Back from the game - Palace

[old woman]

Of course it wasn't a penalty and of course it changed the game. If that nonsense decision wasn't made then we almost certainly hold out for a hard-earned 0-0. I thought that the effort and endeavour we showed deserved to grind out a draw were it not for the intervention of Dean/Bolasie. I am usually philosophical about refereeing decisions but this one cost us dearly in our most important game of the season, thanks very much Palace were by far the better team as they have by far better players than us, so it is a bit disappointing that they had to cheat to get past us.

Totally agree.

[Extended-Phenotype]

They won fair and square. what ifs don't win games ..

I've never seen you say anything positive about Reading. Or side with Reading on something. Or defend them. Or seem remotely pleased or praiseworthy when the win or play well, however rare that may be. Or seem anything but gleefully delighted when something doesn't go their way.

It's weird. I mean there's critical. And there's trying to be impartial and balanced. Or realistic and outspoken. But with you its just constant flaming. Worse than how a rival fan would be.

The only person on here I've ever seen you agree with is someone who doesn't support Reading, and supports Chelsea.

I just find it a bit odd. Why would anyone support a team they just loathe so completely and relentlessly? I mean, it just seems such a waste of your time, m8?

I don't mean to be a dick E-P but this was really hard to read.

Sorry for being a grammar nazi.

No worries. I could pretend I was going for a Samuel Becket alienating prose style circa 1969 'Lessness' but I think I had just got home from a run and was a bit out of breath.

[Hoop Blah]

Disagree. We shouldn't because we weren't. You don't get points for nearly scoring. At that point of the game, they had managed to score as many as we had. As in none. They couldn't score. Thanks only to the penalty, they could

Exactly this - people looking to back up their opinion often award misses as goals in their final analysis. Why "should" they have been out of sight? If they were better at football they might have been, but they weren't. There wasn't any dark reason why they were robbed of a lead, they just weren't good enough to score.

I agree it's the score that really matters, and the keeper is a big part of a teams quality. Al Habsi had a cracking game and pulled off a number of good saves to keep it at 0-0 up until the penalty.

However, on the balance of play Palace created the majority of scoring opportunities and they should have done better with them and it wasn't down to our good defending or canny tactical organisation that we limited them to 0 goals. It was however, in part, down to Al Habsi's good game on the night, so we do have to give credit to our team for the score after 85 minutes (in the same way as if Long had been playing upfront and scored 3 of 3 difficult chances to put us 3-0 up despite Palace having the better of the game).

I don't think you can just ignore the balance of play and opportunities created in favour of the score. That would be like only analysing points per game as a measure of a managers impact on the club...

[Extended-Phenotype]

So it's not just our ability to stop them scoring, it's their lacking ability to score? Great, well they still don't 'deserve' to have and more goals than we do then.

[Hoop Blah]

I don't think anyone said they deserved to be out of sight by the time of the pen, more a case of they could or should have been a goal or two up.

That's certainly where I was going with it anyway and that they were the more effective team. If I were a Palace fan I'd have been disappointed that we'd not converted a couple of the good opportunities they'd created.

[No Fixed Abode]

:lol:

What was the score before the penalty?

The only score that matters is the one at FT.

It was 0-0 before the penalty which shouldn't have been given, their 2nd goal only came about as we were down to 10 and having to push forward to look for an equaliser.

It's not absurd to suggest it would have ended 0-0 as Palace were certainly struggling to find a goal.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. It was a penalty. There are 90 mins + in a game. Usually one team buckles. Pressure paid off in the end for Palace as Cooper messed up.

[Extended-Phenotype]

The only score that matters is the one at FT.

It was 0-0 before the penalty which shouldn't have been given, their 2nd goal only came about as we were down to 10 and having to push forward to look for an equaliser.

It's not absurd to suggest it would have ended 0-0 as Palace were certainly struggling to find a goal.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. It was a penalty. There are 90 mins + in a game. Usually one team buckles. Pressure paid off in the end for Palace as Cooper messed up.

The same logic then dictates that the suggestion Palace shoulda woulda coulda been more goals up prior to the pen, and therefore deserved to win the game, as false also.

Thanks.

[Extended-Phenotype]

they were the more effective team

Not to beat a point to death or anything but how were they more effective? They had up until that point, scored as many goals as we had.

[Hoop Blah]

They'd created a shed load more chances and pressure.

