Do you rate Anton Ferdinand?

[Lower West]

A good partner for Cooper at this point in his career development.

[RoyalAuzzie]

My dad knows someone who knows one of the physios apparently and I've heard he thinks he is the bees knees and maybe one of the egos McD was talking about.

Plus I don't really rate him that much, so many times today he took ages on the ball and ended up passing to the guy 3 meters away, and he was at fault for their goal, he literally watched Hooper peel away from him and just let him go, allowing him to score. Also watching him today he wasn't really involved in the team banter or togetherness so I don't know how he is viewed by his teammates...? Probably reading too much into things but just an observation I made

[ROWY]

Undecided, but on balance it would be a no

Clearly a good player with plenty of talent at this level, but, I have a real problem with the less tangible area

His body language is just not right for someone who really cares - I think he is trying to portray the image of class, which means he doesn't rush around and get involved with the nitshit and trivia, like stopping their forwards running into space and scoring

I would just like to see more urgency, involvement with the team and evidence that playing for reading is really important to him

[Snowball136]

Undecided, but on balance it would be a no

Clearly a good player with plenty of talent at this level, but, I have a real problem with the less tangible area

His body language is just not right for someone who really cares - I think he is trying to portray the image of class, which means he doesn't rush around and get involved with the nitshit and trivia, like stopping their forwards running into space and scoring

I would just like to see more urgency, involvement with the team and evidence that playing for reading is really important to him

This (I think). I presumed he just couldn't run. He has class for this level
but he seems to be "coasting" a bit. I'd like to see him within ten yards of Cooper
when Coops is the second CB, and talking, talking, talking.

Cooper is exposed 1-on-1 quite a lot IMO. Can you think of many times where Coops has been beaten
and Ferdinand has saved the day, sweeping up?

[sandman]

Undecided, but on balance it would be a no

Clearly a good player with plenty of talent at this level, but, I have a real problem with the less tangible area

His body language is just not right for someone who really cares - I think he is trying to portray the image of class, which means he doesn't rush around and get involved with the nitshit and trivia, like stopping their forwards running into space and scoring

I would just like to see more urgency, involvement with the team and evidence that playing for reading is really important to him

With all due respect, the fact the guy went away and trained in the summer when he could have just had time off like everyone else shows that playing for Reading does mean quite a lot to him. Perhaps he should kiss the badge and bang his chest more to show his commitment.

[Far Canal]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

[Ian Royal]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/959206/Live There's heat maps of player's touches here.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

Cooper was at fault for the goal as he passed it straight to a Wednesday player.

Shame Anton's stunning volley didn't go in.

[Snowball136]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/959206/Live There's heat maps of player's touches here.

Norwood had 121 touches in the game

Interesting that new kid Evans had more touches per minute than anybody (66 in first half)

[Millsy]

Almost irrelevant whether or not we rate him as we have such little cover in that position.

[Ian Royal]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/959206/Live There's heat maps of player's touches here.

Norwood had 121 touches in the game

Interesting that new kid Evans had more touches per minute than anybody (66 in first half)

He played 64 minutes, not 45.

[Snowball]

Norwood had 121 touches in the game

Interesting that new kid Evans had more touches per minute than anybody (66 in first half)

He played 64 minutes, not 45.

So he was second with 99-equivalent touches to our "superstar" midfielder
"30 more touches" than Williams

this in his first ever game at this level, aged 21, thrown in at the deep end,
barely knows he team-mates and against a top-six side

that suggests serious class and potential

[wingnut]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

Cooper was at fault for the goal as he passed it straight to a Wednesday player.

Yep, Cooper did pass it to a Wednesday player, but Anton let Hooper take a step or two backwards to lose him and score. If Anton had tracked with him it would've been fairly straightforward to cut out the cross.

[sandman]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

Cooper was at fault for the goal as he passed it straight to a Wednesday player.

Yep, Cooper did pass it to a Wednesday player, but Anton let Hooper take a step or two backwards to lose him and score. If Anton had tracked with him it would've been fairly straightforward to cut out the cross.

And if Cooper hadn't passed it straight to Wednesday then nobody would have even had to try and track Hooper.

[Far Canal]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/959206/Live There's heat maps of player's touches here.

Thanks for that link Ian, very interesting. The heatmap needs a bit of interpretation. Robson-Kanu covered a lot of ground, but then he did play on both wings.

[Far Canal]

Ferdinand was at fault for Wednesday's goal. Cooper was marking Forestieri, Ferdinand should have picked up Hooper.
Ferdinand is experienced, his positioning is excellent and he is good on the ball, but he looks as though he would like to stand on the same patch of grass for the entire game.
I'd love to see the prozone stats. Ali Al Habsi probably runs him close on distance covered.

Cooper was at fault for the goal as he passed it straight to a Wednesday player.

Indeed he did, so that's both of our centre backs at fault then.

[Mr Cinema]

Norwood had 121 touches in the game

Interesting that new kid Evans had more touches per minute than anybody (66 in first half)

He played 64 minutes, not 45.

So he was second with 99-equivalent touches to our "superstar" midfielder
"30 more touches" than Williams

this in his first ever game at this level, aged 21, thrown in at the deep end,
barely knows he team-mates and against a top-six side

that suggests serious class and potential

It doesn't really though . he was second in touches to the only other central midfielder and you're saying that he touched the ball more times than the regular central midfielder he replaced and was exiled out to the wing where he barely saw the ball because neither central midfielder had a good enough game to involve him.

He may prove to be a good signing but there is nothing in what you've said above , or in how he actually played that suggests "serious class and potential". I do think he'll be a very good player for us but not based on that debut. We were considerably better once he left the field.

[RoyalJames101]

Having seen the highlights for the goal at the weekend I'm not sure you can blame Ferdinand.

Very clever movement from Hooper and even if he follows Hooper then he's left a big gap between the goal and the penalty spot for someone to run into.

You could argue that one of the CM's should have been in that space in the first place.

[John Smith]

Anton Ferdinand is the worst player in the senior squad

[AthleticoSpizz]

Thanx for those words of wisdom