Back in the car, soaked (Nottm Forest A)

[blythspartan]

Got absolutely drenched running back to the court house car park today.

Wasn't surprised by the score given the side we put out.

Cox looked unfit and overweight to me. Thought that Khul has some real quality about him.

Overall had a good day and believe that our best 11 would have nothing to fear from Forest.

Did a Forest fan come dressed as red riding hood today?

[yappy]

Bit of a miserable day all round. Obita and Pog's injuries being the icing on top of the cake. At present the only criteria to get into the Reading team is being fit.

It's clear that we've got too many players playing out of position. Hopefully once we've made an addition or two and got our other players fit again we could have quite a promising squad however until then it's worrying times. I'd quite like us trying to get a loan or two in until January to cope with the longer term absentees such as McCleary and Williams. Even without that I think we're short of a LB, CB and ST.

Blackman is a bit of a frustrating one. Definitely looking more confident this season and is showing his skills and beating his man, but so far he has shown zero end product. So many times he beats his man cuts onto this left and just stops and slows down play. Good to see glimpses of his talent but you can see why he was on the outskirts of the team last season.

Gunter had one of his worst games for us today, although I don't think we were doing enough to shut down the crosses and I do think the imbalance and inexperience of the team will have contributed to that.

Kuhl was decent, but I do think he's probably a little raw to be relying on week in week out. Hopefully we can get our other midfielders back fit so we can ease him in. Certainly seems a big talent.

[paultheroyal]

Not really surprising you don't start a player you signed two days previous.

Akpan - who I don't rate but we're literally desperate - then, rather than a nicey-nice midfield we had today. Woeful team selection from Adkins.

Agreed. Kuhl is clearly an excellent footballer, but needs a bit of power and experience alongside him, rather than Jabi Obita who swans around in the middle without doing much. Get him back on the left where he's useful, stop playing Taylor on the left, stop picking the exceptionally average Edwards ahead of Tanner (who was very bright again in his cameo today), and go and buy someone with some f*cking pace.

Thanks in advance Nige.

I see the Forest fans are slagging you off winch on their forums

[Pepe the Horseman]

Has Cox been downgraded from strong and stocky, to fat and unfit, now that we've lost a couple of games?

[Millsy]

Just one point on the merits of playing people out of position, our player of the season was a young lad played out of position for pretty much the whole season.

Whilst I agree that he's doing too much of it and seemingly not learning from players failing when doing so, it does sometimes bring success too.

Adkins is a slow learner. Last time I saw Obita in centre mid he was weak as p*ss and we got rolled over.

Amazingly, we sign a midfielder who is fit yet leave him on the bench, play Obita centre mid and use Shaun Cummings - consistently awful for us and barely able to get in our team for two years - out of position at left back. Remember tho, this is the manager who said "a full back is a full back and should be able to play either side".....this is presumably why Ashley Cole and Leighton Baines regularly appeared in the England side together

Absolutely 1000% this.

I love Adkins, stood up for him coming here, stick up for him now and will likely be sad when he goes one day but WTF is he doing acknowledging that Obita playing LB improved us on Tuesday (a bit of a no brainer for most of us but hey ho) and then going ahead and forgetting it immediately for the next game !??

Having said that I didn't see the game. From what I heard on the radio Gunter was the problem not Cummings anyway. Which confuses me a bit because I thought Antonio played right wing?

[Ian Royal]

At least Gunter won't play that badly again

He will - just as he has many times before.

The entire first half of our last premier league campaign for example.
Didn't see the game today, but previously he's worked best overlapping the RM with the CM dropping in behind him. Was he not a victim of Blackman/Kuhl's lack of defending? Or was it simple as a bad day in the office? Also, Forest have made an impressive start perhaps we were just outmatched by a team that's going to run away with it?

His errors for the first two goals had nothing to do with getting support. Just basic defending.

[winchester_royal]

I see the Forest fans are slagging you off winch on their forums

Antonio is shit fellas, you'll figure it out eventually..

