Back from the miracle

[cmonurz]

Love that.

[loyalroyal4life]

'Greed with the rofling at IR. Bizarre ratings.

Thought today was the day Danny Guthrie finally stepped up as a Reading player. Orchestrated things in the second half from deep

Absolutely +1

Christ just seen Ian Royal's rating. I know the bloke's a helmet but actual . Guthrie was the heartbeat second half.

I am surprised you are shocked, given the guy does his ratings based on listening to it rather than actually going to any games!!!

[Esteban]

And for those who moan about our support, also from BBC Sport:

Spurred on by a raucous home crowd, Reading sealed their comeback in the final minute of normal time when Pogrebnyak bundled in a knock-down from Alex Pearce past Foster.

Yes, for 8 minutes at the end of the game.

[Ian Royal]

Seeing as I've got an absolute pasting I thought I'd put up ratings from Whoscored.com which has useful stats - although I'm not sure how reliable they are.

Federici - 6.0 - 53% pass completion, 1 save
Gunter - 6.8 - 78% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 tackle
Harte - 6.2 - 75% pass completion, 1 tackle
Pearce - 7.1 - 78% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 assist
Mariappa - 6.6 - 82% pass completion, 80% airials won, 1 tackle
McAnuff - 6.4 - 76% pass completion, 100% airials won
Kebe - 7.6 - 87% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 goal
Carrico - 6.0 - 80% pass completion
Karacan - 6.3 - 76% pass completion, 2 tackles
Guthrie - 6.6 - 76% pass completion
Pogrebnyak - 7 - 75% pass completion, 8% airials won, 1 goal

McCleary - 7.2 - 100% pass completion, 1 assist
Le Fondre - 6.7 - 33% pass completion, 1 penalty

So, at least something agrees with my pick of the three best starters - and that Cayenne's wrong about Harte not misplacing any passes. But it does like like I've got Guthrie totally wrong. Which I'll take on the chin.

[LoyalRoyal22]

Was talking about what life would be like in the Championship with my dad with 10 minutes to go. Did not see that coming. What a feeling though.

Cant be bothered with ratings, but my main thoughts are

Fed could have done better with the 2nd goal?

Guthrie was awesome

Usually a Gunter fan but thought he was poor today

Harte was not great also and i would like to see Shorey recalled

POG was immense, his chest control and pass to McCleary set up the move for the first goal, and his finish was awesome for the 3rd

Whats the hating on Carrico for? Showed nice touches and a few slick passes. Looked rusty which is understandable. Remember his job is to chase infront of the back 4 and when he gets it, to use the ball well. Not sure what else everyone is expecting.

[SPARTA]

This is just

http://www.skysports.com/video/inline/0 ... 07,00.html

[paultheroyal]

Considering Harte takes majority of set pieces which often land on head of opponent I am surprised he scored a higher percentage than he did.

Ian, you had a mare!

[Rex]

Copy and paste. Hit and miss.

[Ian Royal]

Considering Harte takes majority of set pieces which often land on head of opponent I am surprised he scored a higher percentage than he did.

Ian, you had a mare!

Guthrie takes a few as well. I think I may have admitted that.

[LoyalRoyal22]

Yes, serious. First half he gave the ball away too easily far too often. Second half he was better, but all I really saw him do was hit tame shots from outside the box. I expect better of him.

I respect your opinion. We all see different things from the game. I Am not a big fan of his attitude and think he has a lot to prove so have no reason to defend him but whilst the odd pass may have gone astray, this is expected from a playmaker.

Overall his passing and control of the game was a joy to behold. One pass in particular on about 54mins, to kebe that lead to mclearys unluckiliy saved shot- our best chance of the game at the time, was simply phenomenal and created an instant spark.

And even though he's not a ball winner he cleared up nicely after Carico losing the ball.

Very solid performance today.

+1

[SPARTA]

Don't understand the negatives on McAnuff.

First half he flew down the wing and was beating players, and doing his usual sterling tackling back.

When he eventually went into central midfield, we did score three goals

Bravo. Completely agree! Was our best player in the 1st half I thought.

You must have been watching a different first half to me. He had a few runs down the left but they didn't come to anything, and he was his usual predictable self - run so far, stop, look to pass back or cut in on his right. He also gave the ball away at least four times in the first half alone. I like him. I like the effort he puts in, but he was terrible first half, and the whole idea of bringing him into the middle just highlights our lack of creative options.

[RoyalBlue]

Seeing as I've got an absolute pasting I thought I'd put up ratings from Whoscored.com which has useful stats - although I'm not sure how reliable they are.

Federici - 6.0 - 53% pass completion, 1 save
Gunter - 6.8 - 78% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 tackle
Harte - 6.2 - 75% pass completion, 1 tackle
Pearce - 7.1 - 78% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 assist
Mariappa - 6.6 - 82% pass completion, 80% airials won, 1 tackle
McAnuff - 6.4 - 76% pass completion, 100% airials won
Kebe - 7.6 - 87% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 goal
Carrico - 6.0 - 80% pass completion
Karacan - 6.3 - 76% pass completion, 2 tackles
Guthrie - 6.6 - 76% pass completion
Pogrebnyak - 7 - 75% pass completion, 8% airials won, 1 goal

McCleary - 7.2 - 100% pass completion, 1 assist
Le Fondre - 6.7 - 33% pass completion, 1 penalty

So, at least something agrees with my pick of the three best starters - and that Cayenne's wrong about Harte not misplacing any passes. But it does like like I've got Guthrie totally wrong. Which I'll take on the chin.

