It was bloody freezing. We were pretty poor all round. Al-Habsi made several decent saves. The less said about Taylor the better after that tonight. Though Evans was also pretty awful, but he will learn from games like this. Danny Wiiliams was back to his headless chicken 'best'. On a plus we must sign Ola John permanently in the summer because he made us tick going forward again. Before he came on we were so slow going forward and those lovely sideways passes were back. I suspect we'll be in for a few more games like this as the season drifts to it's conclusion!! Did I mention it was cold?!

Honestly, it was fukking appalling.

Shameful performance where it was clear no one really cared, including 99% of the fans.

4s for everyone. Gave up after the first goal, though they weren't that keen before hand. Actually John was decent, but no more than that. 6 for his cameo.

Special mention to McCleary who should be turned into glue, a shadow of his former self.

Had a good laugh though. Can't wait til Friday. URZZZZ

Verdict from a pal who is a journalist covering Huddersfield (he does not support them):

"difficult one to judge tonight. Town dominated the ball, as we're used to now, but didn't create much first half, although Wells had two one-on-ones that he struck against Al Habsi and should have scored. Reading did nowt.
Early goal after the break was soft. Another one-on-one for Wells after a weak back header from Gunter. Took it round Al Habsi, but if he'd wanted to get back he might have pressured the finish. He just gave it up. If Reading had come for a point, they had to come out after that and Town got round the back again for the second. Wells missed a great headed chance, but the third was awful from a Reading perspective. They all stopped and Dean Whitehead somehow ended up on the byline and knocked it back for the young kid Bojaj to tap in his first senior goal. Really poor goal to give away. And with about 8 seconds left, Ola John let fly from 30 yards and buried it. Great strike.

Reading couldn't get Kermorgant in the game, largely as a result of Town's pressing. Hector was good, Evans and Williams were OK in front of the defence, but other than that it was all a bit meh. Rakels spends too much time on the floor, Cooper is big lump and Gunter didn't win any friends tonight. Clearly there are bigger fish to fry this week, but it followed the pattern of the other three games this season, albeit with Town ultimately able to convert pressure into goals.
Ref was awful.

In summary, you didn't miss much."

You both deserve fukcing medals for going last night.

It was Taylor who played in Wells. Even the neutral journos are trying to make Gunter the escapegoat.

won money on 3-1 last night, though that doesnt make it feel any better.
before the lord mayors show, vs a team who has our number and has done for a while.
Meh.

Made the trip last night, I thought the team he put out was surprisingly strong and definitely good enough to win the game.

Al-Habsi kept us in with two crucial saves. I don't agree with the Cooper slagging in the "journalists" report above. He was doing well, I thought the goals (bar the calamitous first which we don't need to talk about) were poor in the build up and then allowing the cross to come over.

Rakels was isolated out on the left wing. Taylor looked frustrated with Piazon's lack of tracking back.

We move on.

Sounds just like the Watford game last year. Let's move on quickly

Credit to those who went. How many did we take?

It doesn't really matter how strong a side is on paper if they know the club don't really give a toss about the result then they're not going to be giving their all. What we got was a result of that and shouldn't really surprise anyone.

big Friday night cup tie coming up, and many of them could have played themselves into contention.
that said, they probably knew if they played last night, they weren't in the plans for Friday (gunter/hector aside)

also - theres giving a shit, and then theres giving a shit more than Friday nights game.

defo not surprised though

I'm not sure if they could have played themselves into contention though. After the match on Saturday Brian sounded like he knew what his side was going to be for Friday.

Unless there are injuries I'm sure Brian knew his side for Friday and last night was going to have no influence on it.

that said, they probably knew if they played last night, they weren't in the plans for Friday (gunter/hector aside)

so if Williams/Mcleary scored a hat trick they wouldn't have been considered?

Well maybe, but probably not. Realistically that would've just been a freak event that I'd doubt the pragmatic McDermott would see as more compelling proof of their suitability for the Palace game over the last dozen games and 3 months of training.

There were 6 changes from the side that drew 2-2 with Fulham but based on the performance last night, none of them boosted their chances of playing Friday, I think the 5 who remained will be involved regardless apart from Kermogant who is cup tied, so that's: Al-Habsi, Gunter, Hector and Cooper accounted for.

Of the rest who might make it? McCleary if HRK is injured and Rakels probably as he and Cox are our only available striking options.

Ferdinand for Cooper if he's fit.

Not very many. Made it to the bar at half time easily enough though. Twice

Couldn't have been many more than 100.

I don't agree with that journo - I thought Hector was really poor.

I'll just add that the scoreline flattered us. HTFC got in behind us so many times and had so much freedom to run at our defence. Luckily their finishing was fairly attrocious with Wells the worst of the culprits.

Even more disappointingly, from our perspective, is that they reckoned they were rubbish with some fans claiming it was one of the worst performances under Wagner.

Man of the Match: CountryRoyal - it would have been a library without him

Now I know who was standing up in front of me blocking my view
Anyway, I too agree with those who said the journo above was not that accurate. Huddersfield were a poor, direct side. We were pretty awful. Nothing happened for most of the game. All the chances for both teams (apart from John's thunderbolt) were from poor, poor defending. Also the ref wasn't that bad. Our 'goal' in the 7th min was offside. GMac did fall down easily when in the box in the 2nd half. Cooper made a fair tackle when he was surrounded by Huddersfield players. He got a few things wrong but nothing major.

Talking of money, did you put your money where your mouth is the other day and back us to make the top 6?.

I went to this last night, what a steaming pile of dogshit.

We were woeful, it appeared that we set up to not get involved or put in a tackle or even pass to a team mate. We were timewasting from the start. I wonder if Brian just told them not get too tired for the 1/4 final.

If we play 100 times better than that we still lose to 95% of the teams in the league. Credit to Huddersfield they played with tempo and closed is down where we were happy to let them have the ball for extended periods. However, a half decent team would have buried us by the break.

The Bovril was quite nice Though.

..and my lad with his non stop chorus of Blue Army .....I thought that the Huddersfield fans to our right were fantastic.

..and my lad with his non stop chorus of Blue Army .....I thought that the Huddersfield fans to our right were fantastic.
I'd agree about the HTFC fans, although they did seem a little disappointed that we weren't remotetly interested in any aggro......

Talking of money, did you put your money where your mouth is the other day and back us to make the top 6?.
He doesn't back us to make the top six, he isn't (wasn't) writing us off finishing in the top six.

Thank you sir, you're too kind. I look forward to my man of the match bottle of champagne.

I'll share it around, naturally.

Ah well based on the football on display I was doing you a favour.

I'm still waiting for an apology from McDermott. He says he's glad it's out the way, no comfort to fans who were there. Cup tie is no excuse, an expensive side was out there. Worse than Adkins or Clarke evever were even in their direst monotony.

Ah well based on the football on display I was doing you a favour.