Are we really going down this season

[Denver Royal]

Having looked at the remaining fixtures for this season I am finding it hard to see where Reading will pick up any points.
Maybe the match against Bolton and thats all folks.
At least the tickets will be cheaper next season

He inherits a dire position, and hard to to believe quite a few thought Top10 this season. Do teams like Sheff Utd really have that much better players than us? Anyway, we can hopefully get some points from these games:

HOME
Swans
Brent
Pres
Wig
Roth
Black
Brum

AWAY
Bol
Wed
Ipsw

[Lower West]

Do teams like Sheff Utd really have that much better players than us?

They were promoted from league one with a good solid team. Sum of the parts is what really counts.

[Snowflake Royal]

Do teams like Sheff Utd really have that much better players than us?

They were promoted from league one with a good solid team. Sum of the parts is what really counts.

Yep. 'Names mean nothing. Too many of ours are just poor.

Bacuna, Barrow, Aluko, Swift, Moore... they're all talented for sure, but none of them can string three good performances together to save their lives. All fartarse around go completely missing or just self destruct on a regular basis.

We haven't had a proper team built together and playing as a unit in years... Stam got close first season, but they still imploded plenty and were rarely comfortable in games.

[Dr_Hfuhruhurr]

If we win at Millwall (just saying) they will be 4/6 and we will be 5/1

No they wouldnt have been.
Not everything is based on league position, you know, Obviously the bookies dont rate our managerial acquisition, for instance. I suspect our home defeat to Bolton and draw to Ipswich didnt impress them much either.
This season has relegation written all over it and not only just because we're in the bottom 3 after half the season. We have a rubbish home record, cant score when we need to, cant keep a clean sheet when we need to, are capable of losing points to literally anybody in this league, including our rivals and have just made a managerial sidestep to a manager with 17 clubs in 2 decades on his CV. We were saved last year by the forlornness of Barnsley, Burton and Sunderland. The only thing can save us this year is the fans horribly misjudging Gomes' abilities.

[Hound]

Agree on the whole with that

Suspect our best chance is Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham being slightly more inept than us. Which I’d say is about 50/50 at the moment

[Pale-Fox]

We are going down this season. That doesnt feel great to admit but it appears to be where we are heading. Every team has more shots on goal than us and have a tendency to get them on target too. We will never win many matches if we are hitting the target once or twice in a game. Few chances are created which means that there is an incredible pressure on a player to convert when given the opportunity.

The only aspect we tend to dominate is possession however we dont appear capable at this point with doing anything incisive with it. I would put this down to a poor mentality where collectively they play safe to avoid making mistakes that they end up making anyway. A succession of managers have taken the hit but the players are the problem.

Gomes seems confident and i will be supporting him however he has to start by putting round pegs in round holes etc. Play your top scorers. Stop worrying about the opposition and concentrate on a style of play that suits our team and stick with that team. Our most successful managers have done that, placing emphasis on our style of play rather than primarily focussing on the opposition.

[Dr_Hfuhruhurr]

Agree on the whole with that

Suspect our best chance is Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham being slightly more inept than us. Which I’d say is about 50/50 at the moment

Bolton also have relegation written all over them this year. Not sure about Ipswich and Rotherham. Ipswich havent amassed many points at all in the first half of the season, so it doesnt look good. Rotherham are doing what they always do in this league - hanging around the bottom seeing if they can avoid it in the last 10 games. In the first half of the season, we've played all the other teams in the bottom 5 (currently our rivals) and we havent beaten any of them. That, to me, is a really bad sign.

[Snowflake Royal]

Agree on the whole with that

Suspect our best chance is Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham being slightly more inept than us. Which I’d say is about 50/50 at the moment

It would be hilarious* if Parky kept Bolton up at our expense given all the shit that was talked about him as a candidate for managing us.

[tmesis]

I always feel that while points tells you how good a team is, goal difference is an indicator of the quality of a squad. A team doing well with a modest goal difference is probably overachieving (like us in Stam's first season) while one with a GD that's not as bad as the teams around them is underachieving (probably us this season).

Typically, I'd suggest an underachieving side is more likely to have a little spell of picking up points than those around them, which would make them more likely to survive. However, that would only be the case if the root cause of the underachievement is removed.

At the moment, I'd say we are just about more likely to stay up than go down, but it depends massively on how the players react to the new manager, and what we do in the transfer window.

[windermereROYAL]

To be honest we are not that bad, in the word of Paul Clement it`s a game of fine margins, we lose the majority of games by the odd goal. stating the bleeding obvious I know and the shocking stat say it all, when we concede first we might as well just go home.
It`s a losing mentality we have and until we turn that around it`s hard to see us staying up.

