Do we need a new defensive coach?

[Caversham Royal]

Reading have been woeful defensively for the entirety of Adkins reign. It's not as if his assistant is an ex defender or anything.....albeit ex Oxford

The real answer to having a successful side under Adkins in this division is by giving him a Premier League budget, of course.

Reading's defence was woeful under Mr Maccy-D before Adkins reign. It's a problem he's inherited, not created. Perhaps a Premier League budget might be a start to try to deal with the problem......of course....

That is an absolutely astonishing comment to make and completely incorrect at Championship level. We won the league with the best defence & had about the 5th best defence the season before. 20+ clean sheets with 'liabilities' Cummings, Pearce, Gorkks & Harte being our main back 4. Its just a guess they were coached properly.

I think you're too easily astonished. I can still remember the defence being pretty shocking at times even when Reading went up under Maccy-D. One of the perpetual arguments I've noticed rumbling round on this site is whether Reading deserved to go up that year on the merits of their performances or whether they rode their luck a lot of the time with the run of results that got them above a stuttering Southampton & Wet Sham. If they were being coached properly defensively that season, then those same coaches seemed to forget how to do their stuff once we went up. But that's just a guess....

[sandman]

Nothing to do with playing against top quality international strikers like Van Persie then Just the defensive coaches fault?

[Caversham Royal]

Nothing to do with playing against top quality international strikers like Van Persie then Just the defensive coaches fault?

We didn't play against folk of his quality every week. A large amount of the goals Reading concede, regardless of the quality of the opposition, are shockers. And this has been the case for a number of years, throughout both the current & previous manager & coaching staff's reigns. It's not a case of saying it's either regime's fault, just that it's a problem neither seemed to be able to fully deal with.

[melonhead]

Nothing to do with playing against top quality international strikers like Van Persie then Just the defensive coaches fault?

Agreed

[RoyalinBracknell]

Reading's defence was woeful under Mr Maccy-D before Adkins reign. It's a problem he's inherited, not created. Perhaps a Premier League budget might be a start to try to deal with the problem......of course....

That is an absolutely astonishing comment to make and completely incorrect at Championship level. We won the league with the best defence & had about the 5th best defence the season before. 20+ clean sheets with 'liabilities' Cummings, Pearce, Gorkks & Harte being our main back 4. Its just a guess they were coached properly.

I think you're too easily astonished. I can still remember the defence being pretty shocking at times even when Reading went up under Maccy-D. One of the perpetual arguments I've noticed rumbling round on this site is whether Reading deserved to go up that year on the merits of their performances or whether they rode their luck a lot of the time with the run of results that got them above a stuttering Southampton & Wet Sham. If they were being coached properly defensively that season, then those same coaches seemed to forget how to do their stuff once we went up. But that's just a guess....

Really? We went from what mid-January to early March without conceding when we made our first real push towards promotion, not to mention 4 successive wins with clean sheets over Christmas time and three clean sheets in crucial victories near the end of the season against Leeds, Brighton and Forest. And there were more than half a dozen other clean sheets too. That's getting on for nearly half a season.

[JakeTheRoyal]

Nigel strikes me as a gaffer who would leave no stone unturned. He has said before there are players at the club who didn't want to improve, I think we're slowly seeing those players shipped out, for decent money as well. We have a young team, only 6 players in that 11 yesterday had played championship before last season

[Ian Royal]

Nothing to do with playing against top quality international strikers like Van Persie then Just the defensive coaches fault?

Agreed

I can recall pundits absolutely slating our ability to do the basics defensively in the PL. Gary Neville in particular had a field day with Mariappa's woeful positioning.

And we've been no good at tracking runners into the box for about 4 or 5 years.

[sandman]

English pundits blame every goal on defending whether it's a great goal or not.

[Caversham Royal]

Caversham Royal
Reading's defence was woeful under Mr Maccy-D before Adkins reign. It's a problem he's inherited, not created. Perhaps a Premier League budget might be a start to try to deal with the problem......of course....[/quote]

Tony le Mesmur
That is an absolutely astonishing comment to make and completely incorrect at Championship level. We won the league with the best defence & had about the 5th best defence the season before. 20+ clean sheets with 'liabilities' Cummings, Pearce, Gorkks & Harte being our main back 4. Its just a guess they were coached properly.[/quote]

Caversham Royal
I think you're too easily astonished. I can still remember the defence being pretty shocking at times even when Reading went up under Maccy-D. One of the perpetual arguments I've noticed rumbling round on this site is whether Reading deserved to go up that year on the merits of their performances or whether they rode their luck a lot of the time with the run of results that got them above a stuttering Southampton & Wet Sham. If they were being coached properly defensively that season, then those same coaches seemed to forget how to do their stuff once we went up. But that's just a guess....[/quote]

RoyalinBracknell
Really? We went from what mid-January to early March without conceding when we made our first real push towards promotion, not to mention 4 successive wins with clean sheets over Christmas time and three clean sheets in crucial victories near the end of the season against Leeds, Brighton and Forest. And there were more than half a dozen other clean sheets too. That's getting on for nearly half a season.[/quote]

Caversham Royal
Your obviously in the camp that say Reading went up deservedly on merit of their performances then. I've seen other posters on Hobnob who would say a lot of those clean sheets were down to luck rather than good defensive performances.
In the end, all I'm really saying is that the defensive issues aren't solely down to Adkins as some seem to be contending, they're issues that have been apparent for sometime & pre-date his appointment as manager. It is, however, his & his coaching staff's responsibility to address & sort those issues. Something they have yet to do.

