Back from the game - Barnsley

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

4-2-3-1 with players played out of posistion. Rodgers has ideas above the capabilities of the players (Academy + 3) we have to pick from.

Herny is a winger yet he played in the middle of the park.
Davies is a box to box centre midfield player who plays on the right in the 3.

Another system tried that failed against a very poor looking Barnsley side who we made look good at time.

Rodgers has to go now so a new manager can come in and has time to sort this shamboltic situation out on the park and behind the scenes.

[madmickb]

Look on the bright side it only took me 5 min to get ot of the car park whoppee

[Schards#2]

4-2-3-1 with players played out of posistion. Rodgers has ideas above the capabilities of the players (Academy + 3) we have to pick from.

Herny is a winger yet he played in the middle of the park.
Davies is a box to box centre midfield player who plays on the right in the 3.

Another system tried that failed against a very poor looking Barnsley side who we made look good at time.

Rodgers has to go now so a new manager can come in and has time to sort this shamboltic situation out on the park and behind the scenes.

Are you serious?

He's managing a team that has seen 7 first teamers go to be replaced by five reserves, one weak loan signing and one unfit purchase.

ANY new manager deserves at least 15 games, but in thse circumstances no one could get results from this squad and he deserves far longer. Individually most of these players are not ready at this level and collectively they are a million miles off. However bad we were at the end of last season, each game is a growing vindication of Coppell's decision not to blood these youngsters in a promotion run in, they are hopelessly out of their depth.

[Royal Lady]

If Rodgers reckons it will take a while for the team to gel - why the hell didn't play his first team choices last night to give them some ruddy practice?? WHY was Mills on the bench - he's not match fit apparently, so give him a frigging match like this to get his fitness up.

[TFF]

However bad we were at the end of last season, each game is a growing vindication of Coppell's decision not to blood these youngsters in a promotion run in, they are hopelessly out of their depth.

'greed.

Davies was good last night, and I've been impressed with what I've seen of Sigurdsson, but Henry (who many were clamouring for last season) was atrocious, especially with regard to his decision making, and Kelly looked lost at times. As for Antonio? I'll put his performance down to nerves but now we're out of the kids' cup I can't see him getting another look this season.

We need one or two more experienced heads in the side - hurry back Ingi.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

forgot to say, how many times did mooney run offside last night?

oh and well done to Reading FC for not running the line cleaner out of the pipes before serving the beer last night. twice thats happened this year

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

The Real Sandhurst Royal wrote:
4-2-3-1 with players played out of posistion. Rodgers has ideas above the capabilities of the players (Academy + 3) we have to pick from.

Herny is a winger yet he played in the middle of the park.
Davies is a box to box centre midfield player who plays on the right in the 3.

Another system tried that failed against a very poor looking Barnsley side who we made look good at time.

Rodgers has to go now so a new manager can come in and has time to sort this shamboltic situation out on the park and behind the scenes.

Shards #2 wrote Are you serious?

He's managing a team that has seen 7 first teamers go to be replaced by five reserves, one weak loan signing and one unfit purchase.

ANY new manager deserves at least 15 games, but in thse circumstances no one could get results from this squad and he deserves far longer. Individually most of these players are not ready at this level and collectively they are a million miles off. However bad we were at the end of last season, each game is a growing vindication of Coppell's decision not to blood these youngsters in a promotion run in, they are hopelessly out of their depth.

I agree with a lot of your comments Shards.

At this moment in time the lack of transfer activity since Rodgers arrival along with the coaching and formations we continue to try to play on the pitch do nothing for me it is boring predictable one paced football not that I have seen much of that played this season.

Football is a results business so we need to act sooner rather than later to get this turned around before we find ourselves 10 points adrift at the bottom of the championship.

[JoebyRFC]

we have no player in the midfield who can dictate the game and tempo, it's all rushed and therefore the ball is given away

[Barry the bird boggler]

Yes, I think you did

Kelly - 2 this guy is woeful
Antonio - 4 poor man's Kebe

Believe that last night was Kelly's first game for a few months, think he was injured most if not all of preseason.

Antonio looked the quickest thing I've seen at the club since Gilksey, some nice touches and created panic amongst the tiring Barnsley defenders. Still raw talent though and needs more experience.

For the record I though Bignall did OK but tired and Hunt looked quite lively.

[Royal Lady]

Yes, I think you did

Kelly - 2 this guy is woeful
Antonio - 4 poor man's Kebe

Believe that last night was Kelly's first game for a few months, think he was injured most if not all of preseason.

Antonio looked the quickest thing I've seen at the club since Gilksey, some nice touches and created panic amongst the tiring Barnsley defenders. Still raw talent though and needs more experience.

For the record I though Bignall did OK but tired and Hunt looked quite lively.

Seriously??

[Muskrat]

Did i go to a different game to you lot? I didn't think we were outclassed, we played well, ok once they scored we took a while to get back into the game but thats the only real problem we had. Bear in mind, they started with 5 of the same players who played for them on saturday, so can be classed as 1st team players... we started with 2! If it wasn't for their goalkeeper, we would have won that 5-2!

