Back from the game - Doncaster

[Wizard]

Well on the train anyway.

Yes! Get in!!

[brendywendy]

Woohoo! It was wiz wot won it for the woyals with a wonderfully wise prediction that one of our strikers would win it.

[Kitson12]

Just got back. Three things, cracking fightback, great determination to get back from 3-1 down. Secondly Church deserves a run in the side, all his goals have been from open play, and thirdly, Brian Howard, f*ck off you useless w@nker. Apart from when you put through balls to Antonio's feet. Oh and Church would have bagged that 1 on 1 in the first half.

Very released, but ecstatic we won!

[Wizard]

Woohoo! It was wiz wot won it for the woyals with a wonderfully wise prediction that one of our strikers would win it.

Aw cheers brenders. I said it would be from open play too. The wiz is alwayz wight.

[chilipepper91]

Well we got 3 points but that first hour was the worst match of football I've watched in a long time. We had no idea other than to look for Shane, who'd normally win it but then have nobody to give it to. Felt so sorry for the boy getting jeered off, at the end of the day he did as good a job as could be expected of him (though he did try and pass instead of shoot on 2 occasions, deffo a confidence thing). At goal kicks you could see our set-up, pretty much 4-2-4 - no wonder we got overrun in midfield. Credit to Donny, they play beautiful football and I'm really not sure we deserved it. As I said, the first hour was atrocious, the support as well as the football - I don't think we had one single chant in the first half.

Feds - 7 - nothing wrong really.
Griffin - 8 - commanding performance, back to his usual self.
Mills - 7 - beaten a couple of times but generally good in the air.
Zurab - 8 - calm and assured in possession, thought he looked class today.
Harte - 7 - as soon as he got that free-kick I texted a mate saying we were about to equalise otherwise solid.
Karacan - 7 - great goal, once we went 4-4-2 he was a lot more prominent.
Howard - 6 - lost the ball too often and was a bit anonymous.
Robson-Kanu - 5 - always seemed to make the wrong decision, and lacked composure.
Tabb - 6 - missed a glorious chance, not sure he suits the second striker role.
McAnuff - 6 - a couple of great runs but otherwise a bit anonymous too.
Long - 7 - won most in the air, chased down blind alleys for the team, yet still got booed off.

Church - 7 - good (easy) finish, injected energy and optimism.
Hunt - 7 - same as Church really, desperate to impress, he worked well with Church too.
Antonio - 7 - the boy is very raw, reminds me of early Kebe.

I find it very strange how we conceded 3 and yet I gave the defence the best marks

Ref - 8 - he let the game flow very well, though how their 4 and 24 didn't get yellows is beyond me.

[PEARCEY]

Jay Tabb playing as a second striker? What was all that about?

[Far Canal]

Harte - 7 - as soon as he got that free-kick I texted a mate saying we were about to equalise otherwise solid.

Apart from when he gifted Donny their third goal, of course.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

Shane Long did as good a job as could be expected of him

Other than put away 3 maybe 4 very good chances - in fact his header from around the penalty spot that ended up about 15 yards wide summed him up IMO.

Ref - 8 - he let the game flow very well, though how their 4 and 24 didn't get yellows is beyond me.

[/quote]

Don't forget that the ref today was a certain Grant Hegley - he of "not sending off Paddy Kenny for a deliberate handball outside his area" fame.

[brendywendy]

Worked ok last week! Agree on shane,worked very hard.won the ball everywhere in the air.needs to be more shellfish.and should have buried the header. Thought he had a shout for the backheel that mills buried being over the line for the goal. We dominated but fell asleep three times. Great performance to grab the game back. Top stuff from church hunt and antonio. Karacan mom for me.kish,griff and mcunuff all great, and great to see tabb back. Wahay.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Dire first half performance.

Fantastic second half performance.

Few points:

- Federici, in my view, was at fault for the 3rd goal. His positioning was awful.
- Howard played well and we do far better with him than without him.
- Simon Church has to start the next game.

Great atmosphere towards the end as well.

[Royalee]

Federici - 6 - didn't have much to do apart from pick the ball out

Harte - 6 - Shocking defensively and cost us the 3rd goal, good attacking-wise and great free kick.
Mills - 6 - Same, scored but cost us for the first two goals.
Zurab - 8 - Solid, very composed at the end.
Griffin - 7 - Same really

Robson-Kanu -6.5 - mixed game, sometimes I really like him, others I get frustrated with his one-footedness
Howard - 6 - Pretty meh
Tabb - 6.5 - Actually thought he had a decent game and got forward well before we took him off, would have preferred it to be Howard
Karacan - 7 - Improved second half and picked up more loose balls, good goal
McAnuff - 8 - Best game for a while, always a danger and worked hard

Long - 3 - Lucky I didn't give him a zero, which is the same number of goals from open play he's managed since last season.

Hunt - 7 - Great assist for the 2nd goal which got us back into the game, worked hard and did much more than Long.
Church - 7.5 - Did excellently when he came on, pleased he got a goal
Antonio - 7 - Again got an assist and looked lively, has to start soon, probably ahead of Robson-Kanu

[RoyalBlue]

Dire first half performance.

Fantastic second half performance.

