easier to get to than most London clubs now and not intimidating at all. The noisiest they got was the handball chants.
Blackman in front of goal is absolutely woeful. That's 4 decent chances from just outside six yard box that he fluffed.
Another point towards survival. Need to win Saturday.

[Royality creeps In]

Just back myself.
Well that was a load of tosh, A bit like our forward line. (Oh how we miss someone with Murrays nous and eye for goal.)
Millwall /Handball (You had to be there) were a very poor side and we were not much better.
Feds made a good save and Cox forced their keeper in to another. That aside they had a player sent off for trying to decapitate Hector and they had a number 8 who kept falling over.
Thats was about as exciting as it got folks.

[blueroyals]

cba with player ratings

we've had 25+ crosses tonight. none of them have resulted in a clear chance. 1) what the oxf*rd is pog doing not getting on the end of these crosses? and 2) why, after 25+ unsuccessful crosses, do we not have a plan b like playing through the middle? tonights performance was worryingly similar to a few under Adkins - hundreds of crosses, no penetration, no chances, no goals. the only difference is that we can defend now.

i'm worried.

[blueroyals]

I'll get slated for this but we we're looking decent until pog came in - a terrible player. woeful positioning, clumsy, lazy, doesn't make runs, can't jump. if you actually watch him during a game you'll see what I mean. 'worked hard' and 'held the ball up well' does not make him a good striker if he doesn't put chances away. don't give me the 'no support' or 'no chances created' bollocks - 25+ crosses into the box tonight, plus many more last saturday, and he's failed to get on the end of a single one of them.

[Platypuss]

If the opposition is down to 10 and defending their box then just loading extra crosses in isn't always going to help matters.

[tidus_mi2]

I'll get slated for this but we we're looking decent until pog came in - a terrible player. woeful positioning, clumsy, lazy, doesn't make runs, can't jump. if you actually watch him during a game you'll see what I mean. 'worked hard' and 'held the ball up well' does not make him a good striker if he doesn't put chances away. don't give me the 'no support' or 'no chances created' bollocks - 25+ crosses into the box tonight, plus many more last saturday, and he's failed to get on the end of a single one of them.

Actually I agree completely, I don't dislike Pog at all, he seems to try hard but that isn't worth 30k/week, in that regard he's pretty useless and must be up there for one of the most inefficient player when compared to wage earned in the entire league. Unfortunately we're stuck with him until his contract expires next summer as no one else is going to be stupid enough to pay his wages.

[Royal Tezza]

A quite stunningly frustrating game of football. I've only been to about 5 games this season but the story has been the same almost every time, just a complete lack of quality in breaking teams down. Not sure about the omission of McCleary as he was literaly our only attacking outlet at Fulham, but what a job he did of it. Milwall went compact and were scrapping for their lives, but our lot simply have to do better than what we saw last night. I can't understand for the life of me why the wingers keep going central when we are chasing games, leaving fullbacks to punt it into a completely overcrowded box, which is bread and butter defending at this level. On that theme, I'm sick of posting in these threads about how ineffective Pogbrenyak is. We simply cannot stretch teams when he plays. There's no pace, no movement, nothing. Obviously he's not the same player but it makes me want to tear my hair out watching him lumbering about compared to the job that the likes of Doyle, Long, N Hunt used to do in moving defenders around, chasing balls into channels etc. The really daft thing is that the likes of them were also better with their back to goal holding it up than the Russian is. His game was summed up in the last moments when he took the ball down in the box and ambled about slowly turning away from goal until he had it nicked off his toe. Even at the horrific level of football i play at I reckon I would enjoy marking him - he never goes anywhere and never looks like getting on the end of anything. He can't jink and create a space to get a shot off, or commit a defender. Cult hero to some he may be but he has been a terribly ineffective player for us and I can't wait to see the back of the big, expensive wardrobe. FWIW it's not his fault we offered him the contract we did though.

The game aside, it's quite disappointing to hear the younger lads singing songs that have no relevance to the club, and even more disappointing to hear the old twats stood around whinging/swearing at them. It's great they are up there making some noise tbf, a part of me just wishes they weren't ripping off other teams chants that have no relevance to the club - referring to "when i was young" "when the royals go steaming in" and "we're reading away" or whatever it is, none of which you would have heard a couple of years ago following Reading away. There wasn't even any Bill Oddie ffs, that's all I paid my £26 for!

