Back from the Game - Stoke City (H)

[cmonurz]

As I said briefly in my write-up and to anyone who would listen at the game itself, we rarely stepped off the line into the gap between midfield and attack – Pog didn’t drop off the front much at all, and as effective as they were, neither Leigertwood or Guthrie did much beyond the centre-circle. We were too flat and this made us vulnerable as soon as Stoke got the ball on the ground. Now we’ll have to defend deep or Torres and Hazard will tear us a particularly shapely new one, but if we are going to do anything but defend for 90 minutes, our midfield needs to be more dynamic going forward.

Chelsea play narrow so we can too, the movement of our midfield will be key at Stamford Bridge, as will the passing of our full-backs, because they won’t have the space to simply roll the ball to McCleary like Gunter could in the last 20 on Saturday. In that sense, maybe Shorey is a better bet than Harte at left-back.

[melonhead]

my brain spew on the game:

very happy with the performance- thought we looked the better side for most of the game, and without feds howler, would have taken the three points, against a seasoned and established premiere league team. certainly didnt look out of our depth, and werent at all outclassed.

defence was solid- although stoke perhaps played to our strengths here. but gorkss and pearce will be very happy to have effectively shut out a decent INTL goalscorer for the whole game. harte wasnt particularly exposed, and gunter was quiet, though not inneffective.

midfield struggled a little, until mcleary(MOM) came on and stretched the game with direct running, but ledge was imperious as ever, and guthrie looks quality, always open and looking for the ball, even when marked. like him alot.HRK didnt look totally out of place, but struggled to provide quality ball into the box.usual captains pefromance from jobi.

ALf struggled up front due to POG not winning alot in the air Vs a very physical and big defence, but worked hard, and scored a great pen.
POG looked much better with the ball into his feet than in the air, and grew into the game once he started to get that.Hunt looked good when he came on, and along with Mcleary changed the game, winning more in the air in 15 mins than POG did all day.

move of the game: some great passing interplay from side to side and into the box early in the 2nd half, with MCLEARY Pog guthrie, ALF etc only for ALF to put wide when he should have scored.

all the new boys look to be good additions- Mcleary/guthrie especially, gunter and pog less so.
atmosphere was decent, new pie is lovely.

overall 7/10

[maffff]

gunter and pog less so.

I think most of you have covered off my thoughts. I left with more positives than negatives, a benchmark was to hold our own against a mid table outfit. We did that, deserved draw and could possibly have snatched the win.

About Gunter, as soon as McCleary came on he was a different player, confidence grew, head up and was always there to support McCleary and provide another option on the attack/wing. I'd love to see that partnership given more time with us, as it worked well for Forest.

Shame Kebe can't play on the left as the thought of being able to have both him and McCleary on the wing with Gunts behind McCleary would be something to potentially get excited about.

Also, on that cameo McCleary has done more in a Reading shirt than Michail Antonio did in pretty much all of his sub appearances, happy to have moved Antonio on if McCleary can keep that up.

[Norfolk Royal]

Not going to argue with the past few post but will just add that there was a brief period of about 10-15 minutes at the end of the first half when Stoke stopped playing hoofball and started running at us with the ball on the ground - and we looked particularly vulnerable to that.

I fear that any team more accomplished than Stoke who play the ball on the ground at speed and run directly at us with it may cause us some major, major, problems this season.

Any team is vulnerable to that but that has been the way we've played for several seasons. Against better players than championship we will be found out a few times this season true, but it's about BM etc finding a way to play against that.

Agree with another poster that Kebe being unable to play on the left is a problem as the McLeary/Gunter partnership looked promising.

Obvious way to accommodate both players would be for McLeary to move to the left where I think he played a few times for Forest, but then you lose the Gunter link up.

Nice problem to have in some ways.

[melonhead]

a stoke fan explaining what footballs all about

Sorry, football's about clapping to modern pop songs as part of the pre match routine.

Better?

footballs about kicking a ball into a net
and synchronised clapping

[melonhead]

If there's one thing I wish our lot could take from your lot, it's how to sing a song slowly and effectively. Although you should probably have a word with your morons who sing "this is a shit hole we wanna go home" everywhere they go. That's far more embarassing and retarded than clapping along to a pop song.

.

agreed, ians right.
we need some sort of come back along the lines of oxf*rd off then, we didnt want you here in the first place.
and stoke calling reading a shit hole is ridicuLOLous

Pearce - 6 clumsy but solid. I am concerned about whether he's good enough at this level. It's a big step up.
Gorkss - 5.5 missed a good chance and didn't seem to play well, but was pulled all over the place by Harte's poor game.

disagreed ian royaLOL

[maffff]

Agree with another poster that Kebe being unable to play on the left is a problem as the McLeary/Gunter partnership looked promising.

