BFTG - United (A)

[jd82]

Without getting too technical on Reading's performance. They were abysmal.

Tad harsh. Utterly abysmal for the first 20 minutes (and unlike some, I would include Kelly, Evans et al in that - defence were headless chickens but the midfield might as well not have been on the pitch at all). And alternating between poor, mediocre and "promising but toothless" for the rest of the game.

rare greed with Kes here.. we were truly bloody awful for the first 25, and only grew into the game after that as Utd went into cruise control.. still conceded 4, could have conceded 3/4 more, and I can only remember 1 real chance the whole game.

[tee peg]

Without getting too technical on Reading's performance. They were abysmal.

Tad harsh. Utterly abysmal for the first 20 minutes (and unlike some, I would include Kelly, Evans et al in that - defence were headless chickens but the midfield might as well not have been on the pitch at all). And alternating between poor, mediocre and "promising but toothless" for the rest of the game.

rare greed with Kes here.. we were truly bloody awful for the first 25, and only grew into the game after that as Utd went into cruise control.. still conceded 4, could have conceded 3/4 more, and I can only remember 1 real chance the whole game.

A special mention for Gunter.

[sandman]

OMG, No Fixed Abode. wtf? Thought he was dead, LOL.

[Sutekh]

Tad harsh. Utterly abysmal for the first 20 minutes (and unlike some, I would include Kelly, Evans et al in that - defence were headless chickens but the midfield might as well not have been on the pitch at all). And alternating between poor, mediocre and "promising but toothless" for the rest of the game.

rare greed with Kes here.. we were truly bloody awful for the first 25, and only grew into the game after that as Utd went into cruise control.. still conceded 4, could have conceded 3/4 more, and I can only remember 1 real chance the whole game.

A special mention for Gunter.

Moan about Gunter all you like, at least he's not Ashley Young.

[PieEater]

BBC South today just reported that we lost 5-0 maybe I miscounted.

[Hoss]

BBC South today just reported that we lost 5-0 maybe I miscounted.

Ha, I even went back on the BBC website to double check.

[Royal Ginger]

BBC South today just reported that we lost 5-0 maybe I miscounted.

Ha, I even went back on the BBC website to double check.

Same. No more than they deserved TBF

[Royals and Racers]

Bit of aggro on the 16.27 cross country train from Manchester Pic to Reading- British Transport police got involved after a head-butting incident. Train stood still at Banbury station for about 45 mins whilst it was sorted out. The only good thing about being 37 mins late into Reading is that 50% of the fare will be returned as compensation.

3 arrested according to Get Reading-2 from Reading and the other from Oxford !!!

[Schards#2]

In possession - 7/10

Out of possession - 2/10

One wonders what Stam made of the inept defending that could easily have led to us conceding 8 or more

[John Smith]

Tyler Blackett isn't good enough to play for Reading.

Discuss

[genome]

Tyler Blackett isn't good enough to play for Reading.

Discuss

I'm not sure he'd be very good at discus either.

[No Fixed Abode]

Tyler Blackett isn't good enough to play for Reading.

Discuss

How does Gunter play usually? The few times I've seen him he's been absolutely dreadful. He was absolutely woeful against United. For a seasoned pro with plenty of international experience he looks so nervous on the ball. Mick Gooding tells everyone Gunter is a gr8 athlete. But you have to be technically good with the ball too. It's even got me thinking about dusting my boots off and trying to become a pro again.

[genome]

Tyler Blackett isn't good enough to play for Reading.

Discuss

How does Gunter play usually? The few times I've seen him he's been absolutely dreadful. He was absolutely woeful against United. For a seasoned pro with plenty of international experience he looks so nervous on the ball. Mick Gooding tells everyone Gunter is a gr8 athlete. But you have to be technically good with the ball too. It's even got me thinking about dusting my boots off and trying to become a pro again.

Someone made a good point on here about Gunter - when he's playing with Wales he has less pressure on him because of the system they play. He's steady if unspectacular in the Championship but in a 4 at the back system against top quality players he is a liability and we saw it in the Premier League 2012/13.

He looked terrified of Martial and seemed to refuse to tackle him.

[Sutekh]

Tyler Blackett isn't good enough to play for Reading.

Discuss

How does Gunter play usually? The few times I've seen him he's been absolutely dreadful. He was absolutely woeful against United. For a seasoned pro with plenty of international experience he looks so nervous on the ball. Mick Gooding tells everyone Gunter is a gr8 athlete. But you have to be technically good with the ball too. It's even got me thinking about dusting my boots off and trying to become a pro again.

Someone made a good point on here about Gunter - when he's playing with Wales he has less pressure on him because of the system they play. He's steady if unspectacular in the Championship but in a 4 at the back system against top quality players he is a liability and we saw it in the Premier League 2012/13.

He looked terrified of Martial and seemed to refuse to tackle him.

