Back from the Game - Southampton

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Wasn't the best match at all. We didn't play too well and we were caught out in defence and midfield a few times. Kebe was a danger to the Southampton defence all game. But again with Kebe it is his end product which lets him down as a footballer. There were occasions were he could of shot and he passed it. Good support from the Reading fans. As i was walking back to my car i got into conversation with a friendly Southampton fan who told me he predicted a 4-0 win for Reading today.

[ankeny]

On "The Saints Web Forum"anyone would think they lost,but they say it was a cracking atmosphere by both sets of fans

[PEARCEY]

Wasn't the best match at all. We didn't play too well and we were caught out in defence and midfield a few times. Kebe was a danger to the Southampton defence all game. But again with Kebe it is his end product which lets him down as a footballer. There were occasions were he could of shot and he passed it. Good support from the Reading fans. As i was walking back to my car i got into conversation with a friendly Southampton fan who told me he predicted a 4-0 win for Reading today.

How did Matejovsky do?

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Wasn't the best match at all. We didn't play too well and we were caught out in defence and midfield a few times. Kebe was a danger to the Southampton defence all game. But again with Kebe it is his end product which lets him down as a footballer. There were occasions were he could of shot and he passed it. Good support from the Reading fans. As i was walking back to my car i got into conversation with a friendly Southampton fan who told me he predicted a 4-0 win for Reading today.

How did Matejovsky do?

One or two misplaced passes and it looked like that Southampton were double marking him. He wasn't at his best today.

[PieEater]

There were a few poor performances today, notably SHunt and Matejovsky. Long actually had a decent game, winning most headers, and he took his goal well. He still doesn't do it for me though and nine times out of ten he choses the wrong option, rather like Kebe.

We should have won today as they weren't very good, they didn't play half as well as they did at the Madstad. Their goal was a breakaway from a SHunt misplaced pass in their box.

I thought we'd won it at the end with a fierce shot from Doyle, but the keeper made a fantastic save.

Overall a pretty poor game were we never really tested their keeper and were out hustled by a fitter team.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

There were a few poor performances today, notably SHunt and Matejovsky. Long actually had a decent game, winning most headers, and he took his goal well. He still doesn't do it for me though and nine times out of ten he choses the wrong option, rather like Kebe.

We should have won today as they weren't very good, they didn't play half as well as they did at the Madstad. Their goal was a breakaway from a SHunt misplaced pass in their box.

I thought we'd won it at the end with a fierce shot from Doyle, but the keeper made a fantastic save.

Overall a pretty poor game were we never really tested their keeper and were out hustled by a fitter team.

PieEater is correct. Southampton were a lot worse than they were against us at the Mad Stad. But we were the same.

[Chaney]

There were a few poor performances today, notably SHunt and Matejovsky. Long actually had a decent game, winning most headers, and he took his goal well. He still doesn't do it for me though and nine times out of ten he choses the wrong option, rather like Kebe.

We should have won today as they weren't very good, they didn't play half as well as they did at the Madstad. Their goal was a breakaway from a SHunt misplaced pass in their box.

I thought we'd won it at the end with a fierce shot from Doyle, but the keeper made a fantastic save.

Overall a pretty poor game were we never really tested their keeper and were out hustled by a fitter team.

what were the pies like?

[PieEater]

I didn't queue for any, it makes the service at the Mad stad look good.

[winchester_royal]

Utter shite for 75 mins, then we woke up once they scored. Once we did start playing though we absolutely battered them, and should have scored 4 in the last 15 mins. A few observations....

1. Where the oxf*rd is Bikey? His pace at the back may have won us the game today. I can only assume he is off in Jan.

2. Gunnar and Marek cannot be in a midfield two. Both were awful first half, Marek improved 2nd. Gunnar has reached the stage where his turning circle is worse than my Dad's Volvo. Hopelessly slow as well.......

3. Doyle was a star once again.

4. Shunt was once again awful.

5. If only Kebe could pick out a final pass. Some magnificent runs, but he can't do anything with it.

6. Shane was magnificent. Battled away for the 90 mins, brave header for the goal, and looked a threat all game.

[Thomas L'Heureux]

Utter shite for 75 mins, then we woke up once they scored. Once we did start playing though we absolutely battered them, and should have scored 4 in the last 15 mins. A few observations....

1. Where the oxf*rd is Bikey? His pace at the back may have won us the game today. I can only assume he is off in Jan.

2. Gunnar and Marek cannot be in a midfield two. Both were awful first half, Marek improved 2nd. Gunnar has reached the stage where his turning circle is worse than my Dad's Volvo. Hopelessly slow as well.......

