New signings

[ZacNaloen]

Unless we get a striker in this week we could struggle if Churches injury is as bad as it looked. Rasiak can't play 90minutes every week.

[CMRoyal]

This coming from the man who for months was dragging up his own thread predicting doom and gloom

As for it being the division we finished 4th in last year, thats pretty irrelevant when you consider we have a squad thats been ripped apart since the last manager went so long without winning and scoring at home

Give Rodgers his due, he seems to have made vast improvments recently and we now look infinatly more dangerous at home than we did from Feb to Sept

Yes things are looking better and that's great. I was as happy as i've been leaving the ground for over a year on Saturday and felt like a great weight had been lifted.

One win at home to Blackpol is not, however, remotely close to being the validation of Royalee blind support of Rodgers that he seems to think it is.

The last four performances are the first time this season that Royalee views have approached anything like vindication. That's quite enough for me now.

[Royal Rother]

It's not really a question of ultimate validation is it?

It's taken a while to get there but we seem to be playing good football, fighting hard, creating chances and even tucking a few away now. Surely that's enough to confirm that those of us who had faith and patience were justified?

The "I Want It All and I Want it All NOW!!" mob who have showered an honest, hard-working, ambitious and (seemingly) likeable bloke, who is a long-term and dedictated employee of Reading Football Club, with all manner of insult and oppropbrium over the last few months may yet have their day if thing go wrong again, but at least for the time being they have been moved to shut the fcuk up.

[Thaumagurist*]

Seven points from 3 games is not to be sniffed at. I hope this trend continues.

[Royalee]

Have you managed to see any of the last 3 games Ideal?

[Thaumagurist*]

Seven points from 3 games is not to be sniffed at. I hope this trend continues.

So do I.

Conceding a goal a game is a worry though. Our Goals Against column is not looking good.

[Schards#2]

One win at home to Blackpol is not, however, remotely close to being the validation of Royalee blind support of Rodgers that he seems to think it is.

That's extremely unfair though !

One win during the 106 season was never enough to make Coppell manager of the season. At least give Rodgers credit for the fact that we're gone 3 unbeaten and put in a string of pretty decent performances. There has been significant improvement and all that is happening now is the utterly foolish knee jerk criticism of Rodgers is being shown up for what it was.

We aren't anything like where we need to be but it's a weak division and we now look like a team that will make steady progress up the league having found a settled side, style of play and a couple of players to add some quality to the team.

It is not at all a long shot to suggest that by Xmas we could be in the top half of the table....

TBH, i'd be happy to strike a bet with you on that.

We are still very shaky defensively and were hanging on desperately against a pretty average team on Saturday. Up front, threadbare doesn't come close. We have two forwards, one of whom may now be injured and the other struggles to manage 90 minutes and can't cope with two games in a week. Losing Hunt is unlucky but even with him available we are below par in this area.

The fact that we are looking better than we were a few weeks back does not mean we are looking good. A lot of the criticism of Rodgers has been entirely valid and his poor use of our limited resources is reflected in the problems up front and the fact we have a left footed midfielder playing (albeit quite well) at right back.

[BR2]

its not just one win at home though is it, its 4 great performances, 7 points from 9, and a good home win
just need to keep the momentum going away at derby

"4 great performances"?
I know the word "great" is overused and this is proof-we weren't "great" on Saturday,we were o.k and just about deserved the win.
The performance v Ipswich was far from "great" and we drew the game ffs.

I have been neutral about Rodgers and still am.
Games away v Derby and Sheff Wed ,two teams that are erratic and have had major injury problems will be good yardsticks as to whether we have made real progress.
As I see it they are middle-to-lower sides in this division just like us but as we have a reasonable away record this season (mainly through playing well on the break whereas at home we are expected to make the running)I would be content with 2 draws as long as we start to win more of our home games than we draw or lose.
Beating a team 9-1 is a great performance,not hanging on to a 2-1 lead at home to Blackpool just a couple of years after beating Liverpool 3-1.

[SWLR]

Beating a team 9-1 is a fluke, hanging on to a 2-1 lead at home to 5th placed Blackpool is a good performance coming just a couple of months since the team that beat Liverpool 3-1 was totally dismembered/ re-built.

[brendywendy]

its not just one win at home though is it, its 4 great performances, 7 points from 9, and a good home win
just need to keep the momentum going away at derby

"4 great performances"?
I know the word "great" is overused and this is proof-we weren't "great" on Saturday,we were o.k and just about deserved the win.
The performance v Ipswich was far from "great" and we drew the game ffs.

