Coppell lost us that one ...

[79Royal]

There is no man more passionate about Reading Football Club out on that pitch than Graeme Murty. Having said that, you could put me on the pitch and I'd be passionate about RFC, but I can't play football. Murts is consistently off the pace and sadly appears no longer up to Premiership football. I hate saying it because in recent years there is nobody who has contributed more to the cause. However, it's time for him to step down.

Agreed. I said to the missus after the game that I think Murts may well decide to retire at the end of the season. It'll be a shame as he's been a good player for us through bad times and good, and certainly makes a better captain that Adie Williams ever did, but the reality of football doesn't deal in sentimentality.

Murts did a good job on Giggs and then Ronaldo at Old Trafford, so don't write him off just yet. He also had to work twice as hard Saturday, trying to cover Doobs. Shorey is off the pace as well, IMO. He's not been his glittering best all season. He'll come through it no doubt though.

Murty may not be the quickest or biggest, but we missed him last season when he was out.

I don't think he's ready for the knackers yard just yet.

[Hoop Blah]

Duberry for Bikey was a ridiculous decision.

I do think that Bikey has that extra yard of pace over Doobs which might just have saved us a goal or two today. Probably not though.

I thought it was a surprising decision to be honest as Bikey has played out of his skin the last couple of weeks. It also shows how Coppell is willing to change a side if he wants to. None of this possession is 9/10th rubbish.

I'm not sure I agree on Bikey being quicker though. He is still slow to read the game and the first yard or two is in your head. I can only think that is why Coppell plumped for Doobs instead as he's sharper upstairs than Bikey.

Either way, I don't think the decision really cost us as it was Ivar and Hahneman that conceeded the first goal, and Bikey would've been just as mesmorised by the quality 1-2 from Etherington and Bellamy that set up the second.

[Royalwaster]

I do think that SC got it tactically wrong - or if not the team were not listening to his instructions. I can imagine AC told them that we would be putting them under pressure and to sit back and wait for the break - unfortunately for us, they didn't have to wait and got their first after 6 minutes. After that they could play to their strength and did it superbly. I thought that in the first half we didn't play that badly - no worse than against Everton. It's just that we didn't score - we were after all up against one of our all time heroes back there (MU) and so we shouldn't have been surprised it was going to be hard.

In the second half, they did exactly the same as in the first half; so at 2:0 down and with the Bolton game in the backs of their minds you could see the players starting to panic. And so were most of the fans I'd say. I was. We were all shitting ourselves. No wonder the team played so crap after that.

[Don Finch]

Not sure I agree with SC's decision to bring in Doobs over Bikey but history has told you to trust what the man does. Unfortunately it didn't pay off this time, think Bikey should have started all day long - obviously SC is privvy to more information than us so there could have been another reason - jet lag etc.

Three of the back four had just returned from injury and didn't we look out of sorts at the back, that's why the starting line up surprised me somewhat. DLC should have started right back, the boy showed he could play up at OT and Murty just didn't seem up to it unfortunately. How long until Sonko comes back because I think we need his pace back there.

Anyhoo, Coppell is saying all the right things after the last two performances and I've got confidence in his ability to sort us out over the next two weeks. If we fail to get 4 points from the next 6 then I'll hit the panic button.

[chalks]

how long before your mob start wanting a change of manager?

[Alan Partridge]

how long before your mob start wanting a change of manager?

PARJOO AHT

WE WANT OUR PARJOO BACK

WE ARE WEST HAM'S CLARET AND BLUE ARMY

CURBS AHT

CURBS CLARET AND BLUE ARMY

FickLOLe

[Don Finch]

how long before your mob start wanting a change of manager?

Not at anytime soon, we're only 5 games in.......if we lose to Wigan at home THEN he's got to go.

[chalks]

how long before your mob start wanting a change of manager?

Not at anytime soon, we're only 5 games in.......if we lose to Wigan at home THEN he's got to go.

when do you play wigan?

[Don Finch]

Two games time.
BTW. I was only jostling.
Coppell's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned (disclaimer: unless we turn really really sh1t)

[chalks]

Two games time.
BTW. I was only jostling.
Coppell's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned (disclaimer: unless we turn really really sh1t)

you've got a run of games where you should, if you play like you did last season, pick up points. The problem your going to have is that if you lose to Sunderland, which i think you will, you are going to start putting yourselves under more pressure with each game.

Coppell, as good a manager as he is, and i think he's one of the best, has, imo, made a Pardewesque cock up in thinking you didnt need 1st team strengthening in the Summer.

[Hoop Blah]

Two games time.
BTW. I was only jostling.
Coppell's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned (disclaimer: unless we turn really really sh1t)

you've got a run of games where you should, if you play like you did last season, pick up points. The problem your going to have is that if you lose to Sunderland, which i think you will, you are going to start putting yourselves under more pressure with each game.

Coppell, as good a manager as he is, and i think he's one of the best, has, imo, made a Pardewesque cock up in thinking you didnt need 1st team strengthening in the Summer.

In what way did Pardew decide he didn't need to strengthen his 1st team last summer? He bought in quite a few players to strengthen it didn't he? Wasn't it just the arrogance of the existing players and Pardew's man-management cock ups that caused your problems last season?

I do think you're right that we didn't strengthen our 1st team enough over the summer though.