We'd created very little and, as both sides had failed to score, it's a pretty good tie-breaker as I know which side looked much more likely to score.

[Extended-Phenotype]

They'd created a shed load more chances and pressure.

We'd created very little and, as both sides had failed to score, it's a pretty good tie-breaker as I know which side looked much more likely to score.

The point is football is a game won by scoring more goals than your opponent. If a game is decided by a decision which is unfair, the result is an unfair reflection of the game.
 
To me, it doesn’t matter if one team had 80% of the possession and spent 90 minutes hammering our goal. If by a combination of effective defending, good goal keeping, disciplined positioning and their failure to convert the chances they created, the score remains 0-0, the dominant team no more deserve the win than the defending team.

[Ian Royal]

Care to explain oh wise one or at least express a view-how is this bullshit?
Don't you want us to play a style of football to get promoted and the next time stay there for a bit longer?
Aren't you interested in the type of side Brian builds this time?
Care to do your own analysis or is it beyond you and the limit of your insight is to just call somebody's view "bullshit" and offer zilch yourself?

It's probably something to do with us not playing anything like long ball, that shows your post up to be utter bullshit Vic.

So what do you think Cox was doing for the 60 minutes that he was on the pitch?
From where I was sat he was aimlessly challenging the 2 Palace centre-backs as the ball was hit vaguely in his direction.
Were you actually there Ian this time for one of your rare appearances?
"Utter bullshit"eh?

Rare appearances? I know you're old and struggle to keep abreast of reality Vic but I've had a ST for three years.

We were directer than normal against Palace, though hardly long ball. But that's utterly expected against a better team pilling on the pressure and where you're worried about their pace on the break.

[BR2]

After some excellent posts from Vision and Handbags, we're rapidly back to utter bullshit analysis like this:

Care to explain oh wise one or at least express a view-how is this bullshit?
Don't you want us to play a style of football to get promoted and the next time stay there for a bit longer?
Aren't you interested in the type of side Brian builds this time?
Care to do your own analysis or is it beyond you and the limit of your insight is to just call somebody's view "bullshit" and offer zilch yourself?

For two reasons:
1. For the umpteenth time, we are not playing long ball. A few over-hit balls to Cox doesn't mean we're now playing route one. Personally, I've absolutely no problem with adopting a more direct style - it has brought us the most success after all, and endless sideways passes amongst our back four bores the tits off me.
2. And chiefly, it's the utter bullshit phrase "progressive football". It's just completely meaningless - the sort of corporate horseshit Adkins used to come out with.

Re(1)
Just because you use the bullshit term "umpteenth"time doesn't make it right.
Let's call it "hit and hope football" which better describes the way we play under Brian which is playing it long and as quickly as possible to get into the other half and so often means giving the ball away.
For this to work (have you noticed it isn't working?) we need a big hold-up striker with a secondary striker playing close to him whereas we have 2 playing wide (or at least we did v Palace but maybe not last night) who are too far away to feed off whatever the central striker does.

Re(2)Is "bullshit" your favourite word? No, I see "horseshit" now features in your extensive vocabulary.
As I see it "progressive" football is simply playing through the midfield which most of the more successful sides do, e.g. Barcelona, Arsenal, Bayern Munich,Spurs-in fact most teams.
If we played "hit and hope" successfully then it would be a sound argument to say fine-I don't disagree with you about tippy-tappy at the back but I would prefer seeing much more of the midfield taking the ball off the defenders and moving forward rather than seeing our central defenders and Gunter just launching the ball into no-man's land.

The Palace game highlighted for me how bad we have become in giving the ball way and surely you don't want to see our side do that?
If so, we are at total cross-purposes over what we perceive to be entertaining football.
At the moment I feel that there is little entertainment (look at how many goals we have scored in the league)whether that be long-ball or progressive and (As I said in my earlier post) it will be interesting to see what Brian does with HIS team eventually (something that for some reason you described as "bullshit") and if he will look to play more like what he has been watching at Arsenal these past few years.

[handbags_harris]

I can't but feel a little sad, that we all accept Bolaise's fall to the ground quite so readily. Leaving aside whether or not Jake impeded him, there is no way that his actions would cause any body to fall to the ground so easily.

I know its the modern game and something that we have accept and its one benefit of not being in the Premiership that we have to put with so much of what is plain and simple cheating.

