Reading vs. Spurs Match Thread

[Simon's Church]

Good to keep our goal difference ahead of Liverpool and Norwich, could be important at the end of the season.

[genome]

Paid for a dire, rusty first half. Had to push on in the second, looked better, but caught on the break because of Spurs' pace.

There were shades of promise. But it was pretty poor on the whole.

[One Beer is never enough.]

Whilst it may not have changed the result, Webb's bottling of the penalty decision early on didn't help. It may have given us the lift and confidence we needed because for most if the rest of the game we were dire.

[Einstein agogo]

Quite possibly the fact that we have not played for twenty odd days may have had an effect on the total lackluster, idealess display. If nothing else this shown, what many thought during the transfer window, that we have very little defensive pace and today we were shown up time and time again, effectively torn apart throughout the match.

Big wake up call this Brian, we wern't just not good enough today we were a million miles away from competing with a spurs side that have struggled so far this season !!

Yeah , no Ideals ...probably don't vote or have any worth while opinions

[ManchesterRoyals]

And we need confidence in defense, which we won't get with Ian Harte today.

I agree hes been shitte

+1,000,000

GET RID NOW

I struggle to fathom how poor Shorey must be in training in order to be kept out of the team by this lazy injured snail of a player, we just can not afford to have any passengers in the team, and that is what Ian Harte is at the moment, he's too slow.

I commend Ian Harte for battling against the odds/age, and performing brilliantly last season, but now it's time to cut our losses, this race horse has to retire, it's not got any more miles in it. Send him off to the glue factory, there's nothing left in those legs.

Can we recall Mills??

He looks out of his deepth now

[Libertine]

Completely and comprehensively outclassed today. End.of.story.

Put any pressure on us and we just gave up the ball, the back 4 were shockingly poor, almost no threat going forward. The only positive to take from this is the game is over. I could almost accept a loss like this if the game had been played at White Hart Lane...but at the Madejski?

[No Fixed Abode]

John Barnes could have been in charge of that Spurs side today and they still would have won at a canter.

[Rex]

Horrible to watch at the moment. Ball retention and defending has been woeful. Still only 1-0 though and surely we can't be as bad in the second half.

If ever a lesson was learnt today.

[larry1971]

John Barnes could have been in charge of that Spurs side today and they still would have won at a canter.

Spurs certainly won the game with out really having to get out of first gear the defense was very poor and every time aSpurs attacked they kept backing off and at this level you're going to get punished when you do that.

[Rex]

Completely and comprehensively outclassed today. End.of.story.

Put any pressure on us and we just gave up the ball, the back 4 were shockingly poor, almost no threat going forward. The only positive to take from this is the game is over. I could almost accept a loss like this if the game had been played at White Hart Lane...but at the Madejski?

4-5-1 certainly endured we controlled the midfield. It's going to be a long knee jerk season ahead.

[Davezk]

4-5-1 certainly endured we controlled the midfield. It's going to be a long knee jerk season ahead.

I hope you're joking...

Spurs had 3 in midfield to our 5 and the amount of times they broke at our defence because midfield couldn't close them down / keep the ball / do anything was shocking. We looked far better at 4-4-2 and even then we were poor.

[Royal Rother]

How did Mc Dermott's rein start?

How did he start his 1st full season in charge?

How did he start last season?

The guy learns from defeats. It will be no different this season.

Take your STG glasses off and keep the faith.

[Rex]

4-5-1 certainly endured we controlled the midfield. It's going to be a long knee jerk season ahead.

I hope you're joking...

Spurs had 3 in midfield to our 5 and the amount of times they broke at our defence because midfield couldn't close them down / keep the ball / do anything was shocking. We looked far better at 4-4-2 and even then we were poor.

Errr.......yes.

[cmonurz]

RR, whilst I admire your positivity (fully paid up RTG here during the Pardew years), the almost constant 'there's nothing to discuss, let's just move on' rather betrays the point of the discussion board.

[Davezk]

4-5-1 certainly endured we controlled the midfield. It's going to be a long knee jerk season ahead.

I hope you're joking...

Spurs had 3 in midfield to our 5 and the amount of times they broke at our defence because midfield couldn't close them down / keep the ball / do anything was shocking. We looked far better at 4-4-2 and even then we were poor.

Errr.......yes.

Good. Can never be sure.

[Royal Rother]

RR, whilst I admire your positivity (fully paid up RTG here during the Pardew years), the almost constant 'there's nothing to discuss, let's just move on' rather betrays the point of the discussion board.

I'm only offering some sensible counter-balancing advice here.

It just might save a life.

[Hoop Blah]

RR, whilst I admire your positivity (fully paid up RTG here during the Pardew years), the almost constant 'there's nothing to discuss, let's just move on' rather betrays the point of the discussion board.

I'm only offering some sensible counter-balancing advice here.

It just might save a life.

Concerns and opinions over a season, team of player should never really be drawn over one performance but today was hopefully a bit of a wake up call for all at RFC. It showed the difference in quality between us (on a bad day perhaps) and the better teams and what it takes to compete against them. As McDermott said after the game, we can't afford to be anything less than 100% if we want to win games in this league because our players haven't got the top end quality to be leaving some of it in the dressing room.

For me the Stoke games was possibly more worrying than today's awful peformance (probably our most tepid since getting stuffed by Arsenal at home). They, like Spurs, had a pretty poor away record last season and both have given us the run around at times. That is certainly something that we need to learn from and step up our game to avoid in future games.

[Royal Rother]

Not sure about that first sentence bit I agree with what you say.

[Stuboo]

How did Mc Dermott's rein start?

How did he start his 1st full season in charge?

How did he start last season?

The guy learns from defeats. It will be no different this season.

Take your STG glasses off and keep the faith.

Agree with your theme of questioning. We started slow last season and won the league. We as a team always show character and bounce back from defeats. In my opinion the fans need to have more faith and belief in the team, which will feed back to them and give them confidence. Conversely, if you show mistrust in the team that will affect them negatively. This is why I don't understand the leaving early and booing today. Self defeating!

Tottenham deserved to win today. They played well. Don't forget, they were helped by the ref who didn't give us an absolute stone wall penalty for handball. Unfortunately I think Reading showed Spurs too much respect and were a bit in awe. I was suprised to see Tottenham "out muscled" us. For me it should be the other way round. I'm not mad at the team because they haven't played a prem game in 3 weeks and were rusty. I would like to see more belief from them in future though. They are better than they showed today.

We'll be fine!

[floyd__streete]

The guy learns from defeats. It will be no different this season.

In that case, he'll be like Rinus Michels come May.....