F.A.O SHANE LONG

[mahoj002]

the whole team was awful. wasnt even worth the £1 i paid. what a load of bolluks. they think that they can get in the 1st tream???? your havin a laugh

[Drive On]

You are entitled to your opinion but let's bear in mind that this team do not play together regularly and for the first 30 minutes were pretty poor.

However you could clearly see the improvement as the game went on, Blakey got his old touches back. Mate and Bikey became more confident and De Cruz started pushing on.

I agree that most of them apart from Gunnarsson and Little need more practice before being ready for first team

[Nick Shorey my Lord!]

the whole team was awful. wasnt even worth the £1 i paid. what a load of bolluks. they think that they can get in the 1st tream???? your havin a laugh

You paid a quid to see a game that we won.

Tell me what the problem with that is.

[Uke]

I do know about football though..

Name the 1970 England squad without looking it up then...

[Ginger Ninjas]

the whole team was awful. wasnt even worth the £1 i paid. what a load of bolluks. they think that they can get in the 1st tream???? your havin a laugh

You paid a quid to see a game that we won.

Tell me what the problem with that is.

Plus six goals and the chance to see some different players. Provided about as much entertainment as half a season would have done about six or seven years ago.

[Stranded]

Long needs games, simple as that.

You can tell there is something about him but without playing 90 mins week in, week out he is not going to develop. I do feel we missed a trick by not getting another striker in this summer as it would have freed up the space to let Long go off to Sheff Wed or somewhere like that and play.

[Barry the bird boggler]

However you could clearly see the improvement as the game went on, Blakey got his old touches back. Mate and Bikey became more confident and De Cruz started pushing on.

That's because they started to tire and then had a player sent off....

[West Stand Man]

You are amazing, this guy deserves man of match tonight, he tried and tried and tried and never gave up. Put in 110%, was one of the best players on the pitch

Mrs Butler.... i think has now become Mrs Long but name won't change until we are married

Did you actually go to the game? I am a great fan of Long's and always welcome his appearance off the bench for first team league games - but last night was not one of his best performances. He was out thought and out muscled for 90% of the game.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

For God's sake please stay fit Lita and Doyle!

I'm sure if we'd swapped Doyle for Long rather than Lita we'd have wrapped it up within the 90.

agreed

Wholeheartedly disagree with that to be honest.

I thought Long was causing them problems all night. Some great turns and some very quick runs. Lita scored two, fair enough. One from an open goal that he still tried to miss by shooting back towards the diving keeper and one fantastic turn & shot. Besides that I thought he looked pretty incompetent for much of the game, first touch still atrocious and he has the turning circle and speed of a fully laden articulated lorry.

The whole team was generally poor, although Little and Hunt grew as the game went on and were running them ragged towards the end. Oster I thought had a great game in midfield, making some good runs and spraying around a lot of simple passes, as well as setting up some good attacks.

Personally I would crap myself to see Mate or Halls names on the team sheet for a first team game. Halls was getting skinned by league 2 players at every opportunity and Mate was just slow and kept going through the backs of players to get the ball. Not impressed.

[mahoj002]

the whole team was awful. wasnt even worth the £1 i paid. what a load of bolluks. they think that they can get in the 1st tream???? your havin a laugh

You paid a quid to see a game that we won.

Tell me what the problem with that is.

Plus six goals and the chance to see some different players. Provided about as much entertainment as half a season would have done about six or seven years ago.

The game was shit

[Maguire]

I'm looking forward to seeing Maguire kick the shit out of Shane Long.

Mr Nasty is definitely going to come out of his box in light of this.

[MartinRdg]

However you could clearly see the improvement as the game went on, Blakey got his old touches back. Mate and Bikey became more confident and De Cruz started pushing on.

That's because they started to tire and then had a player sent off....

After 30 minutes?

[Basingstoke Royal]

Only two players stood out as potential first team players last night.

John Oster in central midfield and De La Cruz, everyone else had shocking games apart from maybe Lita.

[MartinRdg]

Only two players stood out as potential first team players last night.

John Oster in central midfield and De La Cruz, everyone else had shocking games apart from maybe Lita.

I thought Little looked very rusty and then tried too hard - bearing in mind he hasn't played a full game since April this was not surprising. He needs a couple of reserve/cup games under his belt and then should be back to his best.

[TFF]

Long needs games, simple as that.

You can tell there is something about him but without playing 90 mins week in, week out he is not going to develop. I do feel we missed a trick by not getting another striker in this summer as it would have freed up the space to let Long go off to Sheff Wed or somewhere like that and play.

Sheff Wed? They'd have to arrange accomodation and a job for his mum too. Expect a loan move to Wycombe in January.

[Stranded]

Long needs games, simple as that.

You can tell there is something about him but without playing 90 mins week in, week out he is not going to develop. I do feel we missed a trick by not getting another striker in this summer as it would have freed up the space to let Long go off to Sheff Wed or somewhere like that and play.

Sheff Wed? They'd have to arrange accomodation and a job for his mum too. Expect a loan move to Wycombe in January.

Only mentioned them as they were reportedly interested in taking him a couple of weeks back.

[anR]

I'm looking forward to seeing Maguire kick the shit out of Shane Long.

Mr Nasty is definitely going to come out of his box in light of this.

Are you sure you don't fancy the 'Poster Formerly Known As Mrs Butler'?

[BeastOfWinnersh]

My view overall was dissapointment.
I could understand the regular first teamers and bench warmers not going in too strong so avoiding injury, but the other fringe players did not put themselves in a position to push the first team.

I do appreciate they have not played together and do know each others play etc, but the commitment and passion was also missing.
We got done for pace at the back so many times I lost count.
De la cruz is no cover for left back - he did look good on occasions but has no left foot and always cut inside. Think he'll do much better at right back though which is his postion. Mate passed the ball away far too often and Bikey was suspect on a number of occasions as well.
More reserve playing time should see them improve though (I hope).

Funny thing so may people were blaming the ref and linemen for our lack of creativity and then Darlington trying to waste time - why not, the keeper was entitled not to pick the ball up until one of out plyers closed him and made him pick it up.
The ref made some errors but not as many as people were suggesting.

Lets face it they had 10 men for the last 15 of normal time and for the whole of extra time and we still couldn't finish them off.
Darlington can feel unlucky to lose I reckon. They gifted us our first and our third looked like hand ball to me (I may be wrong).

Let hope we have no major first team injuries and/or not too many of them.

[RG30]

Until Long is sent out on-loan to develop his talent, he isn't much use to us. He's a fantastic prospect but needs 1st team football as the Reserves ain't going to get the best out of him.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

Long needs to develop his touch. Hes good in the air, quick, combative but he looked very raw last night - more like a reserve forward for Cork than a reserve forward for a Premiership team.

I actually think his future is more in central midfield given his engine as he doesnt look a natural goalscorer. But his touch will need to improve for that as well