MATCHWATCH : Millwall (a)

[NewCorkSeth]

They were good the season before last. Was anyone good last season? Sometimes good players just perform badly.

Rino played less than half the games and when he came back from injury some of the first comments were how obviously we'd missed him.

I stand by Laurent as an excellent player too.

The coaching and set up was the problem. Along with Drinkwater being a walking counterattack and TDB being misused too deep.

Be interesting to see how they get on with their new clubs. Certainly don’t think either were bad players and agree the set up under Pauno was rotten and didn’t get the best out of them

On the other hand think the fanbase over rated them both, esp Rino. Laurent would have fitted well into this team - pace and power and Ince and co may have curbed his Ill discipline positionally and tendency to lose the ball

Rino just isn’t enough of anything for me. Do wonder how hard we tried to keep him, he wouldn’t get into the current side. Too small to be an enforcer, not a great passer, not a creator and wasn’t a great defensive shield either.

Swift going potentially a blessing in disguise. Quality player but much prefer the hard running of Ince, and aren’t giving up a lot on set pieces with him taking over either. Actually working out well

Funny, I thought both were just victims of circumstance. Both were B2B mids forced to play deep. When Laurent was pushed further forward it just left a huge hole.

[Snowflake Royal]

They were good the season before last. Was anyone good last season? Sometimes good players just perform badly.

Rino played less than half the games and when he came back from injury some of the first comments were how obviously we'd missed him.

I stand by Laurent as an excellent player too.

The coaching and set up was the problem. Along with Drinkwater being a walking counterattack and TDB being misused too deep.

Be interesting to see how they get on with their new clubs. Certainly don’t think either were bad players and agree the set up under Pauno was rotten and didn’t get the best out of them

On the other hand think the fanbase over rated them both, esp Rino. Laurent would have fitted well into this team - pace and power and Ince and co may have curbed his Ill discipline positionally and tendency to lose the bal

Rino just isn’t enough of anything for me. Do wonder how hard we tried to keep him, he wouldn’t get into the current side. Too small to be an enforcer, not a great passer, not a creator and wasn’t a great defensive shield either.

Swift going potentially a blessing in disguise. Quality player but much prefer the hard running of Ince, and aren’t giving up a lot on set pieces with him taking over either. Actually working out well

We'll obviously have to wait and see.

Loum looks a better fit as an out and out DM, Fornah seems a more complete player than Rino on his few showings, though took a few games to warm up. Hendrick so far looks a little less good than Laurent, but different roles, certainly to Rino.

Rino's strengths were in the middle third. Simple balls, dropping a shoulder to charge forward into some space, chasing back, hassling and strategic fouls.

Hendrick is like a cut price Drinkwater with a flattened performance curve. Way fewer great and terrible moments. Much more reliable.

What's absolutely key is that they play together, in a system that is working and well put together. For me, that's the biggest difference.

Though why anyone would want to keep looking back and bringing Rino / Laurent up when we can just say thanks, wish them well and follow their careers with interets, dunno. We should be looking forward at our future.

[Hound]

Well yeah that’s fair enough. Concentrate on the here and now.

Though would love us to finish above Cardiff, Stoke and WBA of course, with one eye on those 3 leaving us.

But more than happy with the current midfield. Need to stay fit and if Luongo comes in that gives us something a little different

[tidus_mi2]

Well yeah that’s fair enough. Concentrate on the here and now.

Though would love us to finish above Cardiff, Stoke and WBA of course, with one eye on those 3 leaving us.

But more than happy with the current midfield. Need to stay fit and if Luongo comes in that gives us something a little different

Yeah I too feel it would be great to get one up on those who left us for "better" Championship rivals, not as extreme as the way Matt Mills left for Leicester but it is in a similar vein.

[URZZZZ]

Well yeah that’s fair enough. Concentrate on the here and now.

Though would love us to finish above Cardiff, Stoke and WBA of course, with one eye on those 3 leaving us.

But more than happy with the current midfield. Need to stay fit and if Luongo comes in that gives us something a little different

Said last summer that losing Swift won’t be the blow that a lot of people envisaged. For two reasons, his tendency to blow extremely hot and cold (something West Brom fans have already picked up on) and our tendency to have no real tactic offensively other than pass to Swift and hope he pulls something out of the bag. Ejaria is another one. It’s refreshing not just relying on individual pieces of play to win us games

We’ve become a lot more varied, a lot less one dimensional and as a result, a much more refined and competitive team

[NewCorkSeth]

Well yeah that’s fair enough. Concentrate on the here and now.

