MATCHWATCH : Aston Villa (h) sponsored by a Terry Bell own goal

[sloughroyal123]

Probably the best away support I've seen at the Mad Stad.

Tuesday night. Sh*t football team. Incredible supporters.

Were loud but only really sang when they where winning.

[Super Kevin Bremner!]

So we lost to goals from a £10m striker and a £12m striker, whilst their other £12m striker sat on the bench.

Our bench cost nothing and though I agree that subs could have made a difference I'll retain a little perspective that Mr 'first time I've left early in 40 years' hasn't. In my 35 years watching Reading there's been plenty of worse performances (after plenty of runs of poor performances) against significantly weaker/worse teams.

Feel free to panic though everyone.

[genome]

Don't worry chaps, next up is Rotherham who have lost their last 6 games.

[CountryRoyal]

So we lost to goals from a £10m striker and a £12m striker, whilst their other £12m striker sat on the bench.

Our bench cost nothing and though I agree that subs could have made a difference I'll retain a little perspective that Mr 'first time I've left early in 40 years' hasn't. In my 35 years watching Reading there's been plenty of worse performances (after plenty of runs of poor performances) against significantly weaker/worse teams.

Feel free to panic though everyone.

Power post.

[loyalroyal4life]

Was the scoreline fair reflection of how we played? Did we deserve to lose?

[Pepe the Horseman]

Draw would've been fair, but as others have said we never looked like winning and completely baffling that we didn't change things with 20/15 to go.

Beerens was anonymous, need to give Harriot a run out on Saturday. The Samuel thing is odd, must be a reason why four managers have overlooked him. The El Habso to VdB back to El Habso debacle in the second half was ridiculous. Obviously Stam wants us to play from the back, but the players still need to use some common sense.

Has McCormack always been that fat?

[MoorgateRoyal]

I thought we played reasonably well, although we were crying out for some fresh legs in the second half and I'm baffled as to why Stam didn't make a change.

First half, we controlled possession but never really looked dangerous up front. Kermorgant has his strengths, none of which cater to him being a lone striker. We need to work out where the support for him is going to come from; either the wingers become more wide attackers and get much closer to him to feed off the flicks, or we stop Evans dropping into the defence so he can sit in midfield, then the wingers stay wide and Swift gets up alongside Kermorgant with Williams supporting too. We seemed to be trying both last night with no consistency or real success.

Also, while I fully support playing it out from the back, when you have the opposition marking all the options and Al-Habsi clearly shitting his pants on the ball, we need to think about whether or not we should be doing it. When we get a chance to go quickly, we should, but the midfield needs to be prepared to show for the ball and give options to the defence, so we don't end up going back to Al-Habsi and invite all that pressure.

For me there's no need to panic after that result, we just need to get a bit more cohesion up front and the results will pick up again.

[Pandoras Box]

Stam said after the match:
'We didn’t create a lot of chances but that’s because of the opposition sitting and waiting for us to lose the ball so they can make a counter attack'
Erm yep?. What were you expecting? It's called football?

'It would be nice if the opposition plays forward as well - because then there is a lot more space to pass the ball through and create chances'
As was shown at Newcastle and Brentford where we shipped 8 goals?

Why don't you telephone the opposition management before the game, tell them how we would like to play, and would you kindly accommodate us please?

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Stam said after the match:
'We didn’t create a lot of chances but that’s because of the opposition sitting and waiting for us to lose the ball so they can make a counter attack'
Erm yep?. What were you expecting? It's called football?

'It would be nice if the opposition plays forward as well - because then there is a lot more space to pass the ball through and create chances'
As was shown at Newcastle and Brentford where we shipped 8 goals?

Why don't you telephone the opposition management before the game, tell them how we would like to play, and would you kindly accommodate us please?

Yeah he's showing himself up to be a bit clueless isn't he? Those quotes border on the embarrassing.

[CountryRoyal]

His substitutions or lackthereof consistently bemuse me.

[genome]

I don't think there's any undue reason to panic, we did lose to a relegated side with a high value squad even if they are a bit of a shambles when put together. It just sounds like we are missing an ingredient or two, that was bound to happen considering the amount of changes made in the summer. We couldn't possibly cover everything on the first try. And remember this is Stam's first proper management job and he will make mistakes - that's okay if he learns from them.

I'm happy with the squad's progress so far. We would all take 10th. Remember the manager did say not to expect much more.

What does frustrate me though, and this isn't a criticism of this specific team, is that we always seem to be the side that ends these bad runs for other teams. Unless I'm viewing it in an RFC bubble and it happens regularly to others as well, and I'm just noticing it more. It just bugs me.

[oh_ROAR]

I actually thought we played some nice football in the first half, however, as ever we looked completely toothless in attack. Villa took their chance but definitely didn't deserve to go in 0-1 down. The second half Villa seemed to realise there wasn't much threat and clearly, Bruce made them close Al Habsi down more. Blackett and Gunter get beat far too easily. As with Saturday, the game was crying out for a sub I wonder if it will take a few consecutive defeats before Stam actually makes changes to the team

[Maneki Neko]

So we lost to goals from a £10m striker and a £12m striker, whilst their other £12m striker sat on the bench.

Our bench cost nothing and though I agree that subs could have made a difference I'll retain a little perspective that Mr 'first time I've left early in 40 years' hasn't. In my 35 years watching Reading there's been plenty of worse performances (after plenty of runs of poor performances) against significantly weaker/worse teams.

