BFTG - Arsenal

[Jackson Corner]

It wasn't as gut wrenching as the 95 Bolton game. But it was close. To be so close to our first cup final and to lose to a goal like that hurts like hell. At my age I doubt we will get another chance. It sucks being a Reading fan sometimes...........

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Gutted... Danny Williams was superb.

[3points]

I hope Feds gets an ovation & his name sung all game for the next home match. I can't begin to imagine how he is feeling right now.

+1 Massive rendition of Oooh Adam Federici required

With performances like that we're really a decent strikeforce away from being a good team. Hope SC can persuade Mourinho to let us keep Chalobah as well.

Hector >>>>>>>>Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gabriel - if we keep Hector in the summer we'll have done well

[handbags_harris]

Can't add any other superlatives to this thread. Immensely proud and frustrated, devastating feeling coming out of there. Feds has been a great servant to this club and deserves every decibel of the ovation he's going to get on Wednesday.

For me, this is up there with 95 and Villa in 2010. Since then we'd seen promotions and relegations, they weren't anything new, but to get to the Premier League for the first time in 95 was supposedly a pipedream. The FA Cup holds as much elusivity now as the Premier League did until 2006. That's the reason yesterday was so hard to take, and still is this morning.

[Royal Rother]

Oddly I was more gutted after the 7-5.

[Winnershroyal]

I posted as soon as I got home last night and my feelings have changed slightly, I still really enjoyed the day, the pre match drinks in Moore Spice, the atmosphere n the stadium, the standing all game and the way we battled for every ball and COULD have nicked it.

I've changed my mind about the players putting that much effort in yesterday when they have been generally abject all season, games like Wigan and Huddersfield at home, birmingham, Bournemouth Brentford away, I could go on. You know the games, you were there.

Then suddenly in front of a huge TV audience, near the end of the season,, with some contracts spiralling out, they produce an immense effort. Feel cheated a bit over the year.

Honourable exceptions over the season to Feds, Mackie and Williams when he has played.

I hope they turn that performance in on Wednesday and at least a couple of thousand more who went yesterday actually turn up to an important league game.

[Ian Royal]

Feds - 8
Gunter - 8
Obita - 8
Pearce - 8
Hector - 9
Chalobah - 8
Williams - 9 MotM
HRK - 8
McCleary - 8
Mackie - 9
Pogrebnyak - 8

Karacan - 8
Cox - 7
Yakubu - 7

Clarke - 10
Reading Fans - 10
Arsenal fans - 3
Ref - 6

[West Stand Man]

Got back to the wilds of rural Gloucestershire at about half past eleven last night, still on a high. It seems odd to be so positive after a defeat but it was such a great performance all round. No poor performances by any player and the RFC crowd was outstanding in its support.

(If it is still possible to vote in the POTS please all go in now and vote for the Aussie. He has been the outstanding player this season and needs your vote even more than anyone in the General Election does!)

[Sutekh]

As usual Arsenal show why they get tagged with the epithet "lucky". Just how that shower of **** is anywhere near the top of the PL just shows how poor that entire league must be

Absolute credit to Reading players and management to get themselves organised so well and with a bit more pace about the front line I think we'd have won that game.

So sorry for Feds and just typical of the way this largely miserable season has panned out so far. Let's just hope it's not another 88 years to the next FA Cup Semi Final.

Onwards and upwards and one hell of a reception for EVERYONE (esp. Feds) on Wednesday night.

[SCIAG]

Didn't watch enough of the match to give ratings or anything and I couldn't really tell what was going on when I did watch. Had trouble with depth perception.

I thought it was generally a disciplined performance. Obita got shown up defensively a few times and his delivery was disappointing. Mackie needs to work on staying onside. McCleary generally good, and he bloody scored! Gunter, Hector and Pearce all seemed to hold their own very well - Hector in particular has come a long way this season and Pearce is almost back to his best. Federici obviously excellent. Pog should have done better with a couple of chances, would have justified his wages. Didn't see much from anyone else.

Can't actually express how gutted I am. For me personally, this is my most gut wrenching defeat of all time.

..

Gutted yes but it doesn't come close to Bolton in the playoff final nor Walsall as well for real gut renchers

Nonsense.
A PO Final loss can be put to bed the very next season with a promotion.
We won't get that close to an FA Cup FInal again for decades, if at all.

You're saying that after a) seeing us in the PL for three seasons, and b) seeing us win promotion after losing a playoff final.

Bolton looked like our one opportunity to get promoted to the top flight, and sure enough we fell away for a long time afterwards. Plus we threw away a two goal lead after winning a penalty at 2-0.

And of course, there's no reason why we can't reach a cup final next season.

[Ian Royal]

+1

Yesterday doesn't even enter consideration for the top 10 most disappointing games for me. I'm not upset in the slightest. We outperformed my wildest dreams and come away having just not quite had enough talent or luck to beat the second best team in the country who were on a great run of form, some 35+ league places above us.

[Jerry St Clair]

Even for a cynical old fart like me, that was just epic. A few additional observations:

- Yesterday illustrated how much the club has grown in the last 20 years. In 1995 when "little old Reading" got to the play off final it felt like we had 10000 there who cared and 30000 on a nice day out in London. Yesterday we had 30000 who were totally invested in it.

- at least 10000 stood up, singing all game. Reading supporters can do proper support when they want to.

- If you want free reign to act like a bellend, buy a ticket in Club Wembley. Anyone in the "normal" seats would have been chucked out behaving the way some of them did. Particularly the two fellas in the black t-shirts above 104.

- quite a few spare seats near us in 108. At least 8 in a row. Maybe a few minibuses came a cropper on the M4?

