BFTG - Rotherham - Sponsored by Steve Evans Big White shirt

[Cureton's Volley]

Good team selection. Decent goals.

Shit atmosphere meant pathetic mongs getting undue attention... again.

JC was nice & warm at H/T

[Brum Royal]

In the car on the way home.

First half hour very cagey with lots of misplaced passes breaking play down. The goal gave the team a real lift and three quick chances at the end of the half saw two great reaction saves from the keeper and Norwood hit the bar with a curling freekick to the back post.

With confidence buoyed we had much more of the second half and the two second half goals killed the game off. A couple of good saves from Feds worth pointing out to keep the clean sheet but a very solid performance in tricky wet weather.

Cox and Murray linked well up top and Mackie supported them well. Norwood looked a much better player after we got the first goal as the passes which had previously going astray started to go to players. Back four looked fairly solid tonight overall

[Moonfish]

Pleased with the win, and even more so with the clean sheet.

Federici 6 - pulled off a couple of decent saves, deserved the clean sheet and presumably can stop changing his shirt now?
Ferdinand 6 - showed touches of class, although clearly will need game-time to regain fitness and to form an understanding with the other lads. Shame he went off at half time but was obviously struggling more and more as the first half wore on. If ever fully fit he would no doubt be a real asset to the team.
Pearce 7 - much more like it from the lad, when he calls for the ball the whole stadium knows it's his!
Kelly 6 - looked like he'd never been away, and an assist for the first. Good call by Adkins to include him in the starting line-up, deserves to keep his place.
Gunter 6 - much, much better, playing like a natural left back (who knew!).

Williams 6 - so comfortable with the ball at his feet and has a proper engine on him. Can't wait until he's got 90mins in his tank.
Norwood 6 - continues to impress me and keeps things ticking over nicely. Always an option for the out-ball and takes so much pressure off of the defence when in possession.
Obita 6 - got a few decent balls into the box, but think I prefer him at full-back. Linked up nicely with Gunter and on a more permanent basis at left midfield at least he will add the cover which sadly he had been missing in-front of himself.
Mackie 8 - chased everything down, and finally gets the goal his performances have deserved. Set up the other two as well, superb.

Murray 7 - is a real pleasure to watch, holds the ball up well and his link-up play is top draw.
Cox 7 - he needs to play up there every week with finishing like that...... Cox in the box!

Subs:
Hector 6 - decent when he came on in the second half, and it was good to see he was able to laugh at himself when he scuffed a clearance into the stands late on, perhaps a sign that at 3-0 up some confidence is returning back to our defenders?
Akpan 6 - took five minutes to get into the game, and the yellow was a tad harsh given how much the Rotherham lads had got away with multiple warnings before him, however once settled he looked much more composed and helped us to see out the game.
Taylor 5 - Wasn't on long enough for me to award anything other than a five.

[urz13]

Personally, I found it a very dull win against a dreadful side who didn't pose a threat to us. Real lack of atmosphere and entertainment for me. Whilst it's great to get 3 points, I think we'll have to play far better against other teams if we're going to get back into some decent form. Rotherham were worse than Blackpool IMO.

Having Williams back was great, but he wasn't particularly special tonight. Mackie and Cox were good of course, especially Mackie - Cox played a few poor passes and missed 2 other chances.

Gunter is still terrible at LB

[Martin41]

Who are those adolescent twats three rows from the back of Y25. The one with the ginger guy and his friends who looked about 16 but acted about 10.

They cared more about the arsenal score than reading.

Utter cuuuunts

Agree bunch of silly little boys!

[Royal Rother]

Personally, I found it a very dull win against a dreadful side who didn't pose a threat to us. Real lack of atmosphere and entertainment for me. Whilst it's great to get 3 points, I think we'll have to play far better against other teams if we're going to get back into some decent form. Rotherham were worse than Blackpool IMO.

Having Williams back was great, but he wasn't particularly special tonight. Mackie and Cox were good of course, especially Mackie - Cox played a few poor passes and missed 2 other chances.

Gunter is still terrible at LB

Did you just read everyone else's comments and decide to write the exact opposite?

