MATCHWATCH : Rotherham United (h)

[leon]

Not exactly very informative as a comment goes, leon. Whatever it's supposed to mean, it's one game.

He scored to give us the point.

Well yes but it was an example where he changed that one game.

Sorry to add to the conversation.

edit: it was Norwich not Blackburn

[Hound]

Can't say I saw a whole lot of anything from Garcia.

He looked lively and wanted the ball but didn’t do anything hugely significant

[leon]

Can't say I saw a whole lot of anything from Garcia.

He drove forward a bit from the left. Showed some attacking intent sorely lacking elsewhere. Showed for the ball didn’t get it much as we were preferring the threat from our centre backs passing to each other

[Sutekh]

A team much higher in the table? You mean 4 more points more than us having played one more game. How our expectations are falling. Remember we were at home.
Agree on the desperate need for a striker though.

Seven places higher, yes.

Not sure what your point is, you could jump up 5 or 6 places with a win in this league. Peterborough beat 2nd place Stockport the other night. Don't see where a point at home to a team with 4 extra points is a good result.

It isn’t, it is very marginally better than getting a home point off a team in about the same position who haven’t beaten Reading for over 40 years though so perhaps there is some very slow improvement but the management need to show clear and obvious advances especially when they get 2 weeks clear to prepare. They haven’t and the next few weeks things get a bit disjointed with games all over the place….

Sat 29 Nov - Blackpool (a)
Sat 06 Dec - no game/free weekend
Tue 09 Dec - Peterborough United (h)
Sat 13 Dec - Bradford City (a)
Thu 18 Dec - Luton Town (h)
Sat 20 Dec - no game/free weekend
Fri 26 Dec - Plymouth Argyle (a)
Mon 29 Dec - Peterborough United (a)
Thu 01 Jan - Burton Albion (h)
Sun 04 Jan - Stockport County (h)
Sat 10 Jan - Mansfield Town (a) **
Sat 17 Jan - Leyton Orient (a)

** Game will be postponed if Mansfield beat Accrington in the FA Cup 2nd round.

There’s also a trip to Wigan that might get slotted into some midweek somewhere (if Mansfield win v Accrington and Wigan lose to Barrow in the FAC then there would be scope for Reading to play the league game at Wigan on 10th January).

[Snowflake Royal]

Can't say I saw a whole lot of anything from Garcia.

He looked lively and wanted the ball but didn’t do anything hugely significant

Thought the game was crying out for Kyerewaa

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Seven places higher, yes.

Not sure what your point is, you could jump up 5 or 6 places with a win in this league. Peterborough beat 2nd place Stockport the other night. Don't see where a point at home to a team with 4 extra points is a good result.

It isn’t, it is very marginally better than getting a home point off a team in about the same position who haven’t beaten Reading for over 40 years though so perhaps there is some very slow improvement but the management need to show clear and obvious advances especially when they get 2 weeks clear to prepare. They haven’t and the next few weeks things get a bit disjointed with games all over the place….

Sat 29 Nov - Blackpool (a)
Sat 06 Dec - no game/free weekend
Tue 09 Dec - Peterborough United (h)
Sat 13 Dec - Bradford City (a)
Thu 18 Dec - Luton Town (h)
Sat 20 Dec - no game/free weekend
Fri 26 Dec - Plymouth Argyle (a)
Mon 29 Dec - Peterborough United (a)
Thu 01 Jan - Burton Albion (h)
Sun 04 Jan - Stockport County (h)
Sat 10 Jan - Mansfield Town (a) **
Sat 17 Jan - Leyton Orient (a)

** Game will be postponed if Mansfield beat Accrington in the FA Cup 2nd round.

There’s also a trip to Wigan that might get slotted into some midweek somewhere (if Mansfield win v Accrington and Wigan lose to Barrow in the FAC then there would be scope for Reading to play the league game at Wigan on 10th January).

Don’t let facts get in the way of a moan from some!

[Hound]

Can't say I saw a whole lot of anything from Garcia.

He looked lively and wanted the ball but didn’t do anything hugely significant

Thought the game was crying out for Kyerewaa

Hmmm

Tbf I’ve never said he couldn’t be quite an effective sub to bring on in such a game

[stealthpapes]

Semi-serious Richardson OUT comments will be posted on here by January.

Same squad, reset the clock on it starting to gel, many of the problems are injury/fitness related rather than competency related so even if new team fix them it will take time to see positive results.

