I have been educated!

[Top Flight]

This season has been a re-education in football. I have learned about football all over again.

Admittedly at the start of the season, I was as frustrated and bored as much as anyone else watching our team retain possession and roll the ball around the back. But at Wembley, I felt that my education in the new Reading way of playing football has come a long way. Unbelievably some less educated Reading folk who were probably there on a day trip were acting like many of us at the beginning of the season. They couldn't understand why we didn't play with more pace, urgency and directness and were constantly calling us boring and critisizing all the way through the game. It was surreal listening to them considering we were battling out a play off final and had got there because of this new style of football.

As Huddersfield kept coming at us in the first half, I just wanted us to get on the ball and roll it around and keep it away from them for ten or so minutes and patiently move them around to create an opening. I was gagging for Stam's new style of football. I am now educated in the Reading way and I want to see the new Reading way of football. I actually love it now. It was like an acquired taste. But I have acquired it and I want more of it. I want us to get better at it obviously. But this is now how I want to see my team play it's football.

We should have been better at keeping the ball away from Huddersfield on Monday and we should have been braver. Especially in the second half. Huddersfield had used a lot of energy in the first half to no avail and were there for the taking in the second. We just had to be braver and go for it. Maybe we didn't have enough quality in the end to do something about it but with Billions of Yuan in the bank the team can be improved again over the summer. We should be going for the top 2 now. We weren't that far away this season. Another improvement and we could be serious contenders.

I can't bring myself to blame or critisize any of the team/players or management for the way it ended. I genuinely feel that they were immense and gave it everything. They couldn't have done anymore. Neither team could find a breakthrough. It was settled by the finest of margins in the end. The balance might have tipped in our favour. But it didn't.

The season has totally enthralled my 8 year old boy. These amazing last few weeks have got him so engrossed he now just talks, sings, chants about Reading FC all day. It is dominating his mind. He is getting boring to be honest. I need to find him something else to get excited about. But the excitement and adrenaline of the last few weeks of following Reading FC is difficult to match for a little boy.

[Forbury Lion]

I've started playing FIFA the new Reading way, keep possession and pass it around.

When we do reach the premier league again, I feel this style of football will suit us better than the traditional Reading way.

[Gav]

I've started playing FIFA the new Reading way, keep possession and pass it around.

When we do reach the premier league again, I feel this style of football will suit us better than the traditional Reading way.

I've always played it this way. I honestly have no idea how it's possible to win with any different approach. With that style of play and a solid investment in my academy, I took Exeter from league two to win the champions league final on the hardest setting in six or seven seasons. Let's hope Stam doesn't do the same.

I've stopped playing now though. Swearing at my TV isn't a good example to set the dog.

[RoyalBlue]

This season has been a re-education in football. I have learned about football all over again.

Admittedly at the start of the season, I was as frustrated and bored as much as anyone else watching our team retain possession and roll the ball around the back. But at Wembley, I felt that my education in the new Reading way of playing football has come a long way. Unbelievably some less educated Reading folk who were probably there on a day trip were acting like many of us at the beginning of the season. They couldn't understand why we didn't play with more pace, urgency and directness and were constantly calling us boring and critisizing all the way through the game. It was surreal listening to them considering we were battling out a play off final and had got there because of this new style of football.

As Huddersfield kept coming at us in the first half, I just wanted us to get on the ball and roll it around and keep it away from them for ten or so minutes and patiently move them around to create an opening. I was gagging for Stam's new style of football. I am now educated in the Reading way and I want to see the new Reading way of football. I actually love it now. It was like an acquired taste. But I have acquired it and I want more of it. I want us to get better at it obviously. But this is now how I want to see my team play it's football.

We should have been better at keeping the ball away from Huddersfield on Monday and we should have been braver. Especially in the second half. Huddersfield had used a lot of energy in the first half to no avail and were there for the taking in the second. We just had to be braver and go for it.

I always thought our style would pay off big time at Wembley and we would wear down whoever our opponents were before killing them off. It really looked like we were going to do that in extra time (Huddersfield were dropping dead by then) but for some reason we just didn't play that final killer ball. When Kermorgant chose the wrong option after Kelly's rapid counter-attacking burst down the right, I turned to a friend and said 'I think we may have just seen a repeat of the Pog moment v Arsenal in the cup semi.' Sadly so it proved to be, the missed penalties matching the agony of Feds' mistake.

