BFTG Wednesday (A)

[Denver Royal]

Don't pay too much attention to 2WW1WC, he's a bit of a crank and a classic shit weather poster.

He actually wants us to go down just so he can say he was right.

Would like to think he's alone in wanting that, but sometimes I wonder.

[Denver Royal]

If Oliveira played that might have made the difference between us collecting one point or three.

Quite possible.

[MR. CYNICAL]

Agree with world wars, can't remember a Reading team so incapable of scoring goals, its almost like a jinx, would be a miracle if we stay up with this lot

[Maneki Neko]

Start by sorting out the defence and work from there.

Hes got the first bit sorted.

[Kitsondinho]

Start by sorting out the defence and work from there.

Hes got the first bit sorted.

Exactly. Under Clement we would have lost that match (and probably season 2 Stam) by at least 2. It may be boring at the moment, but if it keeps us up I for one will not be complaining! The match on Wednesday against Blackburn is now pretty huge. A win would be a massive step forward.

[Old Man Andrews]

Couple of people don't seem to understand the value of keeping clean sheets which is worrying.

The goals will come. You can visibly see the players are gaining in confidence and that confidence will spread from the defence to attack in time. It's all about our next two home games now, they will make or break our season. 6 points from the Blackburn and Rotherham games gets our heads above water.

[Kitsondinho]

Couple of people don't seem to understand the value of keeping clean sheets which is worrying.

The goals will come. You can visibly see the players are gaining in confidence and that confidence will spread from the defence to attack in time. It's all about our next two home games now, they will make or break our season. 6 points from the Blackburn and Rotherham games gets our heads above water.

Agreed. Keep playing like yesterday and we should stay up.

[Snowflake Royal]

Start by sorting out the defence and work from there.

Hes got the first bit sorted.

Exactly. Under Clement we would have lost that match (and probably season 2 Stam) by at least 2. It may be boring at the moment, but if it keeps us up I for one will not be complaining! The match on Wednesday against Blackburn is now pretty huge. A win would be a massive step forward.

Given Clement and Gomes points accumulation is very similar that's not a strong point.

You can't win if you don't score, but you still can if you concede.

It's great we're conceding fewer. But those wins and goals have to start coming soon.

[From Despair To Where?]

A clean sheet guarantees you something out of the match.

[Snowflake Royal]

A clean sheet guarantees you something out of the match.

And a point a game is likely to lead to relegation.

[Snowball]

A point a game from here on in could keep us up as Rotherham will do well to manage that

[Snowflake Royal]

I believe 2 points total could keep us up. I like to aim for more than just hoping someone else saves us by being utter shit though.

Especially seeing as it would bode very badly for next season if it came off at all.

[Kitsondinho]

Start by sorting out the defence and work from there.

Hes got the first bit sorted.

Exactly. Under Clement we would have lost that match (and probably season 2 Stam) by at least 2. It may be boring at the moment, but if it keeps us up I for one will not be complaining! The match on Wednesday against Blackburn is now pretty huge. A win would be a massive step forward.

Given Clement and Gomes points accumulation is very similar that's not a strong point.

You can't win if you don't score, but you still can if you concede.

It's great we're conceding fewer. But those wins and goals have to start coming soon.

Given that Gomes hasn’t been in charge anywhere near as long as Clement was AND he seems to be parking the defensive clown car, I’ll not be worrying about PPG just now. Moyes and Mourinho had similar PPGs at Man Utd. Doesn’t make Moyes as good a manager as Jose. Not losing right now is key. The wins will come.

[URZZZZ]

Start by sorting out the defence and work from there.

Hes got the first bit sorted.

Exactly. Under Clement we would have lost that match (and probably season 2 Stam) by at least 2. It may be boring at the moment, but if it keeps us up I for one will not be complaining! The match on Wednesday against Blackburn is now pretty huge. A win would be a massive step forward.

Given Clement and Gomes points accumulation is very similar that's not a strong point.

You can't win if you don't score, but you still can if you concede.

It's great we're conceding fewer. But those wins and goals have to start coming soon.