Though would love us to finish above Cardiff, Stoke and WBA of course, with one eye on those 3 leaving us.

But more than happy with the current midfield. Need to stay fit and if Luongo comes in that gives us something a little different

Huge +1.

[Hound]

Well yeah that’s fair enough. Concentrate on the here and now.

Though would love us to finish above Cardiff, Stoke and WBA of course, with one eye on those 3 leaving us.

But more than happy with the current midfield. Need to stay fit and if Luongo comes in that gives us something a little different

Said last summer that losing Swift won’t be the blow that a lot of people envisaged. For two reasons, his tendency to blow extremely hot and cold (something West Brom fans have already picked up on) and our tendency to have no real tactic offensively other than pass to Swift and hope he pulls something out of the bag. Ejaria is another one. It’s refreshing not just relying on individual pieces of play to win us games

We’ve become a lot more varied, a lot less one dimensional and as a result, a much more refined and competitive team

I know i would say this but think Ejaria is probably a lot more versatile than Swift. Could 100% see him in this midfield and he had a decent game vs cardiff. He has the pace and physicality where swift doesn’t

Definitely feel the ‘team’ is better without Swift.

I think Ince is becoming very key to it though, just hope we aren’t building a reliance on him busting a gut every game

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Another solid performance yesterday, pleased all around really. Agree with Ince, the margin of victory should have been even greater with the chances we've missed and in general we've restricted a side that is notoriously strong at home to few chances really which is something we can be pleased of, some last ditch defending at times going a long way to stopping that as well.

Pleased for Lumley and the whole defence after the Rotherham debacle, 3 wins and clean sheets on the bounce will be doing wonders for their confidence.

Big learning curve for Dai as well. It's still early doors but it just goes to show what you can try and build with precious little, free transfers and spending within your means. Still a long way to go and they'll be bad spells of form to come but, let's enjoy the good times whilst we have them, but the platform we are building seems like we are going to be competitive and an awkward side for anyone in this league to play against. Finally our team is starting to mould into a team that is suited to the Championship, unlike previous years.

[Scutterbucketz]

I’ve put £20 on a win at 4-1. Had Reading to win last week, but ruined the bet by also having Everton to beat Forest. Not going to spoil it today.

0-2 Reading if I had to guess the score.

Cheers Scutts I followed you on this. Couldn’t listen to the 7 mins injury time!
I’ve just reinvested a small portion on the Sheff Utd game at 5/1. I’m not at all confident that we will repeat the feat but I think the bookies have priced it wrong (again).

4/1 just seemed to good to miss. I took the missus and mother in law out for dinner on the winnings. Will have another go at 5/1 for sure.

[paultheroyal]

They were good the season before last. Was anyone good last season? Sometimes good players just perform badly.

Rino played less than half the games and when he came back from injury some of the first comments were how obviously we'd missed him.

I stand by Laurent as an excellent player too.

The coaching and set up was the problem. Along with Drinkwater being a walking counterattack and TDB being misused too deep.

Be interesting to see how they get on with their new clubs. Certainly don’t think either were bad players and agree the set up under Pauno was rotten and didn’t get the best out of them

On the other hand think the fanbase over rated them both, esp Rino. Laurent would have fitted well into this team - pace and power and Ince and co may have curbed his Ill discipline positionally and tendency to lose the ball

Rino just isn’t enough of anything for me. Do wonder how hard we tried to keep him, he wouldn’t get into the current side. Too small to be an enforcer, not a great passer, not a creator and wasn’t a great defensive shield either.

Swift going potentially a blessing in disguise. Quality player but much prefer the hard running of Ince, and aren’t giving up a lot on set pieces with him taking over either. Actually working out well

Yep, summed up better than I could.

[From Despair To Where?]

Surprised the “aficionados” on here have not related the cost of the team this season with that of 2005.

OK. Very, very early days this season but uncanny, if a very different set of circumstances, the similarities (at least in cost). Can someone list/post the equivalent fees (loans)

Just proves the point and value of investing in the hungry (etc) rather than the overpaid, over fancied, over priced mercenaries we have favoured in previous years.

WNG

You'd have to adjust for inflation, but from memory from 2005/6:

Hahnemann - £0
Murty ~ £600k
Shorey ~ £60k
Ingimarsson ~ £150k
Sonko - £0?
Harper ~£400k
Sidwell ~£600k
Little ~£0?
Convey ~£800k
Lita ~£1m
Kitson ~£150k

Pretty much correct, think Shorey was 25k though. Murty at the time was an equal club record at £700k. Sidwell was undisclosed so no clue how accurate £600k is.