[alfie9]

I feel the same way. As a big FM player who loves the tactical side of the game, this season has been a joy to watch. You can tell Stam and his staff worked very hard this season to prepare our squad for each individual match.

[From Despair To Where?]

Whilst I agree with the general sentiment, there were too many incidents on Monday where in our keen-ness to play the possession game, we didn't look to play the available pass forward or we didn't look to move to exploit the space which would have made the pass available.

The challenge next season is to add that to our game.

[Scutterbucketz]

Huddersfield were happy to let us pass it around because it wasn't ever fukking going anywhere.

[Muskrat]

This season has been a re-education in football. I have learned about football all over again.

Admittedly at the start of the season, I was as frustrated and bored as much as anyone else watching our team retain possession and roll the ball around the back. But at Wembley, I felt that my education in the new Reading way of playing football has come a long way. Unbelievably some less educated Reading folk who were probably there on a day trip were acting like many of us at the beginning of the season. They couldn't understand why we didn't play with more pace, urgency and directness and were constantly calling us boring and critisizing all the way through the game. It was surreal listening to them considering we were battling out a play off final and had got there because of this new style of football.

As Huddersfield kept coming at us in the first half, I just wanted us to get on the ball and roll it around and keep it away from them for ten or so minutes and patiently move them around to create an opening. I was gagging for Stam's new style of football. I am now educated in the Reading way and I want to see the new Reading way of football. I actually love it now. It was like an acquired taste. But I have acquired it and I want more of it. I want us to get better at it obviously. But this is now how I want to see my team play it's football.

We should have been better at keeping the ball away from Huddersfield on Monday and we should have been braver. Especially in the second half. Huddersfield had used a lot of energy in the first half to no avail and were there for the taking in the second. We just had to be braver and go for it. Maybe we didn't have enough quality in the end to do something about it but with Billions of Yuan in the bank the team can be improved again over the summer. We should be going for the top 2 now. We weren't that far away this season. Another improvement and we could be serious contenders.

I can't bring myself to blame or critisize any of the team/players or management for the way it ended. I genuinely feel that they were immense and gave it everything. They couldn't have done anymore. Neither team could find a breakthrough. It was settled by the finest of margins in the end. The balance might have tipped in our favour. But it didn't.

The season has totally enthralled my 8 year old boy. These amazing last few weeks have got him so engrossed he now just talks, sings, chants about Reading FC all day. It is dominating his mind. He is getting boring to be honest. I need to find him something else to get excited about. But the excitement and adrenaline of the last few weeks of following Reading FC is difficult to match for a little boy.

Genuinely not sure if SRS. Personally I don't want to sit through / listen to another 46 games of dull as ditchwater sideways passing and playing for a one-nil. Wembley was a microcosm of our season and virtually everybody on here and that I've spoken to agrees. If that's your road then take it but it's not the road for me (nods to Frank).

[Top Flight]

This season has been a re-education in football. I have learned about football all over again.

Admittedly at the start of the season, I was as frustrated and bored as much as anyone else watching our team retain possession and roll the ball around the back. But at Wembley, I felt that my education in the new Reading way of playing football has come a long way. Unbelievably some less educated Reading folk who were probably there on a day trip were acting like many of us at the beginning of the season. They couldn't understand why we didn't play with more pace, urgency and directness and were constantly calling us boring and critisizing all the way through the game. It was surreal listening to them considering we were battling out a play off final and had got there because of this new style of football.

As Huddersfield kept coming at us in the first half, I just wanted us to get on the ball and roll it around and keep it away from them for ten or so minutes and patiently move them around to create an opening. I was gagging for Stam's new style of football. I am now educated in the Reading way and I want to see the new Reading way of football. I actually love it now. It was like an acquired taste. But I have acquired it and I want more of it. I want us to get better at it obviously. But this is now how I want to see my team play it's football.

We should have been better at keeping the ball away from Huddersfield on Monday and we should have been braver. Especially in the second half. Huddersfield had used a lot of energy in the first half to no avail and were there for the taking in the second. We just had to be braver and go for it. Maybe we didn't have enough quality in the end to do something about it but with Billions of Yuan in the bank the team can be improved again over the summer. We should be going for the top 2 now. We weren't that far away this season. Another improvement and we could be serious contenders.

I can't bring myself to blame or critisize any of the team/players or management for the way it ended. I genuinely feel that they were immense and gave it everything. They couldn't have done anymore. Neither team could find a breakthrough. It was settled by the finest of margins in the end. The balance might have tipped in our favour. But it didn't.

