Watford (A) match thread sponsored by Taylor and John

[Snowball]

[quote="Royalwaster"]



You could hardly call Knight a youngster could you! [


/quote]


Maybe he was standing next to The Yak...

[P!ssed Off]

Every pass for about ten minutes was given an ironic cheer, so you can use that line on any player.

Cooper didn't play badly, behave yourself.

[Snowball]

I think we got away with this one.

4-1 to such a good side is no disaster. When we went 1-0 down inside
the first minute, I feared the worst.

Fantastic to see Karacan play well and score a goal. As soon as he's fit enough
to play 90 minutes, I hope he's first player on the team sheet.

[PistolPete]

Every pass for about ten minutes was given an ironic cheer, so you can use that line on any player.

Cooper didn't play badly, behave yourself.

I was sat in the Watford end, Cooper was a running joke with the home fans. Feel for the guy, he's (going to be) a good player but today he had a stinker.

[sandman]

Anderson - 6 distribution was pretty poor
Keown - 6 needs to bulk out a bit, was getting out muscled too easily
Knight - 7 looked pretty solid
Cooper - 7 looked pretty solid
Travner - 6 was going down far too easily and always looking for a foul
Stacey- see Keown
Guthrie - 3 complete waste of space, middle 2 gave defence no protection
Akpan - 4 see Guthrie
Taylor - 5 got in some good positions but touch and final ball was awful
Cox - 5 offered very little
Yakubu - 5 see Cox

Blackman - 6 looked more dangerous than Cox or Yak
Karacan - 8 scored a great goal and played well, broke it up well in midfield and spread the play well

Overall a bad day out, but worth pointing out that if the ten changes it was our more experienced players that were poor, youngsters played ok.

Centre backs solid?!?!?!

Cooper had the worst game he will ever have. Poor guy got an ironic cheer for passing to his own player and you say solid?! Knight headed the ball in ever direction but the one he should have, was never once in control of his legs either. Shambles. Poor Keown needed help with Deeney and forrestieri and got NONE!

Guthrie looked a proper player, sliding into tackles, looking for passes, just a bit rusty.

Karacan looked good, very happy for him.

Blackman was poor but much better than cox. amazing.

Taylor was very poor too.

Stay a little overawed but grew into the game.

Glad to see that they've started serving alcohol at Vicarage Road.

[ruprecht]

Oh well, as they say - one up the bum, no harm done

[genome]

Never seen such a casual reaction to a 4-1 defeat on HNA before.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

Akpan was pretty good throughout, Stacey was good first half. Karacan was the best player in a Reading shirt when he came on. No one else really emerges with much credit.

The overall game was probably closer than the score line suggests. Watford were not really all that, apart from some pretty lethal finishing.

Like it matters....

[Bob1871]

Akpan was pretty good throughout, Stacey was good first half. Karacan was the best player in a Reading shirt when he came on. No one else really emerges with much credit.

The overall game was probably closer than the score line suggests. Watford were not really all that, apart from some pretty lethal finishing.

Like it matters....

I thought neither Guthrie or Apkan gave the back 4 any cover with runners. Agreed Stacey looked good in the first half kept looking for the early cross just didn't deliver well, in the second half went missing. Agreed I thought it was much closer than the score line shows, the difference was that in the final Third they were lethal and we were awful.

Was a bit of a strange atmosphere in the away end really, after seeing the team nobody expected a result and there didn't seem to be much if any negative shouts at individuals!

[AthleticoSpizz]

I think we got away with this one.

4-1 to such a good side is no disaster. When we went 1-0 down inside
the first minute, I feared the worst.

150% agree

Great stuff there by SC, this game was always going to be a cast-off, but some great individual performances against a team that should see anything less than promotion as a failure.

Stop whining, we should be proud of the squad today.

[SCIAG]

Cooper had the worst game he will ever have.

No way he was worse than against Birmingham.

[Royality creeps In]

Hands up if you thought that today was like a pre season friendly.

Nobody appeared to care.
That includes 16000 in the crowd and 22 players.

Very strange day

Back to business on Monday

[AthleticoSpizz]

Anything more than that would've been a bonus.

