BFTG - Newport County (H)

[Agent Balti]

Someone from the Eaststand was telling me "it all kicked off between home and away fans after the game, I'll tell you about it later".....did anyone see this or could he be over exaggerating, maybe an away fan bumped into a Reading fan and caused him to drop a wurthers original or something.

Newport fans were gesturing by the gate after the game apparently. Dunno if there was any fighting. Somehow doubt it.

There was a bit of Plod presence around the away end by the time I walked all the way around. A few blues and two's. Something minor, probably.

[LoyalRoyal22]

our only fit central midfielder sits on the bench while a centre half and a left back/winger play in his position. How did anyone ever get the idea that Obita can play there, he has none of the skill set?

What is worse, Obita's worse performance by far and away was his showing in centre mid during our utter thrashing during one of our biggest games of last season, Bournemouth away.

Adkins isn't a very quick learner, so it seems.

Ignoring his good performance in CM at Wigan?

[Royal Prince]

Something definitely happened after the game, like a few others on here I counted at least 10 police cars flying down the A33 and then up in the direction of the away end about 5mins after the final whistle, still no idea what was occurring.

As for the game itself, Pog looked a different class at times, held the ball up extremely well, some neat little touches to play in others, and his finish was well calculated, my MOTM.

Nice to see Blackman looking so hungry, that's a cracker scored against Swansea, a decent performance at Wigan where he could have had another corker of a goal, then showed great pace and determination to score last night when his performance certainly warranted a goal. Long may his good form continue.

Agree with others that Hector and Obita struggled out of their natural positions, but the work-rate was there and they moved well across, up and down the field together to keep Newport at bay.

Finally, as a team we look a lot more comfortable on the ball so far this season, playing some neat stuff at times and stringing some meaningful possession together. That said we also don't look afraid to switch it up and go more direct when the opportunity presents itself, and if we can start controlling games and dictating when these 'moments' occur we'll be a lot closer to what Adkins has no doubt been trying to achieve from the off.

[BR2]

our only fit central midfielder sits on the bench while a centre half and a left back/winger play in his position. How did anyone ever get the idea that Obita can play there, he has none of the skill set?

What is worse, Obita's worse performance by far and away was his showing in centre mid during our utter thrashing during one of our biggest games of last season, Bournemouth away.

Adkins isn't a very quick learner, so it seems.

I get the feeling that Adkins is accommodating Obita.
Last season the player said that his best position is central midfield but it is obvious that is not his position-he is either (as a very left-sided player) a left-back or a left midfielder where he can go outside and cross with his left whereas in central midfield it is not essential to be two-footed but you have to possess more dexterity than Obita has.

Normally BFTG threads are quite informative but the massive differences in posters' ratings of players' performances means that those of us who didn't go have no idea of how it all went.
Couple that with the fact that we put out a strong side against one of the teams who are favourites for relegation to The Conference and we are no wiser about our best (available) side for the upcoming league game v Ipswich.
Right-footed left-back, centre-half in midfield with a left-back and a right-footed left-winger plus a left-footed right-winger either means total football as per the Dutch model or a bit of a mess and at the moment it is not looking like total football.

Hopefully our walking wounded will return sooner than later to bring a better shape to our side.

[Nameless]

There are various considerations,, including position on the field, direction of play, control of the ball and position of covering players.

Do you think Ref's take into account the pace and skill of the attacking player and opposition keeper? - A slow attacker may not get to the ball before the keeper whereas a fast one might.... not sure the law book covers that.

Almost impossible to do that, whilst at the top level refs may know players well enough, below that you just could not make an accurate assessment. There are too many other variables happening at the same time. You just have to assume average attacker / average defender and if it happens to be Walcott vs Pearce then maybe Walcott doesn't quite get the rub of the green.
The law book does actually cover every possible situation that can arise, although only by way of a law that is unwritten ! Every ref is told that the most important law is 'use your common sense' although obviously that never applies tO refs at our games

[Norfolk Royal]

In the wake of the game I was disappointed in Craig Tanner when I found out his favourite food is calamari.

