MATCHWATCH : Watford (a)

[bcubed]

Other than maybe not booking their captain for a few persistent fouls, also thought he was ok.

Thought he got a lot wrong.

Pretty blatant pen for them. Smack in the chops for Holmes he was looking right at. The usual mix of letting a lot of contact go.

Thought there was a hint of hands from Rahman on the ground for another possible pen too, but missed the replay and it was far from clear.

For clarity - wasnt a blatant penalty for them. Wasnt a smack, more of a flick and a poke, cancelled out by Holmes awful play acting. Letting a lot of contact go, although there was not much is a good thing right? No hands from Rahman - so other than that you pretty much nailed your post.

Haven't seen the replay but thought he aimed an elbow at Holmes. Also thought he should have had a yellow in the first half for going straight through the back of Joao

[YorkshireRoyal99]

We don't do anything quickly enough.

Nothing is instinctive.

When in possession we stop, look for a pass, and in that time everyone has been closed down so there are no easy balls. As a result, when we do pass forward, the guys on the end of the pass almost always seem to have their backs to goal with a defender right up their bum, so we either get dispossessed or pass backwards. Same applies with crosses, the ball is always too slow being delivered which means defenders are set and can challenge (if we actually get a clean delivery in without being charged down which isn't often).

Do things faster and maybe they'd have a couple of yards of space to utilise. To counter the low possession stats I wonder whether their heads have been filled with a "keep the ball" mantra which just ends up blunting everything we try to do and ends up having the reverse effect.

We are just so predictable. I don't want to see us giving the ball away unnecessarily but we need to take a few more risks with early deliveries to create a degree of uncertainty in the opposition. At the moment we are easy to play against.

Still, I suppose a reality check is reasonable. No idea how much Watford's squad cost but it's a hell of a lot more than ours. They just have better players. Maybe when we play teams more at our level we'll find things a bit easier. Maybe....

Agree with this here, think we are predictable and can be easy to play against, although think that suits what we've got at the moment. A bit of speed in our play is what we need, particularly if we want to soak up pressure and hit on the break. Early season we had that with Ince as a 10 who would drive and be direct and he's really the only good ball carrier we have in midfield, every other player outside of him doesn't really do it and are quite passive, which is fine for just keeping the ball and relieving pressure, but we also lose some potency in attack as well. I do think that is a contributing factor to why we've struggled in front of goal.

The only issue is, you can't have six of one, half a dozen of another. It's true - legs are being killed asking the same players to play consistently, so having Meite and Long who can stretch opposition defences and press more is fine, but we'd be even easier to play against having just the likes of Meite, Long and Ince pressing, but then not having the rest of the team do it (or conversely only doing it for an hour before we run out of steam), teams would just bypass us constantly.

[paultheroyal]

Thought he got a lot wrong.

Pretty blatant pen for them. Smack in the chops for Holmes he was looking right at. The usual mix of letting a lot of contact go.

Thought there was a hint of hands from Rahman on the ground for another possible pen too, but missed the replay and it was far from clear.

For clarity - wasnt a blatant penalty for them. Wasnt a smack, more of a flick and a poke, cancelled out by Holmes awful play acting. Letting a lot of contact go, although there was not much is a good thing right? No hands from Rahman - so other than that you pretty much nailed your post.

Haven't seen the replay but thought he aimed an elbow at Holmes. Also thought he should have had a yellow in the first half for going straight through the back of Joao

Not picked up by commentators but i actually thought that was a naughty challenge on Lumley which led to him going off. Caught the foot and put a little twist in for good measure.

[Jackson Corner]

The way Ince was talking about Watford after the game I thought we had played Man City. On Saturday against Coventry a club that don’t even have there own ground and a budget less than ours, won 1-0 Watford had no shots on target.

[RoyalBlue]

Surprised at referee comments. Thought he was ok and in terms of decision making, we can have no gripes.

Agreed. Unusually, from what we've seen so far, I thought the ref did a pretty good job last night. Had Ince and our players performed their jobs as well as he did we would've got at least a point from the game last night.

[CountryRoyal]

The way Ince was talking about Watford after the game I thought we had played Man City. On Saturday against Coventry a club that don’t even have there own ground and a budget less than ours, won 1-0 Watford had no shots on target.

He’s got such a defeatist mentality, ironically.

[fartdad]

Why people care about Reading football club remains a mystery

[Sutekh]

The way Ince was talking about Watford after the game I thought we had played Man City. On Saturday against Coventry a club that don’t even have there own ground and a budget less than ours, won 1-0 Watford had no shots on target.

He’s got such a defeatist mentality, ironically.

Yes, he seems to build a mentality of “the world against us” which has it’s place for some games but really isn’t good when it’s continuous.