MATCHWATCH : Bournemouth (h)

[Ascotexgunner]

Southwood seems to escape criticism. Fantastic pair of hands and great shot stopper but he scares me with the ball at his feet. Only a matter of time before he cocks up big time. What was he doing for the second goal. You could have passed that in the net he left so much space.
He might have stopped the first, but wtf was Moore doing standing in his way backing into him. Disgraceful defending.
Overall did ok but could have been so different if we had a potent striker. Puscas needs to be dropped. I'd rather see a midfielder with pace up front if we don't have anyone. That miss off the genius off Swift was unforgivable.

[Hound]

I know we’ve had to cut academy players dramatically due to financial reasons, but it does feel like the heart of the U23s hasn’t been ripped out over the past couple of summers. Sure we’ve had some progress into regular first team squad members or departed for better things, but other “older” players have also been let go who, perhaps, would be getting some game time. I’m not that close to the academy squads over the past couple of seasons but it now seems like we have a very inexperienced U23 squad now compared to previous years. Again, perhaps RTG going on but surely a Josh Barrett or Jordan Holsgove or Sam Smith would be more first team ready than Clarke, Osario, Camara, etc?

Interested to see other people’s view who are closer to the academy set up than me

yeah raised this a week or two ago. Rather than having players who aren't good enough but could do a job to some extent, and have been with us for a while Smith, Barratt, Nolan, Pendlebury etc - on the bench and as back up, we have a load of 17 year olds.

That's definitely been an issue this year

[leon]

You lads can argue all you like but we’re just not very good.

And when we make the same tactical mistakes over and over again that screams shit management.

I’m so utterly unconvinced with our set up.

Almost a sensible post (cut out the expletive). Great that we have some common ground here, time to bring back a British manager and players.

I disagree with everything you stand for. So fcuk off and stick your moronic racism up your educationally subnormal little Englander arse.

[Lower West]

You lads can argue all you like but we’re just not very good.

And when we make the same tactical mistakes over and over again that screams shit management.

I’m so utterly unconvinced with our set up.

Almost a sensible post (cut out the expletive). Great that we have some common ground here, time to bring back a British manager and players.

Suspect recruitment policy has been dictated by the owners expectations. Rather than a clear strategy to build a competetive team over an extended period of time. Best signing of recent years has been Laurent (under Bowen) and he was a free transfer.

[Snowflake Royal]

Southwood seems to escape criticism. Fantastic pair of hands and great shot stopper but he scares me with the ball at his feet. Only a matter of time before he cocks up big time. What was he doing for the second goal. You could have passed that in the net he left so much space.
He might have stopped the first, but wtf was Moore doing standing in his way backing into him. Disgraceful defending.
Overall did ok but could have been so different if we had a potent striker. Puscas needs to be dropped. I'd rather see a midfielder with pace up front if we don't have anyone. That miss off the genius off Swift was unforgivable.

Ball at his feet he's far superior to Cabral. Positioning may have been off on the second, but his view was blocked and I think he'd moved near post to cover it as that was the initial danger from the striker's movement.

Sadly Moore stood off and gave the guy an eternity to make his decision to bend far post.

I think that's maybe one or two soft errors from Southwood now. He's still a clear step up from Cabral IMO. And probably on half the money. With loads of time to improve and play.

[Snowflake Royal]

I know we’ve had to cut academy players dramatically due to financial reasons, but it does feel like the heart of the U23s hasn’t been ripped out over the past couple of summers. Sure we’ve had some progress into regular first team squad members or departed for better things, but other “older” players have also been let go who, perhaps, would be getting some game time. I’m not that close to the academy squads over the past couple of seasons but it now seems like we have a very inexperienced U23 squad now compared to previous years. Again, perhaps RTG going on but surely a Josh Barrett or Jordan Holsgove or Sam Smith would be more first team ready than Clarke, Osario, Camara, etc?

Interested to see other people’s view who are closer to the academy set up than me

yeah raised this a week or two ago. Rather than having players who aren't good enough but could do a job to some extent, and have been with us for a while Smith, Barratt, Nolan, Pendlebury etc - on the bench and as back up, we have a load of 17 year olds.