Is he making that up? It's like chewing a piece of rubber.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... ou-7606932

[westendgirl]

Couple that with the fact that we put out a strong side against one of the teams who are favourites for relegation to The Conference and we are no wiser about our best (available) side for the upcoming league game v Ipswich.

I think that the fact we had our strongest side against relegation favourites is relevant - surely that means we should win 10 nil, but life is not like that.

[RoyalBlue]

In the wake of the game I was disappointed in Craig Tanner when I found out his favourite food is calamari.

Is he making that up? It's like chewing a piece of rubber.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... ou-7606932

You clearly haven't been going to any decent restaurants - but thereagain if you live in Norfolk your choice might be limited!

[Brum Royal]

Re Blackman, wasn't it also him that jinked past a couple of players and then smashed it wide of the far post going for the top corner glory shot, rather than rolling it in the bottom corner as he did for the one he scored?

[kwik-silva]

Yep

[Hoop Blah]

I've not read a massive amount of the comments on here but I felt that we did what we needed to in order to get through but in doing so we didn't play very well.

We looked content to contain Newport and did so with a reasonable defensive performance but with almost a total lack of composure and attacking threat from the midfield we had to rely on a few moments on individual quality to beat Newport instead of having the quality and guile to dominate the game and work a number of scoring opportunities from good team play.

A quick appraisal of some of the team:

McCarthy - looked in good form apart from struggling with a couple of reasonably harmful backpasses. I can't agree with those that say his distribution was either hesitant or rubbish on the whole though as it was noticable that for most of the game he was throwing the ball quickly and accurately at every opportunity. I think he only kicked it twice in the first half.

Back four - looked comfortable, as they should against Newport, but Gunter was the pick of the bunch and Cummings again looks lost playing at left back.

Hector & Obita - they looked like players filling in and aren't central midfielders in a million years. They did ok at closing down and harrying the opposition at times but we between them and the ineffectual Taylor we looked lacking in ideas going forward. Obita's corner delivery was excellent though.

Cox & Pogrebnyak - looked like promising signs of a partnership developing between them with a few good interchanges and Pogrebnyak had a very good game.

Blackman - final word on him as he did pretty well at times. As has been said before he has a lot of the attributes to be a real handful but he all too often seems to find ways of losing the ball or making the wrong decision. It was a promising display from him though and he looked more like a higher division player playing against League Two players than he might've done on previous form. I still don't see enough from him to be a starting XI player in the Championship.

Overall it was a poor performance but there are reasons for it but the sooner we get Guthrie, Karacan, Williams and Mackie fit and into that side the better though.

[Maguire]

Normally BFTG threads are quite informative but the massive differences in posters' ratings of players' performances means that those of us who didn't go have no idea of how it all went

Yeah I agree with this. I appreciate BFTG threads (particularly the away ones - not interested in pages of idiots incorrectly describing the home game i've just seen ) but on this occasion one wonders if it's another instance of expectations being too high when faced with an inferior side.

There are numerous examples of RFC playing poorly against lower league opposition in the past - anyone remember when we scraped past ten-man Welling at the MadStad in about 2002ish? Still went on to get promoted.

I think the players often just relax a bit and try to get through the game by doing "just enough" rather than give it the full gun. Reading always seem to play better when facing better opposition.

I wasn't there though so this post is largely redundant.

[Brum Royal]

Normally BFTG threads are quite informative but the massive differences in posters' ratings of players' performances means that those of us who didn't go have no idea of how it all went

Yeah I agree with this. I appreciate BFTG threads (particularly the away ones - not interested in pages of idiots incorrectly describing the home game i've just seen ) but on this occasion one wonders if it's another instance of expectations being too high when faced with an inferior side.

There are numerous examples of RFC playing poorly against lower league opposition in the past - anyone remember when we scraped past ten-man Welling at the MadStad in about 2002ish? Still went on to get promoted.

I think the players often just relax a bit and try to get through the game by doing "just enough" rather than give it the full gun. Reading always seem to play better when facing better opposition.

