Well, the bubble was well and truly burst today.

Firstly, credit to Fulham, they got their tactics spot on. We just couldn't deal with their high press and pace and they forced us into giving the ball away countless times in the first half. Second half was just ridiculous, so much time and space and gaps for the Fulham players to run through. Utterly baffling.

Also, their no. 24 had an absolute blinder.

A few game changing moments, Couldn't see the red card or the incident for the 3rd goal, so no comment. But for Samuel to shoot instead of pass when it was 2-0 was infuriating.

Every time I have seen JVDB he's been a liability. Am I missing something? To be fair, most of the team were just not at the races.

Worrying afternoon but I don't think it will affect us like last season. I hope...

Not for the first time we cant cope with team pressing high. You'd think that with us playing this style the players would have been coached in what to do in those circumstances. If they have, then it would seem that the solution they've been told is to panic.

Well that was fun

Great day out. Terrible football. Every single year.

You know, I don't think I've ever been more appreciative of spending 3 hours on a Ryanair flight instead of going to the football.

Utter shite - no more to say than that.

Al Habsi was Reading MOTM - after a 5-0 drubbing!

Totally agree with comment about Joey - looked like a bad park player today.

Had a bad feeling the wheels might come off today and boy did they, we were shocking

Fourth time I have been to Fulham and we have lost every one - will stay away next time or maybe just come over to Putney and stay in the pub. What a pity we cannot turn in a performance that would truly make Fulham the perfect away day !

Totally agree with comment about Joey - looked like a bad park player today.

Had a bad feeling the wheels might come off today and boy did they, we were shocking

Fourth time I have been to Fulham and we have lost every one - will stay away next time or maybe just come over to Putney and stay in the pub. What a pity we cannot turn in a performance that would truly make Fulham the perfect away day !

Let me know which away match you're going to next year and I'll give it a miss.

I'm still so shocked and angry that I don't know what to say. Having said that the less said the better.

Diabolical and the players didn't even clap the fans. Pathetic

Blackett looked lost at centre back. Gave Obita next to no cover.

One decent cross-field pass aside, Joey was utterly abject.

Everything Beerens touched turned to sh!t.

After the "offside" 3rd goal we just gave up.

Al-Habsi terrible positioning for their 5th.

In all, an absolute omnishambles. When the system breaks, it certainly does it in spectacular style.

And yet, the net result is we've just fallen one point further behind Brighton.

We'll win next week.

Apparently it was a Beckham-Simeone type incident according to Mick G.

Fulham fans were very poor, and the happy clappers

look at the stars for the last two games. 49 efforts on goal. City couldn`t finish. Flulham could. if Wednesday have 20 next week we will lose. end of.

Utter shite.

Well that's a bump back to earth.

Firstly, as bad as I thought we were, Fulham were excellent. Gave us no time on the ball and created so much space. However, we were terrible, didn't win the 50/50s or second balls. All summed up by al- habsi passing it to their player in the first 5 mins. You can't really pinpoint one bad performer, everyone was a shambles.

ps if anyone saw the headbutt at half time on the concourse was at it bad as it sounded. Certainly something we should ever ever see between Reading fans!

Those clappers that Fulham were using were just totally cringe worthy. It's one of the many reasons I dislike Leicester - just put the fckers down. Nowt worse than seeing them all just slapping them against their hand

Didn't see that but I did see some argy bargy down in the concourse near P6 but it was just pushing really and no actual punches/etc...

My first away game of the season and sitting with my Fulham-supporting mate in with the Fulham fans!! A thoroughly miserable experience but born out of a thoroughly miserable performance by Reading. 'I hate to say this', my mate said after the game, 'but, to be honest, you are the worst side we have played at The Cottage this season!'. And, being honest myself, Fulham were the best Championship side I have seen all season!!

From the kick off we were not at the races. Fulham pressed us high and chased every ball and every lost cause and we had no answer. My mate had warned me that his team were making plenty of chances but couldn't hit the target and he was - thankfully - right! It needed one of our own players to put them one up at half-time when they should have been 3 or 4 to the good!! We had no rhythm, no fluency and, unforgivably, no fight!! Simple passes were going to the opposition; we were second to every 50-50 ball and badly losing the mid-field battle.

