BFTG - Liverpool

[Allyh84]

McCarthy 10
Kelly 7
Mariappa 6
Morrison 7
Gunter 7
McAnuff 8 - Hands down the best I have seen him in a Reading shirt, better than the Cardiff away play off.
Karacan 5 - He suffers from Leigertwood syndrome ie completely inept at Premier League level. Stop running aimlessly and waving your arms!
Guthrie 6
McCleary 8 - Fantastic, his runs and passing in the second half were immense. BLOODY KEEP STARTING HIM NIGEL!
Hunt 7 - Brilliant. Worked his balls off.
Pogrebnyak 7 - Again, for once I thought he was excellent. One of his best performances all season. Worked hard and put in a decent cross for Noel.

People will say we were outplayed but we could have easily won 1 or 2-0 had we taken our good chances ie Hunt's sliding chance, McCleary's spoon into row Z, McAnuff's shot. Bar the Newcastle, Chelsea and Sunderland games, I think that's the best we've played all season. I have to say I am delighted with the team. It feels like a win and the jubilant scenes around y24/25/26 at the end showed that.

[melonhead]

Mcarthy - 10
marriappa/morrison 7
kelly 6
gunter 6
guthrie 7
Mcanuff 8
Karacan 6
Mcleary 7
Pog - 6
Nhunt - 6

Carrico - 9


much better again, good performance, liking the improved "product"

[soggy biscuit]

Front row seats should be issued with protective gear after Guthrie's 'passing' yesterday

[Muskrat]

Best goalkeeping performance from a Reading keeper since Simon Sheppard away at Leicester in 1995.

Liverpool fans a disgrace.

Analyze it, draw a blue line under it and move on

[Maguire]

Front row seats should be issued with protective gear after Guthrie's 'passing' yesterday

There was a moment in the first half when he pinged it out toward the West Stand, didn't et within 30 yards of a Reading player and it sailed out for a throw. The East Stand applauded it

[Snowball]

If Guthrie stays and avoids serious injury he'll be one of the first on the team-sheet
and will regularly make team of the week as we sail into the play-offs and finish
in the top three.

Now he's getting a chance to play his (relative) class is obvious and he will get
better as he settles in even more.

[soggy biscuit]

Exactly the conversation I had with people at the game on Saturday. McAnuff can do no right, Guthrie can do no wrong. Guthrie's passing in the first half was staggeringly poor.

[wingnut]

McCarthy - fantastic performance but I wouldn't give him a 10. His kicking is rubbish and the decision to pass the ball to Morrison in the right back position instead of just sending it nearly cost us a goal twice.

But that's what Adkins kept screaming at him to do. Everytime McCarthy kicked the ball forward, Adkins was yelling at him to pass it out wide.

[Norfolk Royal]

McCarthy - fantastic performance but I wouldn't give him a 10. His kicking is rubbish and the decision to pass the ball to Morrison in the right back position instead of just sending it nearly cost us a goal twice.

But that's what Adkins kept screaming at him to do. Everytime McCarthy kicked the ball forward, Adkins was yelling at him to pass it out wide.

Tbf if Adkins wants to change the style you've got to start somewhere and with us already down these games are the best time to experiment.

[wingnut]

McCarthy - fantastic performance but I wouldn't give him a 10. His kicking is rubbish and the decision to pass the ball to Morrison in the right back position instead of just sending it nearly cost us a goal twice.

But that's what Adkins kept screaming at him to do. Everytime McCarthy kicked the ball forward, Adkins was yelling at him to pass it out wide.

Tbf if Adkins wants to change the style you've got to start somewhere and with us already down these games are the best time to experiment.

I'm not sure I agree with that but that wasn't the point I was making, which was that it was unfair to criticise McCarthy for doing what he was instructed to do.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Some on here are being either a little bit too positive or a little bit too negative. First half was pretty insipid, second half was better although barely one cross found one of our players, almost every one of them by McCleary, Jobi and Guthrie was over-hit.

This has been a bit of a worry all season to be honest; which is a shame – at times we won the ball well, passed it inventively and accurately, did well to get into a good attacking position only to be let down by the final ball or, if on the rare occasion the penultimate pass was successful, undone by a poor shot. Are our players incapable of delivering a decent ball into the box or is it more to do with pressure/bottle than quality? Dunno, something seriously needs addressing though.

Positives were Guthrie’s second half performance (seems a bit odd to be slating his passing on Saturday seeing as he made the most passes in the team and was the most accurate at 79% - couldn't have been that bad, eh?), Carrico’s display and better mix of passing seen by the team. Main highlight was a goalkeeping performance so good it actually worries me (only the day before I was consoling myself on a season so poor that at least losing players to other teams would not be a concern this summer).

