How impressed are you with BMcD's return to the club?

[Ian Royal]

I think for 99% of people on this forum, it's just a side they have taken in an old argument. It's just old scores being settled rather than actual rational opinion.

If you thought Brian should have been sacked, you supported Adkins whatever. If you thought Brian was hard done by, you slated everything Adkins did. When Adkins went the Bri fans were more supportive of Clarke until he pissed everyone off. Bri comes back, and it's just forum user A rekindling his ruck with forum user B.

It's lame.

I thought Bri should go, supported Adkins but couldn't argue with his sacking, didn't like Clarke and now support Bri. So it's not quite that clear cut.

Yeah, regretting saying 100% now.

Oh wait, I didn't.

Reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaddddd.

Accepted, stupid small phone screen and laziness.

LOL @ me being in the decent 1%

[RoyalBlue]

With only Blackburn and Charlton below us int he "last 8" form table at what point will our position become, shall we say worrying, and what should happen if or when it does ?? Obviously our away game at Charlton will be a big marker for the remainder of the season.

Our position becomes worrying if we are consistently accruing less than a point a game or we slip down into 19/20/21 territory.

McDermott has one tough game of the first ten left. Ideally you want to see a strong start from a new manager. It hasn't happened, but we've not got any worse, maybe marginally better and there are definitely elements of our games that have improved. Once the first ten is out of the way, I'd be inclined to write that off and then want to look at seeing an improvement in results over the next 5-10 games. If we're still not picking up many wins and knocking at about a point a game, I'll start to get concerned.


But really, we're out of options even if he does do badly. We've rolled the dice on improving on Adkins and failed. We've pushed a manager who wasn't dedicated enough to us and was performing badly. We need some continuity desperately. We simply can't just keep changing manager every season. It's not a winning formula. We know Brian can work well in our set up and in the Championship. So we have to give him at least next season as well. I can't see him relegating us, but even if he does, I'd be tempted to give him six months in League One to see if he can build some confidence and momentum and get us back stronger.

If he manages to get us relegated this season hopefully he and the club business management who pushed for his return will immediately be chased out of town. Relegation would be completely and utterly inexcusable. If he can't build confidence now, he certainly won't be able to build it following relegation. Why would anyone want to believe in him?

[Vision]

With only Blackburn and Charlton below us int he "last 8" form table at what point will our position become, shall we say worrying, and what should happen if or when it does ?? Obviously our away game at Charlton will be a big marker for the remainder of the season.

Pretty much where we were in the form table when he took over as well. Both of the above clubs recently changed managers too.

I asked the question a fair few pages back but where does this idea that a change of manager should result in instant improvement come from?

The simple fact is that Clarke was given the means with which to commit to a short term aim of promotion this season. That was failing and Clarke's own faith in it (for whatever reason) was clearly gone so the chances of it happening this season were oxf*rd. In which case the owners are faced with the option of allowing Clarke this summer to completely change everything again.

The short term idea makes some sort of sense (not that I personally agree with it) whilst you have parachute payments but they will finish after next season and whether people like it or not the decisions we make now will bear that in mind.

One of the problems is that whilst the Thais off field intentions seem quite clear and positive, they don't seem to have any of the same commitment or idea of what our philosophy on the field should be. If appointing McDermott means they're looking at what has succeeded for us in the past then I'm all for it. Of course there are inherent issues with expecting to replicate the past as everything moves on in life but it's fair to say that although we've never really found a way yet to prosper at the next level , as far as the Championship is concerned any time we've veered away from our usual MO it's been pretty disastrous.

The signings in this window are far more of the type we've historically had success with than what we did in the windows under Clarke so here's hoping it's the start of a clear direction going forward. The Madejski haters may spit at the phrase "the Reading Way" but at least we had a clear way of operating and a rationale behind it with the personnel behind the scenes to implement it.

In the end whether people choose to rate McDermott or not I'd venture his Championship record as a manager stands comparison alongside most of those that are considered experts at this level. yer Warnocks, yer McCarthys, yer Bruces etc.

[Hoop Blah]

I'm disappointed that McDermott hasn't had a more positive effect on either performances or results so far.

I didn't expect him to suddenly transform the shocking run of form we were on from before Clarke go the boot, but I did hope that he'd shake things up enough that we'd see some more blood and thunder football and look like we were playing with a bit more heart and confidence.

Realistically McDermott isn't going to build us a side that's easy on the eye but despite some early promise I'm just not seeing much of a change since Clarke left. For me that does raise a few concerns about things off the pitch and the direction, or lack of it, the club is being driven on from above.

It just looks like we're already playing out the rest of the season on autopilot.

Even though I don't really rate him that highly as a manager I'm still pretty happy that McDermott is back in charge though. I think his style is what we probably need right now, he just needs to make a bit more of an impact on the pitch!

[BR2]

In football it seems as though managers get a reputation for playing a certain way and will never change.
Mourinho, Pulis, Allardyce etc. fall into this category but watching the West Brom v Peterborough game last night I was impressed by the way that Westley's Peterborough played.
Listening to the radio beforehand it was clear that the owner told Westley on his appointment that he expected the team to play in a certain way and in fairness to Westley he has clearly bought into it.

