Reading v Derby match day thread.

[RoyMac5]

1 minute ago, YorkshireRam said:

So you can't answer my question?

Nope.

[YorkshireRam]

Just now, RoyMac5 said:

Nope.

Why say anything at all then? If your opinions are as uneducated as you're admitting they are, as to be indefensible by yourself, then why comment in the first place? 

[Mihangel]

2 hours ago, Shuff264 said:

I don't think that performance is too far off from for we have been playing for a while, we've just been relying on someone doing something brilliant to drag us through.

NML looks off it, as he did around this time last season which is a worry as he has so often been out difference maker 

This - I was definitely on the Warne needs time team earlier in the season and I'm certainly not advocating sacking him but I've come to the conclusion that this is Warne's team and his way and I don't think it's terribly encouraging.

[RoyMac5]

3 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

Why say anything at all then? If your opinions are as uneducated as you're admitting they are, as to be indefensible by yourself, then why comment in the first place? 

Because it's not a competition between me and you. I'm commenting on Warne and the football he has us playing. You disagree, you've said why, I've said why. That's enough.

Edited January 24 by RoyMac5

[Mihangel]

46 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Some simple passes going astray are from the passer expecting the wide player to continue his run down the line. Others are from being caught under pressure. Both of these are a direct result from alack of coaching those aspects of play

Yep, in a nut shell.

[YorkshireRam]

Just now, RoyMac5 said:

Because it's not a competition between me and you. I'm commenting on Warne and the football he has us playing. You disagree, you've said why, I've said. That's enough.

It's not enough. You've made a disparaging comment that you can't explain. That's nonsense. If you can't back up negative claims you make, then I don't think you should make the comments in the first place. Very simple concept. 

[RoyMac5]

Just now, YorkshireRam said:

It's not enough. You've made a disparaging comment that you can't explain. That's nonsense. If you can't back up negative claims you make, then I don't think you should make the comments in the first place. Very simple concept. 

Well I'm amused to hear you don't think I should make comments - disparaging? - on a football forum. Do you have any football related comments to make?

[MACKWORTHRAM]

4 minutes ago, Mihangel said:

This - I was definitely on the Warne needs time team earlier in the season and I'm certainly not advocating sacking him but I've come to the conclusion that this is Warne's team and his way and I don't think it's terribly encouraging.

People saying Warne was admitting to bypass the midfield too. He's not saying that at all. He's said that Reading like to press and press quick. So don't take too many touches in midfield, move the ball quickly. Essentially get the ball out wide and beat the press. Which we did and were it not for poor passes to set Wilson away or poor crosses who knows what could have happened. Ultimately these were the reasons we had no shots on target.

Similarly people seem to be beating Warne with a stick about playing Wilson at right back and not rotating the squad.

He's not been able to in recent games has he. Nyambe is not here. Smith is injured. Who would have gone in at right back you'd imagine. Thompson has only just come back. Fornah has been poorly the last two games. So he's had 5 midfielders with only two available. Collins is essentially our only fit striker with Waghorn and Washington out and TJJ made of biscuits.

Out wide you've got Barkhuizen, Wilson and NML as your main options. So he's not been able to rotate any of them. 

Now Nyambe will be back soon and Blackett-Taylor is in, Thompson is fit, Korey Smith can't he far off and Fornah is back. Plus getting another striker in and Waghorn and Washington fit means he will have the chance to rotate his squad.

But over the last few games it's been really difficult for Warne to rotate the squad because their hasn't been options to do so in the areas we need to.

[Ghost of Clough]

7 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

Sorry mate but that's absolutely ridiculous. You can blame Warne for certain things but players not being able to play simple passes is not on him.

Hourihane last night had two where all he needs to do is slip Wilson in down the right and he's in acres and passed both out of play. 

Players have to take a certain amount of responsibility also. The quality of balls in and the final third were atrocious, so was the decision making.

I didn't intend to imply it's all down to Warne. Mereley, a focus on situational passing in training and working on when to make the runs and when not to will improve the success of our passing during matches. If training wasn't a factor, then why do teams bother doing it? The best passing teams in the world rehearse how they're going to pass it from back to front, so much so they can almost do it blind-folded during games. It's no different at our level - the more practice put towards something, generally the better you are at it...

