Back from the Game, Northampton Town 24th August

[joe999]

In the words of Lt Columbo, just one more thing: Mills, liability. Jumped two footed into a rash tackle first half and was lucky to only get a yellow. Seen plenty of that kind of nonsense from the player over his last year with us and yet this hot-head is currently our captain? Sums the whole shambles up really.

Right, bed time now. I keep having recurring dreams about Alex Pearce winning the Rumbelows Sprint Challenge.

Spot on, the guys a loose cannon.

[Focher]

its way too easy to pick the board, i dont think too many realise the work and money that goes in to keep hold of players like Sigurdsson, McAnuff and Kebe.

But.......they have to stop spouting about Premier League ambition if they are not willing to give McDermott, who clearly after a short time has shown he's pretty good at his job funds to take us there.

[joe999]

i think its good enough to make a play off place

This would involve owning a striker that is willing to have a shot once in a while.

[Northern Git]

Taylor, good game. You have to be joking. Absolutley terrible. No idea of how to play in that position, no awarness of where the man he was supposed to be marking was, did'nt even turn his head to look into the acres of space he constantly left to watch the Northampton players movement. Skinned time and time again by a bottom of division two winger.
Directly responsable to allowing the guy who put the ball in the box on 124min 40 sec to get his cross in unchallenged.
Probably the most inept debut performance from a Reading player in years.
His only getout clause is that its not a position, as far as I am aware, that he has ever played in before.

Which gives rise to the question why the hell did McD put him back there to be humiliated, and then why give the task of taking a penalty ( which he could not even get on target)

Oh - Williams was even worse.

[Davyc]

noel hunt is on his way back

[joe999]

noel hunt is on his way back

He's not the answer. I like him a lot. But a very good link up player in my personal opinion. Not a poacher.

[Davyc]

bu at the end of the day we dnt have money to spend, do you want mooney back?

[Tamworth_Royal]

Any doubters read my threads since 2006.

I trust you won't be too offended if I don't bother yeah?

Only 400 odd posts not as if i'm asking you to look at 10000 plus

[weybridgewanderer]

all those that said we should sell feds to buy a centre half coz we have hamer ... fook off!

williams - god awful

only player with pass marks tonight, antonio

church and hunt are internationals, they should be ripping league 2 defences a new one

[Tamworth_Royal]

all those that said we should sell feds to buy a centre have coz we have hamer ... fook off!

williams - god awful

only player with pass marks tonight, antonio

church and hunt are internationals, they should be ripping league 2 defences a new one

Cummings and Williams two big mistakes............. Robbies honeymoon didn't go well .....take that

[RoyalBird]

That wasn't a good performance at all. It wasn't even the fact Northampton were a good side imho (apart from their penalties), we were just awful. Antonio was the only brightish spark, but ended up getting injured. Karacan had the shot of a nervous blind man, Williams has no pace and got continuously done by that winger, Taylor is definitely not a defender (lost count how many times he turned his back on the winger or went out of position), and why the hell do we have Hamer as our reserve keeper?! This was the chance to push Federici for a place in the first team. I'm sure Feds is quaking in his boots after tonight.

[URZZ]

Robin Friday is probably turning in his grave at the incompetence of this bunch of idiots...

Had to spot this one out. Is a comment made by a fan on the Reading FC Facebook page on their status of us losing tonight.

Truest bloody word spoken all night.

[Ark Royal]

When will the houses and flats around Norfolk Road get bulldozered so that Elm Park can be rebuilt and we can can get back to watching the level of football that we are so inevitably heading toward?

Dark days are ahead.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Absolute bloody rubbish. We were an absolute bloody disgrace. Does anyone in their right mind reckon that that load of crap that masqueraded as a defensive performance for 120 shite minutes as being acceptable to even Bracknell Town last season (played 42, W 2, L 40).

A complete joke from start to finish showing about as much intelligence as the dimwit who decided that closing J11 sliproad on a night of football was a smart idea!