[P!ssed Off]

Personally, I found it a very dull win against a dreadful side who didn't pose a threat to us. Real lack of atmosphere and entertainment for me. Whilst it's great to get 3 points, I think we'll have to play far better against other teams if we're going to get back into some decent form. Rotherham were worse than Blackpool IMO.

Having Williams back was great, but he wasn't particularly special tonight. Mackie and Cox were good of course, especially Mackie - Cox played a few poor passes and missed 2 other chances.

Gunter is still terrible at LB

Christ, what a negative oxf*rd you are.

[urz13]

Personally, I found it a very dull win against a dreadful side who didn't pose a threat to us. Real lack of atmosphere and entertainment for me. Whilst it's great to get 3 points, I think we'll have to play far better against other teams if we're going to get back into some decent form. Rotherham were worse than Blackpool IMO.

Having Williams back was great, but he wasn't particularly special tonight. Mackie and Cox were good of course, especially Mackie - Cox played a few poor passes and missed 2 other chances.

Gunter is still terrible at LB

Christ, what a negative oxf*rd you are.

Not trying to be negative, just staying my opinion. I've found games such as Millwall (H) and Wigan (A) to be much better in terms of entertainment and performance.

[P!ssed Off]

Thought it was a very good performance.
Game was slow for large parts. This appeared to be a tactic, maybe due to the likes of Williams, Ferdinand and Kelly being low on stamina.

A few communication errors just before half-time, but that was possibly down to heavy rain which likely affected visibility and coordination.

Ferdinand looked a good player. Seems to have the best sides of Pearce and Hector: Good with his head and good with his feet. Think he's knocked Hector down to 3rd choice, but Hector will still likely get game time, as I can't see Ferdinand playing every game, particularly as he's picked up a minor knock already.

Well done to Adkins for bringing in Kelly, and combining Gunter and Obita down the left. Worked a treat and I'm actually pretty excited about the Obita/Gunter partnership. They were combining excellently right in front of me in the 2nd half, overlapping and such. I can see them being a menace to any RW or RB in this league. Doubling up in defence one minute, and counter-attacking/overlapping the next minute. They've got the fitness to cause real problems.

I won't congratulate Adkins for bringing Mackie and Cox back in to the side because it didn't take a high IQ to work that one out.
Cox was a clinical finisher, as ever. lol at the prat above moaning he missed two efforts, you can't ask for much more than 2 goals from 4 shots.

Congratulations to Murray for wasting less chances than normal. Only the one shot today, though how he didn't manage to get a shot off the cross that landed directly on his chest in the 2nd half, I don't know. Compared to Cox's more clinical finishing, which now stands at 7 goals from 25 shots, Murray's last 9 starts have seen him average over 10 shots per goal!

Confident of a win against Charlton now.

[marlowuk]

Well - that was better - for most of the time anyway. It was good to see Ferdinand, Kelly and Williams starting and all three looked good if not spectacular. The back four looked particularly solid albeit against a very average Rotherham side. Gunter reverted to left back and I thought his link up play with Obita (and Obita's willingness to help in defence) was very encouraging. Kelly and Mackie also combined well. Pearce had his best game for many months and he and Ferdinand seemed to work together well.

It was a great first goal by Mackie who turned well to fire in after I thought the opportunity had gone and we should have had the game won before half time had our players not been so shot-shy in front of goal and their goalie not been so sharp! Instead we had to endure a difficult 10 minutes before HT when Rotherham were in the ascendancy and had us camped in our own half.

Cox's two goals killed the game as a contest and were both well taken but we still didn't show the confidence on the ball that the score-line should have instilled in us. Encouragingly there were some very nice moves and quick-fire link-up play but these were punctuated by sloppy passing and too much hoofball!

Ferdinand was replaced by Akpan at HT. I hope that was precautionary because he looked a good influence on the side but Akpan (who has played well recently) immediately got himself booked and didn't have a good game. Murray was a constant thorn in the opposition's defence but he commits so many niggling and unnecessary fouls which gift the ball back to the other team. Norwood had quite a quiet game by his standards I thought. Feds made some good saves and commanded his area better than he has previously.

To be honest we didn't play as well as we can but it was a huge improvement on our recent performances. Once Williams and Ferdinand are up to match fitness I am sure we will be better. McCleary back would also be a huge boost but it seems almost unfair to replace Mackie who has been so influential and was (imho) man of the match again today. Still - a good problem for NA to have!