Ratings:
Hamer - 7- didn't have a lot to do, but did most of it well, a few duff kicks in the 1st half though
Kelly - 5- the only real player who didn't play well and i was disappointed with, that said, he did make a good tackle just before they scored their 1st goal
Pearce - 6.5, didn't do anything wrong, simply out passed
Gunnar - 7, as above, but some good distribution
Bertrand - 6.5 not bad, he keeps impressing me!
Harper - 6.5, some good movement off the ball, good passes and worked hard to win the ball back
Marek - 7.5, MOTM, some fantastic passes splitting their defence in half
Davies - 6, quiet, i forgot he was on the pitch to be honest,
Henry - 6- ok, not impressive though, needs to work HARD on his corner taking!
Bignall - 7, good game, would have been contender for MOTM if he had stay on for longer, nice to see a striker tracking back to defend as well!
Mooney - 6.5, a couple of good shots, but not much else

Tabb - 6, did ok, nice clearance off the line, i still don't like him though!
Antonio - 6.5, 1st time i have seen him play, and was pretty impressed, passing a bit off at times though
N Hunt - 7, really good game, looked hungry when he came on, linked up well with Marek.

Overall, we played well, didn't think the penalty was a penalty, their 1st goal was pretty much against the run of play, and their goalkeeper made some very good saves

Do you live in a parallel universe?

Agree with Shard's analysis of the game and of RFC in general (apart from the rating of Hunt who I thought did well when he came on in the face of stifling lack of service).

[Alan Partridge]

It was dismal all round in all honesty. I wasn't bothered about the result so much as indvidual performances of players. But both were poor.

I said yesterday that this current Reading side haven't won a game and haven't really got used to this system so I'd have played a similar 11 to what will start Saturday. The Barnsley manager clearly feels the same as me after a sluggish start, he went for a strong 11,Reading went with 9 changes. Barnsley now have a win under their belts and Reading go away having been knocked out and not really gained anything from it.

I felt Bignall was the star of the previous round where his direct running and eye for goal caused problems so Rodgers stuck him out on the left this round, making him totally ineffective. Mooney is just not good enough, Kelly was dire, Henry again was dire. We hear so much about Henry but he has failed consistantly to make an impact in the first team.

Two sluggish pedestrian sides playing boring football in an empty stadium, thank God the ref and lino wre similarly bored and ended it in the 90 and didn't make us sit through another 30 minutes of that crap.

[ZacNaloen]

The very definition of the frustrating last night.

Huge amounts of dominance. Crippling naivety at the back (minus gunnarsson, the only non-full time defender).

I don't care if Matejosky isn't 100% fit (which he didn't look last night) he needs to be playing in the first team.

Henry looked much more lively than I've seen him before. But still nothing special.

Bignall didn't look ready for this level.

Noel Hunt changed the game in our favour with his energy.

Midfield is fine.

Final third completely bereft of ideas.

Rodgers needs to revert to a 4-4-2 so we can get some more points on the board we still have traditional wide players at the club, there is no reason we can't do that other than pride.

Oh and, is there a position Scott Davies can't play?

I liked the look of Antonio as a player, he gave us some spark at the end of the game, but still too raw for this level. Needs more experience.

We Cannot Afford To Play Games At The Level We Did In The First Half Last Night.

High tempo all the time if we want to win games in this league, you can pass all you want at a slow pace, you'll never get a break through because you give them plenty of time to close off the passes.

[Platypuss]

Midfield is fine.

Final third completely bereft of ideas.

[ZacNaloen]

In the midfield we were fine, poorly worded.

[Royal Lady]

Yesterday was never going to be a big crowd and the club knew that - no buses from Foster Wheeler as far as I could make out, no parking at Hewlett Packard, not all food/drink outlets in concourses open, no burger vans etc outside. We weren't really ENCOURAGED to attend tbf!

[sandman]

Thought Antonio was awful tbh. He was very quick but was careless when in possession tricking himself on numerous occasions and the same could also be said of Bignall.

As for Henry he was quite good in the first half and put a very good ball in the box for Mooney and threatened whilst playing closer to the wing. In the second half, playing a more central role he was dreadful his first touch was worse than some of the stuff we see from Shane Long and his decision making was poor especially when he could have put Hunt through on goal in the second half but chose to shoot instead. As said before needs to work on set pieces

Matejovsky flattered to decieve some good passes some dreadful and even the good passes didn't have enough pace on them to get behind the defence properly.

[weybridgewanderer]

Yesterday was never going to be a big crowd and the club knew that - no buses from Foster Wheeler as far as I could make out, no parking at Hewlett Packard, not all food/drink outlets in concourses open, no burger vans etc outside. We weren't really ENCOURAGED to attend tbf!

all the buses were running last night including those from foster wheeler

[royalsteve]

thank you club for ensuring i didnt go last night....

i didnt go because after logging onto the online booking @ approx 12:55 yesterday i selected the ticket and it was £10.....got logged off and logged in again and it was £12...i thought gits im not paying that....phoned the ticket office and got the "there is nothing we can do" - i said "fine im not going then"...thanks RFC i missed a fantastic match by the sound of it

[Hoop Blah]

Are you serious?

He's managing a team that has seen 7 first teamers go to be replaced by five reserves, one weak loan signing and one unfit purchase.

ANY new manager deserves at least 15 games, but in thse circumstances no one could get results from this squad and he deserves far longer. Individually most of these players are not ready at this level and collectively they are a million miles off. However bad we were at the end of last season, each game is a growing vindication of Coppell's decision not to blood these youngsters in a promotion run in, they are hopelessly out of their depth.

Agreed Schards, it was obvious to anyone who'd really seen a bit of the kids that they wouldn't be capable of carrying us this season without some quality around them. We don't have that quality and experience alongside them and they're all looking a bit out of their depth. It's worrying that we've taken so long to address the weaknesses in the squad, but Rodgers still needs time and support to build his squad.