Anton To Face Fans Backlash?

[sandman]

Only three specialised central defenders, all of whom are similar in style and slower than a herd of Turtles. Would prefer it if our back up left back was... you know... an actual left back as well tbh.

[Victor Meldrew]

Because what the club said and what the club ended up doing were different. Our sales left us short of cover which we have been forced to turn to short term options to fix which, if prove to be as successful as we need them to be could easily join other clubs.

We are still light in defence, still lack an attacking midfielder currently being forced to play a winger in the hole, and there are still questions over whether we have enough permanent quality up front. We had the tail end of last season and the summer to assess and bring in what we needed, were repeatedly told 6 or 7 new players would be brought in and have been let down, a feeling which has been reinforced by the managers disappointment.

Personally, I don't think we have done bad this window, but there is certainly fair game for criticism.

We've signed 5 players and retained 2 who looked to be off for certain. There's your 7. Ambition kept, albeit with more difficulty and delay than intended.

The defence is fine. The attack is fine.

Shove it up your bumhole.

Or you could look at it that we have lost two of our best players and signed permanently only 3 therefore a net +1 rather than your spin of a +7.
Not too disappointed at what we have brought in other than we have done little to build for the Premier League so if we were to get up there would have to be major building with Bridge,Jobi and Baird over 30 and probably no longer up to Premier League and Sharp most likely just a Championship player.
Add in oldies like Roberts and Gorkss plus others like Gunter,HRK,Blackman and Pearce who all struggled in the Premier League and what are we left with?

Managing at this level must be very difficult as you are trying to get promoted but also to build a team and a way of playing.
In recent times Swansea have done a wonderful job of this as, to a lesser extent have Norwich and West Brom and in some ways I don't want us to scrape promotion with immediate relegation again so development of the Reading way of playing I believe is essential, whatever the Reading way turns out to be,and currently we have rather too many stop-gap players instead of a few 21 year-olds with big futures ahead of them.

The much vaunted Academy has to do a Southampton within the next few years and produce, as they do, a steady flow of top level players-at the moment we have those around 24 in McCarthy ,Jem plus the sadly departed Gylfi to come through the system and at a push add HRK and Pearce as Championship players but where are the 18,19,20,21 and 22 year-olds pushing for first team places?
I do wonder whether the right people are involved with the Academy because if I were the Mad man or Anton I would be very disappointed with the returns over the past 5 years on what we are told has been a very expensive project.

I wish Adkins every success in trying to get the balance right with so little money to spend in the short-term.

[melonhead]

No one span +7
They said 6-7 and said Wed lose at least two first teamers

[Nameless]

Only three specialised central defenders, all of whom are similar in style and slower than a herd of Turtles. Would prefer it if our back up left back was... you know... an actual left back as well tbh.

Most centre backs are similar in style aren't they ? They stop the other team scoring, anything else is a bonus. And turtles are nippy in their natural environment so not sure of the comparison there !

Our back up left back looks very comfortable at left back. not sure how much more of a left back you can be than someone capable of playing there well. Playing left back is just the same as playing right back, except things are the other way round.

[Ian Royal]

LOL @ a player who couldn't get in the first team and a player who'd been injured for half the previous season and we already had the replacement for (neither of which had played a single minute of league football this season) being key.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Lol @ a player who was arguably our best CB last season and a player of whom we regarded first on the team sheet for the last three not being key.

But I guess you can spin it both ways.

My view is that an injury at the back is going to leave us with very weak options. And one good game for Pog and a short loan signing of an average bench-warming player doesn't change the fact that up top, we are questionable.

I guess like Adkins, possibly thanks to the hype, I thought we'd have really gone for it this window and not just improved the squad but built it ready for the top flight.

Feels to me like we've merely signed a couple of freebies and short term fixes while letting go of two strong players, and I can't help but feel we are way short of what we need to be, and were promised.

Spin it if you need to but I'm not feeling all that positive.

[Royalee]

Only three specialised central defenders, all of whom are similar in style and slower than a herd of Turtles. Would prefer it if our back up left back was... you know... an actual left back as well tbh.

Our back-up is significantly better than 2006, as is our full back cover you moron.

[Extended-Phenotype]

What a strange reason to insult someone.

[sandman]

Well Lee boy is a very strange person.

[SLAMMED]

/when is this backlash happening?

[Ian Royal]

Lol @ a player who was arguably our best CB last season and a player of whom we regarded first on the team sheet for the last three not being key.

This is all that's worth reading. Don't play = not key.

We're really missing Maps and Kebe.

[CrispyRoyal]

/when is this backlash happening?

Probably on Tuesday when we lose to Barnsley and everyone has a panic attack.

[RoyalBlue]

Lol @ a player who was arguably our best CB last season and a player of whom we regarded first on the team sheet for the last three not being key.

This is all that's worth reading. Don't play = not key.

We're really missing Maps and Kebe.

I miss wondering when Kebe might decide he was fit enough to play for us!

[peterroyal76]

Only three specialised central defenders, all of whom are similar in style and slower than a herd of Turtles. Would prefer it if our back up left back was... you know... an actual left back as well tbh.

Our back-up is significantly better than 2006, as is our full back cover you moron.

It doesn't really matter now what happened in 2006 does it? I also agree it would be nice to have a left footed cover at left back!

[sandman]

First time I've seen that.

For the record Lee boy I didn't say that the right backs we have filling in as back up weren't capable I said I'd prefer a specialist left back, you absolute chuffing mentalist.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Royalee strykers again

not for the first time this week

[Extended-Phenotype]

Lol @ a player who was arguably our best CB last season and a player of whom we regarded first on the team sheet for the last three not being key.

This is all that's worth reading. Don't play = not key.

We're really missing Maps and Kebe.

Not easy to miss cover/depth until you need it.

[genome]

Eh. How can we be missing certain players after 4 wins out of the last 5, with just one goal conceded? Especially a centre back and a player who hasn't played at all?

[Extended-Phenotype]

Eh. How can we be missing certain players after 4 wins out of the last 5, with just one goal conceded? Especially a centre back and a player who hasn't played at all?

I suppose I could just type out exactly what I said in the last post again.

[genome]

Karacan got injured after the window closed and we've replaced him effectively.

We're not missing anyone right now. I wouldn't lose sleep over worrying what would happen if someone got injured, Legs is coming back soon - Baird can always slip into defence as well.