...and relax...

[readingfc13]

I think Strap pretty well sums up how many of us feel.

In all honesty we haven't played much better than this all season and our demise has been on the cards ever since West Ham at home when we were absolute crap but was covered up by late wins against Wigan, Newcastle and Sunderland. Out of those three games, I personally think the Newcastle game was the only one in which we played significantly better and deserved the win. If it wasn't for a last ditch Duberry tackle and a one on one miss by Agahowa we would have lost the Wigan game and we all know the controversial story of Sunderland. Despite this though it was our commitment and never say die attitude that gained us the three points in these games but this seems to have completely disappeared now and it's all starting to look very desperate.

[AthleticoSpizz]

at least we can still do the double over Liverpool

[PEARCEY]

at least we can still do the double over Liverpool

Athletico you have become the ultimate RTG with this comment

[AthleticoSpizz]

at least we can still do the double over Liverpool

Athletico you have become the ultimate RTG with this comment

no point in being a moany old bugger


If the worst should happen, the 3-1 will live forever

[PEARCEY]

at least we can still do the double over Liverpool

Athletico you have become the ultimate RTG with this comment

no point in being a moany old bugger


If the worst should happen, the 3-1 will live forever

Yes for me to and particularly Harper's goal.
When all is said and done we both remember some very dark days in the old div 3 and 4 but I just feel the team are starting to go through the motions now and that is really disappointing. Coming on here gets it off my chest because I was well hacked off with today

[Archie's penalty]

Very depressed tonight. Felt like crying at points in the game today. But you know we have 11 games left. I hope we stay up. If we go down I will be distraught but I will still support the boys...

[weybridgewanderer]

this villa team may be 6th, but Fulham beat them at their place just a couple of weeks ago.

[Upper West Ginger]

I am simply so UTTERLY DESPERATELY HACKED OFF that - having achieved top-flight status after so many years - we are now in the process of throwing it away. Last season, I could have forgiven the team if they under-performed against the mighty Premier League teams - after all, we are only little old Reading. To many people's surprise, we did well. This season it is all imploding, and it hurts.

Relax, the man says. HA!

[Platypuss]

Ok, that should be enough time for all the doom brigade and people of fickle fragile faith to have their rants, orgasms and field days.

And now relax.

Back to reality.

We just lost at home to the 6th best side in the country.

Who lost to Fulham in their last away game.

There's some more reality.

[PremAddict]

Psychologically speaking I think you could expect Villa to come out and win after losing to Fulham - you never want to be the team that plays a strong side who performed poorly the previous week. It's typically a revenge match. Ask Arsenal.

That said, I'm mentally prepared to the drop.

[Cookie]

I am simply so UTTERLY DESPERATELY HACKED OFF that - having achieved top-flight status after so many years - we are now in the process of throwing it away. Last season, I could have forgiven the team if they under-performed against the mighty Premier League teams - after all, we are only little old Reading. To many people's surprise, we did well. This season it is all imploding, and it hurts.

Relax, the man says. HA!

I can't relax either.

[Ian Royal]

strap

get a grip!!!

You need to take some medication.

We'll be OK. Honest.....................

You're constant optimism is starting to worry me, you were wrong about our blip two years ago. Please don't be wrong about staying up.

It's bizarre seeing people slate that performance. Bar never looking like scoring and a lot of stupid mistakes at the back - most of which we got away with or tidied up ourselves we came close to matching Villa for most of th egame. Yes Villa could easily have scored 4 or 5, but equally we could easily have scored 3 or 4, we're just really struggling with goals.

I thought we played a lot of nice positive stuff in the middle of the park.

[floyd__streete]

It's bizarre seeing people slate that performance. Bar never looking like scoring and a lot of stupid mistakes at the back - most of which we got away with or tidied up ourselves we came close to matching Villa for most of th egame. Yes Villa could easily have scored 4 or 5, but equally we could easily have scored 3 or 4, we're just really struggling with goals.

I thought we played a lot of nice positive stuff in the middle of the park.

I'm quoting this to re-read what you have written because I couldn't quite believe it the first time round.

EDIT: Good grief . So apart from the mistakes and the never looking like scoring - although we could quite easily have scored 3 or 4, so you say - parts, it was all good otherwise?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

I am simply so UTTERLY DESPERATELY HACKED OFF that - having achieved top-flight status after so many years - we are now in the process of throwing it away. Last season, I could have forgiven the team if they under-performed against the mighty Premier League teams - after all, we are only little old Reading. To many people's surprise, we did well. This season it is all imploding, and it hurts.

Relax, the man says. HA!

I can't relax either.

I've never found relegation battles that stressful. Depressing, yes, but they always tend to have that feel of inevitible gloom about them that makes staying up a bonus.

Personally I found the promotion attempts in 2001 and 2002 much more stressful, particularly that agonizing run of draws in 2002.

[Arch]

Ok, that should be enough time for all the doom brigade and people of fickle fragile faith to have their rants, orgasms and field days.

And now relax.

Back to reality.

Cisse, whilst playing well against tough opposition most of the time, made enough silly errors to mean he should never put on a Reading shirt again. That's essentially what lost it for us. Otherwise...

We just lost at home to the 6th best side in the country.