[RoyalBlue]

I can't understand for the life of me why the wingers keep going central when we are chasing games, leaving fullbacks to punt it into a completely overcrowded box, which is bread and butter defending at this level.

It's even more frustrating and incomprehensible when we do that against ten men. However, we did exactly the same thing the last time we ended up against ten men with McCleary continually drifting inside. Either he is disobeying instructions or that's two consecutive coaching teams who 'Don't know what they're doing!'

[GH Royal]

A quite stunningly frustrating game of football. I've only been to about 5 games this season but the story has been the same almost every time, just a complete lack of quality in breaking teams down. Not sure about the omission of McCleary as he was literaly our only attacking outlet at Fulham, but what a job he did of it. Milwall went compact and were scrapping for their lives, but our lot simply have to do better than what we saw last night. I can't understand for the life of me why the wingers keep going central when we are chasing games, leaving fullbacks to punt it into a completely overcrowded box, which is bread and butter defending at this level. On that theme, I'm sick of posting in these threads about how ineffective Pogbrenyak is. We simply cannot stretch teams when he plays. There's no pace, no movement, nothing. Obviously he's not the same player but it makes me want to tear my hair out watching him lumbering about compared to the job that the likes of Doyle, Long, N Hunt used to do in moving defenders around, chasing balls into channels etc. The really daft thing is that the likes of them were also better with their back to goal holding it up than the Russian is. His game was summed up in the last moments when he took the ball down in the box and ambled about slowly turning away from goal until he had it nicked off his toe. Even at the horrific level of football i play at I reckon I would enjoy marking him - he never goes anywhere and never looks like getting on the end of anything. He can't jink and create a space to get a shot off, or commit a defender. Cult hero to some he may be but he has been a terribly ineffective player for us and I can't wait to see the back of the big, expensive wardrobe. FWIW it's not his fault we offered him the contract we did though.

The game aside, it's quite disappointing to hear the younger lads singing songs that have no relevance to the club, and even more disappointing to hear the old twats stood around whinging/swearing at them. It's great they are up there making some noise tbf, a part of me just wishes they weren't ripping off other teams chants that have no relevance to the club - referring to "when i was young" "when the royals go steaming in" and "we're reading away" or whatever it is, none of which you would have heard a couple of years ago following Reading away. There wasn't even any Bill Oddie ffs, that's all I paid my £26 for!

Agree with the chants, but Reading simply doesn't have that many original ones, even the ones we use consistently are used elsewhere. The Reading support isn't vocal or original enough to have a good range of chants. Although we are usually decent with interacting with the opposing fans.

Also, how do you think chants gain relevance to clubs? If the younger lot sing these chants and eventually others join in, and the chants are sung for the next 5-10 years, I'd say the chants are then relevant to the club.

[Royal Tezza]

I can't understand for the life of me why the wingers keep going central when we are chasing games, leaving fullbacks to punt it into a completely overcrowded box, which is bread and butter defending at this level.

It's even more frustrating and incomprehensible when we do that against ten men. However, we did exactly the same thing the last time we ended up against ten men with McCleary continually drifting inside. Either he is disobeying instructions or that's two consecutive coaching teams who 'Don't know what they're doing!'

It's not just me right? McCleary is our best player with the ball at his feet. There is no use him standing a few yards into the box with two defenders between him and the full back. In fact, the linkup between fullbacks and wingers has been fairly poor for a while now. Do we have a left winger at all? I always end up feeling sorry for Obita

[Royal Tezza]

The game aside, it's quite disappointing to hear the younger lads singing songs that have no relevance to the club, and even more disappointing to hear the old twats stood around whinging/swearing at them. It's great they are up there making some noise tbf, a part of me just wishes they weren't ripping off other teams chants that have no relevance to the club - referring to "when i was young" "when the royals go steaming in" and "we're reading away" or whatever it is, none of which you would have heard a couple of years ago following Reading away. There wasn't even any Bill Oddie ffs, that's all I paid my £26 for!