Just him an a shed load of other international level full backs then

[muirinho]

How does Gunter play usually? The few times I've seen him he's been absolutely dreadful. He was absolutely woeful against United. For a seasoned pro with plenty of international experience he looks so nervous on the ball. Mick Gooding tells everyone Gunter is a gr8 athlete. But you have to be technically good with the ball too. It's even got me thinking about dusting my boots off and trying to become a pro again.

Someone made a good point on here about Gunter - when he's playing with Wales he has less pressure on him because of the system they play. He's steady if unspectacular in the Championship but in a 4 at the back system against top quality players he is a liability and we saw it in the Premier League 2012/13.

He looked terrified of Martial and seemed to refuse to tackle him.

Just him an a shed load of other international level full backs then

Yep, this. There are an awful lot of Premier League full-backs who get destroyed by the likes of Martial. And they have considerably better players alongside them to help out than Joey VdB and an uncharacteristically nervous and error-prone Moore.

It certainly didn't help that McShane wasn't there - for the second goal Gunter looked like he was trying to watch Martial, AND organise the rest of the defence simultaneously, which was always going to end in disaster. Have to say I am very dubious about Gunts as captain (on the pitch anyway) at the best of times - and it's an extra burden he could certainly do without when facing a player of that quality.

It's extremely likely he'll be captain again tomorrow night - hope it goes a bit better!

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Tyler Blackett isn't good enough to play for Reading.

Discuss

How does Gunter play usually? The few times I've seen him he's been absolutely dreadful. He was absolutely woeful against United. For a seasoned pro with plenty of international experience he looks so nervous on the ball. Mick Gooding tells everyone Gunter is a gr8 athlete. But you have to be technically good with the ball too. It's even got me thinking about dusting my boots off and trying to become a pro again.

Someone made a good point on here about Gunter - when he's playing with Wales he has less pressure on him because of the system they play. He's steady if unspectacular in the Championship but in a 4 at the back system against top quality players he is a liability and we saw it in the Premier League 2012/13.

He looked terrified of Martial and seemed to refuse to tackle him.

Wales is a bit of a red herring. If you have a 70 cap, Euro semi finalist in his prime years available on a £1m release clause (supposedly) then you'd expect 30 clubs to have been lining up in the summer but that didn't happen. The reality with Wales is that a back 5 suits him much better and he has little competition for his place.
In a 4 he is very average overall and defensively very weak. I get tired of seeing him back away from defending be it facing Martial or be it a situation such as the Bennett free header versus Norwich at 1-1 when he actually ran away towards the goal instead of challenging for the header.
To the question re Blackett, the issue is different. He has all the attributes of a top defender (physicality, brave etc) but no positional sense whatsoever. Something that is actually one of Gunter's strengths. Whether or not he can learn under Stam remains to be seen and he is currently also better suited to a 5 as is Obita.
There is a lot of focus on a striker coming in but a Griffin type full back wouldn't go amiss at present either. Unless we stick with the back 5 which is workable. Maybe the new centre back is to facilitate that. We shall see.

[No Fixed Abode]

Do you think there is a big gulf in terms of quality with the bottom teams in the Prem and the top sides in the Champ? Hull gave United a much harder game last night and they look certainties for relegation this season.

[Ian Royal]

Do you think there is a big gulf in terms of quality with the bottom teams in the Prem and the top sides in the Champ? Hull gave United a much harder game last night and they look certainties for relegation this season.

No. We just played well below our best.

Compare and contrast.
Gunter - defender in his prime signed for the PL - vs Martial
Murty - defender in his twilight signed for L1 vs Ronaldo

Murty put in way better performances. It's not just that Martial is very good. Gunter could have done so much more to counter him if he wasn't so mediocre and soft as a Mr whippy in the noon summer sun.

Can't wait for Watson to overtake him.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Do you think there is a big gulf in terms of quality with the bottom teams in the Prem and the top sides in the Champ? Hull gave United a much harder game last night and they look certainties for relegation this season.

No, not huge. I only saw a bit of the game but it looked like Hull played very narrow last night and so only gave away space in wide areas. We played very open and gave space away right across our back line which is suicidal against a quality team. I think most Championship sides would have gone with a deep lying 4-1-4-1 or 5-4-1 and tried to stay in the game for the first 70 minutes. Mourinho also said he was surprised how open it was early on but he soon shut it down at 2-0 which is why we appeared to be playing better with lots of possession. Game management in action I guess.
I can't quite make up my mind about Stam in this respect. He is either going to play his way in every game until such time as its embedded in the D&A of the club and he has the right players to execute. Or, he doesn't have the tactical agility to stay in a game against superior opposition. Fulham away was a similar scenario in that he should have changed the shape after 15 minutes.
I'm going to stick with the first one for now and enjoy watching the evolution one way or another !

[BR0B0T]

Do you think there is a big gulf in terms of quality with the bottom teams in the Prem and the top sides in the Champ? Hull gave United a much harder game last night and they look certainties for relegation this season.

Hull got battered in a different way to Reading.

Reading had far more possession than Hull, who sat
back and just invited wave after wave of pressure.

Reading were wide open* and got repeatedly cut to pieces

*like yo'mamma's legs....etc