They're clearly not very reliable because, good as he was when he came on, I can recall McCleary messing up at least two passes. Guthrie also produced a great tackle to save Carrico after he gifted a pass to West Brom. Maybe I am misunderstanding these stats because I'm sure we made more than 5 successful tackles in the game!

[LoyalRoyal22]

Seeing as I've got an absolute pasting I thought I'd put up ratings from Whoscored.com which has useful stats - although I'm not sure how reliable they are.

Federici - 6.0 - 53% pass completion, 1 save
Gunter - 6.8 - 78% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 tackle
Harte - 6.2 - 75% pass completion, 1 tackle
Pearce - 7.1 - 78% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 assist
Mariappa - 6.6 - 82% pass completion, 80% airials won, 1 tackle
McAnuff - 6.4 - 76% pass completion, 100% airials won
Kebe - 7.6 - 87% pass completion, 100% airials won, 1 goal
Carrico - 6.0 - 80% pass completion
Karacan - 6.3 - 76% pass completion, 2 tackles
Guthrie - 6.6 - 76% pass completion
Pogrebnyak - 7 - 75% pass completion, 8% airials won, 1 goal

McCleary - 7.2 - 100% pass completion, 1 assist
Le Fondre - 6.7 - 33% pass completion, 1 penalty

So, at least something agrees with my pick of the three best starters - and that Cayenne's wrong about Harte not misplacing any passes. But it does like like I've got Guthrie totally wrong. Which I'll take on the chin.

The thing is, the passes that Guthrie did complete were much more meaningfull than most of his team-mates. His ambition of trying to play the hollywood ball set up alot of our most promising attacks

[Ian Royal]

Buggered if I know. Would you define a tackle as winning the ball in a challenge and keeping it, or taking the ball off a player in a challenge no matter where it goes? If you go for the first, it's probably actually fairly rare, but I'd have said the latter was a better description.

Obviously it's not perfect quantatative, with no qualatative element so its far from the whole picture. The results are up straight away, so it must be done as the match is going, no idea how.

[sputnik]

Kebe confirmed he is a God today.

there was the moment when WBA broke down the left and kebe was caught upfield.
he turned, caught the player, robbed, him, turned and went back on the attack.

That was absolutely inspirational.

[Wycombe Royal]

Passing accuracy stats are meaningless as they don't give any indication of what type of pass it was. If you go on stats alone then Leon Britton was the best midfielder in Europe last season, but the simple fact is most of his passes are under 5 yards and go backwards or sideways. Guthrie is always looking for a forward pass and as he is trying to unlock defenses with some of his passes it is not a surprise that quite a few don't make their target. But I WANT to see him making those passes even if they don't come off.

[Libertine]

My two cents for what it's worth seeing I only watched it on a stream...

We had trouble creating anything in the final third until the 82nd minute but we looked much better on the ball for the whole game today and it seemed it finally "clicked" for us in the last 10 minutes. Lukaku is a beast. Guthrie, Pogrebnyak, Kebe had great games. Guthrie, especially in the second half, was the player I have been expecting to see when we signed him. I think we can still get better seeing Kebe and Guthrie are finally getting settled in the starting XI again after missing time with injuries. Same thing with Jem, he has been rock solid since his return. We need to figure out a way to get Pog the ball at his feet more. If we can he might end up with 15+ goals this season. I thought Carrico was fine. Obviously rusty, and out of game shape, which he will get to in due time. I also do not blame Carrico for the first goal, we just struggled as a team dealing with Lukaku, so to pin that on him is unfair. Jobi had a solid game today, both out wide and inside once McCleary was introduced. Feds was very solid today. Many a handful of quality saves which kept us in it. He got caught going the wrong way on the second but he more than made up for it with the saves he made.

[Ian Royal]

Passing accuracy stats are meaningless as they don't give any indication of what type of pass it was. If you go on stats alone then Leon Britton was the best midfielder in Europe last season, but the simple fact is most of his passes are under 5 yards and go backwards or sideways. Guthrie is always looking for a forward pass and as he is trying to unlock defenses with some of his passes it is not a surprise that quite a few don't make their target. But I WANT to see him making those passes even if they don't come off.

They're not meaningless, but they only tell a small part of the story.

[interestedobserver]

must have been some sort of weird signing on clause that determined that Carrico should start today. Awful decision from Brian to start him. Pog was excellent today but lumping balls up to him as a 4-5-1 is never going to work unless we get players around him - None of the midfielders got within 20 metres of him in the first hour.

[RoyalBlue]

Feds is escaping a lot of criticism on here. Had we lost, I'm sure we'd all be talking about how he should have saved the second goal.

It looked poor from the East Stansd to me. However having seeen it on replay there is no way he could have covered the near post without leaving a huge gap the other side . Lukaku was getting towaqrds the centre when he shot.

Having now seen the goal on TV, I think that's a pretty fair assessment despite the commentator (who doesn't know the offside law, so probably knows even less about goalkeeping) saying that Federici would be disappointed.