When Bikey Doesn't Play

[Great Knolly]

Pearce and Duberry tend to just hoof the ball the way if under any sort of pressure. And while this prevents mistakes, it does mean we give the ball back a lot. With Bikey, he may have the occasional hairy moment but he's good at getting things started.

[brendywendy]

I think its some fans just as much as the manager that need to move on from 2005/06.

As for Bikey well personally i agree he has all the attributes to be the best defender at this club, however that doesn't always transfer into his actual contributions (see also Matejovsky in midfield ). Until Saturday we'd kept 3 consecutive clean sheets with the central defensive pairing of Duberry and Pearce so it would have been a bit harsh to displace either of those 2 particularly given that the last time Bikey wore the shirt he was pretty poor to say the least.

What good are clean sheets if we can't score at the other end? We're not fighting relegation we WERE favorites for promotion.

No other player's absence demonstrates better why either Coppell or RFC needs to move on.

Does anyone really think we would have conceded our first goal on Saturday with Bikey marking Adebola?

Now, the run of clean sheets has come to end but not the goal drought.

Having dropped Hunt for a phantom injury, it wasn't too hard to make a case for keeping Lita in the side after a reasonable performance at QPR but how many goals did this produce? After 2pts from 3 games Hunt will return with our league position significantly diminished. The only person to blame for this is Steve Coppell.

Likewise, Doobs and Pearce have done OK at the back but the team as a whole has hardly produced a good performance since Bikey's dodgy red card at Cardiff.

Pace at the back has a big impact on how a team performs. Sonko pre-injury (for all his other faults) allowed the attacking side of our game to devastate the opposition and we haven't been the same attacking force without Bikey.

This is the same player who couldn't get off the bench during or after Coppell's favourites shipped 7 at Portsmouth. Along with his pathetic refusal to address the issue of Shorey wanting to be anywhere but here for more than a year, this a significant reason why I lay the blame for our needless relegation firmly at Coppell's door.

Whist I respect the views of others and never wish to undermine the 2 wonderful seasons that Steve Coppell produced for this club, I remain firmly in the camp that says he has made far too many mistakes in the last 2 seasons, brought on largely by misplaced loyalty and too much faith in 4-4-2, and that this should place him in the last chance saloon whether he likes it or not.

It came as a relief after Saturday's dreadful display to read that I'm not alone in finding our tortuous performances increasingly difficult to watch.

eh?!

clean sheets matter, regardless of how many we score. end of.

& this is the same team who were prolific scorers before xmas though innit?


and im sure coppell is really really worried by where you lay the blame of relegation,
epitomy of reason and rationality that you are

[brendywendy]

incedentaly i agree about over reliance on 4-4-2 being a problem
but i 100% understand why coppell sees changeing this as a negative set up when we are at home and supposedly one of the best 3-4 teams in this league


maybe 4-2-4 is a better tactic to change to!

[Negative_Jeff]

Bikey has pace, strength, can play the ball out of defence and is a big threat at set pieces. He should be in the team.
Defensively I think the player we are most missing is Kitson who used to drop off when we lost possession and hustled the opposition back four and deep lying midfielders. There are plenty of those in these days of 4-5-1. Kitson would also have been on the near post for the free kick which lead to the first goal against Brizzle, leaving Duberry and Pearce better able to organise themselves
against Adebola.

[Woodcote Royal]

eh?!

clean sheets matter, regardless of how many we score. end of.

& this is the same team who were prolific scorers before xmas though innit?

I like clean sheets, too, but they are of no use to a side chasing promotion if they result in a goal drought at the other end.

Stating the obvious, we would all take our 1-4 victory at Ashton Gate over the last 2 clean sheets.

[brendywendy]

what about the 7-4 or 6-4 games last year?

[Woodcote Royal]

Whilst I didn't enjoy the outcome of those too games, I'm guessing Tottenham and Portsmouth coped rather better with the 8 goals they conceded between them.................and I think that those 2 results makes my point rather well.

[brendywendy]

it does rather dont it!

[poohs pure]

I was asked to look up the stats for Reading games with/without Bikey

I'm doing requests now

Make of the stats what you will


P18 W9 D5 L4 25-16 = 32 Points = 1.77 Points per Game Scoring 1.4 Conceding 0.89 WITHOUT BIKEY
P14 W8 D4 L2 33-11 = 28 Points = 2.00 Points per Game Scoring 2.4 Conceding 0.79 WITH BIKEY

W 6-0 WEDNESDAY
W 4-1 Bristol
W 3-1 BURNLEY
W 3-0 Wolves
W 3-0 DERBY
W 2-1 DONCASTER
W 2-0 Sheff Utd

D 2-2 Watford
D 2-2 Cardiff (Bikey sent off after 30 Minutes)
D 1-1 SAINTS
D 0-0 QPR

L 1-2 Preston (unlucky defeat?)
L 0-1 Burnley (unlucky defeat?)

who asked you to look look this up?

I had a PM. I think the "P" means Private


Do you think the initials were "SC"?

OK who pm'd statto please?

[SteveRoyal]

'Twas me.
Don't slate Snowball, I just thought it would be interesting to see how we've done since Bikey's absence.

[poohs pure]

8) 'Twas me.
Don't slate Snowball, I just thought it would be interesting to see how we've done since Bikey's absence.

so you're the culprit are you

please don't encourage mr statto please, he will eventually become a hate figure on here.

[Snowball]

please don't encourage mr statto please, he will eventually become a hate figure on here.

Feel free. What you think of me matters not.

[Ian Royal]

8) 'Twas me.
Don't slate Snowball, I just thought it would be interesting to see how we've done since Bikey's absence.

so you're the culprit are you

please don't encourage mr statto please, he will eventually become a hate figure on here.

The thing I don't like is he takes up so much space to say so little of value.

[Sun Tzu]

8) 'Twas me.
Don't slate Snowball, I just thought it would be interesting to see how we've done since Bikey's absence.

so you're the culprit are you

please don't encourage mr statto please, he will eventually become a hate figure on here.

The thing I don't like is he takes up so much space to say so little of value.

Agreed, the likes of you and me need that space !

[Ian Royal]

I'd be happy if he stopped making such large stat filled posts and didn't reply to the same thing with two or three posts in a row.

[Rex]

I'd be happy if he stopped making such large stat filled posts and didn't reply to the same thing with two or three posts in a row.

I

[Rex]

I'd be happy if he stopped making such large stat filled posts and didn't reply to the same thing with two or three posts in a row.

Think

[Rex]

I'd be happy if he stopped making such large stat filled posts and didn't reply to the same thing with two or three posts in a row.

You

[Rex]

I'd be happy if he stopped making such large stat filled posts and didn't reply to the same thing with two or three posts in a row.

Might

[Rex]

I'd be happy if he stopped making such large stat filled posts and didn't reply to the same thing with two or three posts in a row.

Be