That's definitely been an issue this year

Then again, we needed to trim the squad and there seemed very little point in keeping the likes of Smith, East and Watson and stopping them maybe restarting their career lower down elsewhere.

[SCIAG]

In what way is this season better than what Bowen achieved? We are 16th.

Erm… results and performances? We might be 16th right now, but points deduction to one side (a points deduction largely stemming from decisions made while Bowen was in a senior role at the club) we’re looking a lot like a top-half team this season.

I honestly wonder sometimes if some of you lot actually go to games, or if you just wait until we lose so you can lose all sense of reality. We’ve had two bad games all season for crying out loud, get a grip.

Fyi, top half sides don't lose greater than 50% of their games. We've had one short good run. We're 16th. Without a points deduction. With one we could be 20th or lower.

We look nothing like a top half side. We concede goals galore, are looking increasingly blunt and have a manager with no ideas on how to do anything about our weaknesses or to stop the rot.

2 bad games all season? Does your memory only last a fortnight?

This is a side that started the season losing 4 in 5 and has just lost 3 in 3.

Only bad games have been Huddersfield and Blackpool. Other than that we’ve looked competitive every single game. Swift is completely unplayable, Drinkwater, Dann and Rahman have been revelations, TDB has quiet spells but has a habit of making telling contributions, Yiadom is having his best season for us. Need Puscas to get back to his previous form and we’ll be flying. Plus we have a great set of players returning from injury soon which will only help.

It is completely mind boggling that people can look at a narrow defeat in the midst of an injury crisis to top of the table moneybags Bournemouth and throw their toys out of the pram. You’ve got to learn to take the rough with the smooth if you’re going to be a Reading fan, and this barely even qualifies as rough. This board has always been temperamental but atm it feels a bit like a Man United board, every dropped point is the end of the world.

[SCIAG]

I know we’ve had to cut academy players dramatically due to financial reasons, but it does feel like the heart of the U23s hasn’t been ripped out over the past couple of summers. Sure we’ve had some progress into regular first team squad members or departed for better things, but other “older” players have also been let go who, perhaps, would be getting some game time. I’m not that close to the academy squads over the past couple of seasons but it now seems like we have a very inexperienced U23 squad now compared to previous years. Again, perhaps RTG going on but surely a Josh Barrett or Jordan Holsgove or Sam Smith would be more first team ready than Clarke, Osario, Camara, etc?

Interested to see other people’s view who are closer to the academy set up than me

Brentford don`t even have an U23 side, they closed their academy a while back, they just a have a top class recruitment team on board, i firmly believe we`ve been a far bigger team over the years but now they have left us behind.

they do have a B team though (or that’s my understanding). Their B stream is looking for undervalued players and larger academy cast offs.

I’m not wedded to any particular structure but with a Cat 1 academy (and P&S issues) I’d be expecting 3-5 players a year being properly blooded and then sold on at a profit. But that hasn’t been our policy really and have been caught out with the Olise, Richards, Loader contract positions

3-5 is an unrealistic expectation, there isn’t a club in the country who manage that. 1-2 with the occasional bumper year is more realistic.

Barrett had clear quality but also very clear weakness which is why he’s ended up at Kings’ Lynn. Smith was struggling in League 2 last season, pretty hard to justify renewing his contract. Holsgrove had been passed by Olise and we received an offer we couldn’t really turn down from Celta Vigo. And we lost Nevers to West Ham.

Pendlebury and Lawless are the only ones from this summer where I think we could reasonably have extended their contracts and had them actually play this season - but even they had fallen below Tetek, who is younger. Maybe Onen, but we saw how rarely he got on the pitch last season. And I wouldn’t have loaned out Melvin-Lambert.

But it’s also worth noting how many injuries the U23s have had - Azeez and Tetek obviously, but also Leavy, Abbey, Stickland, Samuels, Bristow, Sackey - exactly the sorts of players who you could see being blooded towards the end of a match where we were winning comfortably. Osorio has a bit of quality but he’s a luxury player who is basically competing with Swift.

If we had a bench of something like Rafael, Holmes, Abbey, Tetek, Azeez, Nevers, Melvin-Lambert… not great, but genuine options, maybe except NML.

