Back from the Game - Hull (H)

[RoyalBlue]

Reading fans who called Mikele Leigertwood "Elwood" are absolute oxf*rd

this ^^^^^^

Hull were shocking, haven't seen a more negative team at our place for a while, they Were no threat at all, their goal was a joke, I'm glad Harte was given the pen duty to make some amends.

Rosenoir was excellent, boo all you want, he was quality and thrived on the abuse,

Agreed. Still not sure why we let him go, other than for financial reasons.

[Elmer Park]

Reading fans who called Mikele Leigertwood "Elwood" are absolute oxf*rd

Agreed. I think one odd poster thought of the name and for some reason a lot of people have annoyingly adopted it. Mikele has played for several Clubs and never been called that by any of their fans. Has been called Ledge if anything.

Anyway on to the subject in question I thought we were pretty solid at the back today although Hull's two expensive signings up front were poor. Leigertwood won a lot of balls again but sometimes gave it back again. The rest worked hard to little effect but Long did well considering he took some worrying knocks. I hope he is OK and Hunt isn't too badly injured because Church couldn't seem to get in the game and Manset at this very early stage looked a bit stretched at this level although it was a big ask to expect him to have too much of an impact the day after he signed.

All in all on the day it looked like two mid table sides cancelling each other out. Absolutely fuming at Harte for the goal though - primary schoolboy error.

[RoyalBlue]

Harte 6- at fault for the goal, doesnt look like a championship player at all, made up with the penalty though

Sorry, but let's forget these 'made up for it' arguments. He did not. The score should have been 0-0 at that point. Long would still have won the penalty and there would have been a good chance that he would have scored to give us three points. Harte's stupidity cost us two points. Scoring the penalty saved us one.

[SLAMMED]

Reading fans who called Mikele Leigertwood "Elwood" are absolute oxf*rd

'greed. It's for the people too thick to spell his name.

[heathrow royal]

Agreed. Still not sure why we let him go, other than for financial reasons.

I think you have answered your own question

[RoyalBlue]

Agreed. Still not sure why we let him go, other than for financial reasons.

I think you have answered your own question

With my 'love' for Madejski and his policies, sub-consciously it was probably a rhetorical question!

[Royalee]

Federici - 6...had nothing to do except pick the ball out of the net due to Harte's incompetence

Harte - 4...cost us the points and tried to make up for it by taking a penalty which cost me my bet on Long to score - absolutely skinned as usual all over the pitch again, why we didn't sign Bertrand instead of him and that other clown Marcus Williams I'll never know.
Mills - 5...always the wrong side of his man and gives the ball away with his hoofs
Pearce - 7...solid and reads the game very well
Griffin - 6...standard Griffin game really

McAnuff - 6...normal game for him, had the beating of Rosenior when he actually attacked him, but maybe didn't do that enough.
Karacan - 6...needs to pass the ball more instead of hooking it on, but did okay.
Leigertwood - 7...he's improved a lot since his first game here, gets stuck in and is fairly solid although he should have done better with an effort he swung his left foot at second half where he had all the time in the world to set himself
Kebe - 6...decent first half, faded a bit in the second and went inside into a crowd of players when he'd have been able to sprint clear near the end

Church - 3...plays like one of those tarts who turn up for it every Sunday, get rid please.
Long - 7...much improved over the last few months, fouled all over the place but kept going, won the penalty and was a general menace - a lesson to the pansy playing next to him.

Subs:
Manset - 6...looked pretty good when he came on, has a good touch, bit off the pace maybe but it's a big jump and took Kitson a few games - encouraging. Start him instead of Church next league game please.
Robson-Kanu - 6...did okay, skinned Rosenior to nearly set Long up to score late on

[loyalroyal4life]

Hull were shit but having said that we didnt really make our possession count towards anything a great deal.

Church looked poor and Harte was clearly at fault for the goal. Have to agree with Royalee I wish we had Bertrand playing at LB. I would even go Cummings over Harte

Will need to step it up for QPR at home.

Manset looked ok, can't really comment given it was his first game and he hasn't even trained yet.

Overall thought it was 2 points dropped which could prove to be costly come end of season.

[floyd__streete]

Hartes fault not Feds.

Ref and Lino shit

Church poor

Leg mom

^ This is all you really need to know about a poor game.

I head off for a week's holiday in the sun and come back to find that we've signed a window cleaner from Eastleigh, Swindon's best player and a Bas Savage look-and-playalike. Noted that Manset's signing is a loan move until the deal is finalised next week - I wonder whether we could ask for a loan extension in order to suss out whether this bloke is likely to make it or not. On the evidence of today - no way.

Poor game, chances went begging first half. Unbelievably awful defending by Harte as per for the opener, but he had the balls to step up for the pen and fair play he tucked it away beautifully. Leigertwood was MOTM, and as he is so clearly so superior to Karacan could we not mix things up a bit and play a more creative player alongside Micky Legs? Doesn't really suit McD's long ball game, I guess. I'd like to finish by saying that Kebe looks a shadow of his former self and has reverted to disinterested and ineffective since his return from injury. And once again Mills was massively out-performed by his central defensive partner.

[Handsome Man]

Reading fans who called Mikele Leigertwood "Elwood" are absolute oxf*rd

this ^^^^^^

Hull were shocking, haven't seen a more negative team at our place for a while, they Were no threat at all, their goal was a joke, I'm glad Harte was given the pen duty to make some amends.

Rosenoir was excellent, boo all you want, he was quality and thrived on the abuse,

Agreed. Still not sure why we let him go, other than for financial reasons.

