Relegation form?

[Snowball]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the back five is the first choice five, but the point being challenged is that those as a unit are not the second best defence in the division, statistically. That is all.

Well, I searched and SEARCHED but couldn't find where I said "as a unit" I said "THE-READING DEFENCE"

How many teams in the championship do you suppose have played the same back 5 for every game?

Let me get this straight. You're saying that Brian McDermott is to be credited for sticking with the Reading defence?

Brian should be credited for:

Sticking with Mills and choosing him over Pearce even tho' he's a hot head and got a red card.
Sticking with Federici
Sticking with Harte 1,000 year old Harte who "will get us relegated"
Sticking with Griffin, bringing him straight back after his injury, recognising that tho' Cummings did OK he is still extremely suspect defensively
Sticking with Zurab who he brought back to the club to play, even tho' he was ring-rusty and made a costly error and got a red card

[Snowball]

What about Pearce getting dropped after being arguably our best defender whilst Mills and Kishanishvili was suspended?

Plenty on here didn't think he'd be dropped. As VM pointed out earlier, you were advocating Kishanishvili in midfield the other day.

In that same post I said Kish is a great defender, does a fine job in the back four
but if he played DEFENSIVE midfield we would be better in midfield AND stop
more goals, because he looks like a general, proactive, not merely REactive.


I also think Pearce did a very good job and that he was unlucky to be dropped


But YOU (and others) who are not professionals thought Pearce "was our best defender"

The MANAGER, however, who IS a professional and sees the players in training, disagreed

[Arch]

Look, Snowball, everyone knows that's your view, and many of us would agree with it.

When you attributed the performance to "sticking with the best defence in the league" some people called you on the distinction between the current back four and the Reading defence in general, which - in all its permutations - can fairly be called the second best. The best thing would have been to admit that you didn't state your view carefully in the first place but it was sticking with Griff-Mills-Kizh-Harte that was creditable.

Maybe it's churlish for someone to leap all over you for your use of terms in the original remark, but you pretty much invite it with your insistence on quantifiable measures over gut feelings and with your general defensiveness about your views.

[Snowball]

Look, Snowball, everyone knows that's your view, and many of us would agree with it.

When you attributed the performance to "sticking with the best defence in the league" some people called you on the distinction between the current back four and the Reading defence in general, which - in all its permutations - can fairly be called the second best. The best thing would have been to admit that you didn't state your view carefully in the first place but it was sticking with Griff-Mills-Kizh-Harte that was creditable.

Maybe it's churlish for someone to leap all over you for your use of terms in the original remark, but you pretty much invite it with your insistence on quantifiable measures over gut feelings and with your general defensiveness about your views.

But I am saying that he has stuck with ALL five who are currently playing
and that he's stuck with them individually as the 5 came together.

People are just being pedantic.

If we say "The Chelsea Defence is awesome" do we mean ONLY 5 players
or do we mean THE DEFENCE, which has a main five, but has occasional stand-ins

ALSO, I made the point (and have done so now for 9 consecutive games) THAT THE DEFENCE WAS NOT, REPEAT NOT GOOD FOR THE FIRST FOUR GAMES
and thus I am not (obviously) thinking of the players who played then, because something (probably Williams) was quite clearly wrong.

It is SINCE HARTE JOINED that the defence has settled, even more now that Kish is getting sharper
and Griffin has come back after injury.

My point was to show that McDermott hasn't reacted to the sheep-bleaters calling for Harte to be dropped, for Cummings to be kept in for Griffin, for Feds to be dropped for his rare errors, for Mills to be dropped for Pearce. IMO he has chosen the best five men every single time they were available.

And "the defence" is not just personnel, it's style, drills, how we play, how the manger sets them up, and in a good squad, bringing one player in (eg Cummings for Griffin when Griff was injured) doesn't really change how the Reading defence generally plays, just as Harte for Williams didn't change our style. It's just Harte works better for us.

The QPR defence is, at the moment, in terms of goals conceded, awesome. Yes?

[Hoop Blah]

So, by stuck with, you meant changed on an almost constant basis depending on availibity and irrespective of result and performance?

[Snowball]

So, by stuck with, you meant changed on an almost constant basis depending on availibity and irrespective of result and performance?

NO.

[Snowball]

The QPR defence is, at the moment, in terms of goals conceded, awesome. Yes?

[Snowball]

Snowball,
It's pretty bloody obvious that Armstrong wasn't fit nor was Hunt.
You are in danger of becoming the new Spacey and I'm not sure that this board can cope with two.

Hoop tells me Hunt was on the bench...

So does the official site

[andrew1957]

I know some will say this is a knee jerk reaction but I am becoming increasingly concerned that our recent form risks us being dragged into the relegation struggle this year.

It was utter madness on every level to sell Sigurdsson at the end of August. I don't blame Brian at all. I think he has done wonders to get as many points as we have since Gylfi left, but I fear we are in trouble now and the chickens are coming home to roost so to speak.

We are not creating nearly enough chances. The players we are left with are hard working, but there is no one apart from Kebe who has the creative edge. Kebe blows hot and cold (as we all know) so we cannot rely on him for 46 games. In the last two games Kebe has not been at his best and we have struggled. It is incredibly dangerous to be virtually 100% reliant on one mercurial talent.

