BFTG - Reading v just a sh*t Man United

[Millsy]

Cold wet horrid night.

A forgettable game, McCarthy for England, McCleary for Brazil, some of the best (and toothless) passing I've seen in years.

How only about 1/3 of fans stayed to applaud the team I'll never understand. If you were on the pitch when we got promoted but you went home without cheering the players don't bother coming again unless you had a good reason :p

Atmosphere- you'll never never beat my Soutbank but a fair effort so I'll leave with some of the chants that made me chuckle:

"you're just a sh*t man united"
"spent loads and you won f**k all"
"he's better than you, he's Alex McCarthy, he's better than you"
And my fave:
"we saw you cry on the tele"

Of course if I was leading the chants like I used to I'd throw in a "sing when you're winning" and "where we're you when you were sh*t?" but we can't have it all. Good work East stand boys.

[P!ssed Off]

Cold wet horrid night.

A forgettable game, McCarthy for England, McCleary for Brazil, some of the best (and toothless) passing I've seen in years.

How only about 1/3 of fans stayed to applaud the team I'll never understand. If you were on the pitch when we got promoted but you went home without cheering the fans don't bother coming again unless you had a good reason :p

Atmosphere- you'll never never beat my Soutbank but a fair effort so I'll leave with some of the chants that made me chuckle:

"you're just a sh*t man united"
"spent loads and you won f**k all"
"he's better than you, he's Alex McCarthy, he's better than you"
And my fave:
"we saw you cry on the tele"

Of course if I was leading the chants like I used to I'd throw in a "sing when you're winning" and "where we're you when you were sh*t?" but we can't have it all. Good work East stand boys.

# circlejerk

[Millsy]

Cold wet horrid night.

A forgettable game, McCarthy for England, McCleary for Brazil, some of the best (and toothless) passing I've seen in years.

How only about 1/3 of fans stayed to applaud the team I'll never understand. If you were on the pitch when we got promoted but you went home without cheering the fans don't bother coming again unless you had a good reason :p

Atmosphere- you'll never never beat my Soutbank but a fair effort so I'll leave with some of the chants that made me chuckle:

"you're just a sh*t man united"
"spent loads and you won f**k all"
"he's better than you, he's Alex McCarthy, he's better than you"
And my fave:
"we saw you cry on the tele"

Of course if I was leading the chants like I used to I'd throw in a "sing when you're winning" and "where we're you when you were sh*t?" but we can't have it all. Good work East stand boys.

# circlejerk

Haha well spotted! I'm thick innit.

[St. Brynjar]

McCleary for Brazil

Really? Thought other than the one time he nutmegged Maicon he was greedy and ineffective.

[winchester_royal]

First half - as Nige pointed out - we weren't great. Second half we were much better, and tbh for large parts of it were probably the better side. The second goal in particular was very harsh on us.

Promising that even against a team like City we are still able to play some really nice stuff, and a number of times times we moved the ball from the goalkeeper into the attacking third with some excellent pass and move football.

Work still to do, but there's a real sense of positivity growing around the club atm - which is odd given the relegation. Nice to hear players like Karacan feeling that they are able to really express themselves now.

P.S. Thought Anton wrote a very decent piece in the Programme.

[Ouroboros]

How only about 1/3 of fans stayed to applaud the team I'll never understand.

I'd imagine our league position is somewhat relevant to this intractable mystery.

[floyd__streete]

Not much to write home about there was there Ok, we we attempted - ocassionally even suceeded in - passing the ball around, but it was all very one-paced and I don't think I've seen us give the ball away quite so cheaply all season. McCarthy stood out again, he is so evidently the better 'keeper than Federici now it is almost embarassing. I can't think of anyone else who hugely shone, but Mariappa certainly outperformed Morrison, who was sluggish and sloppy throughout. Not convinced that is a Championship-quality centre-half partnership in all honesty, but they both have youth on their side and some of the attributes required. Pog offered little, ALF came on and offered even less.....good offer for him in the summer and he can go tbh.

[St. Brynjar]

Right thoughts.

Man City were a joy to watch at times. Aguero and Silva are up there with Carzola and Mata for best player I've see at the Madejski all season. We were excellent too, but it's just obvious that the players don't have the quality we need to be competitive. Dzeko can piss off though, who wears gloves with a short sleeve shirt.

