BFTG - Leeds

[WoodleyRoyal]

Wigan at home next Tuesday is now a real 6 pointer. Far more so than it needed to be

as it stands we are 15 points ahead of them, love your logic

Twas a tongue in cheek reply to Floydus maximus' musings

[RG30]

I think the biggest disappointment is in the seven or so weeks under Clarke we've progressviely got better throughout but that was a step back. Defence appeared nervous, decision making at times poor without any real pace or quality. Leeds played the game well slowing it down at every opportunity and once they went in front it gave them something to cling onto.

[harry]

Utterly depressing. Just when everything seemed to be on the up it falls apart again.

Feds looked like at fault for 1st goal but maybe unsighted by the midfield/defence that backed off rather than closing down.
Hector assist for their 2nd goal. Good that he looked to carry it forward but then decided not to offload & ran down a dead-end. Again got lucky on one occasion trying to nip in front rather than play it safe goal-side.
Williams looked to run with the ball which is good, but chose not to offload it enough running into traffic and eventually losing it rather than passing.
McCleary had a disappointing off game.
Kelly gave most of the options down the right side, put in a few good tackles & one of the few that in my view had an ok game.
Pog worked hard but totally isolated.

Too much poor decision-making. Too much hoofball.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Normal service resumed and as dire as it can get.

Strange team and formation.

Where was the energy and passion that was there against the Owls?

Perhaps they all thought it was a stroll in the park against a lowly Leeds team.

Well learn again boys you have to turn up other wise you get beat.

[Pandoras Box]

Reckon Clarke thought this was a sure fire three points and could therefore experiment with a different set up. Well it's a lesson learned -in the Championship no game is easy. Take your foot off and you will get beaten, irrespective of league positions.

[floyd__streete]

Wigan at home next Tuesday is now a real 6 pointer. Far more so than it needed to be

as it stands we are 15 points ahead of them, love your logic

If they win tonight it is 12 points. Beat us it is 9.

Next 6:

TUE 10 FEB Wigan Athletic Championship H
SAT 21 FEB Ipswich Town Championship A
TUE 24 FEB Huddersfield Town Championship A
SAT 28 FEB Nottingham Forest Championship H
TUE 03 MAR Bolton Wanderers Championship A
SAT 07 MAR Brighton and Hove Albion Championship H

5 of 6 games against teams either near or us below us in the league. If we have at the very least maintained our position after that little lot we'll be ok. But I don't like talk about the FA Cup tie on Saturday being our last meaningful game of the season. That kind of talk is as complacent as the manager's tactics last night

[Royalwaster]

Look on the bright side - at least people will stop talking rot about getting into the play-offs after one good game.

[RoyalBlue]

Leeds scarcely touched the ball in the first 15 minutes, as we passed it well without really threatening their goal.

Then it set in. Missed passes, poor control, lack of understanding between players, dithering on the ball. Comedy shooting, total absence of movement off the ball. And it got worse and worse from there.

Leeds looked like a side with zero confidence, but a nice evening out at the Mad Sad looked tailor made to sort that out for them. They were poor from the start; after 60 or so minutes we'd proven to be so inept they must have felt like world beaters.

Tempted to say it was the worst home performance of the season. Which hurts all the more because we were starting to look like we'd turned the corner.

(Afterthought: the criticism of Federici for their first is, I feel, bang out of order. By far and away our best player this season. Either he was unsighted or it was just a freak mistake. Even if it was a mistake, that would make it maybe one or two for the season. No other player, maybe in the whole League, can boast that sort of consistency).

Totally agree with that last bit. Although Feds himself will probably think he should have done better, what the hell were the team doing allowing their guy that much time to pick a shot in the first place, particularly when Clarke had bizarrely decided to play the game with such a negative defensive formation.

TBF to Clarke - I suspect a few of them are carrying niggles / knocks & he has had to rotate. Derby is the only game that really means anything now so would much rather we were better on Sat at tonight's expense.

You are being unduly fair on Clarke. He clearly stated on BBCRB that he had selected the team and formation to counter Leeds' strengths. A negative move and massive mistake, which cost us dear.

[old woman]

I hate it when a manager plays to counter other teams. Should stick with a winning team

[loyalroyal4life]

Worst performance I have seen in a long time at the Mad Stad.

Blackman is not worthy of a starting berth, thinks he is messi like! we really do need a left winger to come in. Hector is still making too many sunday league errors.

Hopefully just a blip, and I would accept a loss in exchange for a win at Derby!

What a state the pitch was in, have we cut costs at the club by getting rid of the groundstaff?

Just a side thought but does anyone think this could affect rest of the season? I mean by all means we are not Barca but it would still surely make any chance of playing passing football difficult as each game goes on!

[paddy20]

Poor tactics
No shape
Is Blackman the greediest player ever in a Reading shirt? Playing for himself - not the team
Why don't we let other teams choose tactics to play against us instead - we were the home team and they are below us with a poor away record
Poor Pog on his own most of game
Worst decision to bring on Mackie as first sub

However we have a great manager now who will see what went wrong and correct it. Apart from that fantastic first goal it would probably have been 0-0

[paddy20]

Worst performance I have seen in a long time at the Mad Stad.