[Blakey's Chin]

Proud of that. So pleased we were able to celebrate a goal that brought us level. Went to Walsall 01 and Swansea 11 and it was a completely different feeling post match. I also think if we do well over the next 5 years we could be back, Hull did it. Disappointed some Reading fans in front of us got in an argument, only for one of them to answer "you're not a true reading fan mate, you ain't got a Reading tattoo". Wow. Apart from that, and not often we can say this, but thought our fans were amazing. Along with the players who gave everything. Hopefully we can take that into next season, just showing we have a good squad, and if we give 100% every game, we should be near the top. The club as a whole can be proud of yesterday

[Uke]

I hope Feds gets an ovation & his name sung all game for the next home match.

+1

+15000 hopefully!

[bobby1413]

To say I'm proud to be a Reading Fan is an understatement. It adds to my confusion why anyone would support a club like Arsenal.

I heard an Arsenal fan say to another "guess it's just another day at Wembley for us".

I detest losing to arsenal. It would be easier to lose to any other club in my opinion. Arsenal fans are clueless, passionless supporters who care more about owning the latest shirt than actually going and supporting the club.

The Torch was great yesterday, day itself was amazing. I love Feds and will support him as much as I can on Wednesday as he has been my POTS.

[Muskrat]

^^^

This. Never been more proud to be a Reading fan nor of a Reading team performance.

Feel gutted for Fed but he can guarantee getting 100% backing on Wednesday and fully deserves it.

[Snowball]

Arsenal a shower of shit, really? That win was their 24th win in 29 Games and their 9th consecutive.

Yesterday was magnificent, genuinely the proudest I've ever felt of a team on the day.

The fans were the best I've ever known them, the atmosphere was superb, and you could see how much it meant when after the game so many stayed to cheer the lads.

It was a cruel defeat (the nature and the timing of the goal) but the defence and Federici was immense. (Though how it was McCleary on Sanchez for their opener, I don't know.)

Williams and Chalobah were very good indeed, and for me that was Williams best-ever game for us.

Gunter and Obita defended the wings well for the 90, though the extra cover out there looked less in ET, probably due to tired legs. Pearce and Hector were superb on the day.

Don't agree that HRK was poor. He did his job. There was one sublime interchange with Chalobah that got HRK away who then fed Pog who then lost it on the edge of their box. HRK also had a big part in our goal.

I'm a big fan of Jem and was thrilled that he got on in the 89th. I firmly believe that the applause was for a Reading stalwart coming on and NOT because HRK was coming off. (TBF I can't remember Jem's performance in extra time.)

McCleary gets an extra point for putting it in the net, but, for me, he's still not at his very best

But we lost this game up front. Pog worked incredibly hard, Mackie was his usual buzzing self, but we missed chances, the kind of chances, great in-form goal-scorers put away ( the way Sanchez did for them, luck and all). I'm not really criticising either of the two front men. It is what it is, and not currently having a lethal 20+ a season striker is down to the Russians.

I can't remember much about the subs.


But the fans were great throughout. They get a 10. The individuals in the team get 7/8/9 but as a team, battling a side that can be brilliant (and 24 wins in 29 games) they get a 10. But for one cruel half-second (coming less than twenty seconds after Pog could have won the game, and, I think, over the 15 minute point) we were heading for penalties at least.

Great memories, thanks lads. And we need to bring the house down Wednesday and sing for Feds

[Royal Lady]

As others,I expected us to be completely tonked by Arsenal - fuming that their goal came well after 15 mins of ET and there had been no stoppages - thought ref was seriously poor and the number of times we were pushed etc and nothing given, was pathetic.

Thought every player played their heart out and Feds kept us in the game with a couple of terrific saves - he broke down at the end and Bibbo and Andersen tried to console him. If only we could play like that every week.

Funniest bit was seeing the players onto coach at Marylebone!

Sat in an area of 525 that was pretty quiet, but once we started singing, they joined in so guessing a few around us weren't regulars. The middle aged bloke with his face painted who was dancing to uptown funk at half time was weird but he enjoyed himself!

[MmmMonsterMunch]

+1

Yesterday doesn't even enter consideration for the top 10 most disappointing games for me. I'm not upset in the slightest. We outperformed my wildest dreams and come away having just not quite had enough talent or luck to beat the second best team in the country who were on a great run of form, some 35+ league places above us.

Well good for you. I was a lot younger for the 95 game & didn't go as regularly back then. I am much more 'invested' in the team as an adult. Who we played yesterday was irrelevant for me. We could have woken up as FA Cup finalists this morning. I am still completely inconsolable today.

I will say though - I'll take back whatever I may have said in the past about not having the semi finals at Wembley. Having experienced it as a football league side, I am sold.

That's why we all love football so much I guess. What a rollercoaster.

[notloyalenuffroyal]

- Yesterday illustrated how much the club has grown in the last 20 years. In 1995 when "little old Reading" got to the play off final it felt like we had 10000 there who cared and 30000 on a nice day out in London. Yesterday we had 30000 who were totally invested in it.

Agree with this totally. Not blessed with a season ticket for early purchase, or the money, I have always been in the gods from Bolton, through Walsall and Swansea and it used to be a nice day out.

Everywhere I looked around the top tier there were pockets of fans getting up and belting out a song, individuals who just sang a song 'cos they felt like it. A lovely quiet looking lady near me, who had meekly enjoyed the day with her hubby, as Walcott headed down to fall over near the end, stood up, with silence around her as everyone accepted the inevitable, and bellowed "COME ON READING!!!!!" at the top of her voice. If she had ever seen a football in her life I would have been surprised.

This was a dream day out. One of those when you wake up and wish it hadn't quite finished.

Anyway..... it was a draw wasn't it? When is the replay?