3. Doyle was a star once again.

4. Shunt was once again awful.

5. If only Kebe could pick out a final pass. Some magnificent runs, but he can't do anything with it.

6. Shane was magnificent. Battled away for the 90 mins, brave header for the goal, and looked a threat all game.

Agree with all six discussion points there, winchester_royal.

Marek and Gunnarsson really didn't work, and in my opinion, the latter had arguably one of his worst games in a Reading shirt. He couldn't even control the ball, let alone do anything with it.

[Ian Royal]

Why oh why do we have 5 good to very good midfielders, none of whom can actually play properly together.

It's a touch frustrating.

[moo]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

[readingfc13]

Just got back, Saints had the better of the first half with us much improved in the second and probably should have won it at the death. Thought Long and Doyle were fantastic today chasing every lost cause and winning lots of headers from Federici's again excellent distribution which really makes a difference to our game.

Matejovsky started the game very poorly continually giving the ball away but improved as the game went on. I think today really highlighted how important Cisse is becoming to the way we play, as at times in the first half we had no midfielders breaking forward into the box and minimal ball retention in the middle of the park.

It was good to see Kebe back in the team but for all his endevour he really lacks a good final ball after getting himself into some really good positions. Nevertheless it was good to have someone in the side willing to pick the ball up and run at the defence! Stephen Hunt on the other side was absolutely horrendous as he was guilty of continually losing the ball and poor crossing from open play. If someone offers five million for him I think it could prove hard to turn down providing we have an adequate replacement lined up, as currently I don't think one exists within the squad.

I don't understand why we only chose to up our game after we went behind. When playing at a higher tempo the Southampton defence looked very vulnerable and we managed to carve out a few good opportunities. I often feel that we fail to get enough shots on goal and really work the goalkeeper, which was evident today when we had only 1 or 2 shots on target at the most before we scored.

Anyway, win your home games and draw the away ones and you should be on target for promotion. I just can't help feeling that a win was within our grasp today.

[S09Royal]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

I heard he made a few very good runs today with just his end product letting us down.
SLong has to be mentioned? He did save us from losing.

[winchester_royal]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

There was a distinct lack of singing today. I was top row where we made a fair bit of noise, but those lower down did feck all until we scored.

[Flash]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

There was a distinct lack of singing today. I was top row where we made a fair bit of noise, but those lower down did feck all until we scored.

Day trippers or a bad game? I can't believe the atmos wasn't intense. Should have been like the Brizzle game.

[winchester_royal]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

There was a distinct lack of singing today. I was top row where we made a fair bit of noise, but those lower down did feck all until we scored.

Day trippers or a bad game? I can't believe the atmos wasn't intense. Should have been like the Brizzle game.

A combination of drab game, day trippers, and fussy stewards.

[moo]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

There was a distinct lack of singing today. I was top row where we made a fair bit of noise, but those lower down did feck all until we scored.

Day trippers or a bad game? I can't believe the atmos wasn't intense. Should have been like the Brizzle game.

Families really, wooly hats and refusing to stand even for stand up for steve coppell chants.

[Victor Meldrew]

A draw was probably about right.
They hit the bar,we hit the bar.
Agreed that Doyle and Long chased long balls hit aimlessly forward all afternoon.
The through balls from Marek and others just didn't get there-I would be interested to hear how many other teams made so many changes today-most of us couldn't understand why Coppell did it with almost a 2week break coming up for a lot of the players or does this mean that we are going to have a real go for the FA Cup?

I have bored people for long enough about S Hunt so let other people report what they saw and why did Coppell take off our very good left-back so that the guy who can't play there could play there?
In the two games v Saints I have been impressed with McGoldrick who is now starting to mature.
My brother suggested that it looked like two sides playing to avoid relegation-it was a poor class game and The Premier League looks about 3 levels above us at the moment.
The good news is that most of the other contenders had a bad day so maybe it is a point gained rather than two lost.

[mg1976royal]

Disappointing game. I think marek has great potential but was shocking today. If we had started with the same team as brizzle except kebe for henry we could have easily one today.

Long got the goal and had a few good touches but other than that was shocking. He went down far too easily in tackles, failed to hold the ball up, poor passing for most of the game and had poor awareness for flick on headers that could have put doyle through on goal.

Stewards not the brightest in the world today. They came up the back to get everyone to sit down but instead of getting the people in front of us to sit down first started from the back . Then ended up pulling the guy two seats along from me out of the crowd for 10 mins.

Reading Fans on excellent form for the last 15 mins just a shame about the rest of the game.