It was for financial reasons.

We were good first half and crap second, but a point was OK. With a ref like that anything could have happened. New bloke looked complete shit, but so did Leigertwood in his first game. Give him a chance?

[RoyalBlue]

Real close thing for MOM today between Leigertwood and Long. The latter's commitment and workrate throughout the game was absolutely superb. He has also matured in personality. He got, kicked, pushed, held down, barged etc. all over the place today and got sod all protection from a very poor ref. The old Long would have lost the plot, and done/said something silly. Season 2010-11 model just picked himself up and got on with the game again.

[Svlad Cjelli]

It was a throwback to the first half of the season - seen it so many times before.

First half plenty of possession and reasonable chances but not able to score from them, then early in the second half give away a soft goal and then chasing the game after that.

[PistolPete]

Mills - 5...always the wrong side of his man and gives the ball away with his hoofs

He was almost faultless today. In the past I felt he was a liability, but McDermott's faith in him has paid dividends and I am astonished anyone could think he was anything other than excellent today...

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Hull came for a point and got one but were nearly gifted all three in a dire game not helped by the referee and his assistant on the West Stand.

They need to look at their performance today as the decisions they made were wrong throughout the game.

RFC need to learn to take their chances in the first half of games when sides set up defensive tactics with two holding midfielder in front of the back four.

That's Coventry, Leeds and now Hull who have parked the bus with six points dropped at home when we were the much the better team..

[RoyalJames101]

Mills - 5...always the wrong side of his man and gives the ball away with his hoofs

He was almost faultless today. In the past I felt he was a liability, but McDermott's faith in him has paid dividends and I am astonished anyone could think he was anything other than excellent today...

This this this this this ^^^

[RoyalBlue]

Mills - 5...always the wrong side of his man and gives the ball away with his hoofs

He was almost faultless today. In the past I felt he was a liability, but McDermott's faith in him has paid dividends and I am astonished anyone could think he was anything other than excellent today...

This this this this this ^^^

And some more! Only criticism I would have of him is that he could be a bit more vocal as captain.

[Billy The Fish]

Feds - 6 Not much to do, and I don't think the goal was his fault
Griff - 7 Solid at the back but not the usual attacking threat today (see Kebe)
Harte - 5 Docked 1 for the horrible mistake. For those calling for Armstrong to come back, I don't agree. Harte is good enough despite the lack of pace and gives a dead-ball threat that we otherwise would Not Have.
Mills and Pearce - Both 7 Excellent defensively, makes the signing of Morrison a bit mystifying really, unless it's for standby duty next season when Ivar has retired and Zurab has gone.
Karacan - 6 Tenacious. If only there was a bit more quality in his passing game.
Legs - 8 and MOTM. Another excellent game, it's no coincidence that we don't get beaten when he's in the side. Signs that he's improving MacAnuff's game as well.
MacAnuff - 7 Best game from Jobi for ages, one run was like the one at Liverpool (and a similar result alas).
Kebe - 5 Just not on his game. Only got a few opportunites to take on his full-back and then only got past him a couple of times. Didn't link up with Griff like he has been (at one point he dissappeared into the middle and Griff had no options ahead of him).
Church - 4 I don't understand how he gets a start at the moment. Poor touch, offside far too often, dreadful passing.
Long - 8 Another good display considering he appeared to be carrying an injury. Didn't see what caused him to go down the first time but he wasn't his usual self after that. Survived an absolute assault from Ashbee that another ref would have deemed worthy of a red.

HRK - 6 Seemed to have the beating of Rosenior today, but I would much rather see Antonio ahead of him (as I think they are both equally inconsistent but Antonio also offers the long throw option).
Manset - 6 Considering the massive step up, looked OK. Some good hold-up play and had the confidence to try a couple of step-overs. Had a half-chance from an HRK cross so getting in the right positions.

West-Stand Lino - 1 Some of those offside decisions looked very poor.
Referee - 4 I don't think the challenge on Kebe was a penalty, and actually I think another ref could easily have thought that Long went looking for contact for the pen that was given. He did start off giving a lot of free-kicks to Hull that were a bit generous though.

Harps - 7 Top pointing.

[PEARCEY]

Dont agree about Leigertwood being man of the match. He broke up a lot of their play and worked tirelessly but some of his passing and shooting was dire.
Either Pearce or Mills for MoTM. Both looked very assured and a tackle late on by Mills inside the penalty box was superb.
Definitely Harte at fault for the goal. Just get rid of it FFS. Instead he stood there rooted to the spot allowing their player to nip in and score. I couldn't see Feds calling for the ball so Harte takes responsibility.
It cost us two points because we should have won. He does deserve credit though for the pen.
In the first half we dominated without creating many chances. Jobi had a great first half and had a good chance but their keeper came out and blocked his shot. He faded in the second-half.
There's a lot of criticism of Church. The boy did ok but he really didn't have much service. Thought he linked up ok with Long and McAnuff.
After Hull scored we had two wobbles from their corners which could have killed the game. We then huffed and puffed and the pen really came out of the blue.
Fair play to the guy next to me in Row GG Y 24 high up in the East Stand who didn't stop singing and at least got some of chanting.
As for the constant booing and Fcuk off Rosenior chances it was a bit embarrassing really.
We may well rue Harte's error come the end of the season.
As for Manset well he needs to get his fitness levels up because he was huffing and puffing towards the end.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Manset seems to be the only human being that can jump in the air for a header, and somehow end up with his head lower to the ground than if he just stood still!

I can see at least a year of heavy training before he's ready

[Greatwesternline]

Church gets caught offside, a lot.