Back from the game , Swansea home,

[Man Friday]

Far from it, we played O.K.

To me, it indicates we're mid-table fodder.

[PEARCEY]

Yeah but not one single poster has referred to us being relegation fodder.

[Ian Royal]

Far from it, we played O.K.

To me, it indicates we're mid-table fodder.

Yeah, not enough up front to challenge at the top properly and clearly a work in progress. But shouldn't be in much danger of relegation. A particularly good or bad run could change that though as morale and confidence can lift or drop a team beyond where they could normally be expected to finish based on their quality..

[Victor Meldrew]

One game too many of playing Armstrong and McAnuff in midfield.
As suggested on the Team for Swansea thread earlier in the week it had to be Armstrong at left-back-Dyer is no stranger to our manager and I feel that he cocked up by continuing with Harte who I thought was terrible,worse than Shaun Cummings at his worst.
Talking of Cummings I think he would have been given the run around too but Griffin generally coped with him well.

Much has been said about our so-called strikers (no doubt Snowball will tell us that Shane Long is the best in the division)but there are never any chances created through midfield,the chances always come from out wide and often the dwarves are trying to compete in the air.

I'm not sure why Brian has moved McAnuff inside to accommodate HRK,in my view HRK had 5 good minutes v Barnsley and done not much more-he needs to drop down a level and get games.
McAnuff and Kebe are our best two players and their strengths are playing out wide FFS Brian keep them there.

One final point about Swansea-Rodgers has brought in just Sinclair otherwise it is the same Swansea of previous seasons that played their passing game under Martinez,Sousa and now Rodgers and so little has changed.
They still need a striker and that's why they might fall short again but they out-footballed us today and good luck to them.

[Sir Rodger Doyle]

Can't post anything at the moment, knees are still jerking.

[Hoop Blah]

I thought that was a result we've been close to getting over the last few home games, the only difference being the lack of penalty or set piece goal to change the game in our favour.

Our complete lack of midfield and centre forward was shown up for what it is today. Armstong had done an admirable job in there since coming back but he's just not a central midfielder and, as in his previous games he just wasn't in the game enough and we failed to get a grip of the midfield. That makes it an even more difficult job for McAnuff to get in the game, and I think we've seen enough of him there to know he should be played out wide.

Our forwards all missed relatively easy chances and yet again the opposition keeper has gone home without having to make a serious save. Our keeper on the other hand made a couple of good saves in the spell after half time when they ripped us apart at will. He was the only player to really have a decent game, the rest were chasing shadows.

[Sir Rodger Doyle]

I thought that was a result we've been close to getting over the last few home games, the only difference being the lack of penalty or set piece goal to change the game in our favour.

Our complete lack of midfield and centre forward was shown up for what it is today. Armstong had done an admirable job in there since coming back but he's just not a central midfielder and, as in his previous games he just wasn't in the game enough and we failed to get a grip of the midfield. That makes it an even more difficult job for McAnuff to get in the game, and I think we've seen enough of him there to know he should be played out wide.

Our forwards all missed relatively easy chances and yet again the opposition keeper has gone home without having to make a serious save. Our keeper on the other hand made a couple of good saves in the spell after half time when they ripped us apart at will. He was the only player to really have a decent game, the rest were chasing shadows.

I'll go with this one.

[Handsome Man]

I thought the goal was Griffin's fault.
Long and Karacan were tireless, Kebe was OK, and 442 at the end got us close to an equaliser.
Mills was poor, Armstrong was anonymous and MacAnuff is better on the wing.

[winchester_royal]

I thought the goal was Griffin's fault.
Long and Karacan were tireless, Kebe was OK, and 442 at the end got us close to an equaliser.
Mills was poor, Armstrong was anonymous and MacAnuff is better on the wing.

[Kitson12]

Swansea and Rodgers had a game plan today, and it worked, they deserved their win fair play to them.
McAnuff was, in a word useless. Why didn't we play 4-4-2 from the start? We were the home team for crying out loud! I didn't like the changes to the starting XI, yes Mills and Griffin (who i will admit had a fairly good game) are better on paper, but Pearce and Cummings did not deserve to be dropped on form, which is what you should pick the team on the basis of! (Please don't reply to my post about strikers!)
Improvement needed for Tuesday, big time.

[West_Reading]

I thought that was a pretty similar game to the Ipswich one, with the difference obviously being the end result. Shows you the fine margins in this division and the fickle nature of many football fans.

Contrary to what has been said on here by a lot of posters, Harte wasn't that bad. We got caught down our left twice early in the second half but that was clearly to do with McD's teamtalk trying to get us to start the second half on the front foot and at a higher tempo.

As for the game itself, Swansea stroked the ball about for most of the first half between their back four without ever looking really threatening. The goal itself came out of the blue as we seemed to be enjoying a decent spell. From where I was sat it looked as though Griff was outmuscled a bit too easily having actually done well to cover Sinclair's run.