So 3 points, 3 goals and a clean sheet! We have the makings of a good side if they can grow in confidence and results like today can only help that.

Finally - it looked to me as if the ref booked Gunter for a foul by Pearce towards the end of the match! Did I miss something?

[P!ssed Off]

Gunter was booked for kicking the ball away.
Also, it was Hector that came on for Ferdinand.

[seahawk10]

Three points closer to safety!

[Gunny Fishcake]

Well played Reading great performance and three great goals.....one advantage of a low crowd is ease of getting out of car park after game

[Zana Badawi]

I thought it was a pretty decent performance, tbh. No real poor performances and the scoreline didn't flatter us. I would say that is as close to our first XI as you get (You should note that it was relatively free of U21s which is a shame). So, yeah, well done to the team. Liked Cox throwing his hat in for the captaincy. We need more badge kissers.

There are a couple of caveats though
1. Rotherham didn't turn up
2. The back four, especially the centre backs, are still Keystone Coppish without any opposition. Liked the two huge boots in the air in the second half. And that bit where they made something like five consecutive mistakes in front of the North Stand before heading out for a corner to be a bit LOLz. I would say that the clean sheet could be an exception rather than a rule.

Mackie and Obita best players, but good performance from all , really..

[Royal Ginger]

Just simply the better team. Haven't been able to say that since the game against Fulham, even against Blackpool there was an edge of luck.

[wingnut]

Not a lot of quality on show from either side last night apart from the goals - they were all in a different class from the standard of the rest of the play.
The game was pretty turgid until we scored with neither side clearly on top. But the goal lifted us and galvanised Rotherham and the rest of the half was much better. Thought Ferdinand looked good and also improved Pearce by allowing him to play on his favoured side. Shame we probably won't see him again this side of Xmas.
Gunter also, surprisingly, looked more comfortable on the left - perhaps because he had Obita in front of him.
Looked like it took a little while for Norcot and Wiiliams to settle in the middle - initially they were moving forward and back as a pair. They did eventually work out that as one moved forward the other should stay and vice versa.
Akpan looked pretty dreadful by comparison with Williams though.

[ZacNaloen]

That half hour of misplaced passes etc would have cost us against a better side. But luckily we were playing a poor Rotherham side, a good confidence builder and quality goals scored. Defense looked noticeably more helter-skelter after Ferdinand went off, but perhaps that's just Rotherham trying to get up us a bit more at the start of the half.

Who's next?

[RoyalBlue]

Well that was a much better performance.

Adkins changed the defence with Ferdinand actually looking OK and winning headers, not sure why he came off at half time but they were going to bring him off just at the end of the half. Kelly had a solid game, and Gunter looked much better with Obita in front of him helping him out.

For the first half hour things were pretty tight with the Millers looking quite tidy in possession but creating nothing.
Then we scored and could have had 2 more if it wasn't for two fine saves from their keeper.

Second half was more of the same with us occasionally playing some nice stuff and their defence giving us time in the box to score two more. All 3 goals were pretty decent strikes.

The ref was consistently shit, but fortunately didn't conspire to affect the result.

Did you actually go to the game?. Ferdinand looked uncomfortable for the entire 1st half, but even with one leg he looked class, unlikely we will see him again this side of Christmas I would say

He actually pulled/tweaked something in his right leg about 25 minutes in, after looking a really good player up until then. Bizarrely he did it when he opened up to play quite a simple 15 yard pass with the inside of his right foot when under pressure. Immediately after he appeared to be holding the back of his right knee but afterwards Adkins said it was his calf. I really don't know what they were doing keeping him on until half time. Whilst he tried his best he was clearly struggling and, after he cleared up the defensive shambles (on the part of the regular partners in crime) on our left post, which nearly led to them scoring, was grimacing with pain. I would be absolutely amazed if he hasn't worsened whatever injury he has from trying (being asked?) to play on.

[wingnut]

It was Ferdinand himself who waved away the sub.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Thought both full backs played well and Gunts could have scored if he hadn't completely shat himself when he got into Rotherham's box.

I really want Akpan to do well, but he can't tackle and he looks so uncomfortable on the ball it's unreal. If Williams can stay fit it'll make a huge difference in performances and results.