Ex Players

[Snowflake Royal]

A lot of our early wins were a blurry line between gritty and lucky. I remember beating Middlesbrough 1-0 with a Fornah long ranger and then letting them dominate possession. You can call it smart, but you don't normally win games that way. A few similar wins like that.

I think our later season form was reversion to the mean; you can't maintain that luck. Perhaps we could have done better had he found a way to use Joao.

This.

We surprised a few teams. Got lucky a few times, but we were never more than relegation battlers. We might have survived if Ince hadn't shat on our morale, relied almost entirely on his son and if he'd tried to actually use his full squad.

But he's a shit manager. So he didn't and we flubbed.

As for the late change, it's probably entirely because Bowen couldn't get hold of Dai to sign off on binning him.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Think you’d have to throw in we were a pretty poor side last year relative to the rest of the division

Ince did a fantastic job up until Christmas but his limited tactics and are limited ability got found out and once things started going wrong, he couldn’t turn it round

Didn’t help with a ton of injuries and some of our few quality players looking like they couldn’t wait to get out the door

Still really should have picked up at least a couple of wins to see us safe

That's a point that gets overlooked re our side. Mark Bowen mentioned that the club were looking to build a "competitive" squad last season, obviously the target was to survive, although I do think there was a general acceptance that we were going to struggle and probably go down with the squad we had at the beginning of the season, we surprised everybody with our first half of the season, probably everyone at the club as well. To a degree, that probably backs up Ince's point about "doing well".

[WestYorksRoyal]

We did well to survive as long as we did, and if Dai had remained committed it would have made a real difference. All our punishment for the 2017-19 period was done, the suspended penalty was gone. Ince keeping us up in 21/22 could have had a big impact. But Dai.

[tmesis]

The timing on Ince's sacking was wrong above all else. He's probably not far wrong with a lot of things he's said, why would you change your manager with 4 games to go? We should have done it really with 10 games to go really. The bottom line, irrespective of our points deduction, there is no way we should have gone from the cusp of the play offs over the Xmas period to relegated, points off or not. We definitely still should have picked up another couple of wins minimum in that time, that also was a major contribution as to why we went down.

Basically, until the points deduction we looked in no real danger of going down. After that, the players just switched off.

Reading were 14th when some arse in the media broke the rumour that the club were going to be docked 6 points. That was at the very beginning of March, just after the club had beaten Blackpool, and as soon as the rumour started circulating Reading commenced their fantastic season run in of 0 wins in 13 attempts.

The 6 point deduction was finally applied on 4 April dropping the club from 18th to 22nd and form actually improved slightly with the club getting 4 draws from the remaining 7 games (as opposed to 2 draws from the 6 games with the rumour circulating).

Ince was sacked with just 5 games remaining (Burnley, Luton, Coventry, Wigan & Huddersfield) and if Ince hadn't been such a negative nancy (and if the referee at Burnley had applied the laws of the game) then Reading would likely have just survived, at the expense of Cardiff, despite the loss of points and we would now be heading towards the worst ever second division points tally but the profile would be higher and the back story possibly more noticeable in the media.

Yeah. I should have been more accurate. Our form collapse coincided exactly with it becoming known that we were going to get a points deduction.

Whether we'd have gone down anyway is speculation, but I'd suspect the deduction news had a significant impact on the morale and attitude of the squad.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Another Olise assist V Brighton. Cross straight onto Ayew's head

[Hound]

Another Olise assist V Brighton. Cross straight onto Ayew's head

Because he’s the boss

Still like seeing him do well

[Snowflake Royal]

I'll never consider him one of our very best, probably as much to do with the general malaise at the club and poor performance during his time here, than anything else.

But he's quality.

[Hound]

Always a huge shame that him at his best was when the season was mainly behind closed doors. Never really got to see him live

[Hound]

Not been paying much attention really but Meite and Ince don’t seem to have pulled up many trees at their new clubs. Anyone know how Carroll is doing? Assume Moore still without a club…

[AthleticoSpizz]

Not been paying much attention really but Meite and Ince don’t seem to have pulled up many trees at their new clubs. Anyone know how Carroll is doing? Assume Moore still without a club…

Meite seems to be a first choice starter every game for Cardiff.

Whilst not “pulling up trees” he must be contributing enough for them.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Not been paying much attention really but Meite and Ince don’t seem to have pulled up many trees at their new clubs. Anyone know how Carroll is doing? Assume Moore still without a club…

Meite seems to be a first choice starter every game for Cardiff.

Whilst not “pulling up trees” he must be contributing enough for them.

He's actually playing games for them? Better than his last 2 seasons here.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Yeah, seems not to be carrying his RFC ‘health and fitness’ team legacy along with him.

[Hound]

Ince seems to be spending a fair bit of time on the bench at Watford

Still prob proving a useful signing for them, bit of depth

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Olise on the scoresheet again, 3 goals and an assist in his last 7 games to go along with some very good individual performances in most of those games as well. Surely only a matter of time before one of the big boys come sniffing again? Arsenal are looking for a forward player allegedly this window, Chelsea's obligatory interest will be there again an maybe someone like Newcastle?

[AthleticoSpizz]

Osho featuring well in Lutons’ last 2 game six point haul
Meite regs for Cardiff as is Obita for Hibs, ALF disappeared recently, injured?

[Hound]

What happened to Richards? Did he go abroad in the end?

[morganb]

What happened to Richards? Did he go abroad in the end?

He did go abroad and made his debut recently after returning from long term injury (I saw a post about it on Twitter just before Christmas) but I had to Google who he is actually currently with - Olympiacos, on loan from Nottingham Forest.

[URZZZZ]

Ince seems to be spending a fair bit of time on the bench at Watford

Still prob proving a useful signing for them, bit of depth

Ince never particularly convinced. Good from dead balls and high work rate but little else. It isn’t difficult to look the “danger man” in the team when your Dad lines you up alongside 6 CB’s, Hendrick and two tall immobile strikers.

[JedMaxwell]

Ince seems to be spending a fair bit of time on the bench at Watford

Still prob proving a useful signing for them, bit of depth

Ince never particularly convinced. Good from dead balls and high work rate but little else. It isn’t difficult to look the “danger man” in the team when your Dad lines you up alongside 6 CB’s, Hendrick and two tall immobile strikers.

I'll also add that his attitude to his teammates was appalling, almost consistently.

Never saw him pick up a teammate and give encouragement when it was getting tough - it was always moody bollockings being doled out. Classic 'manager's son' behaviour, if you've ever played youth football.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Anyone know how Lucas Joao is doing?