Steve Clake - New Poll

[Ian Royal]

I don't give a rats arse what you think Adkins could or couldn't have done in the same position. I care about Clarke doing a good job.

He was fantastic for yesterday, but has been sub par for much of the league campaign. If he doesn't sort that out he'll be rightfully out on his ear. If he does, he'll get the support he'd deserve.

[Snowball]

Clarke's FA Cup stewardship has been as close to perfect as it can get (given our squad.

All five "away games" have been defensive master-classes. Four of the games have been
away to sides now above us in the league (Cardiff, Huddersfield, Derby, Arsenal) and the other
on a bog of a pitch against a side that beat this year's Premiership winners.

Our away form including the cups was looking fantastic (except for a last minute defeat at Fulham)
until we started picking weaker sides, protecting the players so we could (a) beat Bradford and
(b) be as fresh as possible for Wembley. Even so, recently we were 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 0-1 and yesterday,
against a side that had won 23 games in 28, 1-1 after 90 minutes, 1-1 after 104 minutes.

Anyone who cannot see what a very good manager Clarke is, needs a head transplant. He can
organise a defence brilliantly (remember the defensive shambles under Adkins?) and the reason
we don;t win so many is we lack lethal strikers, and the guile to open up packed defences.

Hence we can do well on the road (often on the break) but struggle at home.

Had we had a 20-25 goal a season man in this SC squad, we would have been at least ten places
higher. If we keep most of our better players I see at least top 8 next year, probably better

[theresayakonthepitch]

Clarke's FA Cup stewardship has been as close to perfect as it can get (given our squad.

All five "away games" have been defensive master-classes. Four of the games have been
away to sides now above us in the league (Cardiff, Huddersfield, Derby, Arsenal) and the other
on a bog of a pitch against a side that beat this year's Premiership winners.

Our away form including the cups was looking fantastic (except for a last minute defeat at Fulham)
until we started picking weaker sides, protecting the players so we could (a) beat Bradford and
(b) be as fresh as possible for Wembley. Even so, recently we were 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 0-1 and yesterday,
against a side that had won 23 games in 28, 1-1 after 90 minutes, 1-1 after 104 minutes.

Anyone who cannot see what a very good manager Clarke is, needs a head transplant. He can
organise a defence brilliantly (remember the defensive shambles under Adkins?) and the reason
we don;t win so many is we lack lethal strikers, and the guile to open up packed defences.

Hence we can do well on the road (often on the break) but struggle at home.

Had we had a 20-25 goal a season man in this SC squad, we would have been at least ten places
higher. If we keep most of our better players I see at least top 8 next year, probably better

Spot on.
With a striker with a bit of pace we probably would have nicked it yesterday.

[Ian Royal]

Mackie has to play upfront with Pog from now on. He's been really really good through the middle and is wasted out wide. I thought we drifted out the game again once HRK came off and Mackie switched out left.

Not sure what to do about HRK as we don't really have any options. Maybe time to give Blackman another chance and an extended run out there to the end of the season. Or chuck a bit of pitch time to Fosu.

[tidus_mi2]

Slag him off now you sons of bitches! We would never have turned in a performance like that with Adkins.....

Our performance against Liverpool under Adkins was better than yesterday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22049679

Was it? I don't remember it too well but look at those stats, the possession, the shot count. I'd say that shows that Adkins did a very poor job, allowed Liverpool to over-run us in midfield and defensively we couldn't keep them out with the difference being that Alex McCarthy produced probably his finest ever goalkeeping display to earn a point in what would have otherwise been a hammering.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Slag him off now you sons of bitches! We would never have turned in a performance like that with Adkins.....

Our performance against Liverpool under Adkins was better than yesterday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22049679

Was it? I don't remember it too well but look at those stats, the possession, the shot count. I'd say that shows that Adkins did a very poor job, allowed Liverpool to over-run us in midfield and defensively we couldn't keep them out with the difference being that Alex McCarthy produced probably his finest ever goalkeeping display to earn a point in what would have otherwise been a hammering.

+1 That's my recollection of the game too.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I don't give a rats arse what you think Adkins could or couldn't have done in the same position. I care about Clarke doing a good job.

He was fantastic for yesterday, but has been sub par for much of the league campaign. If he doesn't sort that out he'll be rightfully out on his ear. If he does, he'll get the support he'd deserve.

As I said on the bftg thread, I think Clarke could have made better substitutions, earlier on. He continues to baffle in this department imo.

[genome]

Slag him off now you sons of bitches! We would never have turned in a performance like that with Adkins.....

Our performance against Liverpool under Adkins was better than yesterday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22049679

Lol, no chance. If it wasn't for a superhuman goalkeeping display we would've lost it by five or six.

[SCIAG]

Slag him off now you sons of bitches! We would never have turned in a performance like that with Adkins.....