Feel free to panic though everyone.

this^^


wasn't even 'that' bad (apart from 1st ten mins where we couldn't get hold of the ball.
they looked pretty poor, while we looked decent in parts, though obviously toothless.
an unlucky o.g, and two soft penalties.

at least we were well in the game and gave it a real go 2nd half

[Maneki Neko]

Don't worry chaps, next up is Rotherham who have lost their last 6 games.

oh bugger.
guaranteed away loss then

[Maneki Neko]

I don't think there's any undue reason to panic, we did lose to a relegated side with a high value squad even if they are a bit of a shambles when put together. It just sounds like we are missing an ingredient or two, that was bound to happen considering the amount of changes made in the summer. We couldn't possibly cover everything on the first try. And remember this is Stam's first proper management job and he will make mistakes - that's okay if he learns from them.

I'm happy with the squad's progress so far. We would all take 10th. Remember the manager did say not to expect much more.

What does frustrate me though, and this isn't a criticism of this specific team, is that we always seem to be the side that ends these bad runs for other teams. Unless I'm viewing it in an RFC bubble and it happens regularly to others as well, and I'm just noticing it more. It just bugs me.

we end good runs too, tbf

[Hoop Blah]

Stam said after the match:
'We didn’t create a lot of chances but that’s because of the opposition sitting and waiting for us to lose the ball so they can make a counter attack'
Erm yep?. What were you expecting? It's called football?

'It would be nice if the opposition plays forward as well - because then there is a lot more space to pass the ball through and create chances'
As was shown at Newcastle and Brentford where we shipped 8 goals?

Why don't you telephone the opposition management before the game, tell them how we would like to play, and would you kindly accommodate us please?

Yeah he's showing himself up to be a bit clueless isn't he? Those quotes border on the embarrassing.

Hardly, he's just saying it as it is, that we struggled because the opposition made it difficult for us. What he needs to do is find a way to get through sides who play that way because at the moment we're far too toothless and I don't think he was hiding away from that fact.

[Hoop Blah]

His substitutions or lackthereof consistently bemuse me.

It does seem to be a consistent theme, and maybe it's a bit of inexperience from him that he's a bit too cautious without a history of effective changes behind him that give him the confidence to change from what he initially chose as the right team to win the game.

It might just be that he doesn't think the players on the bench offer enough threat to bring them on. It's odd that he hasn't turned to the likes of Harriott and Samuel more, especially when we need to chase a goal like last night.

Where's Quinn by the way? Is he injured again?

[Hoop Blah]

Whilst defensively we have looked 'sound', in recent weeks the three at the back and combination of possession football has really caused problems. So many times we have been done with balls over the top, Brentford away particularly.

We haven't been playing 3 at the back, it's just the central midfielder dropping in between the centre halfs when the full backs push up so that we should have more options for the man on the ball.

I certainly agree that we over do it at times and we're taking a few too many risks on the ball and, perhaps more key, we're just too slow to ping it around and get the ball into midfield which means we get closed down and bail out with the ball back to the keeper all too often.

Hopefully we'll get better at it as time goes on, but it is certainly a bit too risky at times.

I have no problem with the fact it's a work in progress, no way are we top 8, i do worry though the slide appears to be happening again at the same time as last year. We have got some interesting players in, but in all honesty i worry about the the lack of championship experience when we have gone trawling for out of contract overseas players. The lack of credible options on the bench is a tad frightening. Evans is growing into the role but i remain unconvinced we have a settled formation or team. I can be on board with the possesion but surely when we pick a long ball to ping down the middle it goes against it all? Surely a pressing game passing is far better? Its as if we have fudged it a little and now have got a bit found out. Its not disasterous but it all seems a confused make up and only a hairs breadth at times of going pretty wrong.

Totally agree, and the lack of bite in the final third is probably the issue. None of the front 3 really imposed themselves on the game last night and we certainly need more cutting edge to make this work.

[Brum Royal]

I thought we played reasonably well, although we were crying out for some fresh legs in the second half and I'm baffled as to why Stam didn't make a change.

First half, we controlled possession but never really looked dangerous up front. Kermorgant has his strengths, none of which cater to him being a lone striker. We need to work out where the support for him is going to come from; either the wingers become more wide attackers and get much closer to him to feed off the flicks, or we stop Evans dropping into the defence so he can sit in midfield, then the wingers stay wide and Swift gets up alongside Kermorgant with Williams supporting too. We seemed to be trying both last night with no consistency or real success.

Also, while I fully support playing it out from the back, when you have the opposition marking all the options and Al-Habsi clearly shitting his pants on the ball, we need to think about whether or not we should be doing it. When we get a chance to go quickly, we should, but the midfield needs to be prepared to show for the ball and give options to the defence, so we don't end up going back to Al-Habsi and invite all that pressure.

For me there's no need to panic after that result, we just need to get a bit more cohesion up front and the results will pick up again.

Agree with most of this.

From a position of relative dominance midway through the second half, the continual messing about with it at the back as the half wore on just invited pressure and encouraged Villa to come at us when we should have kicked on and put them to bed. Yes Villa spent an awful lot of money on their front line, but there was a very shakey defence to be taken advantage of if we'd got a bit more guile and quality up front. There's no way we should have lost that (probably didn't deserve a win either).

[Zammo]

I’m not going again until Stam changes his ways or he goes* What a joke of a second half. LOL at ALL the passing back to Al-Habsi EVERY.SINGLE.TIME…PANIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!….crowd getting frustrated and not making any changes…yet we had run out of ideas AGAIN. Same against Derby. Bored shi!tless of the all THE PASSING. You've got to have a plan B, if you can't bore the opposition to death with ALL THE PASSING. YET.....we just carried on.....PASSING.....until the end of the game. PASSING.



*see you at Forest