Back from the match

[readingfc_4_life_and_beyo]

What a team Arsenal are. Completely outplayed by a complete and truely world class team. Although added in was the fact we weren't doing some of the simple things right (Marcus?!) credit where it's due; that's with Arsenal.

Good things can come out of the game though, the way we played today will happen occassionally, we need to get use to it. We now need to get back on our feet and back to playing our football.

Another mention must go to Jonny Oster. Last season he was god damn awful - or at least seemed it. Dodgey passes where no one was running (but perhaps should have), over hit passes, trying to pass through players, and not controlling properly. But that was an inspiring performance. Kept in the middle, almost turned playmaker. Putting through passes which other players in the team weren't noticing, picking out runs that they weren't noticing, getting up and down the pitch (although maybe not jumping in - good).

Forget today guys, Arsenal were a top team today. Plough on, and get to that magic 40 (?). Bring on Portsmouth (or Liverpool if you actually care about that game)

[Platypuss]

To be honest, I don't think we can draw any conclusions with regard to relative performances after the 4th went in - Arsenal were in full-on pipe and slippers mode by then.

[FiNeRaIn]

Arsenal are class, throughly deserved win and fair play to them.

Can hahnemann actuall make some saves for a change? There has been a question mark over him in recent weeks, id like to give stack a chance now. Hopefully if he does well wednesday, might keep his place for pompey.

[Gav]

Agree re: Oster... Looked very, very, very good. Bearing in mind he was thrown on towards the end of a match we had no chance of winning, he was an inspiration!

[Royalwaster]

Can hahnemann actuall make some saves for a change? There has been a question mark over him in recent weeks, id like to give stack a chance now. Hopefully if he does well wednesday, might keep his place for pompey.

Were you at the game? If it weren't for him we'd have lost 6:0! I don't think he was at fault for any of the goals and I think he got the ball for the 'penalty'.

[FiNeRaIn]

Think its you who wasn't at the game mate.

Hleb's shot was straight at him and he parried it top corner. His distribution was woeful again, and it WAS a penalty. His communication has been poor on a number of times this season. Its all good making the odd save late on when we're 4-0 down and long gone.

[Royalee]

Can hahnemann actuall make some saves for a change? There has been a question mark over him in recent weeks, id like to give stack a chance now. Hopefully if he does well wednesday, might keep his place for pompey.

Were you at the game? If it weren't for him we'd have lost 6:0! I don't think he was at fault for any of the goals and I think he got the ball for the 'penalty'.

How many decent saves did he make? He was poor in terms of distribution and I completely agree with FineRain. I'm not just picking up on this because of today though as Arsenal were class, but he's been below par for a while now.

[Alan Partridge]

Like everyone else bitterly disappointed but somewhat honoured to have seen that. Never have I seen a side move the ball like that, move off the ball like that and play the game with such a swagger. Makes Spacey's ridiculous Arsenal hating posts and anti Henry stuff even more laughable.

That was a proper football team today, not a bunch of arrogant, cheating wasters like the side that was here last Saturday but a proper football team who play the right way. Had Chelsea scored in the 1st minute last week, do you think they would have tried to beat us 3 or 4-0? I think not.

Arsenal made it look effortless, easy and embarassed us really.

I would agree that a 4-5-1 formation would have been a decent idea in hindsight and I also STILL believe Harper and Sidwell won't work against good sides in this division. Obviously we won't play teams of the class of Arsenal every week but we don't keep the ball well enough, don't create ANYTHING through the middle and don't stop teams attacking through the middle. Bryn deserves a chance with Sidwell.

Sadly De La Cruz had a bit of a nightmare, never going to be easy having to step in against Van Persie and Henry down there, Bryn coped not much better to be honest. We missed Murts, and for the first time really our defense looked all over the place, Ivar's worst game in ages and I would agree to an extent with FineRain, I thought Marcus 1 save apart was quite poor today.

The worrying thing for me is we arent' looking like scoring at the minute. In most games we've looked fairly dangerous even if we haven't scored, never really felt we threatened much today Seol's shot apart, then a couple of chances when the game was gone at 4-0. Coppell made the decision to take Lita out of the side, had no problem with that but I was disappointed he didn't come on, just to see if he would have given us something.

I don't want to be too critical because they were sublime, by far and a way the best side ever to grace a field in Reading, and probably Britain. Henry showed his WORLD CLASS today and is the first so called World Class player to actually turn up at Reading. Ronaldo was lively but not in the same league as ol' Thierry today. Simply sensational.

I just don't think though we made it as tough as we could/should have done, not enough tackles, not enough of getting in their faces and breaking the game up. The ref was fine today but what we really needed was a Riley!!! Someone that would blow the whistle every 5 seconds so we could stop Arsenal and try and stop their rhythm. As it was giving them time and space on a slick pitch, we got rinsed.