I have been neutral about Rodgers and still am.
Games away v Derby and Sheff Wed ,two teams that are erratic and have had major injury problems will be good yardsticks as to whether we have made real progress.
As I see it they are middle-to-lower sides in this division just like us but as we have a reasonable away record this season (mainly through playing well on the break whereas at home we are expected to make the running)I would be content with 2 draws as long as we start to win more of our home games than we draw or lose.
Beating a team 9-1 is a great performance,not hanging on to a 2-1 lead at home to Blackpool just a couple of years after beating Liverpool 3-1.

i meant purely in comparison with the games that preceded them
and some fo the football in all four matches was very good indeed
of course we are still leaky and shakey, but the performance on saturday, and getting back into it after conceding, has very little to do with the liverpool game, we are a very different team, at a very different stage of development.

i say its great compared to QPR, Boro, west brom, and you say its not great compared to liverpool three seasons ago

[Thaumagurist*]

We are still very shaky defensively

Probably true.

Up front, threadbare doesn't come close. We have two forwards, one of whom may now be injured and the other struggles to manage 90 minutes and can't cope with two games in a week.

How's that? I'm not aware of any injury/fitness problems to our remaining two forwards. Please give me an update, I can't be bothered to trawl through several bullshit Team Board posts to find out.

[brendywendy]

nhunt out for most of the season, long still injured and fat, church possibly injured

bring back mooney!

lol

[Thaumagurist*]

I didn't realise Rasiak came off the bench. From the line up, looks like we played 4-5-1?

How is Church possibly injured? What happened to him?

[brendywendy]

I didn't realise Rasiak came off the bench. From the line up, looks like we played 4-5-1?

How is Church possibly injured? What happened to him?

twisted what looked like a knee or groin, very nastily indeed, trying to keep a ball in play on the touchline
hopefully it wont be too bad

[rg6royal]

I didn't realise Rasiak came off the bench. From the line up, looks like we played 4-5-1?

How is Church possibly injured? What happened to him?

twisted what looked like a knee or groin, very nastily indeed, trying to keep a ball in play on the touchline
hopefully it wont be too bad

Looked like his groin.

[ZacNaloen]

Rodgers was saying after the match that they at first thought he'd tweaked his groin, which is what it looked like. But it was now looking more like he landed awkwardly on his hip and he may be okay.

[Royalee]

A lot of the criticism of Rodgers has been entirely valid and his poor use of our limited resources is reflected in the problems up front and the fact we have a left footed midfielder playing (albeit quite well) at right back.

Explain to me how purchasing a centre back who will feature for us for years to come is bad use of resources when we have Ingimarsson who is past it and O'Dea who is only on loan in addition to young Pearce.

Explain to me how signing a proven striker at this level for very little money is a bad use of resources.

Explain to me how signing McAnuff given his performances is a bad use of resources.

Explain to me how offloading one of the most overrated and overpaid players in the club's history in Harper and replacing him with someone slightly better in Howard on lower money is a bad use of resources.

Explain how blooding youngsters such as Pearce, Karacan, Sigurdsson, Church, Robson-Kanu and Davies who will be on next to nothing is poor use of resources.

Explain how loaning a centre back from Celtic who has played in the Champions League is poor use of resources.

You're a poor use of resources.

[Thaumagurist*]

Explain to me how signing a proven striker at this level for very little money is a bad use of resources.

How is £300K "very little money"

BTW, was it a bit foolhardy to let Rosenior go and only rely on young Cummings? This led to Tabb filling in at right back. Having said that, Tabb does make me think of Mick Gooding.

[rg6royal]

Rodgers was saying after the match that they at first thought he'd tweaked his groin, which is what it looked like. But it was now looking more like he landed awkwardly on his hip and he may be okay.

He did look in a great deal of pain though.

[Royalee]

Explain to me how signing a proven striker at this level for very little money is a bad use of resources.

How is £300K "very little money"

BTW, was it a bit foolhardy to let Rosenior go and only rely on young Cummings? This led to Tabb filling in at right back. Having said that, Tabb does make me think of Mick Gooding.

It is very little money considering we sold £6.5 million's worth of striker in the summer. I didn't know your maths was that bad Spacey.

It was wrong to bring in Cummings, but you can at least see where he was coming from in that Rodgers worked with him at Chelsea, he got regular football last season where MK Dons had a reasonable season and was playing his football at West Brom. Looking at that and his background you'd have though he'd be a good player - even most on here were happy when the signing was made, you can't get them all right. Better than pissing away £2.5 million on Emerse Fae though.