Cardiff match thread sponsored by sheep fiddler (c)

[londinium]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a bigger attendance today than the Doncaster match? And a much better atmopshere, all the half-hearted supporters stayed at home for once thank god and 'us' real supporters went out and SUPPORTED the team tonight. Good performance, a few back-to-back wins are a'brewing...

I am glad I missed the Donny game as it was like a defening silence for 80 minutes tonight.

[floyd__streete]

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/page/NewsDet ... 74,00.html

'Royals suffer daylight robbery'

What headlines did they reject in favour of this then?

'It's not fair!'
'We would have got away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids'
'Rampant Royals thrash Bluebirds in impressive one goal defeat'

[Ian Royal]

Another night we could have slaughtered them with crosses finding their men and shots being slightly more accurate.

Crosses finding their men - wingers are specialist crossers of the ball. Put them on the pitch to do their job. Shots from outside the area rarely go in and that is where we were shooting from.

The important thing is the performance was better, and that result will certainly have fired up the players. Gutting. We desperately need to stick with the same 11 and formation for two or three games though. This chopping and changing is stupid. Rodgers is acting like a clueless FM player making panic changes all the time. Continutity is often the key.

Looking forward to P'boro much more now. A win there and we're still easily on track for the season anyone with half a brain expected. A slow start and mid-table finish.

The performance was only better than Donny because Cardiff came here to attack and win so it was always going to be a game in which we appeared to attack more potently,so was it actually that much better a game than against Donny who came to sit back and defend? Unfortunately, despite calling for a stable team game in game out, this formation needs a change for reasons I have already stated.

In other words - I don't wholly agree with your post.

Only problem with that is we don't have a fit winger capable of consistently putting good crosses in the box. Kebe can't do it. HRK has looked to have promise but delivered nothing. McAnuff is not fit, Henry is on loan.

Not a great deal of point playing a system with wingers if you don't really have them.

[Readingfanman]

Fed 5 Played ok, but hardly spectacular.

Cummings 3 Really cannot understand the point of him being there, basically like playing with 10 men at points.
O' Dea 7 Cleared everything and is clearly a class above.
Pearce 5 Outshone by O' Dea but didn't play badly.
Bertrand 6 Got forward well, and tracked back following his man well also.

Karacan 5 Did alright, nothing brilliant though.
Matejovsky 4 What did he actually do?
Howard 4.5 Corners weren't that great tonight, all aimed at Rasiak and were never that great.
Siggurdson 7 Looked good, but really plays in the wrong position on the wing.

Rasiak 5 Knocked balls on but never was looking likely to score.
Hunt 4 Looked out of place really, was never in time with Rasiak at all.

Subs

Kebe 6.5 Probably the most effective player for the last 10 minutes as he gave us width.
Church 4 Barely noticed he was even on the pitch.

[clauski]

Fed 5 Played ok, but hardly spectacular.

Cummings 3 Really cannot understand the point of him being there, basically like playing with 10 men at points.
O' Dea 7 Cleared everything and is clearly a class above.
Pearce 5 Outshone by O' Dea but didn't play badly.
Bertrand 6 Got forward well, and tracked back following his man well also.

Karacan 5 Did alright, nothing brilliant though.
Matejovsky 4 What did he actually do?
Howard 4.5 Corners weren't that great tonight, all aimed at Rasiak and were never that great.
Siggurdson 7 Looked good, but really plays in the wrong position on the wing.

Rasiak 5 Knocked balls on but never was looking likely to score.
Hunt 4 Looked out of place really, was never in time with Rasiak at all.

Subs

Kebe 6.5 Probably the most effective player for the last 10 minutes as he gave us width.
Church 4 Barely noticed he was even on the pitch.

Unfair on Matejovsky but otherwise a good representation.

[Maguire]

Thought it was a much better peformance than Sat with less to show for it.

Anyone could see that lack of width would be an issue in a midfield of Howard-Gylfi-Marek-Karacan, that's a no brainer. But obviously Rodgers felt that he didn't have the option of going with wide men after Kebe's shocker on Saturday and the lack of anyone else who can play there (for those bigging up HRK, purrrlease, have you ever seen the guy play?).