No point in trying to argue with them, they're so blinkered by the truth they're never going to accept another argument towards Gomes. I seem to recall many people complaining about our 0-0 draw with Wigan, calling it a drab game, yet they were above Wednesday at the time, and these are the same people praising yesterday's draw like we just drew to Barcelona

[Woodcote Royal]

Exactly. Under Clement we would have lost that match (and probably season 2 Stam) by at least 2. It may be boring at the moment, but if it keeps us up I for one will not be complaining! The match on Wednesday against Blackburn is now pretty huge. A win would be a massive step forward.

Given Clement and Gomes points accumulation is very similar that's not a strong point.

You can't win if you don't score, but you still can if you concede.

It's great we're conceding fewer. But those wins and goals have to start coming soon.

Given that Gomes hasn’t been in charge anywhere near as long as Clement was AND he seems to be parking the defensive clown car, I’ll not be worrying about PPG just now. Moyes and Mourinho had similar PPGs at Man Utd. Doesn’t make Moyes as good a manager as Jose. Not losing right now is key. The wins will come.

Agreed. This is exactly what Pardew did when he first arrived. It wasn't pretty but it stopped the rot and things slowly got better.

I also agree we may not need much more than a point a game as those around us don't look like getting that many. 2 more points than Rotherham should do it.

[From Despair To Where?]

A clean sheet guarantees you something out of the match.

And a point a game is likely to lead to relegation.

You can't lose if you don't concede, but you still can even if you score. See, you can spin it both ways, Ian and it does make me wonder how you would have spun it if we were getting these results under Clement.

As an aside, I seem to remember that conventional wisdom when Gomes signed was that his teams were shit defensively.

As a first step, it's more important to make yourself harder to beat. It gives you a stronger foundation to build on and spreads the belief that you will always be in the game rather than knowing that you have to score to have any chance.

It also affects the mentality of the opposition. I see people saying that we were a last minute sitter away from losing on Saturday. That's what happens when you are harder to break down, it puts pressure on the oposition and they snatch at chances. Continue that over a longer period and the opposition start taking more risks which creates better opportunities for us.

We've had a soft underbelly giving away too many cheap goals for too long. I'm not going to pretend that all is rosey, it clearly isn't but we are now hitting a run of potentially weaker teams more content that we are less likely to throw away games with stupid defensive mistakes.

[Snowflake Royal]

A clean sheet guarantees you something out of the match.

And a point a game is likely to lead to relegation.

You can't lose if you don't concede, but you still can even if you score. See, you can spin it both ways, Ian and it does make me wonder how you would have spun it if we were getting these results under Clement.

As an aside, I seem to remember that conventional wisdom when Gomes signed was that his teams were shit defensively.

As a first step, it's more important to make yourself harder to beat. It gives you a stronger foundation to build on and spreads the belief that you will always be in the game rather than knowing that you have to score to have any chance.

It also affects the mentality of the opposition. I see people saying that we were a last minute sitter away from losing on Saturday. That's what happens when you are hard to break down, it puts pressure on the oposition and they snatch at chances. Continue that over a longer period and the opposition start taking more risks which creates better oportunities for us.

We've had a soft underbelly giving away too many cheap goals for too long.

You get more points for winning mate and as I said a point a game is relegation form.

There seem to be a lot of people who were distinctly unhappy with this level of performance under Stam and Clement who are somehow praising it now.

Well I'm not drinking the coolaid. Gomes was hired to improve results and that's what I expect him to do before I'll buy in to his cult.

As for how I'd have reacted under Clement? Well in the period before he was sacked he was picking up more points than Gomes is now, we were scoring more and games entertained me more. Plus we wouldn't have completely fallen apart like we did under Marshall IMO, so given we're only a point behind Rovrum now, I reckon we'd be a couple of points outside the zone and I'd be happier.

[From Despair To Where?]

Under Stam and Clement, we were soft as shit defensively and we had problems all over the pitch. Rome wasn't built in a day but we're laying the foundations. It's a start.

[Hound]

The big thing for me, on admittedly limited viewing of Gomes games, is that it seems to be largely down to the personnel

Miazga and Martinez look just what we need and hopefully Blackett can stay at LB now rather than square pegs etc

Once Oliveira is back, as long as there are no lasting after affects of Mings thuggery, then we should be capable of scoring enough

Wouldn’t say I’m massively impressed with what Gomes has achieved so far, but relatively optimistic for the rest of the season

[From Despair To Where?]

So Gomes has recruited better.