Obvious way to accommodate both players would be for McLeary to move to the left where I think he played a few times for Forest, but then you lose the Gunter link up.

Nice problem to have in some ways.

Definitely. Gunts played on the left a few times for Forest. His positioning was a sketchy at times but other than that he was fairly solid. Plus his pace usually saved him. I did wonder if we might see Gunts on the left and Cummings on the right against pacier teams. If that happened with McCleary on the left, Gunts behind him, and Kebe on the right with Cummings behind him, it would be interesting to see, just positionally worrying.

[cmonurz]

we need some sort of come back along the lines of oxf*rd off then, we didnt want you here in the first place.

Maybe I misheard, but I thought we did. Sure we responded with ‘why don’t you go home, why don’t you go home, go back to your sh*thole, why don’t you go home.’

[melonhead]

didnt hear it
and its just as bad as calling reading a shit hole

[cmonurz]

I prefer 'well oxf*rd off then, we didn't want you here in the first place', in the style of John Inman.

[melonhead]

good, thats settled then

[Ian Royal]

I think we looked good for the first half hour, in control of the game but without any real penetrating threat. Not surprising for a team with two new first choice strikers, a second choice winger and a first choice winger on the wrong flank. The set pieces were poor although Gorkss still should have scored from a corner first half.

Then we seemed to fade and stop pressing them so well, leaving space in midfield for them to start putting together passes. Hey presto, a weak defensive header from Pearce, combined with no marking from one of Jobi, Hal, Ledge or Guthrie and an absolute hwler from Fed and we're 1-0 down just before half time. That knocked the stuffing out of us and it was all Stoke until McCleary came on to stretch the game. Which he did superbly with pacey and direct running.

I thought we had two penalty shouts, but the one we were given (from MOTD - I was at the wrong end) was stonewall. I didn't even realise their player had been sent off I was so nervous about the penalty we were about to take. Up steps ALF the Great and we have a thoroughly deserved parity against a side that never seriously threatened our goal. Harte's freekick was better but the keeper was well positioned and I don't think he was ever getting it in.

Federici - 4 didn't have a lot of import to do, but made the worst mistake he's done in years. I am confident we won't see more of that this season.
Gunter - 6 didn't notice him a lot, was hoping he'd get forward more.
Harte - 5 positioning, set pieces and pace were all weak. Stoke caused us problems down that flank. In defence, I'm not sure how much HRK helped.
Pearce - 6 clumsy but solid. I am concerned about whether he's good enough at this level. It's a big step up.
Gorkss - 5.5 missed a good chance and didn't seem to play well, but was pulled all over the place by Harte's poor game.
Ledge - 7.5 quality interceptions and tackles, good use of the ball in midfield
Guthrie - 6.5 excellent on the ball and offers a lot more in the middle, but a bit too casual sometimes
McAnuff - 5.5 quiet game, some nice touches but not a lot, should have started on the left
HRK - 5.5 beat his man a few times only to be scythed down, but was too quiet and should have started on the right or on the bench.
Pog - 6 big man with good feet, I could see what he was trying to do a lot of the time, but he was trying to do it through one player too many.
ALF - 7 wayward shooting, but getting himself oportunities, and scored the penalty well

McCleary - 8 tricks, pace and direct runign, exactly what we needed
Hunt - 6.5 got involved and made himself a nuisance.

Team Perfroamance - 7
McDermott - 6.5

May want to drop ALF and HRK for Chelsea and bring in McCleary and Karacan. I think Mariappa may well be in the side within the next three to five games.

All in all a decent start with a game we should probably have won but for the howler and that we did well to get back into and get a point. Play to the whistle like that and we should rescue too many points to go down.

Blah blah, tired and predictable cheap shot, blah blah radio, blah no actual attempt to say what's wrong with it blah.

[Ian Royal]

Pearce - 6 clumsy but solid. I am concerned about whether he's good enough at this level. It's a big step up.
Gorkss - 5.5 missed a good chance and didn't seem to play well, but was pulled all over the place by Harte's poor game.

disagreed ian royaLOL

Just based on an atrocious Stoke attack, which still made us look a little vulnerable and brittle at times. And Gorkss being pulled out to LB several times to cover Harte being nowhere. It's a score as much to reflect what a decent attack could have done to us as anything.

