Back from the Game - Villa

[chilipepper91]

Wow. For 78 minutes of that game, we looked like we'd be in the semis. 12 minutes of our own madness, and their Premier class, told in the end. But we deserved a hell of a lot more.

Federici - 6 - nothing much to do, still doesn't fill me with confidence in his own box.
Griffin - 7 - solid as ever, calm, collected.
Mills - 8 - contender for MOTM, had Heskey and Carew in his pocket for certainly the first half and much of the second.
Ingimarsson - 7 - did his job I guess, just not as good aerially or with distribution as Mills. Header off the line.
Bertrand - 6 - "that slice". Looked confident in possession, but all over the place defensively.
Kebe - 8 - what a game of two halves. First half, out of his skin, taking on men at will. Second, lost confidence and couldn't do much.
Tabb - 9 - MOTM, was everywhere, put himself about, even won a few headers. Had a great shot in the first half.
Howard - 6 - didn't do enough for me.
Sigurdsson - 8 - consistent quality set piece delivery, assured in possession.
Long - 8 - two great goals, won loads of headers, and generally looked a differnt player to the one we saw 4 months ago.
Church - 6 - quiet game, wasn't surprised to see him taken off.
---
Gunnarsson - 5 - brought on to shure up the defence I suppose, but was pretty terrible.
Rasiak - 7 - won a few headers, nice touches, one good shot at Friedel's goal.

A few side points...
- How fickle the Villa fans are. Their boos at halftime almost outshone our cheers. But as soon as it's going well...
- Ashley Young, booked for dissent. Good to see refs standing up for themselves. Petulant to throw his water bottle like that.
- If Heskey is a first choice striker for England at the World Cup, I despair. He looked poor all game, and his one-on-one miss summed that up.

Overall? Proud to be a Reading fan. No doubt the shine will be on VIlla's incredible turnaround, but, aside from 12 minutes of madness, we deserved that.

[winchester_royal]

It was so important not to concede that early goal in the second half. But when it happened a feeling of inevitability swept across the ground and from then on only one team really looked like winning it.

Massively down-hearted atm, just hope we can get ourselves up for another massive game on wednesday night.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Two LOLOS tho, the two Villa fans who came on to celebrate, one sensibly went straight back into the stand and no action taken, the second stood almost mesmerised and when approached by 3 tango's threw a punch, whata siily boy.

And Jimmy 5 bellies, the RFC fan in the U west, banter with the Villa fans for a long time, but lost it when Villa scored the 3rd I think, and was led away, hope he does not get a ban

[Wycombe Royal]

Bertrand again costs us goals, the guy cannot do basic defending.

[FiNeRaIn]

I said don't concede in the first five minutes and take it from there and what did we do? About 20 seconds after I said it, so annoying and thats what cost us the game.

Yeah, if only they'd listened to you. I can't believe BM forgot to tell them that at half time.

Maybe O'Neil told them to score in the first 5 minutes - that could have been where they got the idea from.

Infuriating. If they carved us open with a good goal then fair enough. But to come out and make two defensive errors in the space of 30 seconds is unforgivable.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Average Championship Defenders makes mistakes.

It's not unforgiveable, it's the reality of the level that we were at. If the players didn't make those mistakes they wouldn't be playing for us.

We ain't Crufts, we're Battersea Dogs Home...

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Totally gutted. We should have won that & we threw it away. All very well saying Villa turned it on but we handed it to them on a platter. 2-0 up at home just keep it tight & concentrate.

Thought Boris was piss poor today - kept picking the wrong pass & giving the ball away (I am a Boris fan). Numerous occasions when Bertrand & Sig were completely free on the left yet it seemed we were hell bent on going through Griffin & Kebe no matter what - we should've mixed it up a bit more.

Still can't complain too much - they played very well for 80% of the match & I think we'd still be in the bottom 3 if it weren't for this cup run. I just hope we dust ourselves off for Wed & get a much needed 3 pts. The next lot of games are not exactly easy!

One more thing - the boys really needed the fans at 2-1 & the singing died a death. You could smell the panic. We should have kept backing them.

[Wycombe Royal]

Average Championship Defenders makes mistakes.

It's not unforgiveable, it's the reality of the level that we were at. If the players didn't make those mistakes they wouldn't be playing for us.

We ain't Crufts, we're Battersea Dogs Home...

