Blackburn (H) - Back from the game

[melonhead]

Watched it a few times now, It's a handball no doubt about it, the problem comes from him handling it while on the floor and his back to the ref in front of a crowd of players, that's why the ref can't see it. To defend the lino as well, the handball happens as Alfie is blocking the view so it would have been hard to spot it.

Sadly it's a blatent handball and the player should have gone because he's deliberately stopped it running away from him so he can clear the ball while he's prone on the floor.

with a pen and them down to ten we'd have won that.
thats two home games in a row that the refs have cost us 3 points which would have seen us go above QPR on GD

[Pepe the Horseman]

Amen to that Brenders.

[Zana Badawi]

FWIW - I thought we were pretty decent up to the first goal - an above average championship team. Direct and with a small amount of flair - we could make the difference. But when the goal went in (against the run of play) you can see our weakness. We dont have a gameplan to get back into the game without relying on luck or the referee. Im not stupid, I know that by sheer mathematics and logic we'll lose more than we win when we go behind, but Id like to see us know what to do to increase the chances of getting a goal back.

When we are level or ahead, its clear that our best outfield player is McLeary and our worst is Pearce, but neither are spectacular or awful tbf.

What really epitomised our weakness was the triple substitution. Bringing on three of our club's arguably weakest players - two of them presumably for set piece threat. Im as confused as HRK is about what role he plays as a sub. Id really hate for us to become a club of 'penalty chasers. I didnt see any overt diving, which is a relief - but I didnt see any real plan to push for an open play goal either. If our match was being scouted by a future opponent, they could easily try and play like Blackburn did and have a good chance of that tactic being successful.

And we all know ALF scores when things go his way, and doesnt when they dont. You either try and change the game into his favour or take him off. Akpan and McLeary should have stayed on and/or ALF come off.
Not one of our manager's best games. That game was winnable.

[Pepe the Horseman]

They don't even show the penalty shout on the highlights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xDDPV74Dg Looks suspiciously like a foul on Gunts for their goal though.

[BKRoyale]

Fair play to Gunts to do his best to still get back and prevent the goal despite the foul, doesn't put his hands up just gets on with the job in hand, sad thing that he might have actually got the foul had he done (though maybe not with that ref!)

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Bringing on three of our club's arguably weakest players

I thought you couldn't top your ridiculous comments about Jason Roberts faking his injury, but you have certainly done so.

[floyd__streete]

That was all a bit of a surprise.

Really? I think that the 4 and a half good performances we have put in this season have been the 'surprise'.

Otherwise it has been consistently awful.

[floyd__streete]

Adkins.....on the poorer side of average- average wins, second highest defeats, decent goalscoring, most goals conceded

What a surprise. We have looked consistently poor defensively under Adkins and you have to wonder about his ability to organise/shore up a poor defence.

Adkins: more overrated than Kasabian.

[Kingsley Junior]

I agree with you, the apostrophe should replace the missing letter. However, a lot of people on this site appear to think that the apostrophe should connect the shortened words. As the trolls will attack my posts any way they can, which, seemingly, they don't do to you, I started varying my spellings per post.

As to the other matter, top Managers vary their teams at times due to tiredness, inconsistency, youth, bad news etc. If it works for top guys, why do we put out potentially good teams whose individual parts then fail to function. Is this not Management?

You used to make the same apostrophe error when you were The Siege.

I probably made the same error when I was Jesus. What do you expect to gain by your gibberish?

Jesus? Makes sense - always thought he talked a lot of bollocks too...

[RoyalBlue]

They don't even show the penalty shout on the highlights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xDDPV74Dg Looks suspiciously like a foul on Gunts for their goal though.

As I mentioned previously. Rhodes' initial stumble may have been accidental but I think he then used it to great effect to bring Gunter down and momentarily pin him down, thus preventing him from being able to close Conway down. To make matters worse, it happened right in front of the absolutely useless ref who was, of course, too dumb to realise what Rhodes had done.

[handbags_harris]

How many of these managers started their Reading career in the PL with a poor, demoralised side like Adkins did?

Meaningless stats. Different players, different leagues, etc........

They're not meaningless though are they? You're welcome to draw your own conclusions mate but to completely dismiss them as meaningless when the fact remains Adkins has had arguably the most talented squad this club has ever had at Championship level at his disposal for all but 8 of those 42 games, I think it's not unfair to expect a better return than "the poorer side of average".

[USA_Loyal_Royal]

saw the handball, i cant say that i was intentional, but that is hard to judge. it is clear that he stops it from rolling to alfie who would have a 1 on 1 with the keeper. i really could see it given either way if the ref had seen it tbh.

[melonhead]

clearly stops a goal scoring opportunity by handling it with his arm
imo its a pen, but no card

[Tony Le Mesmer]

clearly stops a goal scoring opportunity by handling it with his arm
imo its a pen, but no card

You've just said its a red card but not a card in the same sentence. Incredible.

