BFTG Wigan

[Sutekh]

Another game against Wigan at home and overall yet another pile of stinky stuff though possibly more arrived at through a lack of a rub of the green rather than just the usual ineptness, at least Reading had the decency to relegate the ghastly northern tosspots though it’s going to be a real Houdini act not to have these sods back again next year.

First half hour or so Reading looked bright but after that it started to fade into the usual disappointing failure to achieve very much at all. Although he gave all I thought sticking Long out on the right was just daft and a waste of what he can bring to a game, Joao I thought was struggling throughout but Casadei, McIntyre and Yiadom were superb while NGW showed yet again why he should have had more time rather than Rahman.

As usual with these games, especially against Wigan, Reading started to look shakier and shakier as the game wore on and managing just one good chance in the first half was a pathetic return for all the good effort put in, but then that’s been the problem this season and even more so at the tail end with no Carroll and Ince.

Second half was poor and quite how that Wigan player put that shot straight at Lumley when even Joao would have scored is beyond me, not that it mattered moments later of course.

At least Hunt had the intelligence to replace Long with Azeez who is much more suited to wing play and consequently Reading at least finished strongly and scrambled that equaliser in.

Now it’s a straight three way battle. Really need wins for Cardiff, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United in the next week and then it’ll still be in Reading’s hands on bank holiday Monday - and a draw might even be enough to make it which would be a brilliant position to be in given the terrific away form the club are currently dragging behind them!

[JR]

We relegated two teams with that Yak goal.

Why not make it a hat-trick on Coronation Monday?

As a club of unique records, has one club ever been (semi) directly responsible for relegating all 3 clubs below them?

[LUX]

We relegated two teams with that Yak goal.

Why not make it a hat-trick on Coronation Monday?

As a club of unique records, has one club ever been (semi) directly responsible for relegating all 3 clubs below them?

Not sure that is correct, Blackpool were relegated already

[Brogue]

Disappointing

[JR]

We relegated two teams with that Yak goal.

Why not make it a hat-trick on Coronation Monday?

As a club of unique records, has one club ever been (semi) directly responsible for relegating all 3 clubs below them?

Not sure that is correct, Blackpool were relegated already

I shall get my coat. Apologies.

Still directly relegating two clubs will be fun.

[Royal_jimmy]

That was league one quality football today, no cutting edge. Didn't look like scoring and no magic.

12 games without a win and 5 consecutive draws at home shows that we deserve relegation.

[JR]

I thought we were decent today.

Crowd were great and a big part in the equaliser.

It showed up our lack of confidence going forward and also lack of creative player in the middle.

Liked McIntyre in CDM and didn’t mind the team selection to bring on the semi fit Meite and youth late on.

Felt for Shane - clear lack of match sharpness and not his ideal position. Nobody more frustrated than himself.

[tmesis]

That was league one quality football today, no cutting edge. Didn't look like scoring and no magic.

12 games without a win and 5 consecutive draws at home shows that we deserve relegation.

It's too depressing to check, but I'm sure we haven't scored more than one goal in any of those 12 games either.

Watching the team lately, I don't wonder how we have gone 12 without a win, but more how on earth we managed to win 13 of the games before that run.

[tmesis]

Felt for Shane - clear lack of match sharpness and not his ideal position. Nobody more frustrated than himself.

I feel sorry for him, but he's been a terrible signing, one made on emotion rather than reason. One goal (a penalty?) in twenty nine games is approaching Paul Brayson levels of ineptitude.

[SCIAG]

I've been RTGs up to this point but I think we're toast now. Ah well.

In my opinion Hunt is not up to the job in the long run. He's always seemed to be a good man-manager when I've seen him with the kids but tactically he's not got it. Long wasn't a winger at his best and certainly isn't now (although he's also not much of a striker). Not sure how attractive we would be to a decent external appointment though.

Azeez needs to be starting, especially with Ince and Ejaria out injured. One of the few players who can create chances.

Slightly underwhelmed by Casadei, he was good today but when we went recruiting in January we needed someone with more to offer. He's not yet on the level of Norwood or Baker.

[Snowflake Royal]

We relegated two teams with that Yak goal.

Why not make it a hat-trick on Coronation Monday?

As a club of unique records, has one club ever been (semi) directly responsible for relegating all 3 clubs below them?

Not sure that is correct, Blackpool were relegated already

I shall get my coat. Apologies.

Still directly relegating two clubs will be fun.

Yeah. One of them will be us tho.

[Hound]

Yeah effort was there. Subtlety, quality and tactical acumen were not

Poor team selection - why did we suddenly change to picking half fit old duffers again? Hoilett and Ling esp. McIntyre did pretty well centre mid but wasn’t delighted with that either

It’s a shame as there seems to be some good characters in the team, but we’re a div1 side and that’s where we are heading

[JR]

Not sure that is correct, Blackpool were relegated already

I shall get my coat. Apologies.

Still directly relegating two clubs will be fun.

Yeah. One of them will be us tho.

[Crowbar6753]

That was league one quality football today, no cutting edge. Didn't look like scoring and no magic.

12 games without a win and 5 consecutive draws at home shows that we deserve relegation.

What we lacked today was belief that we can score goals and actually win a game!! Thanks to Ince's extremally negative tactics, and playing players out of position resulting in this huge winless run we really have forgotten how to attack and win a game.

We are slowly moving in the right direction and you could see today that Noel is trying to make the team more attack minded but this just doesn't happen overnight especially with our poor run.

Ince sucked the life and soul out of this team and it may well take relegation to get back to the reading of old.

