Back from the game Stevenage

[Handsome Man]

Good cup tie with a good atmosphere. We seemed in control without ever lording it over, but then they starte running at us, and for a spell I thought we were going to be happy with a replay.

Federici 6 - out of position for the goal?
Griffin 6 -
Harte 5
Mills 5 - soft goal
Ingi 6

Leigertwod 8
Karacan 7
MacAnuff 8 motm - I felt optimistic whenever he got the ball
HRK 6

Long 8 Stevenage kept him quiet better than most teams recently
Church 5 He'll get there - the escape goats usually do

Our fans 9
Their fans 9

Ref - fine

Stevenage youth - brilliant. I kept coming across groups of three or four of them, all in polyester, all about to cause some mayhem.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Oh yeah, and without wishing to trawl through the myriad threads about today's game - is Kebe injured or "injured"?

Kebe was ill according to the OS - hope he's back for Cardiff - and Pearce has a minor injury - again hope he's back for Cardiff.

As to the game, I keep hoping Church will be fantastic but yet again he failed to perform, aside from one really neat piece of action in making himself a small bit of space and narrowly putting the ball over the bar in the 2nd half. Will Manset get a start on Tuesday, will Hunt get back in place or will Church get a nother try? Really don't know what I'd do, think I'd go back to Hunt but then in his last few games he's not been sharp either.

Yet again saw more from Antonio in the 15 mins or so he had than I did from Robson-Kanu in 75 mins. Not that I'm decrying Robson I think he's got something about him but I just think Antonio's further down the road to the finished article. Sadly Heston doesn't seem to agree but then he sees the players everyday where we only see them when they get a game.

Thought we looked good for much of the game without really hitting peak performance apart from 15 minutes in the middle of the 2nd half where we looked complete and utter crap. Think we were lucky on the penalty decision - surely the ref has to give it or book their player for diving though.

[UpNorth]

Agree about Church - he looks like a little boy lost at the moment.

What was it about the corner routines today? How many of those short corners ever come off? We really wasted some excellent dead ball opportunities.

Thought the ref made a good call on the penalty claim.

[66DD]

Think we were lucky on the penalty decision - surely the ref has to give it or book their player for diving though.

I agree. If penalties can be given for intent without any contact it was a stone wall penalty. The Stevenage player definitely intended to throw himself acrobatically over Ivar's outstretched leg. He can hardly be blamed for Ivar moving his leg out of the way to make him look like a cheating b*****d.

[Irvinchangeyaname]

crap ground.

Genuine

Cracking little ground, would rather watch football there than any of the lego sets we get to visit in the league.

+1. RL, on what basis do you judge it to be a crap ground?

[Rex]

The steward at half time at least let us smoke.

[RoyalBlue]

Think we were lucky on the penalty decision - surely the ref has to give it or book their player for diving though.

I agree. If penalties can be given for intent without any contact it was a stone wall penalty. The Stevenage player definitely intended to throw himself acrobatically over Ivar's outstretched leg. He can hardly be blamed for Ivar moving his leg out of the way to make him look like a cheating b*****d.

Yep, Ivar was full of intent. Intent to get the ball and then intent to quickly pull his leg out of the way when he realised he'd missed the ball. He clearly intended not to commit a foul and concede a penalty and the ref got it absolutely spot on (although real time from behind our goal it did look a penalty), apart from the fact he should have booked the cheating barsteward!

Also, watch the replay of their goal where Ivar intentionally pulls out of a challenge rather than stick his leg out and trip the player just before he broke into the box.

[RoyalBlue]

I have to say I don't feel entirely comfortable with the 'big club' approach some of our fans adopt on these trips.

e.g. 'We've got one stand bigger than your ground', whilst vaguely amusing does show complete disregard for our roots.

Clubs and grounds like Stevenage have a lot of what I miss from our life at the higher levels. A real spirit, an appreciation of where they are and where they have come from, friendly welcome (the Deputy Chief steward wished us luck as we entered the ground yesterday), a different kind of atmosphere etc.

[Wycombe Royal]

e.g. 'We've got one stand bigger than your ground', whilst vaguely amusing does show complete disregard for our roots.

It's just banter, nothing more, nothing less.

[NR_Royal]

Judging from the stream:

Robson-Kanu managed to impress me tbh, although I would have rather seen Antonio and McAnuff on the wings from the start.

Church still didn't offer very much at all.

Defence was solid, but Mills needs to improve a lot.

McAnuff was my MOTM closely followed by Leigertwood.

[RoyalBlue]

e.g. 'We've got one stand bigger than your ground', whilst vaguely amusing does show complete disregard for our roots.

It's just banter, nothing more, nothing less.

It its banter taking the p*ss out of the standard of their facilities that are still better than ours were not that long ago.

When really big teams did (do?) it to us, there were lots of our supporters that understandably regarded it as arrogance.

[Royal Lady]

These "lots of supporters" want to get a life then.

It's banter.

Same as "one punch and he knocked you out" to Laird - I'm doubting many, if any, supporters actually condoned what that fan did.

