MATCHWATCH : Watford (a)

[Westwood52]

Rafael 6 No chance with the goals
Yiadom 8 MoTM Showed fire and won his battles
Holmes 7 Did little wrong. Defended well
Moore 6 Should have closed down Sarr but overall good second half
Gibson 3 Awful. Truly awful. He has cost us a number of goals in only a few starts. No more please
Rinomhota 6 Won tackles but outgunned at times
Laurent 5 Poor distribution and outgunned
Meite 4 Should have scored and offered very little
Olise 7 Some lovely skill at times but had few options open to him
Ejaria 4 Didn’t track back on a number of occasions and offered little
Puscas 6 Worked hard but should have scored

Joao 4 Did very little
Richards 5 OK
Aluko 6 Looked sharp
Baldock 5 Lively but as always nothing came if it.
Pauno 3 He really is struggling with his selections and subs.

We don’t look like a team on the up. The season isn’t done just yet but it doesn’t look far away. After such a great start to the season to not make the play offs isn’t good enough especially if a limited team like Barnsley make them.

Couldn’t argue with any of that.Sarr apart Watford weren’t that great.Pauno s substitutions came way to late.Where we really went wrong was the half hour after half time when we did nothing.Alukho and Baldock should have come on with twenty minutes to go.Not five.A couple of players stunk the place out.Cant see us pulling out anything special for the rest of the season and we have probably over achieved as a season on the whole.

[Ascotexgunner]

Difference between the teams? A 40 mill quid striker.

Weird though, if you watch league two you see them routinely bury chances like the ones we had today

Could you honestly imagine one of our strikers scoring either of Sarrs goals?

[Stranded]

Shame the season has petered out like this but it's been a great season compared to recent ones and I think we have an exciting summer and build up to next season ahead of us

Been let down yet again by the poor home form which for a top 6/7 side you’d expect to be better.

It could well boil down to that. 7 defeats at home is poor but win our remaining home games, and we now have to and we'll have picked up 46pts at home.

Unfortunately if we do miss out it will be fine margins that we can sadly pinpoint to a few key misses. Unless of course we crumble now.

[windermereROYAL]

If we miss out on the play-offs you have to look back on some of the glaring misses (and missed pens) that is likely to come back and haunt us.

[CountryRoyal]

Difference between the teams? A 40 mill quid striker.

Weird though, if you watch league two you see them routinely bury chances like the ones we had today

Could you honestly imagine one of our strikers scoring either of Sarrs goals?

I can see Baldock hitting the second one if he’s trying to pass back to the half way line.

[Millsy]

Pauno obviously IN but I'm not happy with him tonight.

Leaving Richards out (and not mitigating/foreseeing the shitshow that would develop down the Watford right), not starting with Joao, but mainly sticking with 1 up front despite being 2-0 down in a must-win, only bothering to try 4-4-2 at 88mins (!!!!???) and what, with the mighty Baldock!?? If Puscas is so damned good to replace Joao then surely he's to partner Joao up front when you're 2-0 down away from home, not take him off then bring on the utterly useless Baldock at the death.

Obviously Pauno did well (at the beginning of the season) but why do I get the impression he never has the tactical answers that others do?

Time after time opposition manager makes a change to improve their fortunes after half time, but we can't. Why was their manager able to turn the tide after half time from us bossing it with out "2-0 football" to us being totally inept for the WHOLE half? No reply at ALL except for sticking with 1 up front and then hoping the mighty Baldock would do well.

Just ridiculous.

He can motivate the players pre-game, study hours of videos and get them to play well, yeah, but that's about it. Forget clever ideas mid-game. Probably why the stats show that we do well if we score first but are hopeless otherwise generally.

[Winston Biscuit]

I hope people end up appreciating the season we have had rather than forgetting what recent seasons have been like and just moaning that we didnt* make the play offs

[Stranded]

Difference between the teams? A 40 mill quid striker.

Weird though, if you watch league two you see them routinely bury chances like the ones we had today

Could you honestly imagine one of our strikers scoring either of Sarrs goals?

Joao's 2nd at Huddersfield was in the same league as Sarr's first.