Bertrand is supposed to be better than that. He keeps making the SAME basic errors. His future is in the lower leagues if he has stopped learning at his age.

I'd rather have Armstrong in the side if he was fit.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Gutted but still very proud of the team. First half performance was brilliant and a great atmosphere as well. The game was lost within the opening 10 minutes of the 2nd half as we allowed Villa to come out fighting. As one poster mentioned earlier, the fans should of stuck with the team at 2-1 and 2-2, to give the players some momentum.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Average Championship Defenders makes mistakes.

It's not unforgiveable, it's the reality of the level that we were at. If the players didn't make those mistakes they wouldn't be playing for us.

We ain't Crufts, we're Battersea Dogs Home...

Bertrand is supposed to be better than that. He keeps making the SAME basic errors. His future is in the lower leagues if he has stopped learning at his age.

I'd rather have Armstrong in the side if he was fit.

Berty has age on his side. Agree he's along way off Prem standard and have heard Chelsea will sell him in the summer. So he's gonna have to improve a lot.

Still for his age, he is a good left back and he'll get there in the end.

Agree with Armstrong, fear we'll never see that though.

[Wimb]

Don't know what to say, just so gutted.

Never the less, very very proud of the lads and we showed enough to suggest we're only heading in the right direction.

[Maquisard]

Federici - 6 - nothing much to do, still doesn't fill me with confidence in his own box.

I think he had a better second half of the second half, if you see what I mean. He stood firm in a 1-on-1 with Heskey and didn't get flustered when, on several occasions, his team mates passed him the ball even though a Villa player was bearing down on him (okay, so that wasn't always in his own box, but...). And he almost got a hand on the penalty (though who knows whether that was judgement or luck). He also seems to be getting a bit leaner. He's winning me round.

[BenReadingFC]

It's a pity the ref disallowed the first goal for a push, and ok it was pretty blatent but I don't think Warnock would have got the ball.

Warnock dived, Got it on my camera (uploading). Church hardly touched him.

[Chaney]

Rumour is that Brendon Rodgers made a guest appearence in the dressing room at half time..there can be no other explaination for the 12 minute capitulation that followed soon after.

[ankeny]

Perhaps they thought they were Hull City in the second half

[brendywendy]

The first half performance was the best I have ever seen Reading play, in the second half Aston Villa outclassed us greatly have to hold your hands up and admit it.

for ten minutes, then it was back to us pressing again

[RobRoyal]

Average Championship Defenders makes mistakes.

It's not unforgiveable, it's the reality of the level that we were at. If the players didn't make those mistakes they wouldn't be playing for us.

We ain't Crufts, we're Battersea Dogs Home...

Agreed.

Bertrand is supposed to be better than that. He keeps making the SAME basic errors. His future is in the lower leagues if he has stopped learning at his age.

I'd rather have Armstrong in the side if he was fit.

He's a 21-year-old defender playing pretty well in the Championship. Maybe his career does lie below Premiership level - which is where Armstrong has spent almost his entire career. It depends on how far he improves, as it does for pretty much all young players. How is he "supposed" to be better than that? Are you blaming him for some hype?

I genuinely pity those on here who are criticising the team on here tonight. We're all fecking disappointed. I'm in a black mood and I feel like a once-in-a-lifetime chance has disappeared just as I really believed it was going to happen. But to have a go at the team because - quelle surprise - it actually turns out they're only a Championship-level side is rather sad. We played above ourselves for most of this incredible cup run, beat one of the best 6 sides in the country and pushed another to the limit. If you can't be proud tonight, you probably won't ever be, because we're not going to get 106 points or finish 8th in the Prem any time soon.

[BenReadingFC]

It's a pity the ref disallowed the first goal for a push, and ok it was pretty blatent but I don't think Warnock would have got the ball.

Warnock dived, Got it on my camera (uploading). Church hardly touched him.

Kebe's disallowed goal

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

It's a pity the ref disallowed the first goal for a push, and ok it was pretty blatent but I don't think Warnock would have got the ball.

Warnock dived, Got it on my camera (uploading). Church hardly touched him.

Kebe's disallowed goal

Your video shows Church clearly push him in the back, Warnocks throws himself a tiny bit, but Church still clearly pushes him.

[Arch]

The first half performance was the best I have ever seen Reading play

That's a bit of a stretch.