Yes

[watfordroyal]

Very strange from Watford - top of the league, scoring goals for fun, set up for an exciting finale and they can't sell out and they're oh so quiet, only making any sort of noise after the 4th, other than the small group of bouncing ultras in bottom corner of rookery.
The little feckin wasp was making more noise.

Good to see Martin Keown in our end supporting his boy - can we take him on as a defensive coach?

[Jagermesiter1871]

I think we got away with this one.

4-1 to such a good side is no disaster. When we went 1-0 down inside
the first minute, I feared the worst.

150% agree

Great stuff there by SC, this game was always going to be a cast-off, but some great individual performances against a team that should see anything less than promotion as a failure.

Stop whining, we should be proud of the squad today.

Sorry we just lost 4-1!!

[Snowball]

Sorry we just lost 4-1!!

But who is "we"? 11 players wearing RFC shirts?


Federici?
Gunter/Kelly?
Hector?
Pearce?
Obita?
McCleary?
Williams?
Norwood?
HRK?
Pog?
Mackie?

As manager, I wouldn't have rested so many, but thank God, I'm not the manager.

The manager made a choice, a sensible, logical choice.

99% of fans expected wholesale changes and it sounds like they supported well-enough.

Job done. of course the stats won't remember we played a second 11,
but we did what we did for blindingly clear reasons.

[MR. CYNICAL]

Will be interested to know how many of you who wanted to see a weak Reading side, actually bothered to go to the game.
As far as I'm concerned, Clarke was taking the piss of out of all those that paid good money to attend and for that reason I will never take to the bloke!
If we lose on Monday night, all the glory hunters and plastics are going to look pretty stupid.
On another note, why do we never fill the away end at Watford? 1000 is poor for a ground that is only 41 miles away.

[Snowball]

As far as I'm concerned, Clarke was taking the piss of out of all those that paid good money to attend and for that reason I will never take to the bloke!

it's not as if it wasn't signalled to the fans.

BBC Sport suggested Knight and Karacan would play.

ALSO

“The weekend is obviously difficult because we have two games in a short space of time so I need to make sure I pick the right team for both games,” Clarke told Reading FC Player.

and

“This weekend is going to be a juggling act for me as a manager. It’s a little unusual, it’s a situation you get maybe once a year with an Easter weekend if you’re unfortunate with how the fixture falls."

and

“You can tell by the team selection the other night there were one or two knocks, bumps and bruises that affected us from Bradford away. But we adapted very well to it, the only disappointing thing was maybe that Juri Travner who would have played left back was also injured. He’s waited patiently for a long time for his chance, he’s also picked up a little knock. I’m hopeful he’ll be available or the weekend but not confident.”


Read more at http://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/article ... Y5jYTj5.99

[bobby1413]

Will be interested to know how many of you who wanted to see a weak Reading side, actually bothered to go to the game.
As far as I'm concerned, Clarke was taking the piss of out of all those that paid good money to attend and for that reason I will never take to the bloke!
If we lose on Monday night, all the glory hunters and plastics are going to look pretty stupid.
On another note, why do we never fill the away end at Watford? 1000 is poor for a ground that is only 41 miles away.

Clarke fielded a side of 11 players, with varying experience including some internationally capped with premier league experience.

Younger players also have U21s experience with their country with previous call ups.

Do you honestly believe Clarke should have fielded Mackie, McCleary, Gunter, Pearce, Feds, Williams, etc... two days before a big game like Bradford at home?

I think you're doing the players a dis-service by saying the fans were having the piss taken out of them - as if they "had to endure watching that team".

[LWJ]

Will be interested to know how many of you who wanted to see a weak Reading side, actually bothered to go to the game.
As far as I'm concerned, Clarke was taking the piss of out of all those that paid good money to attend and for that reason I will never take to the bloke!
If we lose on Monday night, all the glory hunters and plastics are going to look pretty stupid.
On another note, why do we never fill the away end at Watford? 1000 is poor for a ground that is only 41 miles away.

The fact you are obviously stupid enough to a) think we would field a strong team and b) go pay money to watch the game and not lump on Watford to make your money back. Means no one really values your opinion. soz