Blackman is not worthy of a starting berth, thinks he is messi like! we really do need a left winger to come in. Hector is still making too many sunday league errors.

Hopefully just a blip, and I would accept a loss in exchange for a win at Derby!

What a state the pitch was in, have we cut costs at the club by getting rid of the groundstaff?

Just a side thought but does anyone think this could affect rest of the season? I mean by all means we are not Barca but it would still surely make any chance of playing passing football difficult as each game goes on!

Good point about the pitch. Worst for years - Cost cutting last Summer I believe meant no proper maintenance. Massive false economy!!

[melonhead]

thought we played ok. actually decent in the first half. battered at their door for most of it, but poor final ball/decision making cost us as we ultimately failed to break through a packed midfield. sucker punched with the goals, and in the end unlucky.
the end was a damp squid as we did wilt after the goal and never really recovered our shape.

oh well, cant win em all. we move on.


but lol at the over the top negativity.

[andrew1957]

My wife often says I don't see the bright side of things but compared to many of you I must be the most optimistic bloke in Reading. Why the doom and gloom? There is ZERO chance of us reaching the play offs - any lingering hope was extinguished last night. And there is almost ZERO chance of relegation. We have16 games left and need to win perhaps 4 or 5 to survive and so most likely things will play out and we will end up between 8th and 15th in the final table,. then Clarke will have the summer to rebuild and perhaps the club will have the finance to provide a proper pitch for next season (the pitch was a disgrace).

Any remaining hope of this season not being a complete wash out is in the FA Cup and so I hope that the guys give 100% Saturday and then a trip to Wembley is only one game away. Hopefully Derby will have PL on their mind.

[tidus_mi2]

My wife often says I don't see the bright side of things but compared to many of you I must be the most optimistic bloke in Reading. Why the doom and gloom? There is ZERO chance of us reaching the play offs - any lingering hope was extinguished last night. And there is almost ZERO chance of relegation. We have16 games left and need to win perhaps 4 or 5 to survive and so most likely things will play out and we will end up between 8th and 15th in the final table,. then Clarke will have the summer to rebuild and perhaps the club will have the finance to provide a proper pitch for next season (the pitch was a disgrace).

Any remaining hope of this season not being a complete wash out is in the FA Cup and so I hope that the guys give 100% Saturday and then a trip to Wembley is only one game away. Hopefully Derby will have PL on their mind.

Very true, if you look at our remaining fixtures I would say the following we should be definitely looking to win:

Wigan (H)
Huddersfield (A)
Forest (H)
Brighton (H)
Birmingham (H)
Charlton (A) - If their form hasn't picked up by then
Blackpool (A)
Rotherham (A)
Brentford (H)

If 50pts is the magic number, I would be amazed if we don't get at least 13pts from those games and then there's the 7 games I didn't include here.

[paddy20]

My wife often says I don't see the bright side of things but compared to many of you I must be the most optimistic bloke in Reading. Why the doom and gloom? There is ZERO chance of us reaching the play offs - any lingering hope was extinguished last night. And there is almost ZERO chance of relegation. We have16 games left and need to win perhaps 4 or 5 to survive and so most likely things will play out and we will end up between 8th and 15th in the final table,. then Clarke will have the summer to rebuild and perhaps the club will have the finance to provide a proper pitch for next season (the pitch was a disgrace).

Any remaining hope of this season not being a complete wash out is in the FA Cup and so I hope that the guys give 100% Saturday and then a trip to Wembley is only one game away. Hopefully Derby will have PL on their mind.

Wish the no fear of relegation was true. Could easel;y slip back if confidence goes

[andrew1957]

So far this season we have accumulated 37 points from 30 games (1.23 points per game) and it is the worst a RFC team has played in well over a decade and I find it hard to believe that we will not improve towards the end of the season and so to fear that we will not even manage to get 13 points from 16 games really is incredibly pessimistic - that is less than a point a game needed.

[teignmouth hoops]

Whilst I agree that we were poor, none more so than Blackman (left wing seems to be doomed to failure this season with either HRK or Blackman turning in woeful performances), I actually thought Leeds after the opening quarter of an hour were a good side, they knocked it about far better than us, seemed to control everything a lot better and played with more imagination.

[bobby1413]

at the referee storming in before absolutely bottling it.

+1

I've never been more sure that he was going to pull out a red than at that moment.

I didn't even react. Just waited for the bit of red card to appear in the air.

Then it didn't
And I was confused ...

[bobby1413]

I'm oxf*rd totally bemused about this Blackman issue.

Every BFTG thread is a total slating to the point that people say he's not even capable of being a RFC player.

Well why the oxf*rd fuuuuck does SC keep putting him on the pitch. Same for NA. What the hell are we or them missing?!