Few points:

- Federici, in my view, was at fault for the 3rd goal. His positioning was awful.
.

Is he really expected to position himself differently just in case his left back, who was in possession, decides to gift the opposition a goal?!

[floyd__streete]

Reading FC - we're just a bit aren't we?

From the absolutely ridiculous to the.....well, something verging on almost being quite good for that last half hour. Decent enough start but then we were quite, quite awful until the time we switched to a 4-4-2. Defensively were wretched throughout; all 3 Donny goals came from Harte's side, I thought he was run ragged for most of the game and the third goal was absolute Sunday League defending. But then he comes up with an absolute pearler of a freekick which rather sums our team up really - somewhat inconsistent . The shoddy defending continued right up until the very final kick where holding on to a lead we got the offside trap all wrong and two Doncaster players practically tripped over each other.....and missed

The difference in switching to 4-4-2 was almost instantaneous. It aso lifted the crowd who to be fair stuck behind the team throughout. Reading can most politely be described as a direct side, and we play to our strengths when the tempo is fast and we get the ball into the channels. We utterly failed to do that until we switched to 4-4-2 and hopefully the manager will spend all week trying to work out why because if we line up at QPR next week with Shane bloody Long on his own up front I might cry. Well done to NHunt and Church for turning the game, the manager for bringing them on and also to Karacan for the latest in a string of decent performances I have seen from him in recent weeks. Off for a lie down now

[Millsy]

Reading FC - we're just a bit aren't we?

From the absolutely ridiculous to the.....well, something verging on almost being quite good for that last half hour. Decent enough start but then we were quite, quite awful until the time we switched to a 4-4-2. Defensively were wretched throughout; all 3 Donny goals came from Harte's side, I thought he was run ragged for most of the game and the third goal was absolute Sunday League defending. But then he comes up with an absolute pearler of a freekick which rather sums our team up really - somewhat inconsistent . The shoddy defending continued right up until the very final kick where holding on to a lead we got the offside trap all wrong and two Doncaster players practically tripped over each other.....and missed

The difference in switching to 4-4-2 was almost instantaneous. It aso lifted the crowd who to be fair stuck behind the team throughout. Reading can most politely be described as a direct side, and we play to our strengths when the tempo is fast and we get the ball into the channels. We utterly failed to do that until we switched to 4-4-2 and hopefully the manager will spend all week trying to work out why because if we line up at QPR next week with Shane bloody Long on his own up front I might cry. Well done to NHunt and Church for turning the game, the manager for bringing them on and also to Karacan for the latest in a string of decent performances I have seen from him in recent weeks. Off for a lie down now

Well written. A good read, as ever.

Despite banging on about 4-4-2 ("Brian cost us" thread) for ages I'm not totally against 4-5-1, even with the worst lone striker since the big bang. With Long playing it's effectivley a 4-6-0 where we pray for one of our hardworking midfielders to get us a goal and I don't think this is too bad a thing away to the second in the league team as a draw wouldn't be too horrible a result.

[Pseud O'Nym]

Bizarre game. We started brilliantly, I thought we were going to wipe the floor with them after the first ten minutes, then we score and turn to utter shite for 30 minutes.

Excellent entertainment after our substitutions, knew we'd won when they mistakenly brought on a basketball player who seemed to have no idea what he was doing on the pitch, who the hell was he and how tall is he?

[Kitson12]

- Howard played well and we do far better with him than without him.

Don't make me laugh. What game were you watching? How he wasn't pulled off and Jay Tabb was beyond me!

[John Madejski's Wallet]

- Howard played well and we do far better with him than without him.

Don't make me laugh. What game were you watching? How he wasn't pulled off and Jay Tabb was beyond me!

Me and my mates were f*cking livid that Howard stayed off and Tabb went off.

Howard put in one of the worst performances I have seen from a areading midfielder in ages. Hardled tackled, didnt harry anyone, lost the ball, awful passing. Through-ball for Antonio aside, he was dreadful

And Harte.... just How rubbish and slow was he today?

Though HRK was pretty p*ss-poor and disinterested right up until Antonio started warming up.


Ignorning those 3 players, I actually thought the rest of the team were pretty decent all game. Long needs striker playing off him, as he won pretty much everything in the air today and attackd the defence. But on his own he is clueless with what to do with the ball. poor bloke

[Snowball]

Tabb is one of my favourite players but he looked tired and heavy today
and missed an extremely good chance to put us 2-0 up.

He was clearly not match fit.

After the game, on radio, he said he was disappointed with his performance, didn't play that well.

[FiNeRaIn]

Afraid howard was better than tabb today, and I'm a big tabb fan. Woeful 1v1 attempt amongst a few other bad mistakes he made, he even said on the radio that he was disappointed with the way he played and wouldn't blame the manager for starting with the team who finished todays game. Really like him as a player and a personality, he had an off day. You both need glasses if you think howard was worse.

[Pseud O'Nym]

Though HRK was pretty p*ss-poor and disinterested right up until Antonio started warming up.

Uninterested FFS, unless you really think he was impartial, even-handed, no axe to grind. And I actually thought Taffy just looked a bit lacking in confidence, crossed when he should have had a shot, reckon he's going to come good very soon.