But we weren’t shit and Savage scored a belter, so …

[leon]

Semi-serious Richardson OUT comments will be posted on here by January.

Same squad, reset the clock on it starting to gel, many of the problems are injury/fitness related rather than competency related so even if new team fix them it will take time to see positive results.

But we weren’t shit and Savage scored a belter, so …

we lack basic movement in midfield / up front.

[Hound]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

[leon]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

a fair summary - LR has his work cut out shaping this team and changing some of the behaviours.

[stealthpapes]

Semi-serious Richardson OUT comments will be posted on here by January.

Same squad, reset the clock on it starting to gel, many of the problems are injury/fitness related rather than competency related so even if new team fix them it will take time to see positive results.

But we weren’t shit and Savage scored a belter, so …

we lack basic movement in midfield / up front.

We got rid of Hunt. Sun-lit uplands ahead!

[stealthpapes]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

Sarcasm and contempt for my fellow Biscuitmen aside, yeah, agree with most of that.

Just think it’s going to be a slow and steady job (slower and steadier, now) and I’m not sure there is the patience for it.

[South Coast Royal]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

There will always be those that criticise blindly if we don't win games but on here (one can always hope) the comments are generally more considered and people are looking for reasons.

Unfortunately on Saturday once again when there has been a biggish crowd with some newbies and kids looking for entertainment we produced a rather sterile performance with so much "possession" but in the wrong areas.
I thought , with even greater injury concerns than us, Rotherham were quite a decent mid-table 3rd division side ,very well organised and not anything like the long ball Rotherham sides of the past and they thoroughly deserved the draw.

The manager and some posters on here spoke of us controlling the game-as I see it "controlling" is using the ball in all areas of the pitch whereas our possession and control took place in our own half and Rotherham just dropped off.
Very early days for Leam and his staff and we will know more about any change in style in the coming weeks but Saturday was just another Hunt game with slightly less long balls to nowhere in particular.

[leon]

Semi-serious Richardson OUT comments will be posted on here by January.

Same squad, reset the clock on it starting to gel, many of the problems are injury/fitness related rather than competency related so even if new team fix them it will take time to see positive results.

But we weren’t shit and Savage scored a belter, so …

we lack basic movement in midfield / up front.

We got rid of Hunt. Sun-lit uplands ahead!

not sure that's what i'm saying. We've always had poor movement throughout the team.

[Hound]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

There will always be those that criticise blindly if we don't win games but on here (one can always hope) the comments are generally more considered and people are looking for reasons.

Unfortunately on Saturday once again when there has been a biggish crowd with some newbies and kids looking for entertainment we produced a rather sterile performance with so much "possession" but in the wrong areas.
I thought , with even greater injury concerns than us, Rotherham were quite a decent mid-table 3rd division side ,very well organised and not anything like the long ball Rotherham sides of the past and they thoroughly deserved the draw.

The manager and some posters on here spoke of us controlling the game-as I see it "controlling" is using the ball in all areas of the pitch whereas our possession and control took place in our own half and Rotherham just dropped off.
Very early days for Leam and his staff and we will know more about any change in style in the coming weeks but Saturday was just another Hunt game with slightly less long balls to nowhere in particular.

There may have been some that I can’t remember - but what game this year did we dominate stats to the degree we did on Saturday under Hunt? Yes Rotherham were half decent as you’d expect and barely got in sight of our goal. And they were only leading for about half the game, so not like they totally shut up shop

I actually thought we were more long ball than usual

[Snowflake Royal]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

Of course. It won’t stop the Richardson Out posts though.

[Snowflake Royal]

Obvs people on here and esp crappy Twitter were going to be negative etc after the game, but I’m not totally sure what people were expecting. Suddenly start pinging the ball round like prime Barcelona and smashing every team we come across?

Same basic issues are there - lack of a suitable striker, too many poor and slow passes, conceding soft goals. LR not going to suddenly wave a magic wand and fix that

Truth is we dominated a side who have been on a fine run who had a very specific defensive gameplan - they had 1 shot on target and only 9 touches inside our penalty area. We weren’t amazing but created enough, KE had two very good chances, should have had a clear penalty and basically looked pretty solid.

Obvs work to be done but it was progress imo. Under Hunt the result may have been similar but even a team as poor as Donny had 8 shots on target and 23 touches in our area. We look a lot more solid and disciplined

Of course. It won’t stop the Richardson Out posts though.

The trolls have already started, and others quickly flock to them.