Both finishes were avoidable. You don't give a PL quality striker 5 yards twice in 2 minutes and not expect to find yourself 2 down.

[CountryRoyal]

If we miss out on the play-offs you have to look back on some of the glaring misses (and missed pens) that is likely to come back and haunt us.

Yeah, sadly far too many. We can’t have any complaints.

There have been moments where we can feel aggrieved, but ultimately there’s been far too many really sub-par performances and far too many wasted easy chances.

[Orion1871]

Pausing Sky at the top of the the league table is disappointing.


Pausing it at the bottom of the table and seeing Coventry, Birmingham Sheffield Wednesday and Wycombe making up four of the bottom five and knowing we've dropped so many points to them is depressing.

[Stranded]

Was Richards fit enough to start? He took a knock on Monday and was touch and go for a day or two.

Maybe it was thought he didn't have 90 in him but could manage 30 or so if needed?

[Snowball]

Watford managed that second half, IMO
rather than Reading going off the boil.

8 Olise looked class
8 Yiadom should be Captain. VG game
8 Holmes is going to be a VG Centre-Back. Good game

7 Moore not brill first half but had a good second half

5 Meite played like he did a year or two back, lacked class as a striker today
5 Puscas may get goals now and then but he rarely looks dangerous
5 Ejaria was anonymous
5 Laurent didn't have his best game, nor did Rhino (6)
5 Gibson. He's a CB and I expected him to be roasted by Sarr and said so.

3 Apart from one good moment defending Joao was utter dross.

7 Richards. In hindsight should have started. We might have been up at HT
7 Aluko Looked Lively
6 Baldock, one good run and overhit pass


Don't think Gabriel could do much with the goals

[Stranded]

Pausing Sky at the top of the the league table is disappointing.


Pausing it at the bottom of the table and seeing Coventry, Birmingham Sheffield Wednesday and Wycombe making up four of the bottom five and knowing we've dropped so many points to them is depressing.

Other clubs have dropped points there too. Bournemouth have taken 0 points from Wednesday for example.

Watford dropped points at Wycombe.

[Zip]

I hope people end up appreciating the season we have had rather than forgetting what recent seasons have been like and just moaning that we didnt* make the play offs

Can’t agree Winst. The great start to the season is why we are where we are. More losses than wins since then isn’t good enough. We should all be disappointed if we finish below Barnsley when we had a 15 point advantage over them.

[Orion1871]

Pausing Sky at the top of the the league table is disappointing.


Pausing it at the bottom of the table and seeing Coventry, Birmingham Sheffield Wednesday and Wycombe making up four of the bottom five and knowing we've dropped so many points to them is depressing.

Other clubs have dropped points there too. Bournemouth have taken 0 points from Wednesday for example.

Watford dropped points at Wycombe.

Good for them. Still doesn't excuse us dropping a total of 14 points to four of the bottom five.

Tbf It's not just a problem with this Reading team either.

[Notts Royal]

I agree with the comments about Watford. Don’t think we’re giving them the credit they deserve...they were 2-0 up very early in the game and have the best defensive record in the league. They allowed us to have the ball but were pretty comfortable for the vast majority of the game

[royalp-we]

Makes it exciting for the remaining games though doesn’t it. Going right down to the wire, this one

[Stranded]

I hope people end up appreciating the season we have had rather than forgetting what recent seasons have been like and just moaning that we didnt* make the play offs

Can’t agree Winst. The great start to the season is why we are where we are. More losses than wins since then isn’t good enough. We should all be disappointed if we finish below Barnsley when we had a 15 point advantage over them.

Yes and no. Barnsley have been on a monumental run, similar to ours in 11/12, they just started too late. Sometimes you just have to say fair play.

[Doolittle]

The lack of tempo in the second half, as well as the all-round poor final balls & finishing, showed up a lack of conviction. Gibson & Ejaria together was asking for trouble down the left: one too slow, one prone to losing concentration. Reminiscent of the Esteves/Aluko disaster combo in the Bournemouth away game.

The next two games are probably must-win, now. Pauno needs to inspire some belief, right now. Playing wide players on the same side as their strong foot might come in handy, too.

[Brogue]

If we don’t make the playoffs this season has been a massive failure from where we were at one point. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.