[Ian Royal]

Not really surprising you don't start a player you signed two days previous.

Akpan - who I don't rate but we're literally desperate - then, rather than a nicey-nice midfield we had today. Woeful team selection from Adkins.

Not woeful team selection, there was very little choice in almost all cases. But yes, leaving Akpan out and playing Obita in the centre again was a bad mistake.

[Ian Royal]

I like how everyone's tried to convince themselves that Federici is the better keeper, but he's doing his very best to prove them wrong.

He's only been a bit suspect on about half of the 8 goals he's conceded in the four games, no glaring errors like diving over a scuffed long shot yet.

[bobby1413]

Forest fans saying we took 750 fans? Is that accurate?

[bobby1413]

I see the Forest fans are slagging you off winch on their forums

Antonio is shit fellas, you'll figure it out eventually..

[mambo3]

Not really surprising you don't start a player you signed two days previous.

Akpan - who I don't rate but we're literally desperate - then, rather than a nicey-nice midfield we had today. Woeful team selection from Adkins.

Agreed. Kuhl is clearly an excellent footballer, but needs a bit of power and experience alongside him, rather than Jabi Obita who swans around in the middle without doing much. Get him back on the left where he's useful, stop playing Taylor on the left, stop picking the exceptionally average Edwards ahead of Tanner (who was very bright again in his cameo today), and go and buy someone with some f*cking pace.

Thanks in advance Nige.

Tanner Edwards and Kuhl are too lightweight need to fill
Out physically so they can compliment their obvious talent. Need to go out on Loan. Samuel needs to be brought into the squad. He is in form and has pace

[Y21]

I see the Forest fans are slagging you off winch on their forums

Antonio is shit fellas, you'll figure it out eventually..

Was shit. Looks like he got better. Easily waltz straight into our team.

[winchester_royal]

I see the Forest fans are slagging you off winch on their forums

Antonio is shit fellas, you'll figure it out eventually..

Was shit. Looks like he got better. Easily waltz straight into our team.

Yeah, no shit m8..

[SCIAG]

Not if we had McCleary fit he wouldn't...

[SCIAG]

I'm usually supportive of Adkins, but who does this:

-----CM----LM-------
RM-----RM------AM

Either Obita or Edwards should have swapped positions with Taylor.

No, I didn't go.

[SCIAG]

previously he's worked best overlapping the RM with the CM dropping in behind him. Was he not a victim of Blackman/Kuhl's lack of defending?

I'm going to guess you have never seen Kuhl play. That's fine and understandable, but essentially he's a defensive midfielder and one of the things he's really good at is dropping in when a full back pushes on.

[windermere_royal]

Summary of my first away game in around seven years owing to work commitments.
9.00-9.45 brekkers in the Monks
9.57-12.45 travel Reading-Nottingham via London with 6 pack of fosters
13.00-14-15 found a lovely real ale pub by the canal called the Canal arms stranglely enough.
14.25. I am informed of our team line up, 7 players that have come through our acadamy up againsty the league leaders, my heart sunk, I thought for a few minutes if it would be a better idea to stay in the pub, but decicided to bite the bullet and head to the city ground.
15.00-1545. Good even game game with us playing neat football without being threatening, out of nowhere Forest take an undeserved lead from one of our previous players (see Cox and Henderson from this fixture last season) , I still felt we were well in the game at this point becuase we were the better team IMO.
15.45-16.00 half time beer pie and piss.
16.05 back to seat to watch the most appalling display of so called defending that I can remember, firstly Antonio get a simple toe poke to make it 2-0, followed by a header by Fryatt where he was given so much space 6 yards out he could have taken it down and picked his spot, godawful defending.
But unbelievably there was even worse to come shortly afterwards. a cross into our box, feet coming from all directions and numorous chances to clear our box the balll fell invitingly the their top scorer ( don`t ask me to spell his name) he didn`t need a second inviation.
16.20 Sorry to say by this time my great day had turned a little sour, so we headed back to the canal but not before getting drenched by a torrential downpour,
16.30-18.20 loads more decent beer, so the day wasn`t a complete disaster.
My final view on the actual football side.
We were talking on the way up, if we were going to put in the young blood then this was definately not the game to do it in.
Adkins clearly didn`t have the same way of thinking. wrong on so many counts.
While Kuhl had a very tidy game he and the other youngsters and not ready for the tough 90 minute world of championship football yet, it`s just brainless to throw in the kids all at one go.
Some will argue that Adkins has few options due to an injury crisis unprecedendied in Royals history, but didn`t we know about this this before a ball was kicked in anger this season?
I`m all for giving our promising youth a chance to show their talents, but to much and too fast really could leave them scarred forever.