[Vision]

Two games time.
BTW. I was only jostling.
Coppell's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned (disclaimer: unless we turn really really sh1t)

you've got a run of games where you should, if you play like you did last season, pick up points. The problem your going to have is that if you lose to Sunderland, which i think you will, you are going to start putting yourselves under more pressure with each game.

Coppell, as good a manager as he is, and i think he's one of the best, has, imo, made a Pardewesque cock up in thinking you didnt need 1st team strengthening in the Summer.

I don't think Coppell thought the 1st team didn't need strengthening. Un fortunately the club don't possess the financial clout to go out and spend huge chunks of money on the sort of players that he believes would improve it.

An awful lot of players have gone for an awful lot of money this summer but despite the protestations of many on here, its highly debatable whether many of them (even if they were remote possibilites ) would actually strengthen the 1st team.

[Denver Royal]

Also wonder whether players, if given a choice, simply don't want to come here.

If you are a player on the move, are we more attractive than, say, Sunderland, Bolton and Birmingham?

Players and their agents will look at our wage structure, see that Sidwell and Shorey wanted out, and be hesitant.

[Dirk Gently]

And (as has been stated many, many times) it's not just a question of finding players we want - it's a question of players being prepared to come here at wages we're prepared to pay.

So it's back to the essential question - do we risk everything on players' contracts which would cripple us if the risk doesn't pay off?

Personally, I'm happy for us not to try and compete in the wages "arms race" - we'll never be able to compete with the likes of Everton, Newcastle, Villa, West Ham, Boro, Spurs, even Sunderland - let alone the big 4.

We're in competition to stay above the likes of Derby, Birmingham, Wigan, Fulham, Bolton - try and compete higher and we could literally die in the attempt.

[SpaceCruiser]

Shorey wanted out

How did you work that one out? I've not seen him state this publicly other than his comments on his contract negotiations and he didn't even say much.

[chalks]

Two games time.
BTW. I was only jostling.
Coppell's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned (disclaimer: unless we turn really really sh1t)

you've got a run of games where you should, if you play like you did last season, pick up points. The problem your going to have is that if you lose to Sunderland, which i think you will, you are going to start putting yourselves under more pressure with each game.

Coppell, as good a manager as he is, and i think he's one of the best, has, imo, made a Pardewesque cock up in thinking you didnt need 1st team strengthening in the Summer.

In what way did Pardew decide he didn't need to strengthen his 1st team last summer? He bought in quite a few players to strengthen it didn't he? Wasn't it just the arrogance of the existing players and Pardew's man-management cock ups that caused your problems last season?

I do think you're right that we didn't strengthen our 1st team enough over the summer though.

Big difference between squad players and 1st team players.

The real problems at West Ham last season have all been documented so i wont go into them in detail, however, the root cause was our ex manager.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

And (as has been stated many, many times) it's not just a question of finding players we want - it's a question of players being prepared to come here at wages we're prepared to pay.

So it's back to the essential question - do we risk everything on players' contracts which would cripple us if the risk doesn't pay off?

Personally, I'm happy for us not to try and compete in the wages "arms race" - we'll never be able to compete with the likes of Everton, Newcastle, Villa, West Ham, Boro, Spurs, even Sunderland - let alone the big 4.

We're in competition to stay above the likes of Derby, Birmingham, Wigan, Fulham, Bolton - try and compete higher and we could literally die in the attempt.

Of course not. We still should have strengthened the team and that's got nothing to do with crippling us. £60m in tv revenue alone, more than pays form 1 or 2 more players, with more than enough left over for a rainy day.

As for Coppell and Hammonds hands being restricted by money. While there's no doubt we are pretty tight with money Coppell has said numerous times we could bring players in if he wanted them, he obviously didn't think the squad needed strengthening, As people have said before he wouldn't have signed for two years if he was unhappy with the money he was being provided with and Hammond would be at Arsenal right now too.

[chalks]

Shorey wanted out

How did you work that one out? I've not seen him state this publicly other than his comments on his contract negotiations and he didn't even say much.

Shorey is very very unhappy with the powers that be at Reading as far as im aware. Not that he'll do a Defoe or Ince and show his displeasure on the filed of course.

[Denver Royal]

Shorey wanted out

How did you work that one out? I've not seen him state this publicly other than his comments on his contract negotiations and he didn't even say much.

Sidwell never stated publically that he wanted to leave, either. Few players ever actually do. You think Shorey is going to call a press conference and come out publically and state categorically that he wants to leave?

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Two games time.
BTW. I was only jostling.
Coppell's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned (disclaimer: unless we turn really really sh1t)

you've got a run of games where you should, if you play like you did last season, pick up points. The problem your going to have is that if you lose to Sunderland, which i think you will, you are going to start putting yourselves under more pressure with each game.

Coppell, as good a manager as he is, and i think he's one of the best, has, imo, made a Pardewesque cock up in thinking you didnt need 1st team strengthening in the Summer.

In what way did Pardew decide he didn't need to strengthen his 1st team last summer? He bought in quite a few players to strengthen it didn't he? Wasn't it just the arrogance of the existing players and Pardew's man-management cock ups that caused your problems last season?

I do think you're right that we didn't strengthen our 1st team enough over the summer though.

Big difference between squad players and 1st team players.

The real problems at West Ham last season have all been documented so i wont go into them in detail, however, the root cause was our ex manager.

Actually I think there a similarity there. Did any of Pards signings actually make your 1st team that season? Stand still in this league and you get punished.