The most one sided play-off final ever

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

We had 16 corners they had 1. We had 19 shots they had 6.

It's a travesty that we lost, but fair play to them for ruthless efficiency.

Dowd was dreadful even if be got the pens right.

It wasn't a travesty that we lost. We had lots of play but did very little with it. Our chances were not good chances on the whole. They created more good chances than we did, and the team that creates most of those has the best chance of winning.

True, two of their chances were gifts from penalties, but the lad had a very good chance of scoring if he'd not been brought down for the first penalty. The 2nd penalty was a total gift though.

I'm just glad it wasn't 3-3 at that stage, as it would have been a real sickener to have lost to that.

19 shots, 11 on target, versus Swansea's 6 shots (4 on target)

No, not a travesty, but Karacan had two shots blocked, Mills had a great shot blocked, Hunt, hit post etc.

The tiniest bit of luck and it could have been a very different result.

Two horrible defensive decisions on our part. We weren't outplayed, we simply blew it.

It comes back to what I said in another thread about "stats". They are often fairly misleading. Swansea only had 4 on target, but all four were clear shots at goal with at most the keeper to beat. Dobbie also ought to have done much better with the 2nd half chance he pulled wide. In other words they had five chances where the attacker was odds on to score.

How many as good as those did we have?

[Norfolk Royal]

If you're counting the goals, five.

[Snowball]

Don't agree. IMO the stats do tell it like it is (except for one thing).


I had myself strapped down and my eyelids surgically removed
so I could watch the game again on SKy Plus.

For 19-20 minutes it was virtually all us (apart from a naff free-kick)
although we didn't really make their keeper work apart from an early goal-mouth scramble.

Then came their move, the great Kish tackle, us breaking out. Yes Kebe screwed up, but
think, credit where credit was due, we were PLAYING our way out and it went wrong.

(I personally prefer a welly upfield or Row Z every time)

The pundits were saying (then) that we were the better side and the goal when it came was against the run of play.

The Burnley CB also said that the Swansea winger wouldn't have got his shot away but bought the foul. A penalty, but a truly dumb penalty.



Even then, it didn't look so bad and we were straight back on the attack. Looked to me like Shane was fouled but
the Swansea 12th man gave it the other way. Note how "amazed" Shane was and how disgusted Mills was with the decision...

The pass straight up the right side took Elwood out of the game and we were badly out of position. Kish was beaten
(poor from him, he should have backed off) and Harte was caught flat-footed but also too near the touch-line. Live
I thought it was just he was skinned for speed but it was more to do with position and Kish's cock-up.

Feds on top form would have stopped the cross instead of parrying it.


OK so it's two-down, we're in shock, but we had a lot of the play thereafter with Swansea breaking. The third goal was again poor
from our POV but also a bit unlucky. If Kish had tried to pass that ball to Dobbie he wouldn't have done as well as he did..

We got two goals. Shane missed a sitter. Kebe had a good block against him. Karacan had one shot blocked
another deflected on to a post. Mills had a super shot blocked. We had a Swansea hand-ball not given.
There was a fabulous block on Hunt's shot. Their keeper saved a rocket from Elwood. Ans that's just off
the top of my head.

Swansea looked more comfortable overall but not until we gifted them 3 goals, and they only sealed it because
Griffin cocked up in the 80th (or so).

I don't deny you can't argue that Swansea did well. They have quality on the ball and two very, very good wingers,
but 4-2 flattered them and we could have won this one. We WEREN'T good enough and we made costly errors
but we were never outplayed. We threw it away rather than were outclassed.

[GJ79]

Just made myself watch the whole 90mins of the game on sky plus...Phil dowd wtf, why do we get a ref like this for such a big game?? Lets get it straight. Phil Dowds Penalty decisions against reading were correct. but fouls and free kicks were very biased against us. mainly 1st half. but at crucial moments he gave us nothing. But then our defending didnt help

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Don't agree. IMO the stats do tell it like it is (except for one thing).

I had myself strapped down and my eyelids surgically removed
so I could watch the game again on SKy Plus.

For 19-20 minutes it was virtually all us (apart from a naff free-kick)
although we didn't really make their keeper work apart from an early goal-mouth scramble.

...and therein lies the problem.

We dominated the game in terms of launching attacks. We failed to turn that into meaningful chances.