It's like sledging in cricket.

[biscuitman]

I'm sure when we sang 'We've got one stand louder to you're ground' to Man United fans they cried home and thought we were arrogant. It's banter for god sake. Are you really going to dissect every chant that happens in football royalblue?? What did you think about the Stacy song yesterday?

[andrew1957]

Reading totally controlled the game for 65 minutes but it looked like they were happy to keep it 1-0 which is always dangerous. Then Stevenage had a good penalty shout which was turned down by the ref. The replay suggested that the ref was right and the player had looked for a leg that was not there. It gave Stevenage hope, however and they had a very good 10 minutes and scored a good goal. We weathered the pressure and showed great determination to come back from what looked like a certain draw to win late on. All in all a good day but we really should have put the game to bed much earlier.

No one stood out massively. Legs probably MOTM again. McAnuff did some very good things and a superb cross for the winner. Church completely anonymous apart from one shot. It really was his chance to shine and he did not. Antonio seemed to liven things up when he came on. Everyone else was 5 or 6 out of 10.

Can you help me understand - 'Stevenage had a good penalty shout' compared to 'looked for a leg that was not there'.

It wasn't a good shout and the ref got it wrong - he should have booked the diver !!

In real time it looked a stone wall penalty to me. But the slow motion replay suggested that the player saw Ingi's leg and tried to trip over it but Ingi cleverly withdrew.

The referee did a superb job and that would have been an incredibly harsh booking for diving under the circumstances. I thought the ref was the best we have ad officiating all season to date.

[Big Foot]

Considering those that were there are the 2,000 or so die hard fans with the most points, I only recognised the usual suspects from on here. Every time we go away, we always say we never recognise people from other games, home or away!!

I thought the opposite...there were a number of people there I hadn't seen at an away game in years.

[RoyalBlue]

I'm sure when we sang 'We've got one stand louder to you're ground' to Man United fans they cried home and thought we were arrogant. It's banter for god sake. Are you really going to dissect every chant that happens in football royalblue?? What did you think about the Stacy song yesterday?

But, for the hard of hearing, it wasn't one stand louder that was being sung yesterday (at least in our section of the stand). It was one stand bigger than your ground. To my mind that its unnecessary arrogance of the type that many of our own support have grumbled about in the past when directed at us.

And there's banter and banter isn't there. Some is funny, some so-called 'banter' is bang out of order, although I'm sure some having a go at a female linesman purely on the grounds of her sex might claim it was still just banter! Of course, the stand song isn't in that league but I still hold the view it has tones of arrogance when directed at a club like Stevenage (as do descriptions of their ground being crap, whereas 'my garden shed' sung at Watford doesn't.

And no I'm not going to dissect every chant - that's a pretty dumb argument to advance when I have only mentioned this one. As for the Stacey song, we started that in our section, so I think you have your answer.

[RoyalBlue]

In real time it looked a stone wall penalty to me. But the slow motion replay suggested that the player saw Ingi's leg and tried to trip over it but Ingi cleverly withdrew.

The referee did a superb job and that would have been an incredibly harsh booking for diving under the circumstances. I thought the ref was the best we have ad officiating all season to date.

So trying to trip over a leg rather than going for goal and then missing is not diving and therefore cheating worthy of a yellow card?

[Franchise FC]

In real time it looked a stone wall penalty to me. But the slow motion replay suggested that the player saw Ingi's leg and tried to trip over it but Ingi cleverly withdrew.

The referee did a superb job and that would have been an incredibly harsh booking for diving under the circumstances. I thought the ref was the best we have ad officiating all season to date.

So trying to trip over a leg rather than going for goal and then missing is not diving and therefore cheating worthy of a yellow card?

+1 - by the time Sinclair went down, Ingi's leg was nowhere to be seen (literally in this case, as it was tucked underneath him) - harsh booking for a dive - I don't think so

[sandman]

You can waste your life worrying about some no mark never gonna be motherfckers think of you or you can revel in how great your club are. Sure, I've been called a arrogant, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that Reading is the best team and the other teams aren't as good. That used to be called being a fan.

[floyd__streete]

Looked a stonewall pen to me, seen it again since. The guy beats Ingi all ends up and goes over Ingi's flailng leg. Pen.

Poor, poor performance in a dreadful game of football and we're really fortunate to be in the draw today. We seemed to get dragged down into a physical, long ball fest and we had precious little quality to raise our head above the parapet of mediocrity on display. Thankfully, we do have some genuine quality in McAnuff who produced our one decent cross of the game and Long in this form won't waste a chance like that, bundled home and we're through. Some really lame performers for Reading; Karacan gives the ball away like it is going out of fashion, Church poses absolutely no threat in front of goal these days sadly and HRK probably wouldn't get in the Stevenage team on that evidence yesterday. Mills had a marginally improved performance on his recent low standards, although he was on the backfoot again for their goal. Fair play to Reading - we played poorly but McD's side always seems to have this resilience.