TEAMWATCH : Rotherham United (a)

[Sutekh]

I reckon on a bit of tinkering....

Al-Habsi
Obita
Gunter
McShane
Hector
Sa
Williams
Toshiba
Norwood
McLeary
Blackman

Subs

Moore
Piazon
John
Cooper
Vydra
Taylor
Liburd

[Woodcote Royal]

Williams for Tish, McCleary for John or Piazon would be my guess.

[SCIAG]

Al-Habsi; Gunter, Hector, McShane, Obita; Williams, Norwood, Tshibola; Blackman, Sa, McCleary
Subs: Ward, Cooper, Alex, Quinn/Piazon, John, Vydra/Hurtado, Liburd

Edit: forgot Alex exists.

[Ian Royal]

I'd expect Williams to come in at the expense of Tish and John to lose out to Vydra if he's fit. Maybe McCleary.

I'd like to see Williams in for John and either move Piazon forward or Vydra in for him.

[St. Brynjar]

McCleary for John, Vydra on the bench. No other changes.

[Esteban]

I'd like to see Williams in for John and either move Piazon forward or Vydra in for him.

+1. Think Piazon would do more damage in an advanced role. Not convinced midfield gets the best out of him.

[strap]

McCleary for John, Vydra on the bench. No other changes.

This is the only change that should occur based on the various player performances on Saturday. John was so far off the pace it was laughable.

However, Clarke will probably make more changes to more fully utilise the squad due there being 3 games in 8 days.

[Nameless]

I ' m not convinced Piazon has done enough to justify his place. We've seen little of Hurtado and I'd let him stake a claim .

[Ian Royal]

I ' m not convinced Piazon has done enough to justify his place. We've seen little of Hurtado and I'd let him stake a claim .

Clarke obviously sees Piazon as competing with Quinn and Tshibola competing with Williams. Personally I'd say Piazon should be further forward or at a push competing with Williams for the more attacking of three midfielders and Tish is the more natural deputy for Quinn in style, if not necessarily so for the left of a three.

I do think we're missing Quinn for the ability to stiffen midfield a bit and allow the attacking three more freedom. Not that things are going badly or anything.

We can probably afford a slightly more loaded attack against Rotherham (although their recent wins against Brum and Cardiff mean they're no push over), but we can probably expect them to make a reasonable go of trying to get some points and hopefully that'll give us space and play into our hands.

[CountryRoyal]

Piazon is definitely not a central midfielder in the mould of Quinn, Williams or Tsh. He's a gylfi-esque 10 who can play left forward. It's clear to see he's nowhere near physical enough to play the role he's been asked to atm.

[phil in cornwall]

Reading never win on a cold wet Tuesday night at a crap team in the north.

I'd love to be wrong.

[strap]

McCleary for John, Vydra on the bench. No other changes.

This is the only change that should occur based on the various player performances on Saturday. John was so far off the pace it was laughable.

However, Clarke will probably make more changes to more fully utilise the squad due there being 3 games in 8 days.

Thought I'd have a quick look at how many team changes Clarke makes in successive league matches, (Cup matches are often used for experimentation and resting so I have ignored these for now).

He's only ever kept the same starting XI once, (on 07/02/15), and he has made 11 changes to the starting XI on 23/03/15, as well as 9 the game before. This is explained by resting the team prior to the Bradford City FAC qf. So I will ignore those 2 as special cases. Also I don;t compare the last game of last season and the first game of this season due to the influx in new signings over the summer window.

So that leaves 32 opportunities to make changes to the preceeding team selection. (Apologies if that sounds complicated.

In those 32 games, he has made a total of 81 changes to the starting XI, at an average of 2.53 per match. So we can expect at least 2 changes to the starting XI for the Rotherham game if his average is anything to go by.

If we ignore last season, which is not unreasonable, he has made 17 changes in 10 league matches this season, without ever keeping the same starting XI in successive matches. So again, we can expect at least 1 change in the starting XI for the Rotherham match.

That was a half hour of my life I will never get back!

[Platypuss]

Is that factoring in forced changes, ie due to suspension and/or injury?

[strap]

Reading never win on a cold wet Tuesday night at a crap team in the north.

I'd love to be wrong.

Well if one treats Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb as "cold and wet", which of course is stretching things a bit, and if you consider any matches against teams north of Birmingham as being "north", then we have played 80 league and cup games since 1920 on a Tuesday in such conditions.

We had a sequence of 6 consecutive wins scoring 13 goals and conceding only 1 from 30/11/99 to 18/02/03. Our overall record for thsoe 5 months away to teams north of Birmingham isn't too shabby, although I concede our record at Rotherham needs vast improvement! :



Another half hour of my life I've wasted

[CountryRoyal]

Reading never win on a cold wet Tuesday night at a crap team in the north.

I'd love to be wrong.

Well if one treats Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb as "cold and wet", which of course is stretching things a bit, and if you consider any matches against teams north of Birmingham as being "north", then we have played 80 league and cup games since 1920 on a Tuesday in such conditions.

We had a sequence of 6 consecutive wins scoring 13 goals and conceding only 1 from 30/11/99 to 18/02/03. Our overall record for thsoe 5 months away to teams north of Birmingham isn't too shabby, although I concede our record at Rotherham needs vast improvement! :



Another half hour of my life I've wasted

You should have cross-referenced the dates we have lost with the historical weather archive to investigate further.

Poor. 2/10.

[bishmanbosh92]

Al-Habsi
Obita
Gunter
McShane
Hector
Sa
Williams
Toshiba
Norwood
McLeary
Blackman

Subs

Moore
Piazon
John
Cooper
Vydra
Taylor
Liburd

[strap]

You should have cross-referenced the dates we have lost with the historical weather archive to investigate further.

Poor. 2/10.

I throw myself at the mercy of the court your honour.

Any idea where one can get historical weather records going back to 1920, by region? (Only a semi-silly request!)

[strap]

Is that factoring in forced changes, ie due to suspension and/or injury?

No, just bare changes for whatever reason.

[Sutekh]

We've lost 3 games on a Tuesday in Rotherham of the 4 we've played and I've seen 2 of them. Think I'll give tomorrow a miss to maximise the teams chances of winning.....

[Snowball136]

You should have cross-referenced the dates we have lost with the historical weather archive to investigate further.

Poor. 2/10.

I throw myself at the mercy of the court your honour.

Any idea where one can get historical weather records going back to 1920, by region? (Only a semi-silly request!)

I needed to know if it had rained in Thatcham on a particular date
and some local weather bod was able to tell me.

Do Match Reports mention the weather?