Team playing style - Next Season

[Gordons Cumming]

Assuming Steve stays on for another season how do you want to see the team style change.........or not?

One of the reasons we got relegated last season was our overall ball retention. Our direct style meant we were giving the ball away too much and being unable to get it back for long periods.

Should we keep the style which was successful last time around or develop a style which will be a better system should we be lucky enough to bounce straight back up?

Watching WBA play Portsmouth in the FA Cup semis I thought they played a good passing, possession game and they have done OK.

Well?

[Row Z Royal]

We're a passing and crossing team.

Unfortunately we've lacked pace and wing play and that's got us relegated. I'd like to see us stick to the principles that brought the success, at least in the mean time. If it doesn't work then I'm sure we'll have a new manager and a new approach will be brought.

[Baines]

I agree with the implication in GC's post that we need to go back to being the passing and crossing team we were up until the first half of 06/07.

That's rather dependent of course on having a central midfield which can win the ball and wingers who can pass/cross accurately.

[finnbot4050]

shoot when they have a chance and stop trying to walk the ball into the net. i'm not one for players that are ball greedy but i wish we had a one this year

[papereyes]

shot when u have a chance and stop trying to walk the ball into the net. i'm not one for players that are ball greedy but i wish we had a one this year

did we ever try to walk it into the net?

our tactic seemd to be - hit it long, hope, repeat

[finnbot4050]

yeah they had chances to shoot but passed it out to the wing

[papereyes]

yeah they had chances to shoot but passed it out to the wing

Wingers the world over resent being compared to John Oster and Stephen Hunt

I saw this today

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

The tactics that got us promoted and kept us in the Premiership.

High tempo, direct and with balls in the box.

Of course you need the players to do that, which currently we don't.

[toppy]

yeah they had chances to shoot but passed it out to the wing

Wingers the world over resent being compared to John Oster and Stephen Hunt

I saw this today

That's be the Shorey freekicks and the odd corner. Prob was we failed to score from open play crosses.

[sucatraps]

Retain the best manager
Invest a large fee and wages on a new club captain, (midfield or central defender)
Become the meanest defence in the division
Become the toughest and most creative midfield
Become the sharpest and most prolific scorers
Purge the squad of anybody who is not 100% ready to lay it on the line for the club.
Sign a number of mature, experienced professionals for key positions as the "spine" of the team. Blend them with the best of the existing squad and fold in the brightest prospects from the younger players, when and only when the opportunity presents.
Be completely ruthless and focussed, it's a serious business let's get "little old Reading" deadly serious!

That is all!

[ElmParker]

yeah they had chances to shoot but passed it out to the wing

Wingers the world over resent being compared to John Oster and Stephen Hunt

I saw this today

If that's the Opta stuff, there was also a set of stats on who played the most long balls in the Prem. Aside from Man C and Blackburn, there was an almost perfect negative correlation between %age of long balls played and final league position, ie, the more long balls you play, the lower you finish.

Now, this could simply mean that better players don’t hoof, but it may also suggest that long ball football is fundamentally ineffective in the Prem.

[Tilehurst Mike]

We need to go back to the high tempo, putting pressure on the opposition style that has been so successful in the past and stick to 4-4-2 with two decent wingers who can provide some decent crosses.
In my view after the stuffings at Pompey and Spurs we suddenly changed our style and it was noticeable that the full backs were reluctant to cross the half way line leading to an increase in hopeful punts down the flanks for the strikers to try and recover. the midfield was often by passed and non existent. Perhaps Wally Downes should take some blame for this as he was the defensive coach.
Also no ing about with putting the likes of Bikey in midfield and Cisse in defence. Build the defence around Bikey and mudfield around Matesjosky.
I dont want to have to see the likes of Doyle (if he is still here) and Kitson back tracking so much and searching for the ball on the wings!!

[papereyes]

yeah they had chances to shoot but passed it out to the wing

Wingers the world over resent being compared to John Oster and Stephen Hunt

I saw this today

If that's the Opta stuff, there was also a set of stats on who played the most long balls in the Prem. Aside from Man C and Blackburn, there was an almost perfect negative correlation between %age of long balls played and final league position, ie, the more long balls you play, the lower you finish.

Now, this could simply mean that better players don’t hoof, but it may also suggest that long ball football is fundamentally ineffective in the Prem.

It's probably both. But ...

