Yeovil (H) BFTG

[Ian Royal]

Game of two halves. Started well briefly. Didn't capitilise and then what looked like an error from mcCarthy trying to claim the cross. We then fell apart and gave the game to Yeovil playing turgid aimlessly hopeful hoofball as bad as anything last season. Second half far better but no one looks confident of scoring. Half hearted, lacking conviction, leaning back.


McCarthy 6 one great save looked like one error.
Gunter 7 decdnt overlapping but no passing inside and weak captaincy
Obita 6 poor crossing and passing at times missed mcanuff.
Pearce 6 did enough mostly too direct
Gorkss 6 guiltest of the defence hoof merchants
Akpan 6 ok bt never seen him go into a challenege with conviction doesn't show for the pass.enough
Williams 7 energetic but needs to show for the pass inside more.
McCleary 6 nothing first half better second
HRK 6 couple of nice touches bugger all else. Left was far weaker today
ALF 7 feeding on scaps. Poor pen but made up for it
Pog 6 aay too much to his head put a header he should have scored straight at the keeper

Guthrie 7 got us playing but not well enough
Drenthe 8 made a real difference
Blackman 6 was he on?

Yeovil continue the trenx of being the most cynical cheating team ive seen. Say that every game now. Still defended oxf*rd well when they weren't committing assault.

[P!ssed Off]

6s and 7s! Are you mad??????

1st half was the most tedious I've seen in a long time.
2nd half was great fun. I've never had so many lols.
Shame about the result though.

[Ian Royal]

6s and 7s! Are you mad??????

1st half was the most tedious I've seen in a long time.
2nd half was great fun. I've never had so many lols.
Shame about the result though.

I have tend to only give 4s and 5s rarely and for multiple individual errors. The whole team was toss first half no one to single out. I can't bring myself to give the whole team 5s

Always tough to score against 7/ 8 defenders.

[Winnershroyal]

What is that ****ing song?

Two weeks running.

[southbank1871]

Given your report, I think you might be misusing the 'game of two halves' cliche Ian.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Having listened to the second half on the radio, never heard Williams mentioned, Pog sounds like he really does not put the effort in. Plenty of chances for a good pass, but easier to just wack it in and hope.

[Cureton's Volley]

Pog has put in as much effort as anyone this season. Today we punted flat balls at his forehead, and to be fair he brought down a fair few and offloaded with aplomb.

[soggy biscuit]

MOTM - the ref. Just how much did we pay him at half time???

Lolz a plenty in that 2nd half

[P!ssed Off]

Our international captain of a cb was outplayed all game by a 21 year old striker who was contracted last season to Dorchester Town.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Thought Guthrie & Drenthe made a real difference today.

The strikers have a lot to answer for really. Plenty of decent balls in, corners etc & we couldn't make them count.

HRK & McCleary both poor I thought. Yet don't get even half the stick Jobi gets...

[Cureton's Volley]

HRK thinks he's The Don, but he's just a fraud. He's not even Welsh ffs!

[winchester_royal]

One dimensional garbage. As ever we are found totally wanting when up against two deep banks of four, and our weekly defensive fcuk up ensures we're one down with twenty mins to go.

Completely disillusioned with the 'progress' being made by the club right now. The football is worse than we've seen under previous managers known for their direct approach to the game, and it's not like we're bringing through younger players to set ourselves up for the inevitable turnover of players this summer. What's the plan here Nigel? I can't work it out.

[Wimb]

One dimensional garbage. As ever we are found totally wanting when up against two deep banks of four, and our weekly defensive fcuk up ensures we're one down with twenty mins to go.

Completely disillusioned with the 'progress' being made by the club right now. The football is worse than we've seen under previous managers known for their direct approach to the game, and it's not like we're bringing through younger players to set ourselves up for the inevitable turnover of players this summer. What's the plan here Nigel? I can't work it out.

+1

[LoyalRoyal22]

Actually played well second half, Guthrie got us playing football and was nice to see the short goal kicks again.

Akpan terrible. For Alfie to justify starting games he has to take his chances, offers nothing else. Goal rightly credited as OG.

Need to find the right mix of high tempo width and possession football. Put Guthrie in for Akpan and Hal through the middle for Alfie. This system worked well at the City Ground in one of our better performances.

[Royal Ginger]

I don't really understand why we took Gorkss off when we were getting corner after corner. We played 6 recognised wingers today and finished with 5 of them on the pitch

[MmmMonsterMunch]

One dimensional garbage. As ever we are found totally wanting when up against two deep banks of four, and our weekly defensive fcuk up ensures we're one down with twenty mins to go.