[Zip]

Erm… results and performances? We might be 16th right now, but points deduction to one side (a points deduction largely stemming from decisions made while Bowen was in a senior role at the club) we’re looking a lot like a top-half team this season.

I honestly wonder sometimes if some of you lot actually go to games, or if you just wait until we lose so you can lose all sense of reality. We’ve had two bad games all season for crying out loud, get a grip.

Fyi, top half sides don't lose greater than 50% of their games. We've had one short good run. We're 16th. Without a points deduction. With one we could be 20th or lower.

We look nothing like a top half side. We concede goals galore, are looking increasingly blunt and have a manager with no ideas on how to do anything about our weaknesses or to stop the rot.

2 bad games all season? Does your memory only last a fortnight?

This is a side that started the season losing 4 in 5 and has just lost 3 in 3.

Only bad games have been Huddersfield and Blackpool. Other than that we’ve looked competitive every single game. Swift is completely unplayable, Drinkwater, Dann and Rahman have been revelations, TDB has quiet spells but has a habit of making telling contributions, Yiadom is having his best season for us. Need Puscas to get back to his previous form and we’ll be flying. Plus we have a great set of players returning from injury soon which will only help.

It is completely mind boggling that people can look at a narrow defeat in the midst of an injury crisis to top of the table moneybags Bournemouth and throw their toys out of the pram. You’ve got to learn to take the rough with the smooth if you’re going to be a Reading fan, and this barely even qualifies as rough. This board has always been temperamental but atm it feels a bit like a Man United board, every dropped point is the end of the world.

Did you think we were good then against a Coventry side
that dominated from start to finish? Or how about Bristol City where we couldn’t get out of our half in the first 20 minutes by which time we were already 2 down and only started playing in the final ten minutes following Moore’s goal?

I would also question what you mean by narrow defeat. The game was done with Bournemouth’s second goal with most of the second half still left. They were able to play it out in second gear.

What winds many of us is the repetitive nature of goals conceded. The same set piece goals conceded many times over. Basic errors which should not be recurring irrespective of injury problems.

[Snowflake Royal]

Erm… results and performances? We might be 16th right now, but points deduction to one side (a points deduction largely stemming from decisions made while Bowen was in a senior role at the club) we’re looking a lot like a top-half team this season.

I honestly wonder sometimes if some of you lot actually go to games, or if you just wait until we lose so you can lose all sense of reality. We’ve had two bad games all season for crying out loud, get a grip.

Fyi, top half sides don't lose greater than 50% of their games. We've had one short good run. We're 16th. Without a points deduction. With one we could be 20th or lower.

We look nothing like a top half side. We concede goals galore, are looking increasingly blunt and have a manager with no ideas on how to do anything about our weaknesses or to stop the rot.

2 bad games all season? Does your memory only last a fortnight?

This is a side that started the season losing 4 in 5 and has just lost 3 in 3.

Only bad games have been Huddersfield and Blackpool. Other than that we’ve looked competitive every single game. Swift is completely unplayable, Drinkwater, Dann and Rahman have been revelations, TDB has quiet spells but has a habit of making telling contributions, Yiadom is having his best season for us. Need Puscas to get back to his previous form and we’ll be flying. Plus we have a great set of players returning from injury soon which will only help.

It is completely mind boggling that people can look at a narrow defeat in the midst of an injury crisis to top of the table moneybags Bournemouth and throw their toys out of the pram. You’ve got to learn to take the rough with the smooth if you’re going to be a Reading fan, and this barely even qualifies as rough. This board has always been temperamental but atm it feels a bit like a Man United board, every dropped point is the end of the world.

Absolutely deluded. Drinkwater has been dreadful for three games now.

[Millsy]

just another thing on our fit 11 outfield players

1 of them is in his first season to all intents - TDB
DD and Baba - barely played for 2 years.
Dann - think he'd basically retired before being lured back for one last go.

Its also Southwood's first season in the champ - though obvs Rafael is an option

Its a real mishmash of misfits, freebies, and players only playing because we have no other option. To actually give big spending Bournemouth, with players the quality of Pearson on the bench - a decent game for an hour - isn't a bad effort. Honestly, unless we get people back quickly, just being better than the toss at the bottom - Hull, barnsley, Derby and Peterborough - is probably the best we can hope for.