Our performance against Liverpool under Adkins was better than yesterday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22049679

Was it? I don't remember it too well but look at those stats, the possession, the shot count. I'd say that shows that Adkins did a very poor job, allowed Liverpool to over-run us in midfield and defensively we couldn't keep them out with the difference being that Alex McCarthy produced probably his finest ever goalkeeping display to earn a point in what would have otherwise been a hammering.

We had more shots on target against Liverpool than against Arsenal, despite the match being much shorter. We also had more of the possession.

I'd suggest re-reading the match report, which suggests we were let down by some misplaced passes but had a good shape and worked extremely hard: http://www.royals.org/matdoc/130413.html I certainly remember some very good moves once Carrico came on.

If he'd have kept out the goals, I think we'd be comparing Federici's performance to McCarthy's. He made seven saves to McCarthy's ten, add two more and they're very much comparable.

[Sutekh]

Steve sums it up perfectly on the RFC Facebook page



This is exactly what we need to be achieving, so the marker is now down to measure SC by.

[Ian Herring]

Steve sums it up perfectly on the RFC Facebook page



This is exactly what we need to be achieving, so the marker is now down to measure SC by.

Very much liking Clake's attitude and demeanour. Quiet, calm, passionate, determined.

Have a good feel about this gentleman as manager of this rather lovely football club.

And yes, I'm calling him Steve Clake from now on. It's magnificent.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

How cool was he on Saturday? Just oozed class from start to finish & was really good with Feds.

[Ian Royal]

Seriously, every time this guy does something good to impress me, the team follows up with a shambles.

Now down to 22.7% win rate in the League and 1 ppg. Can't buy a goal. Can't cross to save their lives.

[DaddyKuhl]

Seriously, every time this guy does something good to impress me, the team follows up with a shambles.

Now down to 22.7% win rate in the League and 1 ppg. Can't buy a goal. Can't cross to save their lives.

Shambles? What shambles? I thought that was a very good performance today! Most enjoyable league game for a long long time! Shame a defensive lapse undone us but until then, we were very good!

[Ian Royal]

60%+ possession and 20 shots without ever actually theatening to score, the same problem endlessly repeated then the inevitable goal conceded.

I may be stretching it a bit with shambles, but did anyone seriously have any confidence we'd win?

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Seriously, every time this guy does something good to impress me, the team follows up with a shambles.

Now down to 22.7% win rate in the League and 1 ppg. Can't buy a goal. Can't cross to save their lives.

Shambles? What shambles? I thought that was a very good performance today! Most enjoyable league game for a long long time! Shame a defensive lapse undone us but until then, we were very good!

+1 Give it a rest Ian. That was the most dominant home performance I've seen from us this season. The passing really was sublime at times. He may as well have Stevie Wonder up top.

NEWSFLASH - ALL OF OUR STRIKERS AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH & THERE'S NOTHING HE CAN DO ABOUT IT.....YET

[paultheroyal]

60%+ possession and 20 shots without ever actually theatening to score, the same problem endlessly repeated then the inevitable goal conceded.

I may be stretching it a bit with shambles, but did anyone seriously have any confidence we'd win?

To be fair we did threaten to score.

It's clear that's an area that will be addressed in the summer.

Confidence yes. Did we, no.

[Platypuss]

With crossing that bad I'm not sure how much changing the strikers will really help.

[RoyalBlue]

60%+ possession and 20 shots without ever actually theatening to score, the same problem endlessly repeated then the inevitable goal conceded.

I may be stretching it a bit with shambles, but did anyone seriously have any confidence we'd win?

Exactly this. Strange people are now praising the pretty approach play, despite the lack of end result - something that Adkins was criticised for!

As someone asked on BBCRB - do they actually have any goals at the training ground to practice shooting into?!

It is very difficult to continually defend 0 and Clarke's teams are far too often producing 0.

60%+ possession and 20 shots without ever actually theatening to score, the same problem endlessly repeated then the inevitable goal conceded.

I may be stretching it a bit with shambles, but did anyone seriously have any confidence we'd win?

To be fair we did threaten to score.

It's clear that's an area that will be addressed in the summer.

.

It's very far from clear. What is clear is that Clarke has already been prepared by our 'financially prudent' owners and chairman. Tonight he said words to the effect of 'What you want to be able to do in the transfer window and what you can actually do are often very different'.

What a shame that Madejski and co don't agree with Gooding when he states that 'The Reading Way is dead and will no longer work in football today'.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

60%+ possession and 20 shots without ever actually theatening to score, the same problem endlessly repeated then the inevitable goal conceded.

I may be stretching it a bit with shambles, but did anyone seriously have any confidence we'd win?

Exactly this. Strange people are now praising the pretty approach play, despite the lack of end result - something that Adkins was criticised for!

As someone asked on BBCRB - do they actually have any goals at the training ground to practice shooting into?!

It is very difficult to continually defend 0 and Clarke's teams are far too often producing 0.

Think you're seeing what you want to see RB (because you're annoyed Nige got booted). We never had accurate, quick passing under Adkins.

Lets blame Clarke for having Cox, Pog & Blackman