MATCHWATCH : West Bromwich Albion (a)

[Zip]

Next 2 games are big and 6 points from them are essential

I would be very happy with 4. We mustn’t lose to Posh.

[Royal_jimmy]

Next 2 games are big and 6 points from them are essential

I would be very happy with 4. We mustn’t lose to Posh.

6 would take so much pressure off

[South Coast Royal]

Sky man at the game said mid-way through the second half that it was the most one-sided Championship game he has ever seen.

I wonder if Pauno thought that this was a game that we would struggle to win so chose not to pick Yiadom, Drinkwater and Swift and save them for the next 3 games which look to be a bit more winnable-last Saturday for instance he said that they had been managing Yiadom's injury for some time so presumably he is not too badly injured at all.

I suppose today gave us a glimpse of life after Swift-it doesn't look good.

[Notts Royal]

The minute I saw the team, knew there'd only be one winner. Thats got to be one the weakest teams we've fielded in years? Three teenagers, Liam Moore, a bench made up of kids and players barely returned from injury

I've never really felt we'd be in trouble but if we can't sort out the fitness side of it we will be. 4 more injuries in a week? And wtf is going on with Rino, McIntyre etc.

Moore is the only one who ever seems to come back before he is due, and I wonder if that is partly the reason for some poor performances this year

1-0 is probably damage limitation there and at least the GD hasn't suffered.

Seriously worrying now. Every time you think the injury situation is improving more players get injured
I have never known anything like this in nearly fifty years supporting the club.
We could be bottom three soon.

And that is where our recruitment strategy has really screwed us of late. Some impressive signings on paper, but pretty much all injury-prone. Long gone are the days of McDermott, Hammond & Howe with good prudent signings. Thanks a lot Kia & the other plebs we have running the show

[Snowflake Royal]

That sounded so oxf*rd poor, I know it's West Brom but surely we must expect better.

A patched up West Brom as well.

The tactical plan failed today.

Danns not 'injured' he got a cut on his leg, despite what the morons on the radio thought.

And could barely walk. A simple cut doesn't really do that. It was right on the knee, quite a delicate area.

[tidus_mi2]

The minute I saw the team, knew there'd only be one winner. Thats got to be one the weakest teams we've fielded in years? Three teenagers, Liam Moore, a bench made up of kids and players barely returned from injury

I've never really felt we'd be in trouble but if we can't sort out the fitness side of it we will be. 4 more injuries in a week? And wtf is going on with Rino, McIntyre etc.

Moore is the only one who ever seems to come back before he is due, and I wonder if that is partly the reason for some poor performances this year

1-0 is probably damage limitation there and at least the GD hasn't suffered.

Seriously worrying now. Every time you think the injury situation is improving more players get injured
I have never known anything like this in nearly fifty years supporting the club.
We could be bottom three soon.

And that is where our recruitment strategy has really screwed us of late. Some impressive signings on paper, but pretty much all injury-prone. Long gone are the days of McDermott, Hammond & Howe with good prudent signings. Thanks a lot Kia & the other plebs we have running the show

Sounds like we've gone for whatever we could get which has left us with Championship quality players who are massively injury prone no one else wants to take the risk on.

[Stranded]

Sky man at the game said mid-way through the second half that it was the most one-sided Championship game he has ever seen.

I wonder if Pauno thought that this was a game that we would struggle to win so chose not to pick Yiadom, Drinkwater and Swift and save them for the next 3 games which look to be a bit more winnable-last Saturday for instance he said that they had been managing Yiadom's injury for some time so presumably he is not too badly injured at all.

I suppose today gave us a glimpse of life after Swift-it doesn't look good.

From what I read in VPs post match, Swift and Drinkwater were very much due to play but they were forced to make a change late in the week. Probably, I would suggest both in personnel and formation - which if true, means absolutely no surprise we looked hideously undercooked.

[Once upon a time .]

I’m sure many of you are like me , completely pissed off with the injury situation .
We know there are 92 league clubs , and yet we have the worst injury record of the 92 , and not just for this week , but for every one of the 16 or so weeks of the season . I’m sure none of us has known anything like it .
I believe that the squad of players that we have are more than capable of holding a good position in this league , but it doesn’t matter how good a coach you are if you can’t keep the players on the pitch .
Who’s responsibility is it to see that the players are fit ? I see it as the managers/coaches responsibility ! He is responsible for getting a fit team on the pitch and getting a good performance out of them .
I have not been in the Pauno Out gang , but I am completely disgusted by the number of players out every week and the time it takes to get them fit again . ———— Yes some injuries can be long term ———— but so many ?
This crazy situation has been going on far too long , and I no longer can accept it as ‘ bad luck ‘ . I see it as the managers responsibility !