Agree with the chants, but Reading simply doesn't have that many original ones, even the ones we use consistently are used elsewhere. The Reading support isn't vocal or original enough to have a good range of chants. Although we are usually decent with interacting with the opposing fans.

Also, how do you think chants gain relevance to clubs? If the younger lot sing these chants and eventually others join in, and the chants are sung for the next 5-10 years, I'd say the chants are then relevant to the club.

Yeah I take the point on that, and I would never act disparaingly towards some young lads trying to support the team at a game as some miserable old sods around me were doing. I just wish the chants they opted for were at least slightly unique. I remember when someone posted a link to here a few years back to some Dutch fans singing "So Happy Together" which sounded huge - stuff like that would be great to pick up, not just whichever chants you can hear from your armchair on telly.

What I love hearing when I go to away games are the chants which are at least slightly unique to us, e.g. Bill oddie, Molly Malone, the Karacan chant etc. FWIW the following at Fulham the other week were tremendous, I left the ground not even arsed about the result as the atmosphere was so good

[GH Royal]

Agree with the chants, but Reading simply doesn't have that many original ones, even the ones we use consistently are used elsewhere. The Reading support isn't vocal or original enough to have a good range of chants. Although we are usually decent with interacting with the opposing fans.

Also, how do you think chants gain relevance to clubs? If the younger lot sing these chants and eventually others join in, and the chants are sung for the next 5-10 years, I'd say the chants are then relevant to the club.

Yeah I take the point on that, and I would never act disparaingly towards some young lads trying to support the team at a game as some miserable old sods around me were doing. I just wish the chants they opted for were at least slightly unique. I remember when someone posted a link to here a few years back to some Dutch fans singing "So Happy Together" which sounded huge - stuff like that would be great to pick up, not just whichever chants you can hear from your armchair on telly.

What I love hearing when I go to away games are the chants which are at least slightly unique to us, e.g. Bill oddie, Molly Malone, the Karacan chant etc. FWIW the following at Fulham the other week were tremendous, I left the ground not even arsed about the result as the atmosphere was so good

Agree completely, but feel this would only happen if we had a larger vocal support. Generally the chants away are started by 3-10 people that are together in a group, at the moment this group are the younger lot. If people want better support it's something that can be changed by us, no need for spazz clappers, song sheets or club anthems.

Also agree with Fulham away, support was fantastic, feel that it was because quite a few people came out of hiding who usually don't attend away games came down as it was local, and the atmospheres in the Eight Bells and Larrick Inn before the game were also top notch.

[Ascotroyal83]

The game aside, it's quite disappointing to hear the younger lads singing songs that have no relevance to the club, and even more disappointing to hear the old twats stood around whinging/swearing at them. It's great they are up there making some noise tbf, a part of me just wishes they weren't ripping off other teams chants that have no relevance to the club - referring to "when i was young" "when the royals go steaming in" and "we're reading away" or whatever it is, none of which you would have heard a couple of years ago following Reading away. There wasn't even any Bill Oddie ffs, that's all I paid my £26 for![/quote]

I must have been stood near you then cause i heard the same twat swearing at them although he did have a point.He liked the use of the c word as well.

[Will95]

I'll put my part in here - I do the oxf*rd sign whenever since I was young is sung because I know those kids and it's a pisstake between us (+ it's shit). I got pulled aside for this yesterday by an older (but not old) fan and did my best to explain. I'm sure you two weren't on about me though as I'm never vocal in my hate for them and don't think I used the c word!

[paultheroyal]

I'll put my part in here - I do the oxf*rd sign whenever since I was young is sung...

Come again?

[LWJ]

I'll put my part in here - I do the oxf*rd sign whenever since I was young is sung because I know those kids and it's a pisstake between us (+ it's shit). I got pulled aside for this yesterday by an older (but not old) fan and did my best to explain. I'm sure you two weren't on about me though as I'm never vocal in my hate for them and don't think I used the c word!

But you are one of those guys? You and that big fat cnut are best m8s

[Big Foot]

Now that I'm attending football regularly again, I have to say that there are a lot of young bellends in our ranks now

[Rea Ding]

tbf at least they are prepared to go away and vocally support the team.
Its unfortunate a divide between the young guys and some other fans are appearing, however the support was decent last night considering the numbers and atmosphere