Performance: cr@p
Team selection: cr@p
Manager: cr@p
Tactics: cr@p
Officials: cr@p
League One: cr@p
Opponents: cr@p

Fair summary

If Bowen or any of the management read this then this is my take.

The defence needs replacing. Yiadom, McIntyre and Holmes have been regulars in a side who have conceded 170 goals in the past 2 seasons. They have a losers mentality and deserve to be dropped or sold. It won't happen but the defence just isn't up to it.

First half we were decent and should have been ahead. The penalty was poor and thought it should have been taken by someone else.

Second half.. I can't be bothered to rant but I'm extremely angry with it. We were even worse than in the last 20 of the first half. Didn't look dangerous and were outfought vs a Port Vale side who conceded 9 in their last 2 games. Unacceptable.

Second half was so bad that even Selles spotted it's shortcomings!

I suppose the one positive is that the loyalty points meltdowns won’t happen if we keep this form up…

Interesting that, given two games with no goals scored and only two conceded, the first target is to remove the defence. If we finish the season having conceded exactly one goal per game we won’t be anywhere near the worst defence in the league.

Interesting that, given two games with no goals scored and only two conceded, the first target is to remove the defence. If we finish the season having conceded exactly one goal per game we won’t be anywhere near the worst defence in the league.

PV could and should have scored about 4. And because the defence was so woeful we had no platform to build any sort of pressure

Definitely shortcomings going forward but it felt worse at the back

Interesting that, given two games with no goals scored and only two conceded, the first target is to remove the defence. If we finish the season having conceded exactly one goal per game we won’t be anywhere near the worst defence in the league.

We only conceded 1 today but it should have been more. We need more up front as well! Hardly looked like scoring after the first 15 minutes

Biggest positive is that it only took me an hour and 15 to get to Worcester

You had hoped that this sorry lot would still be good enough at this level but that looks so far from reality.

I’m done with the whole defence, how was Yiadom one of the higher rated RBs in the championship once - utterly woeful. Tmac and Holmes both toilet, NGW ok going forward but atrociously delivery.

Hutch is crap and a liability. Carroll should be dropped, getting bullied by shit league one defenders. Should have had loads of free kicks but he doesn’t do enough.

Why did Selles take Ehib off? He looked our most likely option of getting in behind.

Button looked shaky and it’s obviously a bad goal to concede but shout out to the 4 “fans” that went down to the goal to berate him, really well done. 2 40-50 year olds and 2 children wearing those horrifical hoodies with the mask glasses sowed in. That’s one “fashion” thing which needs to die a death. But yeah I was gobsmacked, the abuse (one of the older blokes in particular - shit hat and shit tats) given to your own player on his debut was truly pathetic. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised when his life’s achievement was probably fathering a walking asbo.

Selles explained that to Tim after the match but I think it was in Portuguese as I didn't follow a word of it. But think the gist was that WiFi was underperforming too.

It's results and performances like today that make what we all saw and appreciated on Tuesday almost obsolete.

The defence needs a shake up, it needs to Dean to come in and we need a better full back, on either side. Was never convinced by NGW really and Yiadom just seems to be regressing. Had a solid couple of seasons when he first signed, but has been falling backwards, especially the last 2 seasons or so.

I'm not bothered what age you are or where you have come from, either a record signing or from the academy, it must be better. We can't be affording crap like today from anyone. Nobody gets a pass from me, whether inexperienced or not.

Selles explained that to Tim after the match but I think it was in Portuguese as I didn't follow a word of it. But think the gist was that WiFi was underperforming too.
Kelvin did completely disappear after the first 30 minutes.

But he also showed he can partner Vickers and wasn't on the edge of a red. Not that it would have mattered the way the rest of the team played.

Not sure why you think Dean solves anything as he came on, improved nothing and showed no pace.

Selles explained that to Tim after the match but I think it was in Portuguese as I didn't follow a word of it. But think the gist was that WiFi was underperforming too.
Kelvin did completely disappear after the first 30 minutes.

But he also showed he can partner Vickers and wasn't on the edge of a red. Not that it would have mattered the way the rest of the team played.

Exactly. Baffling decision. If nothing else he’s young, decently pacey and can stretch the defence as opposed to an aging Andy Carroll who never looked like scoring.

I think we will see this theme quite a lot, start of well and then fade - if we score, great but if we don’t get an early goal we l revert back to type and lumber away with zero creativity and abject defending.

Not sure why you think Dean solves anything as he came on, improved nothing and showed no pace.

Probably not up to speed yet in terms of match fitness and provides experience. I still maintain that your defence doesn't need pace, it needs understanding and positional awareness. Quicker thinking by a yard beats pace as a defender everyday of the week, pace is a useful trait to have, but not essential.

Kelvin did completely disappear after the first 30 minutes.

But he also showed he can partner Vickers and wasn't on the edge of a red. Not that it would have mattered the way the rest of the team played.

Exactly. Baffling decision. If nothing else he’s young, decently pacey and can stretch the defence as opposed to an aging Andy Carroll who never looked like scoring.

I think we will see this theme quite a lot, start of well and then fade - if we score, great but if we don’t get an early goal we l revert back to type and lumber away with zero creativity and abject defending.
Yep, early goals will be at a premium.

A few good results and the season could pick up quickly. But at the moment, I just don’t see any real plan.

Even when we signed Yiadom he'd just been relegated with Barnsley, so not exactly ever had a winning mentality.