In many ways it's kind of flipping the excessive praise given to Swansea's style before the final, where many were pointing out that while Swansea dominate in terms of the number of passes, they aren't that good in turning that passing possession into chances.

We got forward well, but forgot what to do when we got to the edge of the box.

We got two goals. Shane missed a sitter. Kebe had a good block against him. Karacan had one shot blocked
another deflected on to a post. Mills had a super shot blocked. We had a Swansea hand-ball not given.
There was a fabulous block on Hunt's shot. Their keeper saved a rocket from Elwood. Ans that's just off
the top of my head.

Some of those are at best half-chances or speculative shots. You could maybe make a case that we did match their five clear chances, but that's not domination.

I don't deny you can't argue that Swansea did well. They have quality on the ball and two very, very good wingers,
but 4-2 flattered them and we could have won this one. We WEREN'T good enough and we made costly errors
but we were never outplayed. We threw it away rather than were outclassed.

Swansea didn't impress me to be honest. They had one well-worked goal, the 2nd, and the rest were largely due to sloppy play by us. As I recall it Dobbie's chance in the second came from him riding two missed tackles.

If you gift a team goals like we did, then you don't deserve to win, and you seldom do.

[Svlad Cjelli]

.....
Even then, it didn't look so bad and we were straight back on the attack. Looked to me like Shane was fouled but
the Swansea 12th man gave it the other way. Note how "amazed" Shane was and how disgusted Mills was with the decision...

......

I agree - but it's just sloppy and unprofessional to allow the ref's decision to faze you - and we certainly did for a period of about 15 minutes where we lost concentration and were indisciplined - and punished for it.

We lost the first-half in the mind as much as on the pitch.

[royal_ross]

I actually thought I was gonna cry when the 2nd went in, felt it in my eyes and I've never been that close to tears at a football match ever. People around me just sank after the 3rd, arms folded, hands on heads, I just went down to the bar with my cousin, couldn't bear to watch the last 5 mins of the half.

At least we gave it a go 2nd half, when Karacan hit the post you knew it weren't our day.

Ah well, I'll still be there in August, renewed my ST, my love for Reading will never end!

Come on UURRRRRRZZZZZZZZZ!

[Maguire]

It comes back to what I said in another thread about "stats". They are often fairly misleading. Swansea only had 4 on target, but all four were clear shots at goal with at most the keeper to beat. Dobbie also ought to have done much better with the 2nd half chance he pulled wide. In other words they had five chances where the attacker was odds on to score

That's total nonsense - how was Dobbie odds on to score? It was a much harder chance than Hunt failing to convert the rebound into an empty net, or Shane Long fluffing a sitter from the cross at the end of the first half.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Reading deserved to win after such an appalling defensive display, but we put it on a plate for them rather than being outplayed.

[Snowball]

It comes back to what I said in another thread about "stats". They are often fairly misleading. Swansea only had 4 on target, but all four were clear shots at goal with at most the keeper to beat. Dobbie also ought to have done much better with the 2nd half chance he pulled wide. In other words they had five chances where the attacker was odds on to score

That's total nonsense - how was Dobbie odds on to score? It was a much harder chance than Hunt failing to convert the rebound into an empty net, or Shane Long fluffing a sitter from the cross at the end of the first half.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Reading deserved to win after such an appalling defensive display, but we put it on a plate for them rather than being outplayed.

EXACTLY.

It was a day where everything went right for them and we shot ourselves in the foot.


Goal 1 After Zurab's great tackle Karacan could have hoofed clear but passed to Kebe who could have hoofed it into the channels
for Long or Hunt but chose to play and screwed up. Even then, Zurab didn't need to chop down the Swansea player as he wasn't
nailed on to get a shot away with Mills coming round.

Goal 2 we don't get the free kick, they do. Mills loses it briefly, Elwood is passed out of the game and we have three players horribly exposed
and our slowest player five yards to the left of where he might have stopped the winger. Feds doesn't do brilliantly, nor does Griffin.

Goal 3 McAnuff is skinned and for the second time this season (Mills at QPR) a central defender tires a back-heel. Even so, the ball
that could go almost anywhere drops perfectly for Dobbie.

Goal 4, another abberation , Griffin gives away a near carbon-copy penalty of the pen he conceded at Sheffield. God knows why.


But it's not as if Swansea opened us up time and time again with great play...