Second half we actually dominated but lacked a cuttind edge when it came to the final ball. Khiza was class today. Excellent on the ball and showed real strength and a bit of pace too at the end when he outmuscled their big striker who came off the bench. Griffin too was quality and handled Sinclair well for the most part. Mills dominant as usual but does need to improve on the ball because he can actually play a pass. Khiza should help him in that department I feel. Harte was beaten for pace a couple of times but like I mentioned earlier it was on the break. He also played a peach of a ball out to Kebe wih his right foot and his corners were much better.

Kebe seemed to play in to Tate's hands today just as he did against Ipswich with Peters. Difference this time was that Tate seemed no where near as assured as Peters and stood of Kebe, but Kebe failed to get any decent crosses in or beat his man. Karacan and Armstrong were both everywhere but we just seemed to lack a real ball player in the middle of the park today as we had little success out wide. HRK looked decent but ran into traffic a little too much. Jobi got in to great positions but just wouldn't shoot allowing Pratley to get back at him a couple of times.

We definetely seemed better with two up top and seemed to have a great chance to equalise but Church headed over from Noel Hunt's brillianly timed volleyed cross and then NHunt himself heading wide from a corner late on. Long won pretty much every header again and put in some great work down the left flank a few times. The message at home is certainly that we need to play two up top if we don't have that Gylfi type player who can play in the hole.

Fed - 7 - No chance with the goal, one very good block. Little else to do.
Griff - 8 - Solid as ever. Great covering on the break.
Khiza - 8 - Shows what we need at the back. Composed on the ball and won every challenge.
Mills - 7 - I don't remember him giving anyone a sniff today but he needs to be able to pass the ball to a teammate.
Harte - 7 - Unfair criticism of him. Done very little wrong and was good on the ball.
Kebe - 6 - Started the game well but then became predictable and some of his crossing was woeful.
Armstrong - 6 - Was full of energy but our lack of creativity in the middle exposed his weaknesses as neither him or Karacan are creators.
Karacan - 7 - Another Duracell performance but again we can't rely on him to unlock defences.
Mcanuff - 6 - I like Jobi but I hink he's being wasted in the hole. I'd switch him to the right and put Kebe on the left for the next couple of games.
HRK - 6 - Think he's improving but at the moment his first instinct is to just run at the fullback. I think he can become really effective if he can learn to come inside on occasions.
Long - 7 - I don't care about his goals record so far this year because it's not like he's missing chances. He is winning everything in the air and getting into good positions out wide.

Subs -

NHunt - 7 - Should have scored and layed on a great chance for Church.
Church - 6 - Had one great chance to win it but never got over the ball and was always going to head over.

[heathrow royal]

LOL at blaming Mills for today. Thought him and Zurab were superb TBH, those two along with Griff, HRK and Feds were the only players to come out of today with any credit.

Lots of effort up top, but very little quality. Only looked threatening when we had 2 up top. Must be 4-4-2 on tuesday.

Really I thought he was poor for the 65 minutes that he was on the pitch. Think he is more of an impact player off the bench IMO

[winchester_royal]

LOL at blaming Mills for today. Thought him and Zurab were superb TBH, those two along with Griff, HRK and Feds were the only players to come out of today with any credit.

Lots of effort up top, but very little quality. Only looked threatening when we had 2 up top. Must be 4-4-2 on tuesday.

Really I thought he was poor for the 65 minutes that he was on the pitch. Think he is more of an impact player off the bench IMO

I thought whenever he got on the ball (which was admittedly pretty rare) he caused Rangel problems. Certainly did more than either Kebe or McAnuff.

[From Despair To Where?]

So Cummings didn't play?

More compelling evidence of the "Cummings Effect" being the single most crucial factor in our results this season.

[Sarah Star]

I thought the goal was Griffin's fault.
Long and Karacan were tireless, Kebe was OK, and 442 at the end got us close to an equaliser.
Mills was poor, Armstrong was anonymous and MacAnuff is better on the wing.

I thought the goal was a bit lucky. Karacan slipped at a vital moment, then Feds went to ground leaving Sinclair with an open goal... though someone should probably have stopped him a bit sooner.

[Avon Royal]

Brian lost that one. He was out-thought tactically by Rodgers, and we were outplayed until he finally realised that we needed to go 4-4-2.

Oh, and HRK was dump. Lazy and dump.

[leon]

a witless performance - we lacked creativity and any real sense of urgency. We have got to get (at least) someone who can play up front. why do we play 1 up front at home?

[Royalee]

a witless performance - we lacked creativity and any real sense of urgency. We have got to get (at least) someone who can play up front. why do we play 1 up front at home?

At least we had creativity under Rodgers even if Madejski won't pay for a striker.

[Kitson12]

a witless performance - we lacked creativity and any real sense of urgency. We have got to get (at least) someone who can play up front. why do we play 1 up front at home?

At least we had creativity under Rodgers even if Madejski won't pay for a striker.

Oh f*ck off Royalee.

[leon]

a witless performance - we lacked creativity and any real sense of urgency. We have got to get (at least) someone who can play up front. why do we play 1 up front at home?

At least we had creativity under Rodgers even if Madejski won't pay for a striker.

yes we had so much "creativity under Rodgers" in the first half of the season we needed some dreadful football and quite a lot of "goals" to avoid relegation and finish in the top ten.

You clown.