Ratings:
McCarthy - 7 - Made a few stunning saves, the best of which was offside anyway but excellent goalkeeping nonetheless. Perhaps could have done better with their second although I didn't get the best view.
Gunter - 7 - Other than two wayward passes he had a great game. Overlapped all the time, he's going to be a massive asset in the Championship.
Mariappa - 7 - Made song great blocks and tackles.
Morrison - 7 - Ditto. Put his body on the line so many times.
Kelly - 6 - Had a fairly good game safe for a mistake which was punished for their second goal.
Guthrie - 8 - MOTM - The player we thought we signed. Sublime passing, great effort and dedication, delviery for Pog's chance was beautiful.
Karacan - 7 - Clearly wants to lose the 'bloke who runs around and does nothing' tag, and is going about it the right way.
McCleary - 6 - Bit greedy, would have liked to have seen him take on his man a bit more.
McAnuff - 6 - Typical of his season. Worked hard but was often invisible, took to long to make key decisions and was crowded out of the game too easily.
HRK - 6 - Didn't notice him a great deal, worked well with Kelly and Gunter.
Pog - 5 - Not dreadful but could have done better with his early chance.

ALF - 5 - Apparently he was subbed on.
Blackman - 6 - Showed a little composure and skill.
The bloke who kept shouting 'DANDRUFF' at Hart every time he took a goal kick - 10

[El Diablo]

The result was no surprise - but we knocked it around nicely at times - it was nice to see us playing the ball out from the back, rather than the aimless hoof down the flanks that we've had rammed down our throats for the past few years - and we actually looked comfortable doing it .

Not sure how this will translate into Champ footie - however I'm looking forward to the new season with a new style.

We'll defo need a decent centre forward...

[Alexander Litvinenko]

.....
We'll defo need a decent centre forward...

Not necessarily - we can storm the Championship playing 4-4-2.

It's the year after that when we'll defo need a decent centre forward.

[El Diablo]

.....
We'll defo need a decent centre forward...

Not necessarily - we can storm the Championship playing 4-4-2.

It's the year after that when we'll defo need a decent centre forward.

True but -Its likely the current patern of play / team setup is the blueprint moving forward - so we'll need somebody with real quality playing up top - no question -

Of course 'real quality' might be a tad difficult get hold of -

[P!ssed Off]

We were only completely under the cosh for around 15 mins of the game (first 10 mins and last 5 mins). Other 75 mins I thought we competed decently (pretty impressive).

[Royalwaster]

Agree that Gunter had a decent game but his final balls/crosses are still pretty poor - seems to just lump them into the box without any attempt at aiming at our player ... but compared to beginning of the season looked a lot better.

[Maguire]

Got completely shat on really. I liked the bits where Guthrie constantly gave the ball away. Way too static and very disjointed but at least it was only two. McCarthy was outstanding - point blank save from Tevez was .

Overall - fukk this season, glad it's over, sign some better players and come back for a good go in August.

[Maguire]

BBC says City had 27 attempts on goal, 20 on target. That's a total bumming.

[winchester_royal]

Also says we had 11 shots, with 7 on target. That comes out as roughly a 3:1 ratio.

Given that we were playing Manchester City, last year's Champions, with numerous players starting that are on >100k a week, I think 'bumming' is a touch harsh. They were the better team, and certainly the more clinical, but we had passages of play where we put them under real pressure.

[Ian Royal]

I thought it was goals that counted, not shots. And that you've got to take your chances for them to mean anything. 2-0 surely can't be a bumming and it's not like it could be luck that kept the score down.

[RockheadRumple]

Aguero's goal was beautiful.

It was a shame to come pretty close to equalising and ultimately lose (I'm looking at you, Pogrebnyak)


McCleary was brilliant. He destroyed Maicon several times, including a nice nutmeg and another chip over him to run onto. I'm not really getting people calling him greedy - Robson-Kanu was the greedy one from what I could tell. McCleary's got one hell of a shot too.

How only about 1/3 of fans stayed to applaud the team I'll never understand. If you were on the pitch when we got promoted but you went home without cheering the players don't bother coming again unless you had a good reason

+1

[leon]

was there really bumming on the pitch?

[Arch]

BBC says City had 27 attempts on goal, 20 on target. That's a total bumming.

Keep your eye on the ball, mags.