[The_Cat]

I must say Hahneman just boots the ball downfield a bit to often where as Lehmann was picking out the man in space and hitting a good ball to them.

[FiNeRaIn]

This isn't a gut reaction to the defeat, I think its been the case for a while now. His communication is woryring( sonko viduka) today again when henry was lurking, jsut a couple of moments. At least last season he made some decent saves regularly to make up for the other parts of his game, but he's not been doing that this season, bar one or two instances. His hoofs down the pitch put us stright on the back foot and its got to stop.

[blue_army1871]

I think we should give Glen Little a start against Pompey. He looked very good when he came on and seemed to cope well against premiership defenders.

[Royalwaster]

I must say Hahneman just boots the ball downfield a bit to often where as Lehmann was picking out the man in space and hitting a good ball to them.

I agree on the distribution side of things Hahneman has been poor lately - but to fault him for any of the goals is ridiculous. The Hleb goal was a blaster from inside the penalty area ... I thought in the replay on the big screen of the 'penalty' it looked like he'd got the ball with his feet ... and then I remember one very good save when Rosicky was through on goal and another decent one from a Henry shot around the same time. Also no problems at crosses - some good catches, etc. I'd much more want to fault some of the defending - the way the team stood off Henry to leave him so much time to thread the ball through the defence before the penalty was League 1 defending.

[The Surgeon of Crowthorne]

I think the criticism of Marcus is a little unfair. I don't think he could have done anything with the first three goals & although it definitely was a pen, Van Persie would probably have scored anyway. Granted his distribution has been very poor and his communication with Ivar & Sonks hasn't been good, I'm not of the opinion he should be dropped.

[Platypuss]

I think we should give Glen Little a start against Pompey. He looked very good when he came on and seemed to cope well against premiership defenders.

Not saying anything agains Oster and Little but I don't think we can read anything into the last 20 minutes - Arsenal had put their feet up knowing the job was done.

[readingfc_4_life_and_beyo]

I must say Hahneman just boots the ball downfield a bit to often where as Lehmann was picking out the man in space and hitting a good ball to them.

Good call. - Stack does this a lot if other appearances of his are anything to go by.

Hahnemann needs to sort this out. Doyle and Lita/Long is really not going to win a high ball against a centre back pairing including Traore/Terry type players who control the air, and even better with the smaller players like ours.

[The Surgeon of Crowthorne]

The worrying thing for me is we arent' looking like scoring at the minute. In most games we've looked fairly dangerous even if we haven't scored, never really felt we threatened much today Seol's shot apart, then a couple of chances when the game was gone at 4-0. Coppell made the decision to take Lita out of the side, had no problem with that but I was disappointed he didn't come on, just to see if he would have given us something.

TBH we haven't carried much of an attacking threat in all of our games since Sheff Utd. We are really suffering from Kits being out & should have done something about his absence before the transfer window closed.
Now where have I heard that before?

[higher]

With mighty Wolves sniffing around Oster,hopefully he`s shown he`s worth hanging onto.

[RoyalBlue]

I think we should give Glen Little a start against Pompey. He looked very good when he came on and seemed to cope well against premiership defenders.

Not saying anything agains Oster and Little but I don't think we can read anything into the last 20 minutes - Arsenal had put their feet up knowing the job was done.

Arsenal are far too professional to put their feet up. They were clearly desparate to ensure they kept a clean sheet as evidenced by some of the flying blocks that their defender put in.

[Woodcote Royal]

I must say Hahneman just boots the ball downfield a bit to often where as Lehmann was picking out the man in space and hitting a good ball to them.

Good call. - Stack does this a lot if other appearances of his are anything to go by.

Hahnemann needs to sort this out. Doyle and Lita/Long is really not going to win a high ball against a centre back pairing including Traore/Terry type players who control the air, and even better with the smaller players like ours.

I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways

I totally agree that lumping the ball straight down the middle with Doyle and Lita trying compete with huge centre halves is only going to have limited success at best.

However, surely it's clear that we've been trying to counter this by Marcus placing some of his kicks closer to the touchline.

This means that there is much less room for error and some of these kicks are bound to go out of play.

IMHO, Marcus' distribution remains better than most and we couldn't afford to buy anyone with a better all round game.

[readingfc_4_life_and_beyo]

Sometimes there is no NEED for him to do this though. A simple pass out to Shorey will do, who can pick out a better pass, maybe take on a couple.

Also many of his kicks go straight out. I hardly (if ever) see an opposition keeper mis-kick it.

And how am I wanting it both ways