The season has totally enthralled my 8 year old boy. These amazing last few weeks have got him so engrossed he now just talks, sings, chants about Reading FC all day. It is dominating his mind. He is getting boring to be honest. I need to find him something else to get excited about. But the excitement and adrenaline of the last few weeks of following Reading FC is difficult to match for a little boy.

Genuinely not sure if SRS. Personally I don't want to sit through / listen to another 46 games of dull as ditchwater sideways passing and playing for a one-nil. Wembley was a microcosm of our season and virtually everybody on here and that I've spoken to agrees. If that's your road then take it but it's not the road for me (nods to Frank).

Most of the season we have been educated in the 4-3-3 system. I think that is the way Stam is likely to go next season. We were especially defensive and cautious during the play-offs as the end result was now more important than the football. Stam focussed more on trying to win rather than the style aspect. We didn't really play our normal game properly during the play offs. We defended like the Italians. We just didn't have enough about us to hit teams on the break. Swift aint all that swift and Kermie isn't going to play off the shoulder of the last man either. I think we'll go straight back to the 4-3-3. We'll be more open and expansive again and with a few new additions, hopefully we'll be stronger and even better at it next season. Hopefully there will be no need to be so cautious and defensive again in the play offs because we would have played our way to automatic promotion. If we do end up in the play offs then hopefully we'll be so much better at the 4-3-3 that Stam will have enough confidence that we can overpower teams and wouldn't need to try and be so defensive.

I'd quite like to go back in time and set up against Huddersfield in our 4-3-3 and see what might have happened. With Beerens and Mcleary both starting and maybe get Kelly in there too.

[From Despair To Where?]

We focused on trying to win? Really? We seemed to focus far too much in not conceding. We didn't show enough attacking intent IMO. The front 5 were far too static.

[Ian Royal]

That's not how to play for me either. I want to see a passing style, been saying it for years. But I'd like a little zip and panache... a change of pace to turn on the style. I've seen bits and pieces of us do it this season, and in the past. But there was far too much backwards and forwards between centre backs to no purpose and at an almost walking pace.

At Wembley we shifted the ball slower than Huddersfield ran half the time. There were occasions where JVDB or Ilori were genuinely slowly walking forward with the ball looking for someone, anyone, to make any sort of movement.

We need pacier passes in amongst the slow it down stuff. Darts of energetic movement, passes across the pitch that cut out one or two players to shift the play quicker. More give and gos, rather than give and watches. We've got to be thinking two or three passes ahead. Too many balls into feet with the back to goal, control - bring back and we're at where we started again.

[From Despair To Where?]

We need to mix up the pace of the passing. That's how you force errors from the defence but it requires better movement. All Huddersfield had to do on Monday was drop back, and let us pass it about in front of them until we played the loose pass.

I think we all want to see a passing game but we need to be passing with purpose.

[Top Flight]

We need to mix up the pace of the passing. That's how you force errors from the defence but it requires better movement. All Huddersfield had to do on Monday was drop back, and let us pass it about in front of them until we played the loose pass.

I think we all want to see a passing game but we need to be passing with purpose.

There wasn't enough bravery against Huddersfield. It was similar against Fulham as well. You need the whole team to push forward together as a unit otherwise you are asking too much of Swift. Swift was poor against Fulham and again against Huddersfield because he had no options to play the ball to. The team were so defensive minded that they were leaving the attacking literally down to Swift, Grabban and Kermie. They had no chance against a deep lying Huddersfield side. This game was set up to be a stalemate.

Swift was poor because of the system, tactics and mentality to dig in and defend. Swift is great when he has team mates supporting him in the attack.

The question is, should we have approached the Huddersfield game with a totally different mentality? Should we have decided that we will have a go too. We will push up. We were too scared of conceding. Anyway, this was not a normal game of football. The league games next season will be nothing like this one off £300 million play off final.

I am looking at our passing game over the course of the season. We have been too slow alot of the time but we have also been consistently getting good results and our game will hopefully improve again next season as our players have become better and better at playing this game and more quality will be added.

