Brian: The right decision?

[Wycombe Royal]

BMcD did really well in the Championship but that is his level. Let's face it our record in the Premier League was abysmal and let's not forget the total mis-management of a 4-0 lead against Arsenal which will tek a lot to beat

Yeah, he definitely deserves to get hammered for putting together a team who went 4-0 up against Arsenal.

Not the best of example of failings as you say. Only so much you can do with three subs when a top team really turns it on.

McD definately made a lot of tactical mistakes that night.

[P!ssed Off]

BMcD did really well in the Championship but that is his level. Let's face it our record in the Premier League was abysmal and let's not forget the total mis-management of a 4-0 lead against Arsenal which will tek a lot to beat

Yeah, he definitely deserves to get hammered for putting together a team who went 4-0 up against Arsenal.

Not the best of example of failings as you say. Only so much you can do with three subs when a top team really turns it on.

No offence to Simon Church, but from what I remember our substitutions were pretty odd that night.

[Man Friday]

...not helped by the referee playing another 30 seconds beyond the 30 seconds universally recognised as being appropriate for a substitution. (And, no, I don't think he should have made a substitution at that time - it just gave the ref an excuse to add on more time.) We suffered from the Big Club Vs Small Club bias of referees, as we often do. Is it possible to imagine that in similar circumstances WE would have been given a bit more time than necessary to get a goal? I don't think so. McD, and the team, were 30 seconds away from being heroes that night. Such fine margins.

[P!ssed Off]

...not helped by the referee playing another 30 seconds beyond the 30 seconds universally recognised as being appropriate for a substitution. (And, no, I don't think he should have made a substitution at that time - it just gave the ref an excuse to add on more time.) We suffered from the Big Team Vs Small Team bias of referres, as we often do. Is it possible to imagine that in similar circumstances WE would have been given a bit more time than necessary to get a goal? I don't think so. McD, and the team, were 30 seconds away from being heroes that night. Such fine margins.

Of course. Without wanting to be harsh on Church, his coming on pretty much reduced us to 10 men in extra time, but if the ref had been fair then he would not have added on so much time and he would have sent off Koscielny, reducing them to ten men as well.

[Elm Park Kid]

The way I see it, we had the worse squad in the league this season. I don't know how anyone can argue with that. we didn't have one prem quality full back until we bough Kelly - a player Fulham didn't want, and not one player with proven goal scoring ability at that level. It's not like we even had a goal scorer that ripped up the Championship!

So, to get to my point, we were doomed from day one of the season regardless of manager. We could have had Alex Ferguson and Alf Ramsey's love child in the dugout and we were still going down. We didn't lose to Wigan and Villa because of poor selection/tactics, we lost because (as they have proved since) they are much better teams than we are. So to fire McDermott in April because of results was ridiculous.

If it was his fault for not investing last summer than fair enough; bite the bullet and fire him in December so a new manager can come in and spend in January. If not then just stick with the one that brought you and if we go down, we go down together.

[winchester_royal]

The way I see it, we had the worse squad in the league this season. I don't know how anyone can argue with that. we didn't have one prem quality full back until we bough Kelly - a player Fulham didn't want, and not one player with proven goal scoring ability at that level. It's not like we even had a goal scorer that ripped up the Championship!

So, to get to my point, we were doomed from day one of the season regardless of manager. We could have had Alex Ferguson and Alf Ramsey's love child in the dugout and we were still going down. We didn't lose to Wigan and Villa because of poor selection/tactics, we lost because (as they have proved since) they are much better teams than we are. So to fire McDermott in April because of results was ridiculous.

If it was his fault for not investing last summer than fair enough; bite the bullet and fire him in December so a new manager can come in and spend in January. If not then just stick with the one that brought you and if we go down, we go down together.

Actually, when you look at the performances the likes of Karacan/HRK/Guthrie/McCleary/McAnuff have been putting in recently I'm not so sure our 'lack of quality' is quite so clear cut.

[Maguire]

I agree with the previous poster but one.

Fundamental issue was that our playing staff weren't good enough. It's impossible to know how to apportion out the blame for that, but clearly Brian has to take a slice of it for our summer activities. If you don't sing in the summer then it's hard to bring quality in during January when you're in the bottom three.

Did he get the best out of what he had? Probably not, no. But I think once you get into a losing streak it's hard not to try new things in a panic to correct the slide, perhaps resulting in a selection or two we all found a touch dubious.

The revisionist nonsense about how he loved a Wimbledon/Cambridge United style of play where you just launch it to the big man is total nonsense. Yes he liked to get it forward quickly and play the football in the final third but that's not necessarily a bad way to go as long as your players are good enough to do it. They were at Championship level but they weren't in the PL.

