Adkins - Pros and Cons

[Froomes]

Very true.

Rather lose 1-0 than watch the back four act like a pub team and gift the opposition 2 utterly ridiculous goals though

[Sanguine]

You assume he had the funds to do so.

We brought in Murray, Mackie and Cox. All very recent premier league players and thus will still be on very competitive wages, therefore, there were some funds available.

Adkins chose not to replace Gorkss, Morrison and Legs, he obviously thought replacing them wasn't of paramount importance.

After the goals we've shipped so far this season I would probably disagree...

The wages is your assumption. It's over 2 years since Cox played in the Premier League, Mackie has taken a step down, and he and Murray, who was injured for a year, are loan deals. We don't know what they are costing us, but the latter two are not long-term financial investments, yet..

Adkins obviously had limited funds and chose to invest in some attacking players. I'd say how current attack is infinitely better than Pogrebnyak and Pogrebnyak. I think central defensive options when fit of Pearce, Hector, Ferdinand and Cooper is pretty reasonable.

[Froomes]

The wages is your assumption. It's over 2 years since Cox played in the Premier League, Mackie has taken a step down, and he and Murray, who was injured for a year, are loan deals. We don't know what they are costing us, but the latter two are not long-term financial investments, yet..

Adkins obviously had limited funds and chose to invest in some attacking players. I'd say how current attack is infinitely better than Pogrebnyak and Pogrebnyak. I think central defensive options when fit of Pearce, Hector, Ferdinand and Cooper is pretty reasonable.

Of course it's just an assumption, as is the same with everyone's opinion with regards our spending. Only Adkins and the Board will know for sure.

And I completely agree re: our current attack being infinitely better than the Pog!

However the four CB's you've listed aren't what I'd call 'pretty reasonable' I'd describe them as barely adequate. Pearce is questionable, Hector has promise as does Cooper but they are both young and need an established CB, as for Ferdinand (if he ever gets fit) I wasn't impressed by him whilst he was at Qpr the other year and he's older and carrying more injuries now...

Personally I'd have thought our need for a quality CB was glaringly obvious.

[P!ssed Off]

Never mind squabbling over whether Adkins had the funds to replace the defence.
He doesn't need any.

A decent manager would be able to make a solid defence out of Federici, Obita, Gunter, Pearce and Hector.


"Pearce is questionable"? The same player that won POTS as Reading took the Championship title?

[Bandini]

Not sure why we're arguing over what he might have done differently. The problem is he's a colossal bellend.

[Froomes]

Never mind squabbling over whether Adkins had the funds to replace the defence.
He doesn't need any.

A decent manager would be able to make a solid defence out of Federici, Obita, Gunter, Pearce and Hector.


"Pearce is questionable"? The same player that won POTS as Reading took the Championship title?
Hector is not too young?

No you're right Pearce isn't questionable at all, he's been a rock for the past 18 months as we've shipped goals for fun, especially impressed by him floundering on the floor like a fish out of water for Brentfords second goal...

Ok Hector might not be too young but he is too inexperienced to be carrying Pearce!

[P!ssed Off]

Never mind squabbling over whether Adkins had the funds to replace the defence.
He doesn't need any.

A decent manager would be able to make a solid defence out of Federici, Obita, Gunter, Pearce and Hector.


"Pearce is questionable"? The same player that won POTS as Reading took the Championship title?
Hector is not too young?

No you're right Pearce isn't questionable at all, he's been a rock for the past 18 months as we've shipped goals for fun, especially impressed by him floundering on the floor like a fish out of water for Brentfords second goal...

Ok Hector might not be too young but he is too inexperienced to be carrying Pearce!

Yeah, sell him because he slipped over! The silly oxf*rd!

If you think Pearce is so poor now then you ought to question the role of the manager in the downfall of a player who a few years ago was the best performer, in the best performing team of the league.

[RoyalBlue]

Never mind squabbling over whether Adkins had the funds to replace the defence.
He doesn't need any.

A decent manager would be able to make a solid defence out of Federici, Obita, Gunter, Pearce and Hector.


"Pearce is questionable"? The same player that won POTS as Reading took the Championship title?
Hector is not too young?

I've got news for you - a team's defence does not just comprise 4 players/positions. The midfield have important roles to play too and for the whole of this season we have been virtually bereft of proper defensive midfielders (not as a consequence of Adkins' team selection). On Saturday, it was noticeable just how little defensive support HRK and Blackman were providing to Obita and Gunter. Similarly who was 'minding' the centre backs - it really comes to something when Norwood has to take on the prime ball-winning/enforcer role but that is what he was having to do on Saturday.

And Kuhl's error for the second goal was straight out of the Kebe manual (turning back towards his own goal with a heavy touch and leaving himself wrong-footed but his opponent on his favoured foot - perhaps excusable given his relative inexperience at this level).

Pearce may have won POTS but players can and do suffer from losses in form. Pearce is not playing well at present (not sure he will get in the ROI starting 11 given the clip of his comical slip that is currently doing the rounds) and 'a decent manager' would probably want to drop him. But who would that decent manager replace him with, given our current squad? Obita made some really basic mistakes on Saturday and some of his decision making under pressure was frightening. Who would 'a decent manager' replace him with if he carries on in that vein. Hector may not be young and he may be relatively experienced (albeit in the Mickey Mouse league) but he is not, at this moment in time, a good, reliable, central defender. However, Adkins has little option but to play him in that role.

