Back From The Game - Middlesbrough (H)

[rhroyal]

Rodgers must be the only manager in this division stupid enough to leave out Tabb and drop Sigurdsson to the bench when you consider out squad. If we were Newcastle, West Brom, Sheff Utd or Boro maybe, but with our squad surely a blind dog can see that it makes sense to play one of brightest players so far this season and one of the few players who looked good in hoops at the tail end of last season. Coventry's player of the season before we signed him, he was one of our better players in the game I saw against Sheff Utd. He's being kept out by Howard. Where is Matejovsky FFS? Why is Noel Hunt behind Simon Church and Gregorz Rasiak? Why did we offload Rosenior and Harper? Are Henry and HRK not worth a shout out wide? Why do we play 1 up front with 2 defensive mid fielders at home?

The squad is definitely better than the league table suggests and Rodgers has done a truly abysmal job so far. I fear he's too proud and arrogant to change things. He sees himself as a "Special One" and is utterly convinced that what he is doing is right. He's so proud of what he's doing that he won't dare pick players signed by Coppell, even if they're better than his players. It utterly HAS to be his team playing every week so that when we're successful this team was built by Rodgers and Coppell had nothing to do with it. That way all the big clubs will think that he's amazing and go for him. It HAS to be his "world class" style of play, and none of this direct 4-4-2 rubbish that has served this club and just about every successful Championship club EVER so well. It will all, however, come good and Rodgers' team will start playing world class football and burst into the play-offs to clinch dramatic promotion.

The penny simply hasn't dropped to Rodgers that this is an utter pipe dream. It was blessing for him at Watford that he didn't have the chance to sign many players, he had to do the best with what he had. Now he's here he had the chance to do things his way. Well, a good manager will swallow his pride, mix things up a bit and happily use players who have served the club well before his time. A bad manager will stick to his principles blindly and fail. His arrogance annoys me so much, he thinks he is so good. If this job doesn't work out for him he will probably never get the chance to work with a recently relegated second tier side, with a squad and infrastructure more than capable of flirting with the play-offs. I wonder if he'll still fancy himself as the next Mourinho when that happens.

I was part of the RTGs for so long, but it's not just the results that have worn out my faith. There are NO SIGNS OF PROGRESS. We could take positives from games against Sheff Utd and Cardiff for example. What positives can we take from recent games against Watford, Peterborough and yesterday's game? They're easily outweighed by the negatives, and there seems to be no sign of things changing. A repeat of Peterboro only fell through at Preston because of the woodwork being hit 3 times and some world class saves from Feds. Performances are not improving, how long can the "New Young Squad" card be played? Not very long in my view.

[rg6royal]

Poor performance and we never got going. Got to admit that 'Boro are a step ahead of us and will definitely be up there with West Brom and Newcastle at the end of the season.

Should never have let Lita go, he played very well yesterday.

Need to get Tabb back into the starting 11 along side Karacan, as Bryn is clearly not consistent enough and doesn't have the legs to play 3 games in 8 days, which is fair enough at his age

Still don't think we'll be in a relegation scrap but we need to bring in another striker soon and look at changing the system a bit.

Still can't believe we let Rosenier go out on loan and brought in cummings who is pretty much sh!t!

To concluded...Well done Leroy and good luck in the future, as I'm sure you'll have a bright one.

[Handsome Man]

We were shit

I liked Karacan and the MacAnuff/Bertrand combination in the first half, then Championship Manager Boy messed that up for the second half.

[Stranded]

First time that I can ever recall that I have ever left with 10 mins to go - just couldn't face watching it any more.

[Sarah Star]

Can't we have a "Campaign for a Home Win" to show our solidarity?

I don't know what to do. Picket Rodgers's parking spot or something until we get one I suppose. It worked when we wanted to keep Coppell.

[Shaka's Giant Hands]

My favourite quote from our Yes man in his post match interview was 'It was like watching two different teams out there today...'



Yes Brendon...one was wearing red, the other was the shower that you have put together. Although it is good to see that your finally getting the basics right!

[beno]

- hunt is our best striker... how can the inexperienced church be in front of him?
- gunnarson shouldnt start hes only good as a 70th minute sub, tabb should replace him
- matejovsky needs a run of games but signing howard has stopped that
- hrk looks promising and should make the bench

[PEARCEY]

Poor performance and we never got going. Got to admit that 'Boro are a step ahead of us and will definitely be up there with West Brom and Newcastle at the end of the season.

Should never have let Lita go, he played very well yesterday.

Need to get Tabb back into the starting 11 along side Karacan, as Bryn is clearly not consistent enough and doesn't have the legs to play 3 games in 8 days, which is fair enough at his age

Still don't think we'll be in a relegation scrap but we need to bring in another striker soon and look at changing the system a bit.

Still can't believe we let Rosenier go out on loan and brought in cummings who is pretty much sh!t!

To concluded...Well done Leroy and good luck in the future, as I'm sure you'll have a bright one.

Good post and agree with most of it(particularly Lita). I do think though that we will be in a relegation scrap

[Man Friday]

agree with all the negative comments - esp. rhroyal's. Relegation beckons. Ordered my tickets for the WBA and Cov matches then, unless things have improved, will stop going. Got better things to do with my £75 every Saturday.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Worst second half display at the Madejski for a long time. Apart from Church and Hunt, the rest of the team underperformed. Rodgers needs to sort the team out, and fast.