But as people have pointed out before – passing football itself doesn’t win you games alone; somebody has to find the net and this game didn’t really fill me with confidence that this team can create or put away enough chances to be as dominant next season as we comfort ourselves believing.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Adkins was literally screaming at the players to get forward more - as so often this season, when we attacked we did it with too little support from midfield most of the time.

But I'm astounded that Pog managed to cross and find Hunt for what was our best chance to score - considering that Hunt was the only Reading player in the box with 5 Liverpool players.

But that's the story of things - outnumbered up front far too often.

[TBM]

Pogrebnyak 7 - Again, for once I thought he was excellent. One of his best performances all season. Worked hard and put in a decent cross for Noel.

Apart from the cross he did fcuk all.......he couldn't even hold on to the ball like he normally does. To me that was just an average performance

[melonhead]

I really fail to see why a lot of people are rating McAnuff so highly? I thought he was very average today bar a couple of runs.
His decision making was poor, he missed placed many passes and failed to capitalise on a few chances

were you watching the same match mate?
really do not understand why so many mongs hate jobi.

Funny mate, didn't realise I said I hate Jobi, just do not understand why people are saying he had a great game

- he made a few basic errors, e.g the throw to him from Gunter ( I think ) which he misplaced out for a throw to them
- the chance where he was running at goal with ALF and Hunt, could have passed or shot, but no he done the usuall and slowed the play down by turning back inside
-He got weights by Coutinho, which is slightly embarrassing
-he tried to gain two penalties ( neither were ) when he knew he lost the ball
-with the shot he had, took far too long and lucky it got the deflection to win the corner as it was going straight into Reina's hands.

if you only concentr8 on the negative, you can come up with similar lists for pretty much any player in any game

[melonhead]

If Guthrie stays and avoids serious injury he'll be one of the first on the team-sheet
and will regularly make team of the week as we sail into the play-offs and finish
in the top three.

Now he's getting a chance to play his (relative) class is obvious and he will get
better as he settles in even more.

[Sanguine]

Perhaps you should take note of your previous post brendy.

As said, he had 79% pass completion. Pretty much rules out his passing being 'staggeringly bad'.

You've got to be a committed miserable not to have seen the huge potential in a Carrico/Guthrie pairing, those two should be the nucleus of the side next season.

[melonhead]

Perhaps you should take note of your previous post brendy.

As said, he had 79% pass completion. Pretty much rules out his passing being 'staggeringly bad'.

You've got to be a committed miserable not to have seen the huge potential in a Carrico/Guthrie pairing, those two should be the nucleus of the side next season.

said that in post on the carrico thread tbf.
some of his passes were staggeringly bad. but like i also said on another thread, that goes for all of our players.
agree they "should" be the nucleus, and that would be the basis of a championship winning midfield imo.

im merely laughing at the idea of him being head and shoulder above anyone in this team. and also at the idea of him staying(though i really hope he does, due to the above)
hes been as good, or as bad as anyone. what he gains in passing stats he loses in other areas.

[soggy biscuit]

Guthrie does do a great job at making himself look dynamic in situations where he fails to deliver. He is your classic arm waving, finger pointing, scampering sideways player who makes it look like there is a lot of urgency and passion about what he does. I noticed a number of times when the fans groaned at something he would then charge back to the defence and demand they gave him the ball as if to suggest that he was taking charge of the sorry situation, he would then point a lot, wave his arms around in a demanding fashion before unleashing a 10 yard pass off the side of the pitch at which point he would look to the heavens and shake his head in disbelief that he was having to play with such poor footballers.

The mong element would then lap it up and applaud the dynamic player who obviously wants to take game by the scruff of the neck but somehow somewhere McAnuff probably messed things up for him.

[melonhead]

[St. Brynjar]

Guthrie does do a great job at making himself look dynamic in situations where he fails to deliver. He is your classic arm waving, finger pointing, scampering sideways player who makes it look like there is a lot of urgency and passion about what he does. I noticed a number of times when the fans groaned at something he would then charge back to the defence and demand they gave him the ball as if to suggest that he was taking charge of the sorry situation, he would then point a lot, wave his arms around in a demanding fashion before unleashing a 10 yard pass off the side of the pitch at which point he would look to the heavens and shake his head in disbelief that he was having to play with such poor footballers.

The mong element would then lap it up and applaud the dynamic player who obviously wants to take game by the scruff of the neck but somehow somewhere McAnuff probably messed things up for him.

I give up.