[P!ssed Off]

If we had got between 35-45 points and still got relegated last day of the season then I would say we gave it a good go.
Relegated with 3 games to go and quite possibly ending up with less than 30 points: Unacceptable, and under performing imo.

Whilst we nicked a point or 3 against a few decent sides e.g. West Brom (h), Chelsea (h), Everton (h), I lost count of the amount of times we failed to overcome a completely average side.

Liverpool, Swansea, Stoke, Norwich, Villa and QPR: In the 12 games we played against these teams this season not one game did they look anything but average to me
total number of wins for Reading... zero

[winchester_royal]

I agree that Brian's preferred style wasn't the 'hoofball' that many (including myself) have come to term it as.

Ultimately it was to soak up pressure and then hit the opposition hard and fast on the counter. This worked a treat last season in a league where opposition players weren't skillful enough to break us down, and defenses weren't resolute enough to keep our excellent wingers at bay. We even managed to control games occasionally against teams playing 4-4-2 with a weaker midfield than ours. At times it was good to watch, others it was frustrating, but in the end it was very successful. It's why he is an excellent Championship manager, and will no doubt do very well at Leeds next season.

The problem this season came with our defense having to compete with considerably more skillful attackers, and wingers having to try and beat international full-backs. I think Brian anticipated this problem with his previous system and was looking to evolve (hence the signing of Guthrie) but when the going got tough he reverted back to norm, and perhaps that conservatism cost us this season.

I think Nigel will get us playing in a way that will enable us to control games if we do make it back to the big time, hence our defense will be under less constant pressure and our attackers will have more opportunities to take own defenders. Will that style be necessarily more effective next season than Brian's counter attacking approach? Probably not tbh..but it should give us a better chance next time we get promoted.

[Man Friday]

If we had got between 35-45 points and still got relegated last day of the season then I would say we gave it a good go.
Relegated with 3 games to go and quite possibly ending up with less than 30 points: Unacceptable, and under performing imo. The players didn't underperform. To scrape 20 odd points with Championship level players is OVER-performing. They DID give it a go. It's just that they weren't good enough. I was a good local league division 2 table tennis player. Every so often we'd get promoted to the first division and I got hammered every week. I "gave it a go" but I was out of my depth.
Whilst we nicked a point or 3 against a few decent sides e.g. West Brom (h), Chelsea (h), Everton (h), I lost count of the amount of times we failed to overcome a completely average side. That's because we were less than average.

Liverpool, Swansea, Stoke, Norwich, Villa and QPR: In the 12 games we played against these teams this season not one game did they look anything but average to me
total number of wins for Reading... zero So? We lost those and got points from other games. That's football.

[Ian Royal]

I agree with the previous poster but one.

Fundamental issue was that our playing staff weren't good enough. It's impossible to know how to apportion out the blame for that, but clearly Brian has to take a slice of it for our summer activities. If you don't sing in the summer then it's hard to bring quality in during January when you're in the bottom three.

Did he get the best out of what he had? Probably not, no. But I think once you get into a losing streak it's hard not to try new things in a panic to correct the slide, perhaps resulting in a selection or two we all found a touch dubious.

The revisionist nonsense about how he loved a Wimbledon/Cambridge United style of play where you just launch it to the big man is total nonsense. Yes he liked to get it forward quickly and play the football in the final third but that's not necessarily a bad way to go as long as your players are good enough to do it. They were at Championship level but they weren't in the PL.

It certainly wasn't traditional route one long ball. But it was pretty hopeful, low percentage balls into the channels and striker. And that's close enough to hoofing for the label to stick. Feel free to come up with a better couple of word description that sums up its failure and ugliness. I'll use hoofball or aimless punting until you do.

[P!ssed Off]

If we had got between 35-45 points and still got relegated last day of the season then I would say we gave it a good go.
Relegated with 3 games to go and quite possibly ending up with less than 30 points: Unacceptable, and under performing imo. The players didn't underperform. To scrape 20 odd points with Championship level players is OVER-performing. They DID give it a go. It's just that they weren't good enough. I was a good local league division 2 table tennis player. Every so often we'd get promoted to the first division and I got hammered every week. I "gave it a go" but I was out of my depth.
Whilst we nicked a point or 3 against a few decent sides e.g. West Brom (h), Chelsea (h), Everton (h), I lost count of the amount of times we failed to overcome a completely average side. That's because we were less than average.

Liverpool, Swansea, Stoke, Norwich, Villa and QPR: In the 12 games we played against these teams this season not one game did they look anything but average to me
total number of wins for Reading... zero So? We lost those and got points from other games. That's football.

The whole premise that we lacked quality suggests that every other team was too good for us to beat. I've highlighted 12 games (a third of our season so far) where imo the other team appeared to lack quality, played poorly, and could have been beaten yet we failed to win any of them. The difference in quality of us and them in these 12 games was not large enough to suggest we were out of our depth.

