Back from the game - Palace

[leon]

Failing that, try a Chelsea forum. Chock full of rent boys.

[Longhorn1970]

No they didn't have a tonne of chances. And frankly even if they had after 85 mins if they hadn't scored after all of those they didn't deserve it. Shit penalty decided it.

Have you not seen the stats or game? Another thread where Leon embarrasses himself with this and other frothing at the mouth replies.

Please stop following me about the board Kes. I've told you before I'm not gay and I'm really not interested.

Try longhorn1970.

I think you secretly love it Leon

[Longhorn1970]

Failing that, try a Chelsea forum. Chock full of rent boys.

How would you know that ?

[Gordons Cumming]

Lawrenson -10

Some of his comments about Al Habsi proved he has never played in goal.

[Longhorn1970]

Lawrenson -10

Some of his comments about Al Habsi proved he has never played in goal.

I'm not sure, some were camera saves (not all), amazingly The Sun gave al Flapsi a 6 !!!

[leon]

Have you not seen the stats or game? Another thread where Leon embarrasses himself with this and other frothing at the mouth replies.

Please stop following me about the board Kes. I've told you before I'm not gay and I'm really not interested.

Try longhorn1970.

I think you secretly love it Leon

Hi Kes!

Waves

[leon]

Failing that, try a Chelsea forum. Chock full of rent boys.

How would you know that ?

Because it would be a Chelsea forum therefore full of rent boys.

[leon]

Lawrenson -10

Some of his comments about Al Habsi proved he has never played in goal.

I'm not sure, some were camera saves (not all), amazingly The Sun gave al Flapsi a 6 !!!

Al flapsi - classy. You really aren't a Reading supporter are you Kes?

[AthleticoSpizz]

......and sooooooo last year

[Longhorn1970]

Failing that, try a Chelsea forum. Chock full of rent boys.

How would you know that ?

Because it would be a Chelsea forum therefore full of rent boys.

Are they your 2nd team ?

[Longhorn1970]

......and sooooooo last year

Yep it stuck !

[leon]

How would you know that ?

Because it would be a Chelsea forum therefore full of rent boys.

Are they your 2nd team ?

Is that honestly all you've got?

[Royal Ginger]

[The Prisoner]

Two turning points:

Ola John - header at the far post - went for power rather than placing it. Anywhere but straight at the keeper and it's 1-0
Penalty - it was a soft one and Cooper was naive as the ball had gone away from their attacker who was canny enough to buy the foul. He will learn from it. Very soft, but he didn't need to give the ref a decision to make.

That's all it came down to. Did think Palace were the better side. No complaints at the result. Season /

[wingnut]

Thought it looked a soft pen from the other end of the pitch and now I've seen the replay I don't think I've seen a worse refereeing decision all season. Lawrenson's "oh he's touched him" is an absolutely pathetic bit of analysis - since when has football been a non-contact sport? Palace player should've been booked for diving. Pardew should not make any further comments on penalties for the rest of his career.

As for the rest of the match, the better team won. Our passing was particularly poor when under no pressure; Norwood's free kicks were dreadful and turned promising situations for us into goal scoring opportunities for Palace in seconds. John started well but faded badly in the second half. Hal was a bit disappointing after his recent games. Cox did well but was very isol8ed.

[Maguire]

Yeah better team won, Reading didn't play well when in possession of the football.

Penalty was of course total bullshit.

Ola John didn't do a great deal wrong with that header. Hit the target, keeper saved it, that's the way it goes.

[Kuhl_Runnings]

The same fat pr1ck in Y25, row CC or thereabouts at the end singing "we're fking shittttt...." - just bore off you absolute tosser. Whether that's true or not, I'm sick to death of this outrageous negativity, particularly on such an occasion last night.

Oh god that guy is so obnoxious. I'm sick of the incessant negativity too, it's making me bitter towards the club I've supported since I was 4.

[Maneki Neko]

don't get me started.


the best thing about the game for me, was that due to the big crowd, negative Ron couldn't slide up the row to sit nearer to us, and I didn't need to listen to his insane negativity.

[Kuhl_Runnings]

It's been a long time since I've been that angry at the football.

First thing is first it was a fair result, make no mistake Palace deserved to win. Al-Habsi made so many incredible saves and they had a tonne of chances and opportunities which should have seen the game dead and buried at half time.

HOWEVER... The way we went out was so unjust. The softest, most bullshit penalty that has ever been given, even more so considering the circumstances. I don't like to blame referees but Mike Dean never had a foothold in the game, was shocking throughout.

That was the most disappointing thing, the other was the fact that beyond Al-Habsi we were pretty oxf*rd shit and deserved to lose. Palace were the best draw to get, were there for the taking and represented our best chance of getting to Wembley, and everyone knew it. It was nervy from us and we were, on many occasions "almost there", unfortunately we fluffed our lines and weren't good enough.

That was probably our most defensive set up and we were carved open time and time again. Ever since the 30th minute (probably less) we were crying out for 2 up top. So much wasted possession in the opposition third because there was no support.

