Drearily, and typically, too deep. Few players with any courage on the ball, always wanting too many touches, before succumbing to even the gentlest press, giving in and going backwards. How many times do we need to see ourselves NOT do that and create decent half/full chances?
If I were Leam, I’d be saying “lose the ball going forward. You’ll lose it anyway, might as well be in their third rather than ours.”
Keane isn’t working for me. He’s certainly not good enough to be keeping Doyle out of the middle. No idea if R.Williams is now out, but surely we can get width from somewhere other than having to play Doyle there.

The inability to ever keep a clean sheet is what’s hurting us most at the moment. Is that 12 in a row without a clean sheet? Not good enough. Some games you need to hold out for a 0-0 and we weren’t capable
Forwards generally doing enough for us but you can’t score every single game - often more than once

Tbf, we keep more clean sheets, than fire blanks. 7 vs 5 I think.

Tbf, we keep more clean sheets, than fire blanks. 7 vs 5 I think.
It’s being shit that hurts us. Backwards passing imaginationless, weak willed shit

Tbf, we keep more clean sheets, than fire blanks. 7 vs 5 I think.
Maybe over the season but talking more recently. We had a spell where we kept a couple and looked solid

Pitch quality is fine, but size is playing a big factor. It's very narrow and that's making everything tight.
Stevenage don't score many and they concede even fewer.
It's not an exciting match, but I wouldn’t say it's particular poor quality or error prone, just good defending and limited space.
Checking online, their pitch seems to be 4 metres narrower than ours and about 1 shorter. That's quite a lot of pitch missing.
So, knowing that the pitch is smaller presumably the manager and coaches spent preparation time by narrowing the training pitch in preparation when training since Tuesday?

That is the great benefit of having a modern training facility.

Or did they?
That would seem the sensible and logical thing to do but I'm not sure Richardson does 'sensible and logical'.

This is definitely why I've given up on away games, travel plus shite performances makes for a shit Saturday.

Yep, me too, first away game this season, must be one of the worst performances of the season. Can't remember a shot on target, second half we hardly got in their box at all, let alone have a shot.

Constantly hoofing it from the back, inability to pass the ball through the midfield, reckon you'd see better football in the local park. Totally unacceptable performance.

Yep, me too, first away game this season, must be one of the worst performances of the season.
If it was worse than Mansfield it must have been hideous.

Yep, me too, first away game this season, must be one of the worst performances of the season.
If it was worse than Mansfield it must have been hideous.

Believe me, it was bad. Lots of disgruntled fans too.

Not sure what Richardson and his 'coaching team' do with them all week, they played as if they've never played together before.

I sometimes wonder when managers comment a bit negatively about the players whether they are managing the freedom to try out of them.
Paul Ince seemed to basically give up on our team, believing them to be incapable of playing competitive football, and had them drilled to hang on and go long. I’m not saying Leam is the same, but his Q&A effectively inferred that if he had them play attacking football they would be relegated.
I think he’s drilling them to sit deep, not take too many chances, avoid the counter and try to get lucky on a long ball. And I think while that might be a decent stabilising strategy that will safely see us mid table, it’s not going to excite the fans or push us much higher than that.
I think we can do better.

Tru dat ^^^
Maybe it's as well. A summer clear out of dead wood, coupled with a structured summer recruitment, as opposed to the farce that preceded this season will leave the club stronger in the longer term.

Look on the bright side. We'll be better placed to give our neighbours down the M4, and up the A4074 a good thrashing next year!
My money's on Argyle to go up with Lincoln and Cardiff. They've got the same thing that we had in 2012. Momentum.
I don’t disagree. But isn’t a sorry state of affairs that we need to clear out deadwood when we only had 7 in contract players at the beginning of the season. One might suggest that the deadwood had already been cleared, and then some… to have deadwood already…? Heads should roll.