I'm starting to like the back four and if we can keep them together next season we should be able to build from the back. Sarr has improved lots recently with a run of games and is starting to look a player. TMac had a good game in midfield and maybe there is a midfielder in there somewhere!
Hopefully results go our way next week and we have something to play for at Huddersfield, would like to see Fornah moved into CM instead of Hendrick who is far to negative a player for me.
Overall, continued slow improvement and something to build on. Great atmosphere by the way....the fans are really buying into this battle.

If only Ince had trusted a back four!!!

[Snowflake Royal]

That was league one quality football today, no cutting edge. Didn't look like scoring and no magic.

12 games without a win and 5 consecutive draws at home shows that we deserve relegation.

What we lacked today was belief that we can score goals and actually win a game!! Thanks to Ince's extremally negative tactics, and playing players out of position resulting in this huge winless run we really have forgotten how to attack and win a game.

We are slowly moving in the right direction and you could see today that Noel is trying to make the team more attack minded but this just doesn't happen overnight especially with our poor run.

Ince sucked the life and soul out of this team and it may well take relegation to get back to the reading of old.

I'm starting to like the back four and if we can keep them together next season we should be able to build from the back. Sarr has improved lots recently with a run of games and is starting to look a player. TMac had a good game in midfield and maybe there is a midfielder in there somewhere!
Hopefully results go our way next week and we have something to play for at Huddersfield, would like to see Fornah moved into CM instead of Hendrick who is far to negative a player for me.
Overall, continued slow improvement and something to build on. Great atmosphere by the way....the fans are really buying into this battle.

If only Ince had trusted a back four!!!

Yeah, worth noting that in Hunt's four games, we've only conceded 4 goals with a back 4. We were conceding more with the back 5 PInce said we had to have because we weren’t good enough.

And we've scored 3 despite being shot.

[Webster750]

Wigan didn't really start attacking until around 60-70 mins in and looked terrible throughout. Gutted

[RoyalBlue]

Yeah effort was there. Subtlety, quality and tactical acumen were not

Poor team selection - why did we suddenly change to picking half fit old duffers again? Hoilett and Ling esp. McIntyre did pretty well centre mid but wasn’t delighted with that either

It’s a shame as there seems to be some good characters in the team, but we’re a div1 side and that’s where we are heading

I thought Hoilett was one of our best players today. Looked a real threat going forward and beat his man more often than not. To me he looked the player most likely to set up opportunities to score. Also did well defensively.

[RoyalBlue]

I've been RTGs up to this point but I think we're toast now. Ah well.

In my opinion Hunt is not up to the job in the long run. He's always seemed to be a good man-manager when I've seen him with the kids but tactically he's not got it. Long wasn't a winger at his best and certainly isn't now (although he's also not much of a striker). Not sure how attractive we would be to a decent external appointment though.

Azeez needs to be starting, especially with Ince and Ejaria out injured. One of the few players who can create chances.

Sadly Azeez’s end product is too often lacking. His set piece delivery today was also nowhere near as good as it has been.

[Bristol Paul]

Thought it was a decent match, although you can see why both teams will be playing in division 1 next year. Defence were good, although for me Yiadom still runs down too many dead ends and doesn’t know when to release the ball. Hendrick poor, Casadei pretty decent and despite some comments around Hoilet, I thought he we very good. Long was a heart signing, hasn’t performed at all unfortunately and dreadful today. For all the possession, we never really look like scoring and next year will be interesting.

[South Coast Royal]

That was league one quality football today, no cutting edge. Didn't look like scoring and no magic.

12 games without a win and 5 consecutive draws at home shows that we deserve relegation.

What we lacked today was belief that we can score goals and actually win a game!! Thanks to Ince's extremally negative tactics, and playing players out of position resulting in this huge winless run we really have forgotten how to attack and win a game.

We are slowly moving in the right direction and you could see today that Noel is trying to make the team more attack minded but this just doesn't happen overnight especially with our poor run.

Ince sucked the life and soul out of this team and it may well take relegation to get back to the reading of old.

I'm starting to like the back four and if we can keep them together next season we should be able to build from the back. Sarr has improved lots recently with a run of games and is starting to look a player. TMac had a good game in midfield and maybe there is a midfielder in there somewhere!
Hopefully results go our way next week and we have something to play for at Huddersfield, would like to see Fornah moved into CM instead of Hendrick who is far to negative a player for me.
Overall, continued slow improvement and something to build on. Great atmosphere by the way....the fans are really buying into this battle.

If only Ince had trusted a back four!!!

Yeah, worth noting that in Hunt's four games, we've only conceded 4 goals with a back 4. We were conceding more with the back 5 PInce said we had to have because we weren’t good enough.

And we've scored 3 despite being shot.

And we have got 3 points from 4 games which is relegation form albeit that we played 3 games against top half teams but today we were at home to the bottom club and came very close to losing.

Unfortunately I couldn't be at the stadium today but some seem to have been caught up in the atmosphere thinking that we played well, including the very temporary manager.
Also I had the Wigan commentary on i-follow and although you can't get as good an outlook on a game from TV it did feel as though Wigan would be the winners in that second half.

Two other observations:-
Tommy Mac and somebody else probably should have been booked for attempting to bring 2 of theirs down on the break
If there had been VAR Meite might have been done for fouling their keeper prior to the goal.

It doesn't feel that we have had much luck this season but that equaliser does at least give us a squeak of a chance.

We really aren't very good though are we and the table doesn't lie and even with no points deduction we would still have been very close to relegation.

A new manager please as a new broom and forget all the nonsense about wanting somebody "who knows the club"
We need somebody who doesn't know the club , especially from these dismal past 5 seasons, who will take a fresh look at everything and preferably one who appreciates that chances need to be created if you want to win matches-f*****g obvious I know but clearly not obvious to recent managers.