I truly fcuking hate Palace now. For all the "palace fans are great" bollocks they were shit. Sang once all game before they scored and quite frankly they don't deserve it. I truly fcuking hope they go down the shitty pcunty faggoty "ultra" wvnkers.

Absolutey gutted tonight, truly gutted purely because of how we lost.

Oh well, onto next season.

As my for my thoughts on this game, this quote sums it up completely

[handbags_harris]

I'm disappointed with Friday, naturally, but mainly because I felt we simply didn't do enough to win. It struck me very quickly that we were sat back, obviously content to defend and hit on the break, but the problem overall was:-

a) we were remarkably shoddy in possession and
b) we didn't break forward in sufficient numbers to cause Palace too many concerns

The former can be put down to a particularly bad day in the office. It happens, sadly it happened for us on a big night of exposure. The scene was set with Hector's first touch of the ball, a header which he misjudged the flight of which put us under pressure. Olly Norwood was ineffective and occasionally wasteful, Quinn similar. Norwood seems to be having a real crisis of confidence, seems to be completely thrown by the role he's been asked to play and it's no coincidence his form has dipped somewhat since he's been moved further forward. There have been occasions over the last few weeks where he has either held up a counter attack by stopping a driving run forward and picking up the ball from a teammate from a sideways or backwards pass, thereby allowing the opposition to get behind the ball and set themselves up, and likewise there have been occasions when he has picked the ball up with space to drive into and get a shot or killer pass away, and instead has looked to shift responsibility of the ball when a player with confidence could/would drive forward and look to get a shot away. To me it's something he needs to play through, and McDermott needs to work with him to help him find his form again.

As for the latter, that is either by design or mentality. Palace's side was blessed with pace and quality a notch above ours and it was clear throughout we were deliberately holding back when on the counter, trying to pick our moments. Unfortunately with Cox and then Vydra up front the lack of desire to break forward in numbers meant Palace set themselves very quickly and effectively stifled the service for either of them, and when you're 5ft and a wet fart tall with at least four 6ft+ players surrounding you're not going to get a lot of ball time. As it was, Cox and Vydra had good games without looking remotely threatening which is no criticism of them whatsoever.

Overall it was a very defensive performance, I thought we were as good as could be expected defensively given the pace, trickery and mobility of their attacking players. Bolasie and Zaha are both insanely skilful although the main difference between the two is Zaha appears to be all fart no poo, whereas Bolasie is a genuine, genuine threat who scared the sh*t out of us at times. It is no disrespect to Palace to say they surely can't hope to keep hold of him? Palace looked like they could pick us off at any given moment throughout such was the fluidity of their attack, and on the balance of play and chances created there is no question that whilst we could have scored a couple, I don't think we could have had any complaints had we conceded four or five. Palace were simply better than us across the park except goalkeeping, and the final scoreline does the match justice really.

Having said that, when you get to five minutes from the end and you're in with a clear chance of at least a replay, all you want your players to do is get the basics right, keep it tight and not do anything silly. Unfortunately, Jake Cooper gave the referee a decision that he shouldn't have had to make, a moment of madness exacerbated by the fact he was on a yellow card. I've looked at the incident about a dozen times and have gone from clear penalty on Friday evening, to reading the fallout from it and thinking "what am I missing" so I'm now not sure. Whenever these situations arise I always try to look at it from a referee's POV, and I'm convinced that Mike Dean gave it based on Cooper's clear intention to partially impede Bolasie's run. You can argue the toss of whether the decision is right or wrong, but when the ball goes up and over Cooper moves his focus from the ball to Bolasie, realises Bolasie is making an attempt to get to the ball and so steps partially across Bolasie's path in an attempt to impede him. That is not to say he is trying to completely block him or make him go down, but to impede the run just enough to make sure Bolasie can't challenge for the ball with al Habsi. It happens all the time on a football pitch and goes unpunished, by the letter of the law it's an infringement but it's not one that gets given normally because the effect on the run is fairly minimal, so I can only think the intent in tandem with the theatrical (but convincing) fall has made the referee's mind up. I don't think Dean can see exactly what has happened because once Bolasie is past Cooper, Cooper's body appears to block Dean's view of what contact there is, Bolasie goes down, Dean has a short think and then gives the penalty. Had Cooper judged the situation right, Dean wouldn't have had the opportunity to make such a controversial decision.

Not only that, for better or worse, football is at a point where you can always tell whether a player is in the wrong by their reaction. Cooper accepts Dean's decision without quibble. I thought it was a penalty at the time, on reflection I'm not so sure, but McDermott said Cooper was distraught in the dressing room afterwards. Fair enough, I sympathise with him, he's young, he's one of ours, he'll be forgiven, hopefully he'll learn, but McDermott's words also imply he knows what he's done.

Disappointing, we need to improve, our limitations and lack of options up front were shown up and, while it may have been detrimental, I wish we'd given it more of an attacking go in the second half.