Plus, whoever decided to let Lita go, should be fired. That's right, Mr Hammond.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Sarah Star wrote; Can't we have a "Campaign for a Home Win" to show our solidarity?

I don't know what to do. Picket Rodgers's parking spot or something until we get one I suppose. It worked when we wanted to keep Coppell.

I vote for a campaign to sack Brenda who is out of his depth then we will get the win at home that we need badly.

[Arthur Pint]

Truly awful in the second half, worst 45 minutes in such a long time, heartbreaking really. I just kept shaking my head everytime we did something woeful and I eneded up with neck ache at the end.

I won't go on about how bad it was because I think all the other posts cover it, but Mr Rodgers has really got to take a long hard look after those tactics in the 2nd half, the players looked totally lost, there was no shape at all.

Cummings is awful, really awful, I'm sorry to say it I hate slagging off any player in the Hoops - if the decision to replace Rosenoir with him was a footballing one then the management should be sacked if it was done solely on money then someone at board level should go, I didn't rate Rosie but up against Cummings there is no comparison, can Arsmtrong or Bertrand not player on the other side so we don't have to put up with this guy any longer?. Howard also needs to up his game.

Next game something drastic in my book - back to 4-4-2

Feds

Armstrong / Ingi / Mills / Bertrand

HRK / Karajan / Tabb / McAnuff

Hunt / Long

Won't happen though, if things carry on based on the 2nd half performance we are going to be relegation fodder.........

[Barry the bird boggler]

That was dreadful rubbish, that was not worth the effort of getting out of bed for

Awful from beginning to end

Please someone explain why

Shaun Cummings
Jimmy Kebe
Brian Howard

I presume it was a tactical change made at half time, in which case can anyone explain it?

Does anyone know what the manager is doing? Do the players know what he's doing? Does Clodagh even know what he's doing?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Why do we play 1 up front with 2 defensive mid fielders at home?

because that's the favoured "modern" way of playing the game on the continent. It works well there because players in Spain etc grow up with that sort of system and know what's expected of them. They also grow up knowing how to play a ball though a defence as that's the typical way chances are created. We have player who only really know about creating an opportunity for a cross, and strikers who base their movement on being on the end of a cross.

Simply, we are trying to play a style that the players don't know how to play. The midfielders don't know what they are supposed to be doing in such a system. The two wide forwards don't know how to play such a system, which is why we get a 4-5-1 instead of the intended 4-3-3, and the striker that's left typically doesn't know how to move to set himself up for receiving the ball.

In short, Rodgers in Tommy Burns 2, playing tactics which completely fail to suit the abilities of the players.

[Northern Git]

Truly awful in the second half, worst 45 minutes in such a long time, heartbreaking really. I just kept shaking my head everytime we did something woeful and I eneded up with neck ache at the end.

I won't go on about how bad it was because I think all the other posts cover it, but Mr Rodgers has really got to take a long hard look after those tactics in the 2nd half, the players looked totally lost, there was no shape at all.

Cummings is awful, really awful, I'm sorry to say it I hate slagging off any player in the Hoops - if the decision to replace Rosenoir with him was a footballing one then the management should be sacked if it was done solely on money then someone at board level should go, I didn't rate Rosie but up against Cummings there is no comparison, can Arsmtrong or Bertrand not player on the other side so we don't have to put up with this guy any longer?. Howard also needs to up his game.

Next game something drastic in my book - back to 4-4-2

Feds

Armstrong / Ingi / Mills / Bertrand

HRK / Karajan / Tabb / McAnuff

Hunt / Long

Won't happen though, if things carry on based on the 2nd half performance we are going to be relegation fodder.........

Don't think you will see Tabb. Girl who sits in front of me had a chat Brenda before the game yesterday and asked him specifically 'Where is Tabb?' and was told by Brenda 'We have better midfielders in the squad than him'

Expect him to be shipped out on loan.

[facaldaqui]

If that's true it's an unwise thing of him to say. You should always stick up for your players, and you never know when people will be injured. Tabb's got some industry, which will be particularly useful if we get into a relegation fight.

[ayjaydee]

I had a choice of playing in the monthly medal at my golf club or going to the game. Was veering towards the golf until the result and performance on Tuesday (according to BBCRB) persuaded me otherwise.

I would have rather shot 120 on the course than watching the garbage that was served up in the second 45 (first was not great but at least we were competing).

Made the wrong choice and spoilt my weekend as a result.

[Ian Royal]

I'd agree with most of the sentiment on here. THough I'm laughing at those who think we should never have let Lita go. In a team much better than us he's done no better than Church or Hunt in quite a few more minutes on the pitch. He was a bad apple and wanted out. We all knew he had talent, but wanting to keep him is just ignoring two years of him being disruptive and shit.

Those calling for Matejovsky also make me laugh. He's started twice and we lost both games. He's had a tiny handfull of good games for us amongst the very disappointing. What we don't need is players who should be good but never perform. We want players who have a little something about them and will run themselves into the ground for a win.

I also disagree about Rosenior. Cummings will prove a much better player, if only we can get the rest of the team playing together and well. His only problem is his inexperience IMO.

As for Tabb, I'd love to see im in the side, but I'm not sure we can afford two hobbits in the middle in quite a physical league. Especially when one of our major weaknesses at the back is from set pieces and crosses to the far post.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Why is it that the strikers are the ones, putting in the crosses, causing nobody to be in the box?

[Chaney]

Why is it that the strikers are the ones, putting in the crosses, causing nobody to be in the box?

because he either plays with no wingers..or he takes them off at H/T