McDermott believes we have enough in the team to stay up!

[jellytot]

Well BM (BBC interview) believes that he has the quality in the squad to keep us in the PL. He further suggested that he does not need to buy in January.

I cannot agree with him. I have not seen anything in our play that suggests that we can stay up. There are still far too many mistakes made in games, we are not clinical enough in front of goal, we are not fast enough going forward, we do not keep the ball for long enough and we still let in too many poor goals. We lack quality in the centre of midfield. Even if Guthrie and Jem were fit we are still short. Out wide our final ball is often awful. We have moved up in division but so far the players have not stepped up in class.

We do need to bring in at least 2 good midfielders/wingers in January and possibly another CB. We may also need keeper cover. We have to change our style of football and for me formation to 5-3-2.

If we are to stay up we need to put in a 90 minute performance and play out of our skins. On Tuesday we looked awful and championship level.

We can stay up but who would back us to do that? Not many.

[Ian Royal]

I agree. We're not adrift and we should have secured a lot more points than we have. The problem is they're playing shit and he's managing badly IMO. It's highly doubtful that we will, but we certainly could.
Oh and why do we need yet another thread on this btw?

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Well BM (BBC interview) believes that he has the quality in the squad to keep us in the PL. He further suggested that he does not need to buy in January.

I cannot agree with him. I have not seen anything in our play that suggests that we can stay up. There are still far too many mistakes made in games, we are not clinical enough in front of goal, we are not fast enough going forward, we do not keep the ball for long enough and we still let in too many poor goals. We lack quality in the centre of midfield. Even if Guthrie and Jem were fit we are still short. Out wide our final ball is often awful. We have moved up in division but so far the players have not stepped up in class.

We do need to bring in at least 2 good midfielders/wingers in January and possibly another CB. We may also need keeper cover. We have to change our style of football and for me formation to 5-3-2.

If we are to stay up we need to put in a 90 minute performance and play out of our skins. On Tuesday we looked awful and championship level.

We can stay up but who would back us to do that? Not many.

Has it not occured to you that he needs to instill confidence in the current squad over the next month in the hope of getting some points?

Or should he just come out and say "We're shit & we're going down"?!

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Or perhaps he should say "I definitely need to strengthen. This team isn't good enough"

Very motivational!

[Caskeys Lovechild]

Brilliant....more dull, mindless drivel to read.

FWIW - I agree with him - we do have enough - we're just not showing it at the moment, plus we've had some pretty shocking decisions go against us. We should be 9 points better off at the moment, and if we were, you'd all be singing McDermotts praises - the fact that we're not, is the wafer thin line between success and failure, and throwing £20m at it, isn't going to change alot, other than destroying the tiny bit of morale left.

When are you lot going to accept, that you can't just "Buy" players - this isn't Championship Manager - players have to WANT to come to Reading. Anton could feasibly afford to call United, and offer £100 million for Wayne Rooney. United could agree the fee too....but he'd still never come. Football is not straight cut - there are human beings involved. Human beings always make things more difficult than they need to be.

[Ian Royal]

Fulham had 12 points at this point last time we went down and were cut adrift, with only 4 wins in the last 5 saving them. The same year it took Bolton 13 games to get 8 points. They also survived, even though they were cut adrift for a fair while too.

Balance of probability is that we're going down. But it's far from certain.

[Big Ern]

There's no way I am buying that crap. We are second from bottom and it is painfully obvious we have no quality in the team. Nobody can tell me a team in our position does not need to buy in January.

[Caskeys Lovechild]

On the plus side, we're two places above where we finished last season....

[The Beardy Man]

Well BM (BBC interview) believes that he has the quality in the squad to keep us in the PL. He further suggested that he does not need to buy in January.

I cannot agree with him. I have not seen anything in our play that suggests that we can stay up. There are still far too many mistakes made in games, we are not clinical enough in front of goal, we are not fast enough going forward, we do not keep the ball for long enough and we still let in too many poor goals. We lack quality in the centre of midfield. Even if Guthrie and Jem were fit we are still short. Out wide our final ball is often awful. We have moved up in division but so far the players have not stepped up in class.

We do need to bring in at least 2 good midfielders/wingers in January and possibly another CB. We may also need keeper cover. We have to change our style of football and for me formation to 5-3-2.

If we are to stay up we need to put in a 90 minute performance and play out of our skins. On Tuesday we looked awful and championship level.

We can stay up but who would back us to do that? Not many.

Any particular reason for 5-3-2?

Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the stuff we played in 94/95 with 3 at the back....but then we had Wdowcyzk and Osborn pulling the strings, plus it was a formation few at our level had come up against at the time.

How would you see it playing out now?

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

If he thinks this sqaud is good enough to not only compete and stay up, deluded is the word that springs to mind.

[jellytot]

We have the players to play 5-3-2. We could play two holding cm with Guthrir pulling the strings. Cummings and shorey out wide.

[Victor Meldrew]

If he thinks this sqaud is good enough to not only compete and stay up, deluded is the word that springs to mind.

King Canute comes to mind.

[SPARTA]

We have the players to play 5-3-2. We could play two holding cm with Guthrir pulling the strings. Cummings and shorey out wide.

Agree with that formation, but do we have enough CB cover? Don't forget Pearce is out of the team because he wont sign a new deal and will likely go in January. So we have Gorkss (oh dear), Morrison and Marriappa. That's about it, isn't it? Hector if we bring him back from Shrews on loan, and he isn't ready yet.

But, a line-up of:

=========================== Federici ===========================

======== Mariappa ========== Morrison =========== Gorkss =========

Cummings =============================================== Shorey

============= Liabilitywood == Guthrie ===== Tabb ==================

=================== Roberts ======== Pogrebnyak =================

Might suit us better, especially against the many sides that play 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3.

[Royalee]

If he's genuinely serious and isn't just trying to build the morale of the squad, he's dreaming and we are f*cked.

[The Beardy Man]

We have the players to play 5-3-2. We could play two holding cm with Guthrir pulling the strings. Cummings and shorey out wide.

Maybe, though to my mind you wouldn't want holding CM's in a formation like that. You would want box to box engine room type players...like for example Taylor and Gooding. If your Central midfield just sit in front of a back 3 then you have almost nobody getting into the box for the wingbacks to aim at.

Not convinced our Centre backs are positionally sharp enough to play 3 at the back either, could be very wrong of course.

[jellytot]

We have the players to play 5-3-2. We could play two holding cm with Guthrir pulling the strings. Cummings and shorey out wide.

Maybe, though to my mind you wouldn't want holding CM's in a formation like that. You would want box to box engine room type players...like for example Taylor and Gooding. If your Central midfield just sit in front of a back 3 then you have almost nobody getting into the box for the wingbacks to aim at.

Not convinced our Centre backs are positionally sharp enough to play 3 at the back either, could be very wrong of course.

Personally would prefer to pass through the middle. Our crossing from open play jas been shocking
. Guthrie plus two strikers can get in the box.

[Royalwaster]

We have the desire but not the quality, although it's true that the margins are quite narrow ... a few wins more and confidence could be up and everyone would suddenly improve. But also think that we need one or two real quality signings to stay up - particularly a strong DM who can also play the ball rather than just hoof it. Could also do with a big strong CB as Gorkss has lost it ...

[Royal91]

When you look at all the teams in the PL they all have that one player that can win you a game, make the difference or change the match. For me Reading, Norwich and Stoke are the only three teams without that player. Norwich and Stoke however compensation with a more resolute side, physical side.

Wigan Kone
Villa Benteke
Southampton Lallana
Swansea Hernandez/Michu
Liverpool Suarez
QPR Taarabt
Sunderland Fletcher
Newcastle Arfa/Cabaye
Fulham Berbatov

My point is that Reading as a Squad are not that bad but we don't have that £8m player that you need in the PL to do something outrageous.

If Liverpool didn't have Suarez when they played us I think we would have got a much better result.

Benteke for Villa is basically a better version of our Roberts.
Lallana and Hernandez are better versions than all our wingers.

We have nobody that can consistently play in the Prem week in week out

[larry1971]

Fulham had 12 points at this point last time we went down and were cut adrift, with only 4 wins in the last 5 saving them. The same year it took Bolton 13 games to get 8 points. They also survived, even though they were cut adrift for a fair while too.

Balance of probability is that we're going down. But it's far from certain.

maybe so but we've now conceeded 38 goals in all our games so far this season and untill Mcdermott gets the defence sorted out nothing is going to change.

[Hoop Blah]

....plus we've had some pretty shocking decisions go against us. We should be 9 points better off at the moment...

Even if those decisions had gone our way I don't think we'd have seen much in the way of different results (we probably would've won the Newcastle game though) but by the same token you'd also have to take away the points we got against Everton as well.

End of the day we've not been good enough to take the referee and his decisions out of the game. We've not defended well enough to stop the offside or handball goals and we've not created or taken enough chances to put games to bed.

When we start doing that we can probably be a bit more disappointed when decisions go against us.