Thoughts v Reading

hba1 said:
One substitution changed the balance of the team. Saturday Tuesday is what this league is all about and we ran out of stamina. Leadership missing on the pitch.

No pressure for Saturday then.
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It wasn't the sub, it was the change in tactical setup.

First half Lerma was pushed forward alongside Cantwell. He even got a rather nice assist up there!

The sub could have left the system alone, with Christie filling the Cantwell role. Instead, Parker withdrew Lerma to a more defensive role.

I won't criticise him for trying it as there is arguable logic there. Reading will push forward to get an equaliser, but we can nullify that threat with extra cover and all that will leave loads of space for the forward four to break into and create something.

I will give him absolute pelters for not changing it when it was immediately apparent that wasn't how it was panning out.

How hard would it have been to even do something simple like say to Jeff "Get up there again, let's give them something else to think about".

Instead we tried to grimly cling on by our fingernails, refusing to try anything that might resemble being adventurous.

I feel sorry for Pearson. Not his fault he was brought on to make a dogshit tactical plan into a cowpat.
 
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Topfarrier said:
I'm not even close to boiling tbf.....I should be but I'm not.....I don't expect anything different from us tbh.
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That’s fair. Personally I found that last 70ish minutes to be uniquely, aggressively bad when compared to anything else we’ve seen this season.
 
AFCBmattjamr said:
The most baffling thing in all of this is we look so good when we do attack! The goal today was sublime. Why would you choose to sit back for 75 minutes
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When we attack at pace we look very good but we really do this .
Tactical setup all wrong . We scrape points.
feel for the players, so robotic .
 
kirsikka said:
To Cantwell's yellow, add in some absolute shocking passing. Unlike tackling, quality on the ball is meant to be his forte.
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It looked like he was being asked to sit much further forward for a lot of the first half with Dom sitting as an advanced midfielder. I'm not sure it's his natural game.
 
AFCBmattjamr said:
The saddest thing imo is I was buzzing to have three home games in a week and 2/3 of them were actually painful watch.
Honestly we'd be better off with anyone else as a manger for the last 10 games just to see us over the line
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Could you please name another manager who could come in now who would see us over the line?
 
fritter said:
Cantwell had been booked and got away with a further clumsy challenge. One more offence would have been a second yellow.. That's the reason I reckon
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Quite possibly but sury at half time you tell him the ref is a fussy pr1ck, stop challenging from behind and if you get a second yellow I'll fine you a weeks a wages. Changing the team, formation and mentality at half time when you are winning because a player may get booked is ludicrous. That can't really be the reason. If it is then God help us
 
Second half, Kelly, 3 times booted it up from inside our half to the top right corner of their half towards Lowe and 3 times it went out. Poor.

I think the players were fatigued although that said it was amazing that after their equalizer we initially found some energy.
Reading deserved a point at least.

Beginning to feel that we're not going to get promotion as unless it's automatic promotion we will surely bottle it in any playoffs.

It's at the stage now where you are hoping that the teams around us fail, which is a bad sign.
 
kirsikka said:
Another game where three points should have been seen as needed given the struggling opposition. Also another chance to try and put in a good performance to keep the crowd onside.

The goal was a thing of absolute beauty. Zemura started the game back to his early season bright best, taking players on. One of his runs was the spark for the goal. Add in a lovely touch from Lerma and excellent work and finish from Solanke. Lovely stuff.

In the first half L Cook continued his recent excellent form, now with some important tackling added in to his game.

And then... we stopped. It was as if we assumed the game was over and we didn't need to bother anymore.

At half time I wrote:
"It isn't comfortable right now. Reading don't look bereft of confidence going forward. If we don't score, they will. We need to knock the stuffing out of them."
We did the absolute opposite and spent 40 minutes inviting them to come and grab something from the match.

The second half was abysmal. There's no other word for it. So safe when we had the ball until we crossed the halfway line when we were sloppy and lacking in numbers.

We sat back and let them dicatate. You could see the way it was going ten minutes in and I was urging Parker to change it somehow. He did nothing until 75 minutes when he made us even more cautious with the Pearson sub.

Seeing how we sparked into life after the equaliser almost made what went before even worse. We had it in us but didn't show interest in making it happen. Or had been instructed to sit back.

This was a game where after 10 minutes we absolutely had them on toast but a complete lack of attacking bravery combined with poor quality on the ball let them back into it. Ponderous, ponderous, ponderous.

Points thrown away and a performance that was, frankly, rubbish after the first ten minutes.

Whatever the halftime changes were meant to do, they didn't work. The fact that we carried on hoping it would get better was a managerial failing. If Parker takes the plaudits when we pick up the points, he should take the ire when we don't win games that were there for the taking.

Positive performances:
Phillips - A wholehearted performance. The only player I can think of that deserves credit for the full 90.

L Cook (first half) - Tailed off in the second period but was good in the first 45.


Room for improvement:
Cantwell - I said at the weekend I can see what TC has about him but feel he's yet to be really effective. After the initial good opening minutes, he was really poor. Wayward passing and bad challenges. Rightly hooked at half time.

Kelly - Some terrible distribution again. Needs to get his head back in the game.
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I agree with most of this post, but completely disagree about Cantwell, he was absolutely brilliant, his work ethic, passing and vision were incredible. He got taken off because the ref gave him a harsh yellow and the ref was giving Reading every little decision as they dived all over the place.
Christie should not play in the middle for us this season (IMO), he is excellent on the right and less effective in the centre. Lewis Cook is on the form of his life.
The energy and effort just wasn't there in the second half. I booed at the final whistle because I thought the ref should have let us have that final chance, not because we were poor for the last 60 minutes.
Our next game will decide our season.
 
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