I didn't see anything that negated my pre-season worry that Pearce isn't agile enough and Pearce and Gorkss lack enough pace to cope at this level as a pair, especially with no pace at LB. But we'll see.

[Kebe Cummings]

Not going to argue with the past few post but will just add that there was a brief period of about 10-15 minutes at the end of the first half when Stoke stopped playing hoofball and started running at us with the ball on the ground - and we looked particularly vulnerable to that.

I fear that any team more accomplished than Stoke who play the ball on the ground at speed and run directly at us with it may cause us some major, major, problems this season.

Any team is vulnerable to that but that has been the way we've played for several seasons. Against better players than championship we will be found out a few times this season true, but it's about BM etc finding a way to play against that.

Agree with another poster that Kebe being unable to play on the left is a problem as the McLeary/Gunter partnership looked promising.

Obvious way to accommodate both players would be for McLeary to move to the left where I think he played a few times for Forest, but then you lose the Gunter link up.

Nice problem to have in some ways.

We have good Kebe/Cunmming partnership as well. In case if McLeary able to play left coud it be Gunter can play left also? In that case we will get perfect partnership both wings

[milyondollasmile]

I found the first half frustrating. So many passes given away. I thought Gunter was poor, Leigertwood struggled to put his stamp on the game.

Wow I'm not sure what game you were watching but we gave a very good account of ourselves I'll admit we lacked a bit of cutting edge until Mcleary came on we limited stoke to barely a handful of chances all game to strikers that could walk into our team? We have to be realistic and mistakes were made but at the end of the day its 11 men vs 11 men and anything can happen. I think the players need to gel and in regards to Friday's Legacy's comments there were a few missed placed passes and hospital balls played but it wasn't excessive and Mikele Leigertwood got stuck in and bossed the game from start to finish (Ledge is probably the most experienced midfielder we have in our squad having played in the prem twice already).

[Woodcote Royal]

And Gorkss being pulled out to LB several times to cover Harte being nowhere

Being at the game, it seemed to me that our pitch had been narrowed, suggesting this was a deliberate ploy and one that appeared to work extremely well.

On the one occasion I made a point of noting how it worked, Harte was near the half way line as a ball over his head was comfortably dealt with by Gorkks going wide whilst Harte had plenty of time to get back and cover in the centre...............simple and effective and probably good enough to cover most eventualities.

And, if this keeps the lesser talented, and not much quicker, Shorey in the stand/sweeping the car park, that's fine by me.

[melonhead]

Just based on an atrocious Stoke attack, which still made us look a little vulnerable and brittle at times. And Gorkss being pulled out to LB several times to cover Harte being nowhere. It's a score as much to reflect what a decent attack could have done to us as anything.

I didn't see anything that negated my pre-season worry that Pearce isn't agile enough and Pearce and Gorkss lack enough pace to cope at this level as a pair, especially with no pace at LB. But we'll see.

youre marking them on this game, by taking into account made up stuff that may /may not happen in the future?
gorkss covers harte- is what theyure supposed to do, to stop hartes pace being exposed. why would you mark down on this?it worked

[melonhead]

Blah blah, tired and predictable cheap shot, blah blah radio, blah no actual attempt to say what's wrong with it blah.

tbf its important to know, in order to judge your comments, whether you were at the game or not

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Blah blah, tired and predictable cheap shot, blah blah radio, blah no actual attempt to say what's wrong with it blah.

tbf its important to know, in order to judge your comments, whether you were at the game or not

Have to agree with that, because if your only view of the game is via what Tim Dellor tells you then god help us!

[Ian Royal]

I found the first half frustrating. So many passes given away. I thought Gunter was poor, Leigertwood struggled to put his stamp on the game.

Wow I'm not sure what game you were watching but we gave a very good account of ourselves I'll admit we lacked a bit of cutting edge until Mcleary came on we limited stoke to barely a handful of chances all game to strikers that could walk into our team? We have to be realistic and mistakes were made but at the end of the day its 11 men vs 11 men and anything can happen. I think the players need to gel and in regards to Friday's Legacy's comments there were a few missed placed passes and hospital balls played but it wasn't excessive and Mikele Leigertwood got stuck in and bossed the game from start to finish (Ledge is probably the most experienced midfielder we have in our squad having played in the prem twice already).

You mean apart from Guthrie who's played more than twice as many games in the PL, a hell of a lot more recently and didn't get relegated in every season he played there? And of course Gunnarsson, who's also got more PL experience.