This isn't about taking positives, it's about looking objectively at what happened. And I'll repeat. All that happened is that we (just) lost to a very good team - the 6th best in the country. We weren't battered. We weren't played off the park. We were just outplayed slighly by a team who's not only better than us but better than 13 (thirteen) other Premiership teams. So what's the big deal exactly? No, seriously, what?

This performance/ result could easily have happened last season and apart from the above rant against Cisse, no-one would have bothered complaining. It was a normal day for the Royals as far as I'm concerned. Last season we wouldn't have demanded a win at home against such a side so why on earth would we now? Why oh why is a relegation-scrapping team suddenly expected to perform like a title winning team with uproar for not beating a class team???? The mind boggles.

We didn't lose 6-0. We didn't look like we didn't match them. We did very well in the second half and thoroughly deserved our goal. We look like a Premiership side. We are a Premiership side. And if we continue to play like one there's no reason why we won't continue to be a Premiership side next season.

Again, well done boys you did good. Cisse, sorry but you were a bit clueless today. Welcome back Ivar.

Kebe - changed the game. Fantastic!

Business as normal.

I for one am not expecting us to play incredibly all of a sudden, but just normally. And a narrow defeat at home to a very strong side isn't far off normal.

OVER A QUARTER of the season to go. Back to normality and we'll be fine. We don't need more.

Calm down, there's every chance we'll be fine.

I relaxed a while ago. For a team who hasn't had a sniff of a point for two months, we're still absurdly far from being relegated. The fewer games there are left, the less form matters and the more it's all about who gets what luck on what day. I love the numpties who take Fulham's won over Villa as evidence that Villa aren't as good as their table position. Look at the table, guys. Fulham are still three points behind us, despite beating the team in sixth place. Good result, that. They played well. Just like they got a good result when they beat us. But in the final analysis, it doesn't mean a damn thing. They need two more points than we do in the remaining games. Let's kick back and see what happens.

[West Stand Man]

Its the teams around us you should judge us on and we cant even beat them so Mr RTG where is our next win coming from?

Well Mr STG, it's coming from the next game where we score more goals than the other team! It's a great game isn't it! You just never can tell when you are going to win or lose.

[Tilehurst Mike]

Ok, that should be enough time for all the doom brigade and people of fickle fragile faith to have their rants, orgasms and field days.

And now relax.

Back to reality.

Cisse, whilst playing well against tough opposition most of the time, made enough silly errors to mean he should never put on a Reading shirt again. That's essentially what lost it for us. Otherwise...

We just lost at home to the 6th best side in the country.

This isn't about taking positives, it's about looking objectively at what happened. And I'll repeat. All that happened is that we (just) lost to a very good team - the 6th best in the country. We weren't battered. We weren't played off the park. We were just outplayed slighly by a team who's not only better than us but better than 13 (thirteen) other Premiership teams. So what's the big deal exactly? No, seriously, what?

This performance/ result could easily have happened last season and apart from the above rant against Cisse, no-one would have bothered complaining. It was a normal day for the Royals as far as I'm concerned. Last season we wouldn't have demanded a win at home against such a side so why on earth would we now? Why oh why is a relegation-scrapping team suddenly expected to perform like a title winning team with uproar for not beating a class team???? The mind boggles.

We didn't lose 6-0. We didn't look like we didn't match them. We did very well in the second half and thoroughly deserved our goal. We look like a Premiership side. We are a Premiership side. And if we continue to play like one there's no reason why we won't continue to be a Premiership side next season.

Again, well done boys you did good. Cisse, sorry but you were a bit clueless today. Welcome back Ivar.

Kebe - changed the game. Fantastic!

Business as normal.

I for one am not expecting us to play incredibly all of a sudden, but just normally. And a narrow defeat at home to a very strong side isn't far off normal.

OVER A QUARTER of the season to go. Back to normality and we'll be fine. We don't need more.

Calm down, there's every chance we'll be fine.

Are you serious!! 8 defeats on the spin, only 6 wins all season. Strikers firing blanks-only one goal in 2008. Another couple of bad goals conceded. Need I go on!

[BR2]

As 2 World Wars is obviously keen on history perhaps he should change his name to King Canute.

[3 veesinarow]

I've never found relegation battles that stressful. Depressing, yes, but they always tend to have that feel of inevitible gloom about them that makes staying up a bonus.

Personally I found the promotion attempts in 2001 and 2002 much more stressful, particularly that agonizing run of draws in 2002.

Amen to that...no-one can deny we are all feeling gloomy and frustrated at the moment, but it's much worse for raw tension when you're straining to go up and tripping over your own feet week after week when in sight of the finishing post. There's WAY too much coiled-like-a-spring hyper-ventilating opinionating from the STGs on here. I'll grant you the RTGs must have exhausted their supply of keep-cool-guys-we'll-be-fine tablets, buy you'll never stop me from believing...that's all, just believing.

[West Stand Man]

As 2 World Wars is obviously keen on history perhaps he should change his name to King Canute.

If you knew your history you'd know that was wrong. Canute was not a man who believed he could hold back the tide, and is always misrepresented by people who don't read the story properly.

Canute's people believed he could do anything, including holding back the tide. He knew he couldn't and his act of 'defiance' was simply to prove that he could not do it. At no time did he actually believe that he was capable of defying the forces of nature.

2 WWs is not being Canute-like at all.