Back From The Game. Southampton Away

[Ian Royal]

Federici - 7 some decent saves, generally made to look better than they were. MoTM by default I guess
Cummings - 6.5 soome good defensive work and a couple of decent crosses
Shorey - 6.5 weaker performance than normal but still looks our best player
Mariappa - 6 ok I guess, he's not convinced me at all
Morrison - 6 poor game by the standards he's set and I think partly at fault for their goal, but in fairness he had picked up an injury.
McAnuff - 5 produced little
Tabb - 6.5 looked pretty good. Until it came to passing, when he gave it away too easily
Ledge - 4 too slow of mind and body, too keen to hoof and not good enough at short passing
HRk - 6 doubled up on so not much he could do but nearly scored, disappeared second half
ALF - 5 not much service, nice touches but he's drowning in this team
Roberts - 6.5 most of our better attacking play involves him, but he looks about as likely to score as I do.

Hunt - 5 didn't notice him, apart from when ALF stole a header from him
Pearce - 6.5 didn't see him put a foot wrong
McCleary - 5.5 didn't do a lot.

McDermott - 2 poor set up, totally reactive management. Failed again and looks utterly devoid of ideas.

First half it literally took 12 minutes for us to manage to make 3 consecutive successful passes. We grew into the game a bit more after that and actually finished the half reasonably ok. But Saints were on top and had managed to string together numerous chances, as well as have a goal wrongly disallowed.

We started the second half well. For all of 2 minutes. You could then see Saints take the initiative, take control and boss the game as we started panicking. Again we couldn't string passes together, got deeper and deeper and panic hoofed clear. YOu could see they were going to score and then suddenly we went to sleep and all too easily they passed in side from wide no one got tight and Puncheon scored an easy easy goal. We never looked like recovering and to be honest we're lucky it wasn't more.

Adkins totally had McDermott's number.

[Rex]

Clueless. Inept. etc, etc. If they are getting paid Premier wages, then they must be able to step up a gear!!!! They couldn't even play the easy pass, kept hoofing it forward and loosing the ball. We need other midfield players now.

Payscales are the incentive - agreed.

[Norfolk Royal]

The game today brutally exposed our weaknesses. We're shoving the balls into the channels which, while very effective with the right players in the championship, is not enough to fool premiership teams.

I've read posts from people saying that that style of play should not be played in the premiership per se.

I don't necessarily agree with that. You could win premiership matches playing that way, and teams have.

But those teams have the likes of Shane Long and John Walters chasing down balls and putting defenders under pressure.

We have a fox in the box Alf, who needs service, an ageing past master in Jason who although he struggles manfully is no Shane Long, a left footed player who wasn't deemed good enough for our championship team suddenly first choice on the right, and a right footed player whose form is patchy, on the left.

Add to that the problems with Guthrie and Pearce, which I believe have been very unstabling, particularly the Pearce situation, and you have a potent cocktail producing relegation.

With the personnel we have I think we should play ultra defensively away from home, one up front, pack the midfield, might snatch a few points, then play as we have at home which I think may produce five or six wins by the end of the season.

That won't be enough of course and notwithstanding any additional players in January, which I don't expect to make an awful lot of difference. But you never know, stranger things have happened.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

probably one of the poorest games from a Readnig team i've seen in a long time. No desire, shape, or more importantly quality.

McAnuff, Cummins and Ledge were the stand out sh1t today. We never looked like scoring, can't hold onto the ball and can't pass it.

Roberts is more worried about trying to gain soft free kicks than chasing the ball down.

Federici made some good saves today, had his one clanger moment with not controlling the awful back pass.

Lets see what the Jan transfer window brings (if Anton has any money), but i fear it maybe too little too late

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

This so called RFC team need a big shake up before it is too late.

Judging by today's nonperformance the players think they can just turn up an win the game without putting in a shift, how wrong were they!!

What a waste of an afternoon, £35 Ticket, £10 parking in the park and ride to watch a gutless performance from RFC.

[winchester_royal]

'Greed that we had no shape. It was the first times I've looked at a Reading team playing and not been able to see any sort of plan in motion over how to break the opposition down. Not sure our wingers beat their man once all game, and given HRK was up against a 17 yo that's pretty unforgivable.

Brian's substitutions were predictable and had no impact on the game whatsoever. Bringing on Hunt as a winger was a stroke of utter stupidity, McCleary offered little more than HRK. Guthrie should have been brought on after 55 minutes for the diabolical Leigertwood, and with 10 minutes to go it was the perfect time to give Samuel a go to see if he could catch the Saints defence off guard.

Bored of this team tbh. They have very little quality and only bother putting effort in when the big boys come to town. Change is needed.

[Rex]

This so called RFC team need a big shake up before it is too late.

Judging by today's nonperformance the players think they can just turn up an win the game without putting in a shift, how wrong were they!!

What a waste of an afternoon, £35 Ticket, £10 parking in the park and ride to watch a gutless performance from RFC.

I don't think the team or individuals are that arrogant. Maybe if we had the results to back up your statement it would support you slightly.