In Marcus Williams we seemed to have found Shaun Cummings' slightly less useless taller twin. We have centre backs with the speed and turning circle of one of the worlds larger oil tankers. We have no worthwhile coverage for any position at the back whatsoever (although, I've seen more from Brynjar Gunnarsson in his "stand" in roles than I have from four fifths of the defensive line so far)!

Ben Hamer chose the right night to drop his goalkeeping clangers as they sort of melted into the general crapness of it all.

Going forward we have no options and, to be honest are no bloody use. Noel Hunt could get better as he really wasn't match fit quite yet. However we have no threat, no target and no point to turning up.

Of course there now will be those who at everyone for moaning about a crap performance against crap opposition in a crap competition in front of a crap crowd but let's face it if someone doesn't start highlighting this ineptness and shortcoming now it will be too late.

No money, no hope, no pride and in 240 minutes against what have been, at best, pretty ordinary sides from Division 4 nothing to be remotely proud about.

For the record Michael Antonio was man of the match, about the only player to emerge with anything positive from last night and that's only because he had the good sense to get himself kicked off the pitch at halftime.

(Special mention of the equally abject referee who managed to let them equalise in the 5th minute of a 3 minute period of injury time having completely missed an obvious penalty at the other end in the 4th minute of the 3 he was adding on (not that we would have scored it of course but at least it would have intelligently wasted time unlike the so called professionals we fielded last night) ).

Looking forward to most of that lot now being as embarrassing as possible on the telly on Saturday.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Comments about Jake Taylor having a good game are a joke.

He is not a right back, he got turned inside out on numerous occasions.

He may have a career at RFC, it is not a right back where does he normally play?

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Comments about Jake Taylor having a good game are a joke.

He is not a right back, he got turned inside out on numerous occasions.

He may have a career at RFC, it is not a right back where does he normally play?

[pea]

As disappointing as last night was, if last season taught us anything it was that most others in this league are just as crap as we are. All it takes is a run of good form and you sail up the table. We've still got Gylfi, Jimmy and Tabb and time is on our side.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

so everyone is crap, that's hardly encouraging really.

[PieEater]

I think you have to give a lot of credit to Northampton Town, as a team they could do the basics that we were simply incapable of. They could tackle, pass, move and head the ball. As a unit our passing was woeful, pretty well every player except Long are incapable of winning headers, and we just seemed to have no idea what do going forwards.

It has to make you wonder what we do in training, because it doesn't seem to involve passing or shooting practice.

As others have said Hamer and Williams were embarassingly bad, I'd add Church and Hunt to that list. Of the others, HRK beat his man just once the whole game, Karacan had a couple of moments charging forwards, but failed to get any of 4 decent shooting chances on target. We lost midfield again, and had little success down the flanks except a few runs from Antonio and Kebe. I thought Kebe had a pretty decent game, he certainly looked our best threat going forwards.

If that is a taste of what is to come from the Academy stars, then we are going down and will struggle in League 1.

[holsgrove breaks a leg]

Blimey, the honeymoon period is well and truly over. The lack of application is simply astonishing, every goal we have conceded thus far has been laughable. As a unit we look like a team that will continue to leak goals and we dont have a striker or a formidable front two pairing that will score goals and win games. Karacan is just so so lightweight, gets hassled off the ball and cannot tackle - if he had a player cam attached to him he would be distinctly embarrased about how little he offers towards the team. Tabb injured is a huge loss, small he may be but he has the grit and determination to win the battles.

Hamer put in a Simon Sheppard performance at completely the wrong time for him, looked like he wasnt focused and i would imagine either Andersson or McCarthy have yards on him now. He may be 'finding his feet' but Williams looked like just the player who was part of last years team that conceded the most goals in the Championship. He cannot seem to win his individual battles and bottles the chance to stick a leg out, and his distribution is on par with Pearce. The lack of options for back up at RB and LB are there to see. Up front we were presented with a powder puff front two with no height and clear lack of understanding, perhaps the reason why we are unable to utilise 2 upfronyt with any effect. Hats off to Antonio for a decent performance, but with injuries and being unable to add new players to our current deficiencies, i can forsee a very tough baptism of fire for Brian...