by bcubed »
18 Jan 2009 20:22
handbags_harris Thoroughly depressing to be honest. I was truggling to come up with a more sound beating on the walk back to the station and train ride home yesterday and I couldn't come up with one in recent memory. To be honest I worried about this game. Swansea play a very good game, a game which invariably we struggle to counter-act. They totally nullified our attack (the best attack in England), and had more than enough in reserve to do their own stuff up front.
Incredibly angry at the timing of the first goal. If you hear the announcement of 1 minute of added time, you shut up shop. You don't allow the lone striker the amount of time to pick his corner 18 yards out 30 seconds after that announcement. That, to me, comes down to professionalism, and we didn't show a lot of it yesterday.
Substitutions yesterday were ok(ish) I thought. Despite what the whinging cretin behind me said yesterday ("what are we doing?!") it was exactly the right thing to do to get Marek on to play as the 5th midfielder, not only to counteract the fact that every time there was a loose ball their spare man simply picked it up, but also to give us potential creativity in the middle as the flanks were creating absolutely nothing. I wouldn't have taken Noel Hunt off though, I'd have pushed him out right and taken off the winger with the worst end product I have seen in a long time at RFC - Jimmy Kebe. The guy looked disinterested, ambling around giving the token effort. Once again, the man failed to deliver anything of note.
Putting Leroy on was pointless as, once again, given an opportunity to create something he chose the wrong option every time. Why can't people see that Leroy Lita is utter shit? Three or four times he looked to take a man on and walked right into another man while coming infield to look for a shot, particularly when a simple pass at 1-0 would have put Doyle clean through the middle but no, Leroy holds onto it, tries to take a man on and loses it. Infuriatingly shit, why couldn't the man go to Sheff Utd?!
Full backs, IMO, did ok against their men. Despite getting the ball wide on numerous occasions with pin-point passing, they created one real chance from wide positions. Both goals came through the middle. Alright, it was a bit peeping through cracked fingers at times, but on the whole given the almost complete lack of support from our own wingers they did ok on that side of things.
I don't know what complaints Liam Rosenior can have for being sent off. the first for dissent was never our throw in the first place, and the petulant twat then belts the ball at his own head??? And then to have the audacity to complain at a 2nd booking for a clear, cynical, sly tug back? Yeah, ok, Jason Scotland didn't exactly shower himself in glory with his insistence that the referee send him off, but on the flip side that is no different to what Liam Rosenior would do in the reverse situation. My only gripe with this is that the referee wasn't booking players all game for similar offences, but I suppose there are only so many warnings a referee can give.
Deservedly beaten, this was as one-sided a match I have seen from Reading at this level as I can remember. I'm not entirely confident for our match against Wolves, although it has to be said they are looking as shaky as us as the moment. We will score against them, but the question is will we score enough?
Good summary and agree with all of it especially your comments about Lita
Jason Scotland looks to be twice the player Leroy is
I thought Swansea had some very good players, Scotland held things up well hardly gave the ball away and looked very strong. Their midfield dominated ours and Gomez looked a class act as he ran the show
In comparison our players looked poor, very poor. Perhaps it just confirmed to me that we normally get something much better than the sum of the individual parts but when it doesn't come together the players are exposed as lacking in individual quality
I overheard two Swansea fans on the way home saying we were the worst team they had seen at the new stadium. Harsh I'm sure, but I couldn't think of much to say in our defence.