[Barney]

To be honest we are not that bad, in the word of Paul Clement it`s a game of fine margins, we lose the majority of games by the odd goal. stating the bleeding obvious I know and the shocking stat say it all, when we concede first we might as well just go home.
It`s a losing mentality we have and until we turn that around it`s hard to see us staying up.

Spot on. Hits the nail on the head.

[Lower West]

To be honest we are not that bad,

Relegation teams don't have to be outright bad. Just not as good as the other teams around them. We've a good backbone of a team with the academy players that are coming through. Expectations of them are just too high.

[Hoop Blah]

I'd say that very few relegated teams are that bad. They generally have ability and talent but they lose their form, momentum and fight and it becomes very difficult to accumulate points, let alone win games once that's happened.

It's all a bit of a cliche but it is fine margins with these things at times but we do have the feel of a relegated side at the moment. I'm sure there are many fans of Wigan, Millwall, Rotherham, Bolton and Ipswich that would say much the same though.

[leon]

Agree on the whole with that

Suspect our best chance is Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham being slightly more inept than us. Which I’d say is about 50/50 at the moment

It would be hilarious* if Parky kept Bolton up at our expense given all the shit that was talked about him as a candidate for managing us.

His teams at least compete. This team does not and has not for several years. That is one of the reasons we’re going down.

[Snowflake Royal]

Agree on the whole with that

Suspect our best chance is Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham being slightly more inept than us. Which I’d say is about 50/50 at the moment

It would be hilarious* if Parky kept Bolton up at our expense given all the shit that was talked about him as a candidate for managing us.

His teams at least compete. This team does not and has not for several years. That is one of the reasons we’re going down.

Agree.

[Hound]

Depends what you mean compete

I don’t doubt the players work their nuts off and do seem to care (definitely times under Stam and Clement last year where that wasn’t the case)

We just simply aren’t a good enough ‘team’. Lack confidence, esp when we concede. Too many silly mistakes. Possibly players causing issues behind the scenes. Big injuries to key players, who then take forever to get fit etc

If it was a simple as trying a bit harder then I’d almost be more confident

[Elm Park Kid]

Are there still people out there that believe that we have a promotion standard squad and it's only poor management and player attitude that are keeping out out the top 6?

Personally I think we're a better team than our results, but not by miles. As long as the new manager isn't completely useless and our injuries luck isn't too bad, I reckon we will be safe. We might even go on a mini-run if we win a couple of games and get some confidence back.

[Kitsondinho]

Agree on the whole with that

Suspect our best chance is Bolton, Ipswich and Rotherham being slightly more inept than us. Which I’d say is about 50/50 at the moment

It would be hilarious* if Parky kept Bolton up at our expense given all the shit that was talked about him as a candidate for managing us.

This is going to happen. We will regret not getting Parky by the end of the season, I am sure of it. In this situation, style and identity are pointless. We just need points. Gomes is on a hiding to nothing. I said Ipswich, Rotherham and ourselves to go down at the start of the season. I still think that now.

[Denver Royal]

I always feel that while points tells you how good a team is, goal difference is an indicator of the quality of a squad. A team doing well with a modest goal difference is probably overachieving (like us in Stam's first season) while one with a GD that's not as bad as the teams around them is underachieving (probably us this season).

Typically, I'd suggest an underachieving side is more likely to have a little spell of picking up points than those around them, which would make them more likely to survive. However, that would only be the case if the root cause of the underachievement is removed.

At the moment, I'd say we are just about more likely to stay up than go down, but it depends massively on how the players react to the new manager, and what we do in the transfer window.

tmesis, good post, and I agree GD can be an indicator.

We're half way thru the season, and was looking back at some stats. A few things jumped out:

- Played 24 games, and in 16 of them, we've scored either 0 or 1 goal.
- In the 24 games, there's only been 4 games in which a non-striker scored
- The only non-striker who has more than 1 goal is Bacuna (with 3)

So, could use Mid and Def weighing in with more goals. (Morrison and Bamba, two CB's, scored about a dozen goals between them in Champ for Cardiff last season).
But for starters anyway, hoping we get Bod and Meite back firing.

[Dr_Hfuhruhurr]

The bottom 3 now are going to be the bottom three at the end of the season, arent they? 3 teams with problems, who have all just recorded a dismal result. For any scenario where 'Parkinson stays up at our expense' will require Parkinson still being in charge at Bolton at the end of the season.