In the past Westley would have been described as a manager who set his teams up not to lose and to rough up the opposition-this is no longer the case at Peterborough.
Mark Hughes has changed Stoke from dour battlers to entertainers so managers can change their preferred style.

Coming back to our manager he has, as HB says, not so far got his team to play in Brian's recognised way-this might be deliberate and/or might be because of the personnel at hand but we are lacking in drive and pace, both of which we had, and he to some extent created, in his previous time.

So, after his spell at Arsenal, does he now want to see a passing side like Arsenal or will he revert to all-action triers that we had before, chasing lost causes etc?
I wonder what his remit was from the owners because as HB posted there is little sign so far in this squad of how we used to play and was he appointed to change things back to how they were?
Is that why he got the job?

Time will tell when he does assemble his own squad but , like HB, I would like to have seen a bit more grit from these players at the very least but so far, particularly in the league, there is little change.

[Vision]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

[No Fixed Abode]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

Paul McShane disagrees. He said playing for Reading is like playing Russian roulette at the moment under McDermott.

[Top Flight]

Which is already a sign of progress. It's better that matches are 50/50 (as most championship matches typically tend to be) than us turning up and losing every week.

At least at odds of 50/50 we won't be getting relegated.

[Nameless]

Russian roulette gives you a losing probability of 1 in 6.
I'd take that. I'd guess many Premiership teams would be happy to have only a 1 in 6 chance of losing each week.

[Longhorn1970]

In football it seems as though managers get a reputation for playing a certain way and will never change.
Mourinho, Pulis, Allardyce etc. fall into this category but watching the West Brom v Peterborough game last night I was impressed by the way that Westley's Peterborough played.
Listening to the radio beforehand it was clear that the owner told Westley on his appointment that he expected the team to play in a certain way and in fairness to Westley he has clearly bought into it.

In the past Westley would have been described as a manager who set his teams up not to lose and to rough up the opposition-this is no longer the case at Peterborough.
Mark Hughes has changed Stoke from dour battlers to entertainers so managers can change their preferred style.

Coming back to our manager he has, as HB says, not so far got his team to play in Brian's recognised way-this might be deliberate and/or might be because of the personnel at hand but we are lacking in drive and pace, both of which we had, and he to some extent created, in his previous time.

So, after his spell at Arsenal, does he now want to see a passing side like Arsenal or will he revert to all-action triers that we had before, chasing lost causes etc?
I wonder what his remit was from the owners because as HB posted there is little sign so far in this squad of how we used to play and was he appointed to change things back to how they were?
Is that why he got the job?

Time will tell when he does assemble his own squad but , like HB, I would like to have seen a bit more grit from these players at the very least but so far, particularly in the league, there is little change.

There is some change, for worse .. we don't know what the remit was but I suspect it's more of the same, working the impossible with very little, and that normally ends in disaster ..

[Longhorn1970]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

Paul McShane disagrees. He said playing for Reading is like playing Russian roulette at the moment under McDermott.

Wonder what he means by that ? Clearly not happy :/

[Hoop Blah]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

I'm not suggesting that there's been no progress, just that it's been rather limited.

One of the most positive signs I've seen since he took over was the players reaction to Vdyra's hatrick. They all looked chuffed for him and you could see they were all pulling for him and giving him little words of encourgement.

Was that in part to McDermott? Not sure, but it at least showed a bit of togetherness in the squad.

[Longhorn1970]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

We're also very predictable in how we set up, fine if it was working but it's not, and BM doesn't seem able to adapt from one week to the next ...

[Longhorn1970]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

I'm not suggesting that there's been no progress, just that it's been rather limited.

One of the most positive signs I've seen since he took over was the players reaction to Vdyra's hatrick. They all looked chuffed for him and you could see they were all pulling for him and giving him little words of encourgement.

Was that in part to McDermott? Not sure, but it at least showed a bit of togetherness in the squad.

You would think that would be a springboard but it wasn't.

[Longhorn1970]

On more than one occasion we've got something out of games when we've gone a goal down, which wasn't the case pre McDermott.

That would suggest a certain element of grit and resilience has been added.

Paul McShane disagrees. He said playing for Reading is like playing Russian roulette at the moment under McDermott.

Wonder what he means by that ? Clearly not happy :/

McShane's comments as reported by Bracknell News
“At the start of the season we were scoring early on in games, we were creating lots of chances and keeping other teams out.

“But it feels a bit like Russian roulette at the moment where it could go either way.

“We attack then the opposition attack and there is no in between, no stability.
“We’ve got to put that right and be more solid so that when we do go forward we aren’t caught on the break.”

[Nameless]

So not at all as some people tried to portray the comment....

[Silver Fox]

I'm not convinced McShane knows what Russian Roulette is

[Nameless]

He seems to be confusing it with a lottery, which I guess it is in a way, but using the term does allow the usual mischief makers to twist the words.

[No Fixed Abode]

So not at all as some people tried to portray the comment....

I guess you can read it any way you want.

Sounds to me they knew what they were doing when Clarke was in charge now they haven't got a clue.

[AthleticoSpizz]

They sure knew how to start losing