Yeah, sell him because he slipped over! The silly oxf*rd!

If you think Pearce is so poor now then you ought to question the role of the manager in the downfall of a player who a few years ago was the best performer, in the best performing team of the league.

F*ck me! So our new Thai owners now need to find a manager who can totally control every player's form, ensuring that it never dips!

[Froomes]

Never mind squabbling over whether Adkins had the funds to replace the defence.
He doesn't need any.

A decent manager would be able to make a solid defence out of Federici, Obita, Gunter, Pearce and Hector.


"Pearce is questionable"? The same player that won POTS as Reading took the Championship title?
Hector is not too young?

No you're right Pearce isn't questionable at all, he's been a rock for the past 18 months as we've shipped goals for fun, especially impressed by him floundering on the floor like a fish out of water for Brentfords second goal...

Ok Hector might not be too young but he is too inexperienced to be carrying Pearce!

Yeah, sell him because he slipped over! The silly oxf*rd!

If you think Pearce is so poor now then you ought to question the role of the manager in the downfall of a player who a few years ago was the best performer, in the best performing team of the league.

Not sure I said sell him did I? Quite the opposite in fact, I said Adkins had messed up by not bringing in another CB...

[sandman]

Better than you fellas blaming McDermott for players being out of form a year and a half after he left.

[winchester_royal]

Not sure why we're arguing over what he might have done differently. The problem is he's a colossal bellend.

Genius.

[Ian Royal]

I never cease to be amazed at the idiocy of so many reading fans and the way their opinions on the performance are completely dictated by the result.

Outclassed but scrape a win - great performance

Play well and lose - ADKINS OUT

The behaviour of some of our fans beggars belief, some near me on Saturday's only contribution was abusing Adkins before and after the game, singing 'shit f***ing russian' at Pog and singing some song about it being a miracle if Blackman scores. Oh, and booing at half and full time. Seriously, go and find something you enjoy doing if you hate watching Reading that much.

The performance overall wasn't bad and if we had not made stupid defensive error and had a goal that should have been disallowed against us, we would have got something out of it and everyone would have been saying how well we played.

With the completion of the takeover, the club has, literally, just come out of the longest period of uncertainty and disruption in its history, the very last thing we want is further fresh upheaval in changing the manager.

Get a grip FFS

Bravo

[SCIAG]

how do you know it was his choice? From a financial perspective those players could have been released or sold against Adkins preference.

Good point, I don't. But at the same time you don't know that they weren't!

The fact that when he had the opportunity to bring players in he neglected to bring anyone in to cover the loss of Morrison, Gorkss and Legs would suggest that he wasn't overly fussed that they were no longer on the pay roll...

wrt. Legs, we brought in Norwood, a different player but we could hardly justify another central midfielder. Guthrie, Williams and Karacan have all had injury setbacks, and Tshibola had picked up a fresh injury. Throw in Akpan and Kuhl and we should have seven players competing for two positions - it would be hard to justify another one.

At centre back, I respect the decision to trust Hector (and trust Cooper et al. to act as back up), but he just doesn't look like a Championship centre back to me, he's athletic but I think he's a penalty waiting to happen and we've got lucky to be assigned some soft referees. If the aim was for Hector to replace Morrison, Ferdinand to replace Gorkss and Cooper to replace Hector then I think we've notionally done pretty well, it's just Ferdinand is completely unfit.

[loyalroyal4life]

Very true.

Rather lose 1-0 than watch the back four act like a pub team and gift the opposition 2 utterly ridiculous goals though

Watch that 2nd goal again and pub team is being generous

[bcubed]

Not sure why we're arguing over what he might have done differently. The problem is he's a colossal bellend.

In all the talk of defence, injury, good buys and bad buys, I clean forgot this important fact!

Thank you

[Woodcote Royal]

Cons:

He's doing a pretty poor job as manager of Reading.

Pros:

At some point he will no longer be manager of Reading.

+1 Thanks for saving me the bother

International breaks are such a relief these days; a chance for the fans to forget just how tedious match days have become and time for Nige to write his next thrilling post match interview.

[Rax]

Can't warm to him and to be honest I've not wanted a Reading manager to be fired so much since the dark days of Terry the Taxi!

Even Bodgers was less painful.

Wrong man for the job IMHO - Dolan needs shipping in!

[Tilehurstsouthbank]

The cons brigade must be smoking something pretty strong, given some of the 'evidence' that they are coming out with.

However, prize for the most ludicrous claims so far goes to 'Tina' who phoned BBCRB after the game. According to her, Adkins isn't good enough to manage in the Championship, hasn't had any success at that level and was 'found out' by the new owners at Southampton!

Laughed at that too when heard it whilst stuck on south circular.
Stupid bint!!

If you want an example of how moronic some fans can be, check out the Facebook 'Reading fans' page and look for comments buy a guy called 'Gary Rickett'.
Makes this woman look like Mensa material...

[tidus_mi2]

Don't get why people are focussing on the 2nd goal so much, yeah it was a bit cringey to see them slipping over but the Brentford striker slipped as well, their pitch really didn't handle the rain well at all and I'd call the slips unfortunate more than anything.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Don't get why people are focussing on the 2nd goal so much, yeah it was a bit cringey to see them slipping over but the Brentford striker slipped as well, their pitch really didn't handle the rain well at all and I'd call the slips unfortunate more than anything.

If you wanna blame anyone, blame the Reading fans for cheering when the Brentford player missed it.