by holsgrove breaks a leg »
04 Dec 2015 00:54
Worrying times for the Royals as we lurch back towards the dark days of last season. From being far too open recently with the tactics and personnel Clarke employed to a complete lack of creativity and drive tonight maybe to counter the extremely disappointing Forest performance. This however doesn't hide away from the fact that Clarke has completely lost how to play with a balanced side or a half way house between defending and attacking and just as worrying, cannot appear to accommodate the vast majority of new signings especially those on the substitutes bench to create any sort of impact. The constant switching of formations ala Adkins during the game clearly confuses the players and serves only to frustrate and lose confidence. I agree re the frustration concerning Vydra, an intelligent and willing player forced to scrap in the air at 5ft 9 ish from hopeful punts mostly by Hector which is something I hoped to see the last of.
The most disappointing aspect was that i thought our ball control despite the weather was abysmal, Williams was the chief culprit who faded and faded as the game went on - just when i think he could become our real lynchpin he produces a series of way below par performances. I thought Taylor and Fernandez worked well today, did the simple things and made important blocks. I would be tempted to make Taylor permanent in Jan. Other than that i really fail to see given the current management structure if any of the other loanees are worth looking at permanently. If we do sack Clarke i would still have reservations about how well the loan players would perform and whether the new manager would even fancy keeping many on. Having said that Piazon was clearly only a favour (ironic really!) and Hector will go back hopefully in Jan - I just cant comprehend how bad he has been. He has not learned to kick out the basic errors and now gets done positionally - there seems to be a certain swagger post agreeing terms with Chelsea which is totally misplaced on the pitch.
Im not one to bang on about atmosphere but the game today felt like it was reaching an all time low in that regard, Clarke must pull off a master stroke now to stop it hitting rock bottom and ultimate departure, something i feel is very difficult with Preston and Hull up next away. We could probably do with a slightly less tactically naive Brian Mcdermott at the helm, after all RFC fans are mostly happy when we play a familiar 4 4 2....