Completely disillusioned with the 'progress' being made by the club right now. The football is worse than we've seen under previous managers known for their direct approach to the game, and it's not like we're bringing through younger players to set ourselves up for the inevitable turnover of players this summer. What's the plan here Nigel? I can't work it out.

Does he tell them to panic & go direct or do they take it upon themselves to do that? We played some decent passing stuff at the start, they get the goal, we play like headless chickens for a bit & then they calmed down & started actually passing it again before the end of the 2nd half.

I'm not sure what the answer is. But with 9 men for what 20 mins, we really shouldn't be just pumping long balls when we could have quite easily passed it about & tired them out. Pearce was a classic example - he had plenty of opportunities 2nd half to take a second & make a decent pass, but no it got punted in the air.

Fair play to Yeovil - they wanted it more & in a way I'm glad they got something. We really lack that killer instinct.

[Wimb]

One dimensional garbage. As ever we are found totally wanting when up against two deep banks of four, and our weekly defensive fcuk up ensures we're one down with twenty mins to go.

Completely disillusioned with the 'progress' being made by the club right now. The football is worse than we've seen under previous managers known for their direct approach to the game, and it's not like we're bringing through younger players to set ourselves up for the inevitable turnover of players this summer. What's the plan here Nigel? I can't work it out.

Does he tell them to panic & go direct or do they take it upon themselves to do that? We played some decent passing stuff at the start, they get the goal, we play like headless chickens for a bit & then they calmed down & started actually passing it again before the end of the 2nd half.

I'm not sure what the answer is. But with 9 men for what 20 mins, we really shouldn't be just pumping long balls when we could have quite easily passed it about & tired them out. Pearce was a classic example - he had plenty of opportunities 2nd half to take a second & make a decent pass, but no it got punted in the air.

Fair play to Yeovil - they wanted it more & in a way I'm glad they got something. We really lack that killer instinct.

Surely that's the whole point of having a manager and a coaching staff? To make sure they don't panic and have some sort of game plan, or more importantly game plans.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

I thought his subs were decent TBF. We did start passing it about more once Guthrie & Drenthe came on. Some things can't be legislated for though.........21 corners, 29 attempts on goal + a penalty miss.

Hard to have a pop at the manager for that isn't it?

However, the fact we cannot win a game after going behind under Adkins is quite worrying I will admit. Still backing him though. I genuinely don't think he's been given enough backing & I can't think of anyone else who would do better.

Can't wait for Floyd's post.

[urz13]

Great entertaining but desperately poor performance.
McCarthy - 5
Gunter - 6
Pearce - 5
Gorkks - 5
Obita - 5
HRK - 4
Akpan - 4 has to go
Williams - 6
McCleary - 5
Pogrebynak - 7
ALF - 6

Guthrie - 7 needs to start
Drenthe - 8 needs to start

This is frankly unacceptable, and if we don't make the playoffs Adkins has to go. He's been in place almost a year and we've only come from behind once to win in that period. Shocking.

[RoyalBlue]

Today we saw unequivocal proof that the majority of professional footballers are as thick as shit!

Most kids (of both sexes) know that one of the keys to winning games is to create and exploit space! Having struggled to do that against 11 players our 'team' were then given a helping hand by the ref when he reduced Yeovil to 9 players (with 20 minutes left?) and then 8 with over ten minutes to go.

What did our thick players do in response? Rather than take full advantage of our numerical advantage to move the ball quickly around, drag Yeovil out of position and create space that they could exploit, the majority of them decided to take up residence in Yeovil's area and call for the ball to be lumped forward or crossed into them, at which point they proceeded to get in each other's way as they tried to get to the ball! This also made life incredibly easy for the Yeovil giants who just had to win the balls in the air and clear up the loose balls as Reading players messed up. The Yeovil defenders hardly needed to move.

Why the hell didn't the majority of the players hang outside the area, creating more space and forcing defenders to make decisions as to whom they should mark and when they should close the ball?! Had we done that, I am sure that gaps would have opened up and we would have got the winner and possibly more.

On several occasions I spotted Guthrie hanging back with the ball and gesturing to his team mates to come towards him and create space in the Yeovil final third. Sadly most proved they were too thick to realise that this would significantly increase our opportunity of scoring and continued to hold hands with each other in the Yeovil area.

This is frankly unacceptable, and if we don't make the playoffs Adkins has to go. He's been in place almost a year and we've only come from behind once to win in that period. Shocking.

Absolutely no point in Adkins going whilst the skinflint manic cloth cutter Madejski remains in charge. Watch Leeds go past us because McDermott has been backed with decent loan signings. In contrast Madejski gave very firm assurances of transfer funding in teh last window only to completely stitch up his manager by not coming up with a penny.