[Caversham Royal]

Nothing to do with playing against top quality international strikers like Van Persie then Just the defensive coaches fault?

Agreed

I can recall pundits absolutely slating our ability to do the basics defensively in the PL. Gary Neville in particular had a field day with Mariappa's woeful positioning.

And we've been no good at tracking runners into the box for about 4 or 5 years.

Agreed

[Caversham Royal]

English pundits blame every goal on defending whether it's a great goal or not.

That, though, is also true.....

[Ian Royal]

Unless it's scored by Rooney or another big name star, in which case it's always a worldy.

[Pseud O'Nym]

English pundits blame every goal on defending whether it's a great goal or not.

Alan Hansen's Scottish though.

[sandman]

Thought he'd retired.

[WoodleyRoyal]

3 clean sheets in three games......

[Ian Royal]

3 clean sheets in three games......

And clean sheets in 50% of our league games too.

We're a little prone to gift chances still, but if we can maintain concentration our defence is strong. Without Murray we looked a little lost if we go behind, but hopefully with him in and Pog + Blackman back we can be a bit more confident about coming from behind and scoring goals, so we don't fall apart like we did at Forest.

[RoyallyFcuked]

I think you're too easily astonished. I can still remember the defence being pretty shocking at times even when Reading went up under Maccy-D. One of the perpetual arguments I've noticed rumbling round on this site is whether Reading deserved to go up that year on the merits of their performances or whether they rode their luck a lot of the time with the run of results that got them above a stuttering Southampton & Wet Sham. If they were being coached properly defensively that season, then those same coaches seemed to forget how to do their stuff once we went up. But that's just a guess....

Agreed. You're pretty much spot on with your posts on this page, despite what others say.

I'm not saying we do need a new defensive coach, because Adkins and his team seem to gradually fixing the problem, along with many other issues, which I for one did anticipate when he took over.

The McDermott lovers won't hear a bad word against him, so their incredibly biased and blinded view counts for nothing.

[SCIAG]

I think you're too easily astonished. I can still remember the defence being pretty shocking at times even when Reading went up under Maccy-D. One of the perpetual arguments I've noticed rumbling round on this site is whether Reading deserved to go up that year on the merits of their performances or whether they rode their luck a lot of the time with the run of results that got them above a stuttering Southampton & Wet Sham. If they were being coached properly defensively that season, then those same coaches seemed to forget how to do their stuff once we went up. But that's just a guess....

Our defence was excellent that year. Pearce and Gorkss were really good. The midfield also performed their defensive duties well. Harte was a bit of a liability against the long ball but his positioning helped out a lot. We didn't have a settled right back, but none of the four I remember us using did badly.

It was going forward that we had problems, at least before Roberts arrived. We developed a genuine game plan, rather than "give it to Kebe and hope he gives it to Le Fondre".

Once we went up, not only were we up against a greater quality of attacker, but Gorkss had finished the season badly and only declined after promotion, and neither Gunter nor Cummings is good enough in the top flight. We also played a very attacking style, and McDermott's refusal to play our best midfielder or our best defender meant we were constantly selecting weakened teams and couldn't use 4-5-1. We actually had a decent back line when Shorey, Mariappa and Pearce were all available, and a good defensive record with three in midfield.

So, simply put, the problem was improved opposition, an entirely different strategy, and mismanagement. Not Gibbs.

[RoyallyFcuked]

The defence wasn't great the year we went up. At times it was decent enough yes, but we rode our luck a lot of time.

How many games did we leave that season thinking "how the hell did we win that?"

Truth was we got outplayed for large parts of games that season but still came away with results.

I'm not sure anyone really knows how we went up that season. We were far from the best team, we had no really outstanding players. I guess you could say we often soaked up the pressure and took our (usually fewer) chances.

It just shows what you can do if you put a run together, especially in this league. Confidence is everything, we scraped a couple of wins when Roberts arrived and the momentum kept building and took us right into contention. The league is so close you can be nowhere at Christmas and end up promoted in May, regardless of how good the team really is.

[Royal Ginger]

I've recently thought of us as being below par on defending, but supplemented by some excellent goalkeeping. Completely subjective opinion of course, and yes there's been the odd dodgy patch, but generally I feel both McCarthy and Feds have won us far more points in the last 3 years than the standard championship keeper.