The big problem is that we concede in the same fashion time and time again. Set piece to the back post. Player unmarked. We know the rest. For Pauno to suggest we didn’t concede from set pieces at all last season is irrelevant. He is not learning from his mistakes this season.

On the players being tired bit they have just had seven days without a game. Yes there are players in the side who have recovered from long term issues but they are, Dann apart, not old. They should be match fit and able to play for a full ninety minutes by now.

I do agree the injuries are hugely problematic and for that reason Pauno deserves a bit more time. However he is not learning from his mistakes and teams are noticing how we defend from set pieces(mentioned by a Muff player last night) so it’s unforgivable to keep conceding in the manner we do.

He's also talking out his arse. We conceded 11 set piece goals last season.

Right. If this is true (and it certainly sounds more true than zero!) it's a serious concern for me regarding either his probity or his recollection of events, If you honestly think it's "zero" and don't have insight into your weaknesses then you don't have a hope in hell of trying to fix it hence no learning as we've witnessed. If he's just plain lying to the media for want of a decent answer that's even worse.

[Lower West]

Fyi, top half sides don't lose greater than 50% of their games. We've had one short good run. We're 16th. Without a points deduction. With one we could be 20th or lower.

We look nothing like a top half side. We concede goals galore, are looking increasingly blunt and have a manager with no ideas on how to do anything about our weaknesses or to stop the rot.

2 bad games all season? Does your memory only last a fortnight?

This is a side that started the season losing 4 in 5 and has just lost 3 in 3.

Only bad games have been Huddersfield and Blackpool. Other than that we’ve looked competitive every single game. Swift is completely unplayable, Drinkwater, Dann and Rahman have been revelations, TDB has quiet spells but has a habit of making telling contributions, Yiadom is having his best season for us. Need Puscas to get back to his previous form and we’ll be flying. Plus we have a great set of players returning from injury soon which will only help.

It is completely mind boggling that people can look at a narrow defeat in the midst of an injury crisis to top of the table moneybags Bournemouth and throw their toys out of the pram. You’ve got to learn to take the rough with the smooth if you’re going to be a Reading fan, and this barely even qualifies as rough. This board has always been temperamental but atm it feels a bit like a Man United board, every dropped point is the end of the world.

Absolutely deluded. Drinkwater has been dreadful for three games now.

Another recruitment punt that has backfired.

[Royal_jimmy]

Southwood seems to escape criticism. Fantastic pair of hands and great shot stopper but he scares me with the ball at his feet. Only a matter of time before he cocks up big time. What was he doing for the second goal. You could have passed that in the net he left so much space.
He might have stopped the first, but wtf was Moore doing standing in his way backing into him. Disgraceful defending.
Overall did ok but could have been so different if we had a potent striker. Puscas needs to be dropped. I'd rather see a midfielder with pace up front if we don't have anyone. That miss off the genius off Swift was unforgivable.

Ball at his feet he's far superior to Cabral. Positioning may have been off on the second, but his view was blocked and I think he'd moved near post to cover it as that was the initial danger from the striker's movement.

Sadly Moore stood off and gave the guy an eternity to make his decision to bend far post.

I think that's maybe one or two soft errors from Southwood now. He's still a clear step up from Cabral IMO. And probably on half the money. With loads of time to improve and play.

Cabral is on £20k a week. Southwood is on sub £1k a week

[Zip]

Southwood seems to escape criticism. Fantastic pair of hands and great shot stopper but he scares me with the ball at his feet. Only a matter of time before he cocks up big time. What was he doing for the second goal. You could have passed that in the net he left so much space.
He might have stopped the first, but wtf was Moore doing standing in his way backing into him. Disgraceful defending.
Overall did ok but could have been so different if we had a potent striker. Puscas needs to be dropped. I'd rather see a midfielder with pace up front if we don't have anyone. That miss off the genius off Swift was unforgivable.

Ball at his feet he's far superior to Cabral. Positioning may have been off on the second, but his view was blocked and I think he'd moved near post to cover it as that was the initial danger from the striker's movement.

Sadly Moore stood off and gave the guy an eternity to make his decision to bend far post.

