BFTG - Leeds

[Winston Smith]

I was in the east stand so didnt get a great view of the tackle but I thought the ref ran straight over as players looked like they were about to square up over it and he just wanted to get in there to stop it.

[Sutekh]

One obvious well trodden adage ignored by the management yesterday : DON'T CHANGE A WINNING SIDE

Changes apparently made to combat the way Leeds play. Why? They were 20th not 1st. SC should have let them worry about us and not played with 1 up front at home, particularly when the 1 up front has all the pace of a Yakubu.

Hoping for the miracle at Derby now so we can march towards an FA Cup Final and Europe next season

[Lenny The Tramp]

No pace, no ideas … and not much grass. The pitch is in a real state (by pro standards). Can't remember it being this bad last year, even when we had all that wet weather.

Have the egg chasers got a heavier pack or something?

[melonhead]

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?!

Because the other option is kanu , who is just as inconsistent, but doesn't run about as much

[RoyalBlue]

No pace, no ideas … and not much grass. The pitch is in a real state (by pro standards). Can't remember it being this bad last year, even when we had all that wet weather.

Have the egg chasers got a heavier pack or something?

No, our Head Groundsman left to join Fulham!! Amazed that was seen as a career move up but their gain is clearly our loss.

[RoyalBlue]

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?!

Blackman has pace and skill. If he could display the footballing intelligence and guile of Pog, he would be a bloody good player.

[Pepe the Horseman]

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?!

Because the other option is kanu , who is just as inconsistent, but doesn't run about as much

At least Kanu occasionally makes something happen.

[Royal Lady]

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.

Looking to beat any of them is a tough ask - and Brentford?? If we play like yesterday they'll rip us a new one.

[Maguire]

What if we don't? What if they play badly as well?

It's amazing how often I see people say "if we play like that against team XYZ then we'll get torn apart" as if we're up against Bayern Munich. I've seen Reading play badly and win a hundred times.

[West Stand Man]

I was in the east stand so didnt get a great view of the tackle but I thought the ref ran straight over as players looked like they were about to square up over it and he just wanted to get in there to stop it.

It was just in front of me and I think you are correct.

[Pandoras Box]

Blackman has pace and skill. If he could display the footballing intelligence and guile of Pog, he would be a bloody good player.

The number of times Blackman does the back/sideways/forward, I want glory Irish jig, and then hoofs it over the bar from an impossible angle.
If he does ever pull it off - will that one goal be worth the countless amount of times he could have made a simple pass to anyone in the box for them to score a sitter?

[SCIAG]

That was poor. We might have had worse away performances under McDermott and Adkins, but I think that was the worst we've played at home since Rodgers.

I don't think there's necessarily a huge difference between our usual 4-4-1-1 and 4-5-1, but none of the midfield three supported Pogrebnyak enough last night. Stick in someone like Taylor or Akpan if you want to use that formation at home.

We're not seeing the best of Chabolah yet. Hopefully Clarke can get the most out of him. He was pretty dreadful last night, misplacing a lot of passes and not really contributing much going forward. Norwood made a few mistakes in our half and also lacked a cutting edge. McCleary was quiet for long periods but reasonable effective when he did get the ball. Blackman was getting involved more and his movement was good, but he is the bleeding definition of "no end product". It's a shame he hasn't maintained his early season form, which looks more and more like a blip. Mackie might have improved things if we were winning, but he lacked composure last night.

Bamba was good value as ever. He's a former team mate of Yakubu so knew exactly what he needed to do. I thought he was lucky to escape punishment when he took Yakubu out of the match, and the right back was lucky to stay on the pitch.

[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?!

Because the other option is kanu , who is just as inconsistent, but doesn't run about as much

At least Kanu occasionally makes something happen.

Let's just leave them both out and play with 10

[Pepe the Horseman]

Deal.

[marlowuk]

Well, that performance undid all the good done at Wolves on Saturday! But I cannot understand the OTT gloom and doom being expressed. For the first 15 minutes we easily bossed the game and, although Leeds came into the game more and hit the post when they should have scored, I thought we shaded a frenetic first half. Leeds were the better team in the second half and, growing in confidence, probably deserved the 3 points although 0 -2 flattered them.

I wasn't at a good angle to how they scored their first. It looked as if Feds should have had time to get across and save it. Maybe it took a bobble on what looked like a bad pitch; maybe he was unsighted. I don't know. Their second was down to Hector trying to dribble the ball inside his own half and losing it with most of the rest of his colleagues in attacking positions. No doubt if he had succeeded in keeping the ball the Mad Stad would have been resounding with applause for his cool work but, in the end, Feds was picking it out of the net. I'm not sure of Feds' positioning either. He dashed out to his right to attack the ball when Pearce (I think) already had the Leeds attacker closed down and a simple lobbed ball was easily headed into an empty goal to his left. In any event, Feds has earned too many Brownie points this season to get hammered for one bad game!

I can't understand all the hate towards Blackman either. We moan when our players seem shot-shy and now we berate Blackman for being 'selfish' when he does have a go! In general I thought our energy levels and commitment were pretty good. It was quality that we were lacking. Kelly had a very poor game as did Norwood. Pog was MOTM for me showing some nice footwork at times even if he lacked support up front in this bizarre formation.

Williams also played well and was the only other candidate for MOTM. McCleary looked dangerous when he got the ball but he didn't get much help from Kelly. We miss Gunter who works well with him. Yakubu, predictably, looked off the pace and never got into the game although he occasionally showed some nice footwork with the ball at his feet. He certainly didn't show anything to suggest he would be our saviour up front.

So - very disappointing, very frustrating but not the end of the world.

[marlowuk]

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 ...

Knowing how well we perform against 10 men it was probably just as well!

[_TheLoyalRoyal_]

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!!

No cost cutting, change of head groundsman! Greg went to Fulham and Adam from the training ground came across to the stadium

[Sutekh]

No pace, no ideas … and not much grass. The pitch is in a real state (by pro standards). Can't remember it being this bad last year, even when we had all that wet weather.

Have the egg chasers got a heavier pack or something?

No, our Head Groundsman left to join Fulham!! Amazed that was seen as a career move up but their gain is clearly our loss.

I heard that as there was no money last summer all the usual remedial treatments to the pitch never happened beyond very basic stuff. Expecting a return to normal this summer.

[paultheroyal]

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.

Looking to beat any of them is a tough ask - and Brentford?? If we play like yesterday they'll rip us a new one.

Gggrrrr - rip us a new one! Everyone is saying that saying.... It's cringe!

[Royal Lady]

YOU'RE cringe