I wasn't there though so this post is largely redundant.

'Greed 100% there Mags. I vaguely remember the Welling game, and I seem to recall a match against (then) non-league Yeovil at home causing us all sorts of problems. Look at our big cup performances over the years and the vast majority have come against superior opposition (Liverpool, Everton, Villa, Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal all spring to mind in recent seasons). I think we're much better suited to matches where we can hide under the "little old Reading" underdog status.

[Ian Royal]

Normally BFTG threads are quite informative but the massive differences in posters' ratings of players' performances means that those of us who didn't go have no idea of how it all went

Yeah I agree with this. I appreciate BFTG threads (particularly the away ones - not interested in pages of idiots incorrectly describing the home game i've just seen ) but on this occasion one wonders if it's another instance of expectations being too high when faced with an inferior side.

There are numerous examples of RFC playing poorly against lower league opposition in the past - anyone remember when we scraped past ten-man Welling at the MadStad in about 2002ish? Still went on to get promoted.

I think the players often just relax a bit and try to get through the game by doing "just enough" rather than give it the full gun. Reading always seem to play better when facing better opposition.

I wasn't there though so this post is largely redundant.

Good points, I think it's as much a sign of how quickly expectations rise after a surprisingly good result and performance against Wigan as well though. (most) People don't want to have a gloomy outlook, so expecting us to struggle and maintaining perspective is going to be hard when the first signs you get are positive.

In terms of Hector and Obita, one of the biggest differences I think there is between players filling in and specialists, is consistency of performance. Obita and Hector can certainly put in good performances in midfield, but to expect them to be able to do it every week is unrealistic. Even specialists have bad games, so you need to expect those filling in to have worse dodgy performances and have them more often. When they're paired together, doubly so.


Just watched the goals and impressed with all of them. Tanner almost speechless afterwards too.

I think there's an argument their keeper could have done better for at least the second and third.

[Hoop Blah]

There certainly looked to be a lack of something around the performance but the quailty of our defending carried us through relatively easily. The chances Newport did create weren't too dangerous apart from perhaps a couple of good opportunities.

My worry was that the midfield didn't look like it had much more about it going forward and, until we get players fit, it looks like it's pretty much Adkins first choice midfield. Although I don't rate him, and he was a bit hit and miss last night, I think the team would benefit from Akpan coming in for Taylor or Cummings and Obita moving out wide to give us some natural width (he would need to show a bit more confidence and willingness to take his man on than he showed last season though).

[Will95]

Decent performance, Newport looked good. Hector terrible, McCarthy distribution marginally better, defence and midfield opened up way too easy way too many times, all the attack looked good again, and 3 well done goals.

As of the police and outside the ground - Newport fans were trying to get through the fence, usual Reading just posturing (including singing come and join us whilst backing off ) nothing really happened, but after there was a police car racing down the A road so maybe it went off down back towards Reading.

[kwik-silva]

There certainly looked to be a lack of something around the performance but the quailty of our defending carried us through relatively easily. The chances Newport did create weren't too dangerous apart from perhaps a couple of good opportunities.

Yeah, but we did give them good opportunities. I'm surprised they didn't get another tbh.

[Old Biscuitman]

Nice to see Blackman looking so hungry, that's a cracker scored against Swansea, a decent performance at Wigan where he could have had another corker of a goal, then showed great pace and determination to score last night when his performance certainly warranted a goal

As a long time supporter who saw the Ronnie namesake play many times, I hope to believe that a Reading centre forward by the name of Blackman has to have what it takes to succeed at this club. A point of fact is that the legendary RB took a while to show his capability. He languished in the Stiffs (reserves) for some time before replacing the equally legendary but less well known Tony McPhee.

But that was the late 1940's of course. Different world - more's the pity.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Goals are up on YouTube. Nice finish from Pog. Blackman did very well for his goal as well. And great movement from Tanner. Thought Pidgeley should've done better with Blackman and Tanner goals, although that might just be the angle.

[kwik-silva]

Perhaps why he's at the team he is