Best performers = Bertrand, O'Dea, Howard, Magic, Karacan

[Mr Angry]

Easily the best performance of the season; reminded me of Burnley away last season, where we dominated but were denied by resolute goalkeeping, losing to a sucker punch goal in the 2nd half.

Agreed we needed width and that Cummings looks like a rabbit in the headlights (at times he oozed panic) but RFC is a work in progress, and whilst yet another defeat will allow those of you who have (in your wisdom) decided that we are going to get relegated etc etc to stock up on the paraquat and razor blades the fact is that if we regularly play as we did last night we will win more than we lose.

Marek showed what he can be last night; after his first 3 shockingly awful passes he ran the midfield. At times however, trying to be slightly less clever may have produced the desired result (too many times he was looking for intricate little passes threaded through a packed defence when a ball knocked wider or a shot may have been the better option). Karacan did well though guilty of lying a bit too deep in the first half, Howard had a much better game than Saturday, Rasiak made a nuisance of himself for the Cardiff defence all night, whilst Betrand and O'Dea looked classy - one run out of defence by O'Dea was Hansonesque!!

One note of criticism though - why in the post match interview was BR not asked why he made the substitution and why he made it when he did? We were so on top at the time that any substitution then was going to slow down the impetus which we had. The fact that Cardiff scored their goal 2 minutes later just rubs salt in the wound.

In summary, an excellent match producing a very disappointing result but a very encouraging performance.

[brendywendy]

i too groaned when church came on

but hunt was getting nowt out of the CBs , so it was worth trying something else IMO

[ZacNaloen]

church didn't do any worse than Noel I felt.

[brendywendy]

yeah, i suppose

i just think long would have been better

[chilipepper91]

Few thoughts:

Our two best players were the two we have on loan
Marek's best game in a Reading shirt, some good passes and I think I even saw a few tackles
Cummings scared to take on his man, whether this will come with confidence we will see
Rasiak and Hunt had no communication or defined roles - I'd swap all 4 of our strikers for Bothroyd and Chopra
Pearce is too slow and cannot read the game fast enough

[Royal Rother]

Gooding felt Church might have been brought on because Hunt was playing too far away from Rasiak thus not getting on the end of any of his numerous knock-downs.

[ZacNaloen]

yeah, i suppose

i just think long would have been better

I said that at the game, shame Long is Injured.

[brendywendy]

tut tut


its shane, not shame..........

[HolyBadger]

Matejovsky did the stuff that he's usually very poor at yesterday. Chasing down the ball, tackling and getting the ball out of defence. I pretty much thought he was playing deeper than usual all game. This ment Howard could go forward more, and I thought he was really good, rarely gave the ball away and held it well waiting for people to make a run (though they rarely did...). O'dea was disapointing in my books, missed an easy ball to intercept in our penalty area in the first half, allowing their guy to get of a (tame) shot. Can anybody tell me the point in having Mills on the bench? I'm pretty sure he won't be too happy sitting there. Another Halolford anybody? Milollols?

[PEARCEY]

Gooding felt Church might have been brought on because Hunt was playing too far away from Rasiak thus not getting on the end of any of his numerous knock-downs.

Spot on. Yet posters will have it that Rasiak won nothing in the air. He won plenty but Hunt was nowhere to be seen to feed off them.

[HolyBadger]

Gooding felt Church might have been brought on because Hunt was playing too far away from Rasiak thus not getting on the end of any of his numerous knock-downs.

Spot on. Yet posters will have it that Rasiak won nothing in the air. He won plenty but Hunt was nowhere to be seen to feed off them.

No, he really won nothing. Unless it was a free header, he won nothing...

[PEARCEY]

Yes he did.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Yes he did.

Stop digging your own grave, Rasiak won hardly anything in the air all night. Blind Man >>

[Forever Reading]

Has anyone seen the OS report? Have we employed Comical Ali as our new PR man or what?

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/page/MatchRe ... 51,00.html

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/page/NewsDet ... 70,00.html

"the players will be super."

The enemy are burning in their tanks!