[melonhead]

clearly stops a goal scoring opportunity by handling it with his arm
imo its a pen, but no card

You've just said its a red card but not a card in the same sentence. Incredible.

it stops the goal scoring opportunity but its impossible to say it wasnt accidental, so i just think it would be rubbish to send him off
im not saying thats what the rules say. im saying that brendys natural law states it

[Davezk]

reading was the better side, first 20 mins. but I never thought the pen, was, but could not see the hand ball.... so Blackburn. held on firm.

Indeed

[Ian Royal]

I find it quite interesting that Pearce seems to still be getting stick and yet whoscored.com has him as our best player two games in a row.

Likewise I find it hilarious that someone wants to blame Jobi for Royston deciding not to take the freekick he was clearly there to hit and then coming back and just sulkily lobbing it up easily for the defence. People complain about McAnuff's set pieces frequently (and yet we score from his corners reasonably regularly) and then there's little complaint about Drenthe's set pieces.

Jobi had a poor game with end result and giving them the goal. But he was going all game, chasing back, taking on the full back, retaining possession better than more than half our other starters, joint most crosses, the only player to get a shot on target... albeit a shit one.

Compared to his detractors favourite McCleary, who managed a total of 3 crosses, scraped by with 50% pass accuracy and iirc horrifically skyed his only shot. Now he had a bad game, he barely featured in it. Which is a shame given how much damage he's done recently.

I guess this is the issue. McCleary's fans like him because he'll destroy teams sometimes and that's what they remember, completely forgetting teh games where he basically doesn't show up. But Jobi who is always getting stuck in gets criticism because when he does have a bad game he's still in the thick of it so his mistakes stick in the mind. He doesn't do quite as much overt damage when he's on form and so instead that is forgetten.

[bcubed]

I find it quite interesting that Pearce seems to still be getting stick and yet whoscored.com has him as our best player two games in a row.

Likewise I find it hilarious that someone wants to blame Jobi for Royston deciding not to take the freekick he was clearly there to hit and then coming back and just sulkily lobbing it up easily for the defence. People complain about McAnuff's set pieces frequently (and yet we score from his corners reasonably regularly) and then there's little complaint about Drenthe's set pieces.

Jobi had a poor game with end result and giving them the goal. But he was going all game, chasing back, taking on the full back, retaining possession better than more than half our other starters, joint most crosses, the only player to get a shot on target... albeit a shit one.

Compared to his detractors favourite McCleary, who managed a total of 3 crosses, scraped by with 50% pass accuracy and iirc horrifically skyed his only shot. Now he had a bad game, he barely featured in it. Which is a shame given how much damage he's done recently.

I guess this is the issue. McCleary's fans like him because he'll destroy teams sometimes and that's what they remember, completely forgetting teh games where he basically doesn't show up. But Jobi who is always getting stuck in gets criticism because when he does have a bad game he's still in the thick of it so his mistakes stick in the mind. He doesn't do quite as much overt damage when he's on form and so instead that is forgetten.

Yet you gave Jobi a 7 on your own Bus from the game thread?

[loyalroyal4life]

Adkins.....on the poorer side of average- average wins, second highest defeats, decent goalscoring, most goals conceded

What a surprise. We have looked consistently poor defensively under Adkins and you have to wonder about his ability to organise/shore up a poor defence.

Adkins: more overrated than Kasabian.

He is a physio after all!!!

Needs to drop one of pearce/gorkss, too slow as a CB pairing

[WestRoyal]

I find it quite interesting that Pearce seems to still be getting stick and yet whoscored.com has him as our best player two games in a row.

Likewise I find it hilarious that someone wants to blame Jobi for Royston deciding not to take the freekick he was clearly there to hit and then coming back and just sulkily lobbing it up easily for the defence. People complain about McAnuff's set pieces frequently (and yet we score from his corners reasonably regularly) and then there's little complaint about Drenthe's set pieces.

Jobi had a poor game with end result and giving them the goal. But he was going all game, chasing back, taking on the full back, retaining possession better than more than half our other starters, joint most crosses, the only player to get a shot on target... albeit a shit one.

Compared to his detractors favourite McCleary, who managed a total of 3 crosses, scraped by with 50% pass accuracy and iirc horrifically skyed his only shot. Now he had a bad game, he barely featured in it. Which is a shame given how much damage he's done recently.

I guess this is the issue. McCleary's fans like him because he'll destroy teams sometimes and that's what they remember, completely forgetting teh games where he basically doesn't show up. But Jobi who is always getting stuck in gets criticism because when he does have a bad game he's still in the thick of it so his mistakes stick in the mind. He doesn't do quite as much overt damage when he's on form and so instead that is forgetten.

Yet you gave Jobi a 7 on your own Bus from the game thread?

Well that's the thing about Ian Royal, whenever Jobi gets stick on here he will always bring negatives about McCleary's game just to divert the flack. Not saying McCleary was good Saturday but you don't have to bring him up to strengthen your arguments for Jobi, you don't need to convince anyone on here, people will make their own minds up especially if they watch the game live. Saying that I do feel Jobi gets a lot of unfair criticism. No matter how he plays he will never get less than a 6 from IR.