The really worrying thing to me is that we are in 11th place but so far we have played 10 teams below us and just 2 above us in the table. In the last three games we have managed 1 point. When you consider that Preston and Bristol have managed just 8 points at home this season between them - 4 of these have been against Reading. Now it is hard to see many points being accumulated between now and Christmas as we have our hard games to come against the form teams of the division. We could easily go on a long run of games without a win. Sometimes playing the better teams does bring out the best in RFC, but if we don't find someone who can score goals regularly (and it is hard to see who this will be in the current squad) we could be in deep trouble by Christmas.

The Championship is an incredibly tight division and it is essential to have a creative player like Siggy. In my opinion his sale immediately took us from a promotion chasing team to a team in danger of relegation. I am concerned and feel extremely let down by the Chairman and the club. It looks to me as though the other players have lost belief. With Gylfi there we seemed to exude confidence - now that has gone and without a regular goalscorer, it is hard to see how the players can get it back.

I'm probably not the first and won't be the last to say that this is particularly knee-jerk

As a committed fan no one is more delighted than me with the win on Saturday. I think the difference was undoubtedly Tabb - who is the first player that looks like he might be able to make the "off the striker" role work since Siggy left. BUT I still think my basic points stand.

I still think this season could go either way - one win - like a couple of defeats, means very little in the scheme of things. In the end we will probably end up mid table with a small chance of achieving a play off play and a small chance of relegation.

If we had retained Siggy, however, I am confident that we would have been challenging for automatic promotion. That is why I am annoyed. A great opportunity was thrown away for a relatively small amount of money compared to the riches of a PL promotion - particularly with the extended parachute payments.

[Gordons Cumming]

If only we had crystal balls, life would be so much easier.

[ZacNaloen]

Presumably you mean magic crystal balls, not sure what benefit I'd get from a transparent sphere of crystal. Paper weight?

[Gordons Cumming]

Presumably you mean magic crystal balls, not sure what benefit I'd get from a transparent sphere of crystal. Paper weight?

Of course, magic.

[Franchise FC]

4-0 away win at Turf Moor, aint relegation form m9s

Agreed - relagation sides do not win 4-0 away at sides who are amongst the most likely to go up.

The interesting thing will be what ambition will be shown in the January window if we have maintained a position of somewhere around where we are now.

You could argue that if we're in a similar position in January as we are now, we wouldn't need much in the way of additions.

[Snowball]

01 Conceded 2 - Federici-Griffin-Pearce-Mills-Williams................ Mills Injured, out next game
02 Conceded 1 - Federici-Griffin-Pearce-Gunnarson-Williams
03 Conceded 1 - Federici-Griffin-Pearce-Mills-Williams................ (Griffin injured, Gunnarson replaces)
04 Conceded 1 - Federici-Gunnarson-Pearce-Williams-Cummings
05 Conceded 0 - Federici-Cummings-Mills-Pearce-Harte
06 Conceded 0 - Federici-Cummings-Mills-Pearce-Harte
07 Conceded 3 - Federici-Cummings-Mills-Pearce-Harte
08 Conceded 0 - Federici-Cummings-Kish'i-Mills-Harte.............. Kish sent off, misses next game
09 Conceded 0 - Federici-Cummings-Pearce-Mills-Harte............ Mills sent off, misses next game
10 Conceded 1 - Federici-Cummings-Kish'i-Pearce-Harte
11 Conceded 1 - Federici-Griffin-Mills-Kish'i-Harte
12 Conceded 1 - Federici-Griffin-Mills-Kish'i-Harte
13 Conceded 0 - Federici-Griffin-Mills-Kish'i-Harte
14 Conceded 3 - Federici-Griffin-Mills-Kish'i-Harte

Excluding that first game oops, where we were finding our feet...

I find it interesting that we've kept the against column to 1 or 0 11 times but let in 3 twice

[Snowball]

Ok, so are you trying to tell us that whenever we have conceded a goal this season, Federici has been on the pitch..?

NO, I was pointing out we have had a lot of iiiii's in defence even tho' there are ni iiiii's in defence

[Snowball]

and iAN Harte is iRiSH

[cmonurz]

I find it interesting that we've kept the against column to 1 or 0 11 times but let in 3 twice

What do you find interesting about that? We have a handful of clean sheets, we have let in 1 a few times (and 1-1 and 2-1 are the most prevalent footy scores, I believe), and twice we've let in a lot. I'd say that's a pretty standard distribution of goals conceded for an upper mid-table side.

[Snowball]

I find it interesting that we've kept the against column to 1 or 0 11 times but let in 3 twice

What do you find interesting about that? We have a handful of clean sheets, we have let in 1 a few times (and 1-1 and 2-1 are the most prevalent footy scores, I believe), and twice we've let in a lot. I'd say that's a pretty standard distribution of goals conceded for an upper mid-table side.

Well, you'd be wrong in your "reckoning"

Number of times conceding 3

0 Cardiff TOP
0 QPR SECOND
0 Derby SEVENTH

1 Swansea THIRD
1 Forest THIRTEENTH
1 Ipswich ELEVENTH
1 Coventry FOURTH
1 Millwall FOURTEENTH
1 Hull TWENTIETH

2 Reading SIXTH
2 Burnley EIGHTH

4 NORWICH FIFTH

So twice conceding 3 goals is worse than 20th place Hull and 14th place Millwall

[cmonurz]

I spoke of the 'distribution', not solely of conceding three goals. Try again.

I also asked you what you found interesting about it. Try again.

[From Despair To Where?]

You really are a tedious, self righteous little toad, Snowball.