MATCHWATCH : Wigan Athletic (a)

[stealthpapes]

also, lol at their home end, reckon no more than 250-300 opposite.

[Brogue]

Attendance was somewhere in the region of 9k - 650 ish Reading fans

[Royal_jimmy]

Just back from that atrocious game of football. Definitely disappointed to lose we're losing our bite up front

[Millsy]

Highlight was Wigan PA announcer making a complete dogs bollocks of WiFi password when he came on

Like BBCRB do with every mention of his name

[windermereROYAL]

4 points behind Exeter with 2 home games against in form sides to come, then the pox and Stevenage away, not looking great is it.

[tidus_mi2]

It sucks, we probably didn't deserve to lose but we're also not very good so we're going to have games like that. Could the long gap have played a factor in the flat performance?

[WestYorksRoyal]

Not sure how different today's performance was to recent performances with better results. We don't have a clear style or identity to create chances; we've just had individuals producing moments of quality and today they didn't. Wigan weren't any better but they did.

Not saying our recent run was a load of false results, I think it's just how this league is.

[Snowflake Royal]

Not sure how different today's performance was to recent performances with better results. We don't have a clear style or identity to create chances; we've just had individuals producing moments of quality and today they didn't. Wigan weren't any better but they did.

Not saying our recent run was a load of false results, I think it's just how this league is.

Yeah, this.

[Sutekh]

Long trip to make without a hotel.

Bullshite drove Glasgow and back in a day, no probs.

Did Byron need a lift somewhere?

[blythspartan]

Well that was hours of travelling to watch a drab game. I thought a draw would have been a fair result because both teams were poor. We were on top in the second half, but were undone by one moment of brilliance in the first half.

I still don’t see any real pattern to our play which is frustrating. I’d rather have someone like the Cheltenham manager in charge who has simplified the game and the fans know what to expect each week.

Anyway, it’s like being in limbo atm and I can’t get too excited by a win or too down by a loss. As our existence is at stake the results have become immaterial.

[WestYorksRoyal]

4 points adrift. Obviously the points deduction in significant, but that dire run of 1 point from 8 between Bolton and Wycombe is looking fatal for our season. Even averaging 1 point per game and we'd be going through this off field crisis from relative safety.

[stealthpapes]

Not sure how different today's performance was to recent performances with better results. We don't have a clear style or identity to create chances; we've just had individuals producing moments of quality and today they didn't. Wigan weren't any better but they did.

Not saying our recent run was a load of false results, I think it's just how this league is.

Yeah, this.

kinda disagree, at least based on recent away games and particularly the run from November to December in the league.

One thing we barely did yesterday was push Smith deep into the channels, trying to stretch play.

I still don’t see any real pattern to our play which is frustrating.

Again, kinda disagree. I think we clearly had a plan yesterday, which was to keep possession, work the ball wide and put low crosses into box. This was much more like how we played in the first few away games.

This adds to my frustration as, once Wigan went 1 up, their game plan was easy to set up and easy to implement and we didn't have the variety - in pace, in directness, in style, in aggression - to make them have to do anything different.

[Clyde1998]

Well that was hours of travelling to watch a drab game. I thought a draw would have been a fair result because both teams were poor. We were on top in the second half, but were undone by one moment of brilliance in the first half.

I still don’t see any real pattern to our play which is frustrating. I’d rather have someone like the Cheltenham manager in charge who has simplified the game and the fans know what to expect each week.

Anyway, it’s like being in limbo atm and I can’t get too excited by a win or too down by a loss. As our existence is at stake the results have become immaterial.

That's basically my summation too - neither side really deserved to win. Their goal was a great finish, although we shouldn't be giving anyone that amount of time on the edge of the box to get a shot away (as we've done far too often this season). Like the Brighton Trophy game, we had a lot of pressure but never looked too threatening.

Would say our crossing was really poor. I don't know how many balls we put into the box, but most seemed to go straight to the first defender and those which didn't were mostly far too deep.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Well that was hours of travelling to watch a drab game. I thought a draw would have been a fair result because both teams were poor. We were on top in the second half, but were undone by one moment of brilliance in the first half.

I still don’t see any real pattern to our play which is frustrating. I’d rather have someone like the Cheltenham manager in charge who has simplified the game and the fans know what to expect each week.

Anyway, it’s like being in limbo atm and I can’t get too excited by a win or too down by a loss. As our existence is at stake the results have become immaterial.

I think I do know what to expect from us each week really, I don't see many games where we don't play that much differently each week. I think yesterday was just one of those games where we just lacked quality in front of goal, it happens. In recent results/performances, it was certainly an off day.

Agree though there are seemingly more important matters than the on-field results at the moment.

[Royal_jimmy]

Highlight of the visit was the number of Port Vale fans who joined us. Classy that.

[Snowflake Royal]

Well that was hours of travelling to watch a drab game. I thought a draw would have been a fair result because both teams were poor. We were on top in the second half, but were undone by one moment of brilliance in the first half.

I still don’t see any real pattern to our play which is frustrating. I’d rather have someone like the Cheltenham manager in charge who has simplified the game and the fans know what to expect each week.

Anyway, it’s like being in limbo atm and I can’t get too excited by a win or too down by a loss. As our existence is at stake the results have become immaterial.

I think I do know what to expect from us each week really, I don't see many games where we don't play that much differently each week. I think yesterday was just one of those games where we just lacked quality in front of goal, it happens. In recent results/performances, it was certainly an off day.

Agree though there are seemingly more important matters than the on-field results at the moment.

We've seen a couple of times that we struggle to score when we are dominant in possession against a prepared defence.

We're much more suited to breaking quick on teams and Selles has taken half a season to work out plan A, so expecting a plan B is probably a little much.

And we've been too reliant on screamers. Wing, Azeez and Savage have all hit some bangers. But they're not going to do it week in week out.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Well that was hours of travelling to watch a drab game. I thought a draw would have been a fair result because both teams were poor. We were on top in the second half, but were undone by one moment of brilliance in the first half.

I still don’t see any real pattern to our play which is frustrating. I’d rather have someone like the Cheltenham manager in charge who has simplified the game and the fans know what to expect each week.

Anyway, it’s like being in limbo atm and I can’t get too excited by a win or too down by a loss. As our existence is at stake the results have become immaterial.

I think I do know what to expect from us each week really, I don't see many games where we don't play that much differently each week. I think yesterday was just one of those games where we just lacked quality in front of goal, it happens. In recent results/performances, it was certainly an off day.

Agree though there are seemingly more important matters than the on-field results at the moment.

We've seen a couple of times that we struggle to score when we are dominant in possession against a prepared defence.

We're much more suited to breaking quick on teams and Selles has taken half a season to work out plan A, so expecting a plan B is probably a little much.

And we've been too reliant on screamers. Wing, Azeez and Savage have all hit some bangers. But they're not going to do it week in week out.

I think a lot of teams would be though, opposition defence out of shape, more space to exploit etc. Although I do agree, we don't have too many players capable on unlocking a defence with a pass, the only one I can really think of is Wing really.