Basically, if you play football by putting the ball into Positions Of Maximum Opportunity loads of times (ask Charles Hughes and Charles Reep), then you will make a related number of chances. If you make more chances than your opposition, then you will score more goals. Obvious, huh. The next step by these two footballing superbrains was to work out that the most efficient way of getting the ball into these POMOs was 3 passes/touches - long pass, knock down, shot. So they decided that the best way to play football was for the ball to be hit long, played short and take a shot. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Fair enough you think, but these guys ended up deciding how English football should be played - I think they had the ear of the FA. What they didn't realise, or take into account, or whatever it is they missed, was that keeping the ball and tiring the opposition out is a more economical way of playing the game.

Two teams playing POMO/long ball football will batter each other and the team that is the strongest and fittest will tend to win. So English football tended to look for strength, guts, fitness and teams were built around that. If you take one of these teams and dump them in a game against a team that keeps the ball, firstly, the side will not get the ball as much to put it into these POMOs and second, they'll get tired as they chase the ball. Then, more times than not, they'll lose. Sometimes they'll win. But most of the time, they simply won't have the ball enough to do any damage.

Heading over to the premiership/Championship thing. I have a pet theory that teams that do well in the Championship go up in one of two ways. The classic English way with players who are big and strong up front and at the back, making the most of set pieces, midfielders whose main role is to get the ball either wide or forwards again or by playing a possession game - keeping the ball on the deck and moving precisely. The teams that do the latter tend to do better the next season as they're used to it but the rough and tumble of the Championship means that they can get kicked about a bit, the poorer pitches work against them, the inability to purchase suitably good players on championship budgets mean that often you're fashioning silk purses out of sow's ears. Reading's promotion was pretty much the second of the two (but with the ball tending to go wide - compare with West Brom who tended to play a decent passing game through a talented midfield and one very good, experienced second striker), our first season much the same but last season, well, I think we played a long ball game without having the players to even contemplate playing it.

Whether that was down to confidence or quality or whatever ...

[sucatraps]

I want SSC to stay, I don't want SSC to leave, hopefully that's clear enough, but if he had left before we got relegated and had we been in the market for a manager Tony Mowbray would and has proven to be a good shout. It has also, reading through the posts on this thread, made me realise that our suggestions are too detailed, regardless of our qualifications or otherwise. I think some of us need to look at ourselves in our capacity as fans, did/do we do enough, how could we do more?

[PEARCEY]

What served the team so well in the Championship was playing with two widemen getting in quality crosses time and time again. I do think that if we retain 3 out of our 4 existing strikers and buy a decent replacement for whoever leaves(I do think either Doyle or Lita will go) we will be a handful for most sides next season....but do we have the widemen anymore? Little and Convey are both injury-plagued and we wont be able to rely on them playing 30 odd league games next season like they did two years ago and there-in lies a big problem.

[Victor Meldrew]

Playing two wide men does put a lot of pressure on the two central midfielders and in Sidwell and Harper we had two players with fantastic energy and skill.
With Sidwell's departure we were left with a gap and that coupled with two totally inept wide players led to our downfall IMHO.
Assuming there will be no Glenn Little I would like to see one winger with real pace to get behind a defence and set up real chances for our front two with the other winger having a more defensive brief.
The fact that Steve couldn't see that Oster and Hunt were no good was in my opinion the biggest effect on our demise and hopefully he will now see the light or an incoming manager will quickly see that these two are not good enough and won't have a blind spot about them.

[Elm Park Old Boy]

Lots of width, fast men on the wing, play at high speed (I really enjoyed the pace allied with the multiball system in 05-06), and get players arriving in the box (D Kitson - stay away from our box!)

[Handsome Man]

We've just got to keep the ball a bit more. What we missed this year with the loss of Sidwell and the absence of Shorey's heart was a safe way of getting the ball over the half-way line time and time again. We would try two passes and then hoof it. It worked in the first game by chance, but never again. We have got to be more patient and be prepared to keep the ball and move it from one side of the pitch to the other.

Sadly I don't think Marek can help with this. Shitty clever balls into the box never work in any decent level of football, and they will be as unsuccessful in the Championship as the Premiership.

[TheRealRoyal]

HOOF BALL

[brendywendy]

Retain the best manager
Invest a large fee and wages on a new club captain, (midfield or central defender)
Become the meanest defence in the division
Become the toughest and most creative midfield
Become the sharpest and most prolific scorers
Purge the squad of anybody who is not 100% ready to lay it on the line for the club.
Sign a number of mature, experienced professionals for key positions as the "spine" of the team. Blend them with the best of the existing squad and fold in the brightest prospects from the younger players, when and only when the opportunity presents.
Be completely ruthless and focussed, it's a serious business let's get "little old Reading" deadly serious!

That is all!

sucatraps for assistant manager!