[Pandoras Box]

As there is no BFTG thread, I’ll post my thoughts here.

1) is ‘soft tissue damage’ Reading’s alternative Covid?

2) as I got out of the car and read ‘team news’, I knew I’d wasted my time and money and I wasn’t disappointed.
I’ll say it as I found it - that was an absolute sh*t show, however many excuses are made to cover up the ineptitude on that pitch.
We didn’t lose three points, as they were never going to be on offer in the first place.
WBA reckon we were the worst team they’d seen and regretfully and I have to agree.

3) When Pauno infers there were some sparks in the second half translates to ‘after 60 minutes we actually managed to string more than three forward passes together but which ultimately fizzled out in the last third’.
If WBA had been more clinical with their finishing - this would have been a rout.

4) Andy Carroll needs to get out of this farce ASAP. The career he is trying to resurrect is going to be severely damaged by the lack of service and what’s (not) going on around him. If he doesn’t score he won’t gain the notice of superior clubs and he’ll miss the bus.
He is everything I would expect and want from a professional - passionate, competitive, full of intensity, skilful. 100% committed.
He makes some nice touches, which are lost on players with a complete lack of awareness, anticipation and nearly always second to the ball.
You can see his frustration boiling over.
If we just had more players with his mentality and passion, let alone ability, we’d easily be competing for play offs or more.

5) Reading’s support was first class, regardless of the spectacle they were witnessing.

As a final note, is this the future? Taking into consideration what might be in the business plan with regards to selling key players and end of contracts etc - especially if renegotiations may have wage decreases or caps?

[Snowflake Royal]

I know options were limited, but we basically gave up all initiative and territory by picking a back 5 with one up front.

We know we aren't the best at breaking, and Swift is absolutely crucial to our possession. But we went with that as the plan and an isolated Carroll upfront.

Feel like we'd have been much better going with Puscas alongside Carroll and much more direct. Occupy their back line better. It was scratch built and we just let three of them sit on Carroll. We should have made them uncomfortable. With only 1 striker they could push forward and pen us back easier.

I just don't think Paunovic is a good tactical manager. His ability to adapt is poor. He's just very inflexible, rarely reacts to in game situations in a timely way.

[Zip]

We can see why Puscas has struggled this season. Carroll has no service yesterday so was ineffective. Puscas has had this paucity of service all season.

[Snowflake Royal]

We can see why Puscas has struggled this season. Carroll has no service yesterday so was ineffective. Puscas has had this paucity of service all season.

Yep. Puscas isn’t a great player by any stretch of the imagination. Limited is a good description. But give him some actual service and he'll do an adequate job.

One of the problems of changing managers every 5 minutes is you never have a long term signing strategy and your squad is always half built to play a different way to the one you're trying.

But to stick with a manager through thick and thin you need to see them doing two things.

1) Building to an objectivity
2) Making short term compromises to adapt to the current circumstances.

I think Clement and Bowen are the only ones we've had recently who have got that. Even if it went very poorly for Clement.

[Coppells Lost Coat]

We can see why Puscas has struggled this season. Carroll has no service yesterday so was ineffective. Puscas has had this paucity of service all season.

Summed up by when Puscas was clear of all his markers and Ashcroft just needed to poke the ball beyond the WBA player to be through but instead he loops it high into the 18 yard box for the keeper to gather.

I am not fussed about the result, it was expected but would have rather see us actually go for it than do what ever we were trying to do. Every time we broke it looked like they realised that wasn't the game plan and turned back inside. It was far to easy for WBA to defend against and Bartley was a beast and snuffed out a lot of our poor attempts of attacking.

[Hound]

No huge fan of Pauno at all, but its incredibly hard to build a style and consistent system when we're have to chop and change the team every week.

I think there is a recognisable style of play he wants to deliver (whether thats the right way is certainly debatable) where we generally like to play through the midfield, out to the wings, with it then being laid back across the box/just outside for the midfield/forwards to come onto. When we've had consistent sides I think we play in a pretty recognisable way - we certainly did when he first came in. Gomes had a style in season 2, it just didnt work. Too easily unpicked. Bowen I was a fan of, but couldn't really tell you what he was trying to do at the end

He absolutely needs to root out the issues with injuries. Its unacceptable DD missing 2 of the last 3/4 with soft tissue injuries, Azeez twice coming back and then missing time again, Rino taking forever to come back etc. Whether that is actually his responsibility or not, I don't really know