If during your ping pong season for a third of your games the opposition didn't look much better than you and yet you failed to win any of theses games then you under performed in my book. You weren't out of your depth, you just didn't take the opportunity to win when it came along.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

I have to be honest there is no reason we couldn't have reached at least 36 points. Our tactics cost us IMO - alright we weren't 'PL quality' but IMO we had enough about us to stay up or at least be in the hat to stay up on the final day.

We gift wrapped 12 points to Villa & Wigan alone FFS! Winning just 2 of the 6 pointers would have given us a shot at staying up.

Edit - even just drawing a few of them would have given us a chance of survival. We fcuked the lot up.

[Maguire]

I agree with the previous poster but one.

Fundamental issue was that our playing staff weren't good enough. It's impossible to know how to apportion out the blame for that, but clearly Brian has to take a slice of it for our summer activities. If you don't sing in the summer then it's hard to bring quality in during January when you're in the bottom three.

Did he get the best out of what he had? Probably not, no. But I think once you get into a losing streak it's hard not to try new things in a panic to correct the slide, perhaps resulting in a selection or two we all found a touch dubious.

The revisionist nonsense about how he loved a Wimbledon/Cambridge United style of play where you just launch it to the big man is total nonsense. Yes he liked to get it forward quickly and play the football in the final third but that's not necessarily a bad way to go as long as your players are good enough to do it. They were at Championship level but they weren't in the PL.

It certainly wasn't traditional route one long ball. But it was pretty hopeful, low percentage balls into the channels and striker. And that's close enough to hoofing for the label to stick. Feel free to come up with a better couple of word description that sums up its failure and ugliness. I'll use hoofball or aimless punting until you do.

"Failure and ugliness", lol. We've won titles playing balls into channels. Do you think Kevin Doyle never ran the channel? Dear God.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

It's chicken and egg, though - BMc was pragmatic enough to realise that with the players he had he had limited tactics he could play - and that in the Premier League trying to play any different way with those tactics would be a near-disaster.

Maybe if he'd had other players he'd have played different tactics, but in the period when Leigertwood was the only fit central midfielder, did people really expect him to try and play a fluid passing game.

He did what he had with the tools available. Perhaps if he'd had different tools then he'd have been able to play different formations, but he didn't have that option - and that's a whole different story. But I think the decisions made in the summer sealed our rate then, and nothing much done later or even in January could change that substantially.

[Man Friday]

If we had got between 35-45 points and still got relegated last day of the season then I would say we gave it a good go.
Relegated with 3 games to go and quite possibly ending up with less than 30 points: Unacceptable, and under performing imo. The players didn't underperform. To scrape 20 odd points with Championship level players is OVER-performing. They DID give it a go. It's just that they weren't good enough. I was a good local league division 2 table tennis player. Every so often we'd get promoted to the first division and I got hammered every week. I "gave it a go" but I was out of my depth.
Whilst we nicked a point or 3 against a few decent sides e.g. West Brom (h), Chelsea (h), Everton (h), I lost count of the amount of times we failed to overcome a completely average side. That's because we were less than average.

Liverpool, Swansea, Stoke, Norwich, Villa and QPR: In the 12 games we played against these teams this season not one game did they look anything but average to me
total number of wins for Reading... zero So? We lost those and got points from other games. That's football.

The whole premise that we lacked quality suggests that every other team was too good for us to beat. I've highlighted 12 games (a third of our season so far) where imo the other team appeared to lack quality, played poorly, and could have been beaten yet we failed to win any of them. The difference in quality of us and them in these 12 games was not large enough to suggest we were out of our depth.

If during your ping pong season for a third of your games the opposition didn't look much better than you and yet you failed to win any of theses games then you under performed in my book. You weren't out of your depth, you just didn't take the opportunity to win when it came along.

In sport, if someone's better than you, they're better. No matter how hard you try, if they're better then they're better. It's why our players cost pennies whereas other clubs cost large sums of money. It's why our wage bill was the lowest in the league. It's not rocket science and there's no getting away from it.

We got relegated because our players were not as good as most other teams. How we managed to amass 27 points is beyond me.

[jellytot]

Most of the games we won we were jammy in. At least we are trying to pass it now.

[LUX]

Tommy Smith/Gus Poyet/ a decent spell in the Premiership etc etc

[jellytot]

The whole season has been so frustrating. We have been pretty awful yet if we had won 3 more games we might have stayed up. Not sure what that says about the quality of some teams as we have been shite. If we had only played a more possession keeping game and bought in a couple of classy players.. We just look stupid. An oppprtunity screwed up.

Hopefully, NA will take us on. Early signs are good..

[royalZILLAAA]

What's worse is the sense of déja vu. I guess I appreciate that we tried to do it on the cheap, comparatively, but that just shows that lessons weren't learned from last time.