[bobby1413]

Summary of my first away game in around seven years owing to work commitments.
9.00-9.45 brekkers in the Monks
9.57-12.45 travel Reading-Nottingham via London with 6 pack of fosters
13.00-14-15 found a lovely real ale pub by the canal called the Canal arms stranglely enough.
14.25. I am informed of our team line up, 7 players that have come through our acadomy up againsty the league leaders, my heart sunk, I thought for a few minutes if it would be a better idea to stay in the pub, but decicided to bite the bullet and head to the city ground.
15.00-1545. Good even game game with us playing neat football without being threatening, out of nowhere Forest take an undeserved lead from one of our previous players (see Cox and Henderson from this fixture last season) , I still felt we were well in the game at this point becuase we were the better team IMO.
15.45-16.00 half time beer pie and piss.
16.05 back to seat to watch the most appalling display of so called defending that I can remember, firstly Antonio get a simple toe poke to make it 2-0, followed by a header by Fryatt where he was given so much space 6 yards out he could have taken it down and picked his spot, godaful defending.
But unbelievably there was even worse to come shortly afterwards. a cross into our box, feet coming from all directions and numorous chances to clear our box the balll fell invitingly the their top scorer ( don`t ask me to spell his name) he didn`t need a second inviation.
16.20 Sorry to say by this time my great day had turned a little sour, so we headed back to the canal but not before getting drenched by a torrential downpour,
16.30-18.20 loads more decent beer, so the day wasn`t a complete disaster.
My final view on the actual football side.
We were talking on the way up, if we were going to put in the young blood then this was definately not the game to do it in.
Adkins clearly didn`t have the same way of thinking. wrong on so many counts.
While Kuhl had a very tidy game he and the other youngsters and not ready for the tough 90 minute world of champion football yet, it`s just brainless to throw in the kids all at one go.
Some will argue that Adkins has few options due to an injury crisis unprecedendied in Royals history, but didn`t we know about this this before a ball was kicked in anger this season?
I`m all for giving our promising youth a chance to show their talents, but to nuch and too fast really could leave them scarred forever.

We need more posts of this nature, more of an overview of the day, not just talking about a loss through endless and endless posts and nothing else.

Beer sounds nice

[sandman]

I see the Forest fans are slagging you off winch on their forums

Antonio is shit fellas, you'll figure it out eventually..

They're going to love me.

Antonio was up against the ever woeful and positionally absent Chris Gunter, hardly proof that he's gods gift to wing play. Gunter lost underneath an aerial and unable to time a header is not exactly breaking news either. Talking of positionally absent our other full back was playing on the wrong side and despite giving it an admirable go recently under difficult circumstances is just not up to playing left back.

He (Antonio) may very well have gone from Sir Tripsalot to now be Sir Tripsabitless scoring against a defence that has been consistently awful for 2 years+ but he's always going to be a pretty average footballer, with a bit of pace, who will get found out the better the player he goes up against.

Stay patient and we'll produce wingers with far brighter futures in the game than Michail Antonio. In fact we've already got one, his name is Jordan Obita and when such time as we get a new manager or this one gets a clue and realises he's not a central midfielder we will all be better off.