[Schards#2]

Nothing surprised me about today, as I have said before, (and been mocked for), we are the worst team in the division by a mile and will finish bottomby a distance. I would estimate us gaining circa 18-20 points. It's over, we're down.

The question is, what to do with Brian. Watching ye another inept performance, it's easy to want someone's head but no manager on earth could keep this squad up, therefore, what is the point? On the other hand, I just can't see fans tolerating a season where we score our lowest total ever without sacking the manager, indeed, he might not want to put himself through that.

I don't want us to splurge in January, we'll still go down but be £30m worse off and saddled with players on huge wages who don't want to be at Reading or in the Championship. In short, we're fucked every which way and we will just have to take our medecine until next August. There will be worse days than this, starting Tuesday.

The only consolation is the cheap LOL @ Woodcote Royal and his insistance that McDermott is better than Coppell

[paultheroyal]

Agree with the above but we should buy in January in prep for next season.

Such players like Redmond, Judge, Austin and the like.

[harryroyal]

our support was oxf*rd shit.

[jellytot]

our support was oxf*rd shit.

What is there to suppport? We are garbage.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

People need to get screwed on.

This is McDermott's fault. He picks the team, he buys the players, he failed to buy enough players. We had Dominic Samuel on the bench, fair play to the lad - great future ahead of him, but will he keep us in the Premier League? No. Although, will the likes of Mikele Leigertwood, Jay Tabb and Noel Hunt keep us in this league either? No. Simply not good enough at this level.

Mikele Leigertwood is my scape goat again. Absolutely horrendous in possession. Absolutely horrendous out of possession. We can all wax lyrical about Jay Tabb's work rate and dedication, but he hardly cuts the mustard either. We have Danny Guthrie sat on the bench for goodness sake.

Decent day out despite the result. Good drinking session in town, then got put into a police escort/bubble to the ground. Few Southampton pubs taken over by Reading fans which was decent, although after a fair bit of aggro broke out we weren't allowed into any others

[RoyalBlue]

People need to get screwed on.

This is McDermott's fault. He picks the team, he buys the players, he failed to buy enough players. We had Dominic Samuel on the bench, fair play to the lad - great future ahead of him, but will he keep us in the Premier League? No. Although, will the likes of Mikele Leigertwood, Jay Tabb and Noel Hunt keep us in this league either? No. Simply not good enough at this level.

Mikele Leigertwood is my scape goat again. Absolutely horrendous in possession. Absolutely horrendous out of possession. We can all wax lyrical about Jay Tabb's work rate and dedication, but he hardly cuts the mustard either. We have Danny Guthrie sat on the bench for goodness sake.

Guthrie sat on the bench was clearly part of McDermott's cunning plan to 'get him up to speed'!

F8ck knows why McDermott puts him in the squad if he doesn't think he is up to playing!

[Arch]

As a wise man once said , "Christ!"

[Libertine]

'Greed that we had no shape. It was the first times I've looked at a Reading team playing and not been able to see any sort of plan in motion over how to break the opposition down. Not sure our wingers beat their man once all game, and given HRK was up against a 17 yo that's pretty unforgivable.

Brian's substitutions were predictable and had no impact on the game whatsoever. Bringing on Hunt as a winger was a stroke of utter stupidity, McCleary offered little more than HRK. Guthrie should have been brought on after 55 minutes for the diabolical Leigertwood, and with 10 minutes to go it was the perfect time to give Samuel a go to see if he could catch the Saints defence off guard.

Bored of this team tbh. They have very little quality and only bother putting effort in when the big boys come to town. Change is needed.

And if Soton is comfortable playing 17 year-olds why aren't our younger, more athletic, talent being given a look?

[Arch]

In fairness, Shaw was fcuking awesome. I'm not sure we have that kind of talent among out 17 year olds. In fact, every single Saints player was far superior technically and physically to their counterpart for Reading.

[Pandoras Box]

our support was oxf*rd shit.

Cos it's a oxf*rd insult for so many to turn up and the team have no desire or fire.
Do you honestly think that singing Bill Oddie will give Leigertwood the ability to actually pass or control the ball? No.
Maybe it will make the defence close down the attack like Shitehampton stuck to our forwards and cancelled out our attack? No.
They were f*ckin' PATHETIC and completely limited in ability, and no amount of support will ever change that.

[Gunny Fishcake]

our support was oxf*rd shit.

What is there to suppport? We are garbage.

Though suffering like many , that statement is ludicrous , of course we still support the team , thick and thin , good and bad , highs and lows .

That's what being a Reading and any football supporter is .

If you only support the team in good days then you're best out of here

[Pandoras Box]

If you only support the team in good days then you're best out of here

No - that's a cop out, basically allowing any behaviour to be tolerated or 'you aren't a real supporter' .We do support - but we can also have our say. It's like your missus f*cking everyone down the pub , and when you complain, someone says 'Well you can't really love her then , so you're best off out of here'.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Wow that was bad. Can't think of one player that stood out for us - perhaps Shorey. We look completely devoid of confidence and quality. At no point did I think we'd score.

They're not good enough & on that showing we'll be lucky to get 20 pts this season. Really don't know where we go from here.