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

It comes back to what I said in another thread about "stats". They are often fairly misleading. Swansea only had 4 on target, but all four were clear shots at goal with at most the keeper to beat. Dobbie also ought to have done much better with the 2nd half chance he pulled wide. In other words they had five chances where the attacker was odds on to score

That's total nonsense - how was Dobbie odds on to score? It was a much harder chance than Hunt failing to convert the rebound into an empty net, or Shane Long fluffing a sitter from the cross at the end of the first half.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Reading deserved to win after such an appalling defensive display, but we put it on a plate for them rather than being outplayed.

when have I claimed we were outplayed?

I'm just shooting down the nonsense of saying "we had 14 shots to their six, so we deserved to win"

The number of chances is almost irrelevant. It's the likelihood of scoring from them that's key. The majority of our chances were half chances. The majority of theirs were very good. There was good fortune about how they arrived at some of theirs.

We lost because we were poor at the back an ineffective up front. That's not bad luck. It's bad play.


And as for Dobbie's shot... I was right behind it and as he went through I was waiting for him to score. Maybe he was further out than it looked from my seat down near the front, but I was very relieved he put it wide.

[If you still hate Futcher]

Swansea 55% possession RFC 45% suggests that it wasn't as one sided as all that ?

Again a stat that doesn't mean a lot - a majority of their possession was with their back 4 and midfield doing their poor man's Barca impression

[Maguire]

When you say Dobbie put it wide, you mean 'kicked it out for a throw in', right?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

When you say Dobbie put it wide, you mean 'kicked it out for a throw in', right?

Yep. A truly shocking effort at goal.

An awful miss doesn't make it a poor chance though, unless we are also going to claim the sitter Long scuffed was also a poor chance because he didn't hit it well.

[bcubed]

Just made myself watch the whole 90mins of the game on sky plus...Phil dowd wtf, why do we get a ref like this for such a big game?? Lets get it straight. Phil Dowds Penalty decisions against reading were correct. but fouls and free kicks were very biased against us. mainly 1st half. but at crucial moments he gave us nothing. But then our defending didnt help

+1

[PEARCEY]

We won't have been involved in a game for a very very long time where we conceded more than four times as many free-kicks as the opposition. Dowd certainly didn't want to give us any benefit(Kish apart) of the doubt.

[peterroyal76]

Anyone who thinks we deserved to win is deluded!

[Snowball]

Anyone who thinks we deserved to win is deluded!

Has anyone said this?

What many say is we weren't outplayed, we had more shots on target
and more shots overall, but blew it with some woeful defending.

Even Rodgers said, "The football Gods were with us (Swansea) today..."

[The Rouge]

It comes back to what I said in another thread about "stats". They are often fairly misleading. Swansea only had 4 on target, but all four were clear shots at goal with at most the keeper to beat. Dobbie also ought to have done much better with the 2nd half chance he pulled wide. In other words they had five chances where the attacker was odds on to score

That's total nonsense - how was Dobbie odds on to score? It was a much harder chance than Hunt failing to convert the rebound into an empty net, or Shane Long fluffing a sitter from the cross at the end of the first half.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Reading deserved to win after such an appalling defensive display, but we put it on a plate for them rather than being outplayed.

I agree with the second paragraph, but I think Noel's rebound shot was a harder chance than Dobbie's.

[Maguire]

It comes back to what I said in another thread about "stats". They are often fairly misleading. Swansea only had 4 on target, but all four were clear shots at goal with at most the keeper to beat. Dobbie also ought to have done much better with the 2nd half chance he pulled wide. In other words they had five chances where the attacker was odds on to score

That's total nonsense - how was Dobbie odds on to score? It was a much harder chance than Hunt failing to convert the rebound into an empty net, or Shane Long fluffing a sitter from the cross at the end of the first half.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Reading deserved to win after such an appalling defensive display, but we put it on a plate for them rather than being outplayed.

I agree with the second paragraph, but I think Noel's rebound shot was a harder chance than Dobbie's.

That's because you don't play football.

I'm not criticising Hunt in the slightest - tremendous block - but the probability of me in the same situation burying that chance is far greater than the possibility of burying Dobbie's half-opening.

[Snowball]

Dobbie had the ball in space but coming to him quickly
(but only like a winger's cut-back)

and he had an almost completely open-goal with Feds wide.



Hunt had players all over him and a split-second to shoot thru players.




I DID play ('till I was 38) and I think, different skills required but overall Dobbie's chance the easier one.