Tru dat ^^^
Maybe it's as well. A summer clear out of dead wood, coupled with a structured summer recruitment, as opposed to the farce that preceded this season will leave the club stronger in the longer term.

Look on the bright side. We'll be better placed to give our neighbours down the M4, and up the A4074 a good thrashing next year!
My money's on Argyle to go up with Lincoln and Cardiff. They've got the same thing that we had in 2012. Momentum.
I don’t disagree. But isn’t a sorry state of affairs that we need to clear out deadwood when we only had 7 in contract players at the beginning of the season. One might suggest that the deadwood had already cleared, and then some… to have deadwood already…? Heads should roll.

Who bears responsibility though? Most of the players who would be classified as deadwood were signed when Hunt was manager and he already got the boot.

I don’t disagree. But isn’t a sorry state of affairs that we need to clear out deadwood when we only had 7 in contract players at the beginning of the season. One might suggest that the deadwood had already cleared, and then some… to have deadwood already…? Heads should roll.

Who bears responsibility though? Most of the players who would be classified as deadwood were signed when Hunt was manager and he already got the boot.
JJ or Carey ultimately

Who bears responsibility though? Most of the players who would be classified as deadwood were signed when Hunt was manager and he already got the boot.
JJ or Carey ultimately
Feel like Carey has credit in the bank for our transfer dealings the previous two seasons, can't really say the same for JJ since he came in this season, no idea how involved he was with the transfers.

Not sure I agree with the deadwood description.
I rather think we have a pretty decent squad who are being appallingly coached.

Tbf, we keep more clean sheets, than fire blanks. 7 vs 5 I think.
Maybe over the season but talking more recently. We had a spell where we kept a couple and looked solid
2 blanks in 20 games, 3 clean sheets in the same time. Just the two blanks are in the last four games and the last clean sheet was 12 ago. Coincidentally, Marriott last played 7 games ago. It's almost like losing your top scorer has an effect.

Yep, me too, first away game this season, must be one of the worst performances of the season.
If it was worse than Mansfield it must have been hideous.

It wasn't.

Same poor performance. Stevenage fully deserved their win. We didn't even have a shot after the seventeenth minute and couldn't string together a chain of four passes for most of the second half. Doyle and Keane completely anonymous today unfortunately.

Tru dat ^^^
Maybe it's as well. A summer clear out of dead wood, coupled with a structured summer recruitment, as opposed to the farce that preceded this season will leave the club stronger in the longer term.

Look on the bright side. We'll be better placed to give our neighbours down the M4, and up the A4074 a good thrashing next year!
My money's on Argyle to go up with Lincoln and Cardiff. They've got the same thing that we had in 2012. Momentum.
I don’t disagree. But isn’t a sorry state of affairs that we need to clear out deadwood when we only had 7 in contract players at the beginning of the season. One might suggest that the deadwood had already been cleared, and then some… to have deadwood already…? Heads should roll.
When you're down to so few players, there's an urgency to signing anyone just to have bodies.
We have plenty of very capable players. And we'll trim a few who were here early to make sure we had a team but aren't really good enough. Plus, of course, no team has 100% hit rate on signings.
Most of Camara, Stickland, Rushesha, Sackey, MOM, Nyambe, Keane, Young, Doyle, Rinomhota and Burns will likely all depart, being either one year deals or loans. Probably at least one or two of Yiadom, Abrefa, Dorsett and Ryan too. Maybe we sell Savage.
But it leaves a strong core to add the right pieces to.

I think we should probably trust the guy actually getting results, who has a pretty decent track record, and give him the chance to plan a summer of signings and pre-season to play the way he really wants, rather than just try to rescue a season that started appallingly.

If it was worse than Mansfield it must have been hideous.

It wasn't.

It was, total passes and pass accuracy were much higher v Mansfield and we had twice as many shots.