[Muskrat]

OK so here's the thing. I like Jaap Stam, he's intelligent and erudite and obviously thinks deeply about the game. He has knowledge and experience at the highest level and is a qualified coach. Imagine how good we could be if he was to apply that knowledge and experience to assembling an attack minded team who took the game to the opposition with movement and width instead of trying to be the Ajax of the Championship and keeping pointless posession. Even though we finished third in the league and had a (albeit massively disappointing) day out at Wembley, I just can't get excited about next season if we're going to be set up and playing the same way. Call me a Luddite but that's just how I feel atm

[BraisingsteakRoyal]

I just can't get excited about next season if we're going to be set up and playing the same way. Call me a Luddite but that's just how I feel atm

You're not alone there Muskrat. I know two STH that have both commented how bored they've been this season with the way we play.

Is it a contributing factor to attendances declining?

[Scutterbucketz]

I'd rather eat my own eyes than watch another match like that again. I know there won't be many quite as negative as that over the course of a season, but just in case I'm never going again.

[From Despair To Where?]

We need to mix up the pace of the passing. That's how you force errors from the defence but it requires better movement. All Huddersfield had to do on Monday was drop back, and let us pass it about in front of them until we played the loose pass.

I think we all want to see a passing game but we need to be passing with purpose.

There wasn't enough bravery against Huddersfield. It was similar against Fulham as well. You need the whole team to push forward together as a unit otherwise you are asking too much of Swift. Swift was poor against Fulham and again against Huddersfield because he had no options to play the ball to. The team were so defensive minded that they were leaving the attacking literally down to Swift, Grabban and Kermie. They had no chance against a deep lying Huddersfield side. This game was set up to be a stalemate.

Swift was poor because of the system, tactics and mentality to dig in and defend. Swift is great when he has team mates supporting him in the attack.

The question is, should we have approached the Huddersfield game with a totally different mentality? Should we have decided that we will have a go too. We will push up. We were too scared of conceding. Anyway, this was not a normal game of football. The league games next season will be nothing like this one off £300 million play off final.

I am looking at our passing game over the course of the season. We have been too slow alot of the time but we have also been consistently getting good results and our game will hopefully improve again next season as our players have become better and better at playing this game and more quality will be added.

Or in other words, we were set up not to lose and far too static going forward.

I'm not criticising Stam, he's one year into a project and we're a world away from where we were a year ago. He's instilled the basics into a team but we need to evolve more of an attacking threat next season.

[Stevie G]

This season has been a re-education in football. I have learned about football all over again.

Admittedly at the start of the season, I was as frustrated and bored as much as anyone else watching our team retain possession and roll the ball around the back. But at Wembley, I felt that my education in the new Reading way of playing football has come a long way. Unbelievably some less educated Reading folk who were probably there on a day trip were acting like many of us at the beginning of the season. They couldn't understand why we didn't play with more pace, urgency and directness and were constantly calling us boring and critisizing all the way through the game. It was surreal listening to them considering we were battling out a play off final and had got there because of this new style of football.

As Huddersfield kept coming at us in the first half, I just wanted us to get on the ball and roll it around and keep it away from them for ten or so minutes and patiently move them around to create an opening. I was gagging for Stam's new style of football. I am now educated in the Reading way and I want to see the new Reading way of football. I actually love it now. It was like an acquired taste. But I have acquired it and I want more of it. I want us to get better at it obviously. But this is now how I want to see my team play it's football.

We should have been better at keeping the ball away from Huddersfield on Monday and we should have been braver. Especially in the second half. Huddersfield had used a lot of energy in the first half to no avail and were there for the taking in the second. We just had to be braver and go for it. Maybe we didn't have enough quality in the end to do something about it but with Billions of Yuan in the bank the team can be improved again over the summer. We should be going for the top 2 now. We weren't that far away this season. Another improvement and we could be serious contenders.

I can't bring myself to blame or critisize any of the team/players or management for the way it ended. I genuinely feel that they were immense and gave it everything. They couldn't have done anymore. Neither team could find a breakthrough. It was settled by the finest of margins in the end. The balance might have tipped in our favour. But it didn't.

The season has totally enthralled my 8 year old boy. These amazing last few weeks have got him so engrossed he now just talks, sings, chants about Reading FC all day. It is dominating his mind. He is getting boring to be honest. I need to find him something else to get excited about. But the excitement and adrenaline of the last few weeks of following Reading FC is difficult to match for a little boy.

Any absolutely top post Top Flight, I couldn't have put it better myself. I was starting to feel a bit alone by all the abject comments on the overall team performance at Wembley. Onwards and upwards and with Stam the man.