In contrast, Fulham were quick, clever and up for the game. The slick passes and flick-ons were working for them and they looked several classes above us. I didn't see the incident that led to Williams being sent off but, with 10 men, we actually looked more up for the fight until they scored the 3rd goal! Then the heads went down and I was grateful we kept the scoreline to 5-0!! This was only thanks to some wayward shooting and some good AAH saves.

Can we recover from this? Is it just a blip? I hope so. But it was this fixture that ended our season last year and that was only 4-2!! Next game we welcome Moore back but lose Williams for 3 games. No signs of Swift returning and Kermorgant and Rackels are also out of action. Sheffield Wednesday are on a good run of form and will severely test our depleted squad next Saturday. It is up to Stam to raise that squad's spirits and get them back to form. At least we are still 3rd in the table!!

Ok so we played shit and got stuffed, so what.

Stam had taken us to an unbelievable 3rd in the table and we were missing Moore and still don't have a striker and Fulham used tactics that worked on us.

I suspect we'll learn from all this and our next run will be even more impressive.

I think the worry we all have niggling in the backs of our minds is has it all been fake up until now and will the team implode like we did last year especially now with the ownership malarkey too unsettling everyone like the Clarke-Fulham talks did.

I doubt it, but who knows.

Ok so we played shit and got stuffed, so what.

Stam had taken us to an unbelievable 3rd in the table and we were missing Moore and still don't have a striker and Fulham used tactics that worked on us.

I suspect we'll learn from all this and our next run will be even more impressive.

I think the worry we all have niggling in the backs of our minds is has it all been fake up until now and will the team implode like we did last year especially now with the ownership malarkey too unsettling everyone like the Clarke-Fulham talks did.

I doubt it, but who knows.

Complete and utter shambles of a performance including the manager. Finally a team put a well organised high press on us right from the start and we couldn't deal with it. Got completely battered for the first 15 minutes at which point any decent manager would have changed shape to calm the game down a bit. Dropping Evans in and going to 3 centre backs would have got Obita and Gunter back to being wing backs to stop their full backs bombing forward. Go two up front and just turn their back four for 10 minutes and the dynamics of the game change. What he actually did was stood and watched the inevitable unfold.
Everyone was awful but Beerens is an absolute liability when we're not on top in a game. The Fulham right back constantly overlapped against Obita with Beerens watching from afar.
Apart from all that, good day out in Putney as always

Have calmed down a bit now and can comment, but this post is the story of the day. Obita was outclassed, and with Beerens missing in action their right back was doing what we really need Gunter to do. Everyone was poor really - they just seemed to run through us all the time. Some good saves from AlHabsi but WTF are all the short goal kicks about? And, when we did have an opportunity (at 2-0 / 3-0 down) to get a fast ball out he just stood there looking around. Where's the urgency, the counter attack? FFS you were 2/3 down not 2/3 up!!

Very disappointing - I hope they got a massive bollocking at half time and after the match. If I was a Chinese (would be) investor and saw that today I'd be laughing all the way back to Hull ...

Dellor asking on Twitter when the last time a team in third place in any league lost 5-0 or greater.

4 games ago, Fulham 5-0 Huddersfield.

Short memory there Tim.

For some reason I can't stop laughing at how pixellated his profile picture is on Twitter.

MOM? That clearance in the first few minutes was truly awful. Not to mention the clearances of out hand straight into touch in the second half.

No player deserves the accolade after such a poor team performance.

.

Shows how fragile we are. Going to be an up and down season. Stam and the management team has some work to do next summer.

Liam Kelly was a bright spark when he came in and McShane did OK. Other than that poor all round, with Beerens the stand out worse player. Joey and Evans can't play in the same midfield together either. Difficult selection in midfield next week for Stam with Williams suspended.

It must have been bad - 3points cant even acknowledge he was with me at the game ...

Agree that Kelly was a bright spark. 100% for effort that's for sure.

Doubt Stam was impressed with his Captain picking up a booking in the first two minutes of a game for dissent.