Ooh don’t disagree with Ian. He won’t like it. He’ll make a bitchy comment

Firstly anyone going yesterday expecting a free flowing attacking, ball dominating performance were absolutely deluded - as anyone with a tiny bit of football knowledge know how we play and know they play. So there were always going to be two outcomes imo -
1- another ugly Reading win

2- an ugly Reading defeat/ draw
Sadly it was the later, but so many frustrating elements to it.
- Will Keane, offers absolutely nothing. Won nothing in the air, can’t hold the ball up and gave away possession. Not only that, he was occupying the #10 position forcing Doyle out wide

- Their centre halves swallowed everything up, so we just kept aimlessly pumping balls at them.

- The classic ‘stick a man on Wing to stop Reading playing’ tactic was executed perfectly and like so many times before we had no answer to it. Plymouth last week was probably our best performance under LR (alongside Stockport) and both imo were because they gave Wing time on the ball

- Formation, it wasn’t a 4-2-3-1 yesterday, I couldn’t figure out what it was as Williams/ Lane - Nyambe were effectively wing backs.
The bit that f*cked me off so much is we could not muster ONE shot or corner in front of a packed away end - ludicrous.
Appreciate LR did for once accept the second half performance was poor - but I’d hope there were some strong voices in that changing room after the game as that was up there with one of the worst displays I’ve seen from us in years.
Aghhhhhh

Oh the irony.
You only turn up on TB to piss and moan or have a pop at me. Slink off back to AE where you belong.

Tru dat ^^^
Maybe it's as well. A summer clear out of dead wood, coupled with a structured summer recruitment, as opposed to the farce that preceded this season will leave the club stronger in the longer term.

Look on the bright side. We'll be better placed to give our neighbours down the M4, and up the A4074 a good thrashing next year!
My money's on Argyle to go up with Lincoln and Cardiff. They've got the same thing that we had in 2012. Momentum.
I don’t disagree. But isn’t a sorry state of affairs that we need to clear out deadwood when we only had 7 in contract players at the beginning of the season. One might suggest that the deadwood had already been cleared, and then some… to have deadwood already…? Heads should roll.
just exactly who are these deadwood players?

Basing it on current evidence there are a few that are instantly recognisable, however, there may be potential and real value that hasn’t shown up yet???

Then of course, there are the likes of Ritchie etc who are not worthy of too many starts yet can make a massive impact when brought on……..ummmm deadwood?

Tru dat ^^^
Maybe it's as well. A summer clear out of dead wood, coupled with a structured summer recruitment, as opposed to the farce that preceded this season will leave the club stronger in the longer term.

Look on the bright side. We'll be better placed to give our neighbours down the M4, and up the A4074 a good thrashing next year!
My money's on Argyle to go up with Lincoln and Cardiff. They've got the same thing that we had in 2012. Momentum.
I don’t disagree. But isn’t a sorry state of affairs that we need to clear out deadwood when we only had 7 in contract players at the beginning of the season. One might suggest that the deadwood had already been cleared, and then some… to have deadwood already…? Heads should roll.
This. It’s not even been a full season with a practically brand new squad, and we are already talking about “clearing the deadwood”?
I appreciate not all players have lived up to expectations, but who are we talking about clearing away?

^^ This. Don't think out squad is bad. We should be playing much, much better if only we had a manager that could coach some proper tactics into them

^^ This. Don't think out squad is bad. We should be playing much, much better if only we had a manager that could coach some proper tactics into them
Again, I think it’s a matter of the manager coming in with low expectations for the team, not wanting to overstretch, and aiming to tread water until the summer for a rebuild (and hopefully a more positive style of football).
Not saying that’s right or the best option, but it is understandable.

Ditto, the second half was like park football, head tennis, hit and hope, and run around like a flock of sheep. The away end was just crying out for some sort of attack, some response to conceding. LR blamed the injuries, but we were just out fought.
Also not sure about the number of free kicks in the second half, like their half time team talk was "win free kicks lads". The one that led to their goal was pretty dubious.