I think that's maybe one or two soft errors from Southwood now. He's still a clear step up from Cabral IMO. And probably on half the money. With loads of time to improve and play.

Cabral is on £20k a week. Southwood is on sub £1k a week

Are you sure about Southwood. He must be on more than that.

[Notts Royal]

Great to get to the Mad Stad for my first match in an eternity & was an enjoyable experience until the 1st goal, which came at completely the wrong time for us. And then some blokes who couldn’t hold their drink decided fighting was a better option.

Puscas is cutting a dejected figure out there; clearly not working for both parties & he needs a move. But he doesn’t impact the game enough does he. A couple of decent knockdowns early on, but his finishing is not good enough.
Dele-Bashiru is wasted out wide, such a shame we couldn’t replace DD with him in the 2nd half and bring on a winger. Pauno couldn’t really do any different, apart from possibly play a diamond in midfield. DD was very good 1st half, but is clearly looking tired.

Bournemouth were unspectacular but solid…not really a weak spot in their team is there.

Finally, Cahill & Dann were a class above the rest of the field, really showing their experience. That knockdown from Cahill to turn Puscas in the 2Nd half was special

The 8pm KO was good as it enabled a few drinks in town beforehand, too many for some though! And rubbish for away fans trying to get back afterwards. Once again, sky screwing your average fan over. But we feed the beast with our subscriptions so there you go

[Notts Royal]

We have technically gifted players but we play in such a risky way. Tight, short passes to marked players which don’t actually take us very far
Ejaria most be one of the most fouled players in the League. Unfortunately he seems to be most often fouled inside our own half and not inside the opposition’s penalty box where his trickery so rarely hurts the opposition.

Actually, Yiadom is our most fouled player.

Ovie is 3rd per game. 4th total, 4th per 90 mins and 4th minutes per foul

Yiadom makes top 10 in the league by total, otherwise we're nowhere.

Does Yiadom get fouled much? Or does he just make a meal of things?! Not quite up to Murray & Roberts’ levels of drawing fouls, but his dramatics are quite impressive!

[karbota]

You lads can argue all you like but we’re just not very good.

And when we make the same tactical mistakes over and over again that screams shit management.

I’m so utterly unconvinced with our set up.

Almost a sensible post (cut out the expletive). Great that we have some common ground here, time to bring back a British manager and players.

I disagree with everything you stand for. So fcuk off and stick your moronic racism up your educationally subnormal little Englander arse.

O dear o dear Mr. Leon Tourettes plays the good old Wokie Wasist card again. Please explain my wacist comments.

[Stranded]

Only bad games have been Huddersfield and Blackpool. Other than that we’ve looked competitive every single game. Swift is completely unplayable, Drinkwater, Dann and Rahman have been revelations, TDB has quiet spells but has a habit of making telling contributions, Yiadom is having his best season for us. Need Puscas to get back to his previous form and we’ll be flying. Plus we have a great set of players returning from injury soon which will only help.

It is completely mind boggling that people can look at a narrow defeat in the midst of an injury crisis to top of the table moneybags Bournemouth and throw their toys out of the pram. You’ve got to learn to take the rough with the smooth if you’re going to be a Reading fan, and this barely even qualifies as rough. This board has always been temperamental but atm it feels a bit like a Man United board, every dropped point is the end of the world.

Absolutely deluded. Drinkwater has been dreadful for three games now.

Another recruitment punt that has backfired.

It really hasn't but you do love to look on the negative side of things. He has had a poor couple of games but had been excellent before that.

[Zip]

Absolutely deluded. Drinkwater has been dreadful for three games now.

Another recruitment punt that has backfired.

It really hasn't but you do love to look on the negative side of things. He has had a poor couple of games but had been excellent before that.

It’s too early to say whether he will prove to be a good signing or not. It’s certainly too early to write him off.

[Stranded]

Another recruitment punt that has backfired.

It really hasn't but you do love to look on the negative side of things. He has had a poor couple of games but had been excellent before that.

It’s too early to say whether he will prove to be a good signing or not. It’s certainly too early to write him off.

Quite. He was good, has been poor and hopefully will improve again. After barely playing for years, he was always going to have peaks and troughs.