The 2005/06 team was cheap in comparison to the rest of the league but by our standards, Murty was the second highest transfer paid at the time (IIRC, Caskey cost £800k) Sidwell was pretty much up there as well and both Convey and Lita were record or joint record signings.

I guess with our current squad, Joao cost £5m? and Ejaria cost £3m.Chuck in Moore and Puscas as they are technically still our players and you're looking at maybe 3 of our 5 highest transfer fees ever paid in the squad.

However, considering those 4 players have been with the club 3+ years, the job Bowen and Ince have done building a squad from the ground up for nothing that is capable of competing well in this league, its remarkable what they have done in little more than 3 months.

This is even more so when you consider we're basically recruiting from a pool of players deemed not good enough elsewhere. The loan signings have been excellent as well. What has struck me though is that we have very much recruited according to need. Even with a couple of gaps in the squad,it is the leanest and most balanced it's been in years.


I wouldn't want to be permenantly operating under an embargo but I think there's a lot we've done this summer that should be taken forward as a basis for future recruitment.

[Chameleon]

It was nice to see a Reading team that are tough barstewards to break down and run at - although Holmes is likely to give away quite a few pens this season playing like that, albeit neither of their shouts were particularly strong yesterday.

First run of 3 consecutive clean sheets for 18 months is a big tick, and with Sarr in the side as well we're going to be a very tricky team to try and defeat via going wide and corners.

Ince once again ran himself ragged, I'd love to see how many kms he runs a match, must be up there with the most in the division. While his first few set pieces were very poor he was good from then on.

As intoxicating as the current league position is, when we hit bad patches we must remember that staying up is the goal - come the end of the season we'll be out of the EFL straightjacket with very few key players out of contract.

[Franchise FC]

It was nice to see a Reading team that are tough barstewards to break down and run at - although Holmes is likely to give away quite a few pens this season playing like that, albeit neither of their shouts were particularly strong yesterday.

First run of 3 consecutive clean sheets for 18 months is a big tick, and with Sarr in the side as well we're going to be a very tricky team to try and defeat via going wide and corners.

Ince once again ran himself ragged, I'd love to see how many kms he runs a match, must be up there with the most in the division. While his first few set pieces were very poor he was good from then on.

As intoxicating as the current league position is, when we hit bad patches we must remember that staying up is the goal - come the end of the season we'll be out of the EFL straightjacket with very few key players out of contract.

You are PInce AICMFP

[Ascotexgunner]

We should do "most bitterest fans" league.
I would say Millwall are right close to top. Boy what a bitter bunch.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

You'd have to adjust for inflation, but from memory from 2005/6:

Hahnemann - £0
Murty ~ £600k
Shorey ~ £60k
Ingimarsson ~ £150k
Sonko - £0?
Harper ~£400k
Sidwell ~£600k
Little ~£0?
Convey ~£800k
Lita ~£1m
Kitson ~£150k

Pretty much correct, think Shorey was 25k though. Murty at the time was an equal club record at £700k. Sidwell was undisclosed so no clue how accurate £600k is.

The 2005/06 team was cheap in comparison to the rest of the league but by our standards, Murty was the second highest transfer paid at the time (IIRC, Caskey cost £800k) Sidwell was pretty much up there as well and both Convey and Lita were record or joint record signings.
This is even more so when you consider we're basically recruiting from a pool of players deemed not good enough elsewhere. The loan signings have been excellent as well. What has struck me though is that we have very much recruited according to need. Even with a couple of gaps in the squad,it is the leanest and most balanced it's been in years.


I wouldn't want to be permenantly operating under an embargo but I think there's a lot we've done this summer that should be taken forward as a basis for future recruitment.

Yep. Touched on this above myself about how spending within our means can lead to successful results. Early days and I'm still expecting some tough times ahead, but if by say games 15-20 or so we are sitting in mid table, we could be in for quite a decent season overall.

The players we have recruited thus far certainly aren't poor by any means and whoever comes through the door between now and Thursday I'd trust to be good additions to the squad. It just shows how far a proper set up can go. In Pauno's defence, it's something he desperately lacked (in terms of a proper recruitment set up and a "Sporting Director" role) which I think showed in his and team's performance, but it's something we've got now and it's paying dividends for us at the moment.

[Hendo]

We should do "most bitterest fans" league.
I would say Millwall are right close to top. Boy what a bitter bunch.

At least Millwall admitted they were garbage, would put Middlesborough at the top of the league.