Referees have the power to give yellow cards but its the rare exception that it happens. If it was a regular occurrence, I'm sure we would see less of it. The same with dissent and surrounding referees. I would love to see a top referee just go ahead and give a yellow card to a Man Utd or Chelsea when they get surrounded.

Sorry, gone off on a tangent, thank you for listening.

Agreed in its entirety. The only caveat I would put to that is when contact is made, it is sometimes difficult to judge whether a player has fallen despite the contact, or fallen because of the contact. Sadly it happens at all levels of the game, I have had it in U15's football matches this season that I have officiated in. Part of the referee's territory I suppose, but you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, and if you don't give consistent decisions you're perceived to be weak or poor. Giving decisions based on the merits of what you can see doesn't necessarily equate to consistency. I just wish some coaches and supporters would understand this.

[BR2]

It's probably something to do with us not playing anything like long ball, that shows your post up to be utter bullshit Vic.

So what do you think Cox was doing for the 60 minutes that he was on the pitch?
From where I was sat he was aimlessly challenging the 2 Palace centre-backs as the ball was hit vaguely in his direction.
Were you actually there Ian this time for one of your rare appearances?
"Utter bullshit"eh?

Rare appearances? I know you're old and struggle to keep abreast of reality Vic but I've had a ST for three years.

We were directer than normal against Palace, though hardly long ball. But that's utterly expected against a better team pilling on the pressure and where you're worried about their pace on the break.

Ian, I know you are young and learning about the game (as opposed to being old and supposedly struggling to keep abreast) and I don't know about your ticketing arrangements-everybody on here has you down as the DAB Digital chap sat in his armchair listening to Dellor.
You speak of being more direct than normal-we are always direct, it is normal.
BTW I just couldn't use the word "directer"-to me that is just the mis-spelling of a person with shares in a limited company.

[No Fixed Abode]

They'd created a shed load more chances and pressure.

We'd created very little and, as both sides had failed to score, it's a pretty good tie-breaker as I know which side looked much more likely to score.

The point is football is a game won by scoring more goals than your opponent.
 
.

Yep - Palace scored two more goals than you so what are you arguing about it?

[Extended-Phenotype]

They'd created a shed load more chances and pressure.

We'd created very little and, as both sides had failed to score, it's a pretty good tie-breaker as I know which side looked much more likely to score.

The point is football is a game won by scoring more goals than your opponent.
 
.

Yep - Palace scored two more goals than you so what are you arguing about it?

I'm saying that I don't agree with people claiming that, because Palace had more chances prior to the pen, they deserved to win.

If you think the penalty was just, then fine, you think the result was fair.

If you think the penalty wasn't fair, as I do, then as it was the only thing separating the teams, the result doesn't seem fair.

Surely that's reasonable

[genome]

You have an uncanny ability to only read one sentence of a post and ignore the rest.

[Extended-Phenotype]

You have an uncanny ability to only read one sentence of a post and ignore the rest.

Oh he reads them.

[Hoop Blah]

I'm saying that I don't agree with people claiming that, because Palace had more chances prior to the pen, they deserved to win.

If you think the penalty was just, then fine, you think the result was fair.

If you think the penalty wasn't fair, as I do, then as it was the only thing separating the teams, the result doesn't seem fair.

Surely that's reasonable

They'd created a shed load more chances and pressure.

We'd created very little and, as both sides had failed to score, it's a pretty good tie-breaker as I know which side looked much more likely to score.

The point is football is a game won by scoring more goals than your opponent. If a game is decided by a decision which is unfair, the result is an unfair reflection of the game.

To me, it doesn’t matter if one team had 80% of the possession and spent 90 minutes hammering our goal. If by a combination of effective defending, good goal keeping, disciplined positioning and their failure to convert the chances they created, the score remains 0-0, the dominant team no more deserve the win than the defending team.

Fair enough E-P, but I'll say it again, I don't think anyone has said Palace deserved to win because they'd created more chances and looked the more threatening team, just that perhaps they should've scored more goals by the time of the dodgy penalty decision.

I'm a big believer that performances, over time, get reflected by results. Similar applies in a single game too. More often than not the team that creates more good chances to score will generally win the game and most people will recognise that you're more likely to score if you have more good opportunities.

[tidus_mi2]

Still, you do have the rare occasions where the team who got battered somehow get the win, one of the most prominent ones I remember was the 2008 FA Cup quarter final, Man Utd 0-1 Portsmouth.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... utd-724302