And to your other points, our fans really are a special bunch. Chants of "you're not fit to wear the shirt", even if it wasn't aimed at them specifically, half the team that finished were youngsters. Then you've got people on twitter telling lifelong Reading fans McIntyre and Holmes to GET OUT OF MY CLUB.

Kelvin did completely disappear after the first 30 minutes.

But he also showed he can partner Vickers and wasn't on the edge of a red. Not that it would have mattered the way the rest of the team played.

Exactly. Baffling decision. If nothing else he’s young, decently pacey and can stretch the defence as opposed to an aging Andy Carroll who never looked like scoring.

I think we will see this theme quite a lot, start of well and then fade - if we score, great but if we don’t get an early goal we l revert back to type and lumber away with zero creativity and abject defending.
The fact that Carroll wasn't pulled at half time makes me think Selles didn't have the bollocks to take him off. Even more so when he took Kelvin off - clearly the easy option.

Even when we signed Yiadom he'd just been relegated with Barnsley, so not exactly ever had a winning mentality.

And to your other points, our fans really are a special bunch. Chants of "you're not fit to wear the shirt", even if it wasn't aimed at them specifically, half the team that finished were youngsters. Then you've got people on twitter telling lifelong Reading fans McIntyre and Holmes to GET OUT OF MY CLUB.

Extreme but I see the frustration and share it. I don't care if they're academy products, they've both got away with too many poor performances the last couple of years and I don't really get what attributes they bring to the team. Neither can defend. They've not been good enough and some criticism is due. They're both supposed to be improving as they're still quite young but they've regressed like Yiadom has. They are losing mentality players. Maybe bad coaching hasn't helped them but the mistakes they made today were school boy and unacceptable.

Even when we signed Yiadom he'd just been relegated with Barnsley, so not exactly ever had a winning mentality.

And to your other points, our fans really are a special bunch. Chants of "you're not fit to wear the shirt", even if it wasn't aimed at them specifically, half the team that finished were youngsters. Then you've got people on twitter telling lifelong Reading fans McIntyre and Holmes to GET OUT OF MY CLUB.

Extreme but I see the frustration and share it. I don't care if they're academy products and they've both got away with too many poor performances the last couple of years. They've not been good enough and some criticism is due. They're both supposed to be improving but they've regressed like Yiadom has. They are losing mentality players.
Don't get me wrong, they're playing shite and I've never particularly rated Holmes, but giving them that sort of abuse is uncalled for. They're not playing shit on purpose, they're just not good enough.

Extreme but I see the frustration and share it. I don't care if they're academy products and they've both got away with too many poor performances the last couple of years. They've not been good enough and some criticism is due. They're both supposed to be improving but they've regressed like Yiadom has. They are losing mentality players.
Don't get me wrong, they're playing shite and I've never particularly rated Holmes, but giving them that sort of abuse is uncalled for. They're not playing shit on purpose, they're just not good enough.

Definitely out of order to give the abuse but when we're being outplayed and losing to teams like Port Vale people do knee jerk things out of anger.

We've also had 5 years of constant crap losing most weeks. Probably a bit of that as well and taking it out on the players. Fans just want to see us winning and on paper most of us fancied us to win today.

Can something be knee jerk if we’ve gone 15 games without a win?

Surely it’s only knee jerk if we’ve won a few games recently?

Even when we signed Yiadom he'd just been relegated with Barnsley, so not exactly ever had a winning mentality.

And to your other points, our fans really are a special bunch. Chants of "you're not fit to wear the shirt", even if it wasn't aimed at them specifically, half the team that finished were youngsters. Then you've got people on twitter telling lifelong Reading fans McIntyre and Holmes to GET OUT OF MY CLUB.

Haven’t seen that but major as well.

Also it’s hardly like they chose to play, it’s the managers decision. Of course they want to play, they’re also fans but if they aren’t that good it’s not their fault, can never ever fault their work rate and desire.

Easy to forget they’re both still very young by centre back standards, but equally they’ve been pretty much at the heart of a terrible defence for years. It needs freshening up.

That was so frustrating. Last weekend we could all see there were problems. On Tuesday it looked like we had solutions. Then today we ignored them.

I don't know if he's injured or something, but it looks like at the moment, Carroll doesn't have the stamina to play the high pressing game for 50-60 minutes. I'd rather be was used as an impact sub until he's back and fully fit.

I think as well Azeez doesn't suit playing out wide, he gets too isolated. I'd rather he played a central attacking position with savage and Ehib up top.

I really like Knibbs, bags of energy and stamina, I'd love to see him on the right with NGW playing left wing, for pace.

I'm optimistic about our options, I just hope we can use them.

Decent prematch in the Queens Head, the Titanic Steerage was lovely. I'm quite bemused by the other pubs being home fans only and largely empty, whereas that Queens Head was packed and they were racking it in.

The game was entirely forgettable, we looked the better team and Vale looked poor, but we didn't create anything of note the first half except NGW winning the pen. If that goes in I think we win comfortably, after that it was inevitable we'd lose, and to be fair to Vale they had a couple more chances while we offered absolutely nothing.

We need a bit of luck and a win on Tuesday.

Well quite. We've been abysmal for years so all anger is justified. Of course we can't expect Selles to simply flip a switch and start winning, but it's fair enough to criticise the players who have been so fundamental to our continued failure.

Same as the virtuous twats who urged patience when we hadn't appointed a manager after 6 weeks. No I will fcuking not be; it is a basic expectation that a club will appoint a manager ahead of pre season, and don't let 6 years of failure let you forget what the minimum standards should be.

But did either team take the knee?

At this level "You don't win anything with kids and foreign players" .