[Caerphilly Ram]

19 minutes ago, The Big One said:

For how terrible we were, I thought Reading were decent last night, god knows how they are bottom 3.  If they keep that core team together and no fire sales i think they will stay up.  Imagine they will be a force next season if rumoured Mike Ashley or GymShark buys them and some shrewd transfer business.

Points deductions have played a part haven’t they? Given how pants our performance was, looking at Reading’s recent form they have been in reasonably good touch.

[tomsdubs]

11 hours ago, Grumpy Git said:

Kevin Hector at 70 odd would have done better than Collo tonight.

Every pass or cross sent in his direction tonight was nowhere near him or they read it like a book, prime Ronaldo could have been up there tonight would have made shag all difference.

[SillyBilly]

11 minutes ago, The Big One said:

For how terrible we were, I thought Reading were decent last night, god knows how they are bottom 3.  If they keep that core team together and no fire sales i think they will stay up.  Imagine they will be a force next season if rumoured Mike Ashley or GymShark buys them and some shrewd transfer business.

I live locally and go to a few games at Reading (I was in the Derby end last night though), I honestly thought we'd smash them last night, they are in the bottom 3 for a reason, from what I have seen it was not Reading being decent, we flattered them and it was us being absolutely miles off it that resulted in the game as we saw it, we made them look like a side they're not. The table doesn't lie, they're poor. I want them to stay up as my local team but I don't think many teams will give them as soft a performance as we gave them last night.

I didn't post last night, more through confusion and having to process the performance internally when I'd had time to cool off, had we really barely mustered a shot on target against as limited a side as Reading? On reflection, this may do us good is my conclusion, clearly we're not quite what we thought we were and it may sharpen everybody's minds (fanbase and management) about what it is going to take to get out the league. A humbling every now and again provided we learn from it and go on another good run is not the end of the world. 

It was really disappointing though. I won't lay into anything more than others have, my observations were pretty much the same as most on here. Namely we had zero control off the midfield (partly by design/tactics, partly by personnel) and that the Bird/Hourihane combination remains a constant question. Very predicatable play, we had a few half chances but never once felt like we'd score. Was a difficult watch with the one dimensional play, that hasn't changed in fairness but its the same case where a win by any means easily glosses over poor football (I just want out the league and will put up with anything providing we do), when we play like that and lose we obviously get more of a kickback. Warne's football has to deliver promotion otherwise you quesiton why we'd pay to watch it.

[MACKWORTHRAM]

8 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

I didn't intend to imply it's all down to Warne. Mereley, a focus on situational passing in training and working on when to make the runs and when not to will improve the success of our passing during matches. If training wasn't a factor, then why do teams bother doing it? The best passing teams in the world rehearse how they're going to pass it from back to front, so much so they can almost do it blind-folded during games. It's no different at our level - the more practice put towards something, generally the better you are at it...

No I agree with you there mate.

I think we do have that. Last night for example I can think of twice where the movement was there, you can see it's rehearsed. Yet Hourihane (who out of our squad has the biggest pedigree and played at the higher level) inexplicably puts too much on a basic pass to set Wilson clear. 

That's what Warne cannot legislate for in my opinion. 

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, Dcfcsr92 said:

I couldnt care how many points we are off top 2! We are play sh!t teams we should be beating them you could get any manager in and we would be here minium. I just want us to play a style of football so it enjoyable 

Ah, so it's style you want, not results?

You don't get points for style. It's great of you can achieve both, but I very much care about how many points we are off the top, because that will dictate which division we're playing in next season, and I'd prefer it to be the Championship. As it stands, Warne has a better chance of taking us there than a new manager with no chance to bring in "his" players and no chance of a honeymoon period. Sacking a manager when you're in the play-off positions doesn't have a great history of success AFAICR.

 

[Ram-Alf]

1 hour ago, Dcfcsr92 said:

Is it tho? CBT said the 12-18 month plan so does that mean he has another year at getting promotion? I think warnes happy at playing the long game and keeping us in league 1 its crap! The football is crap and the resaults are starting to be crap again 

Wow that's some statement yoof what's it based on...2 away games?, Teams have a wobble or in Crewtons mind a "Wibble 😁", I was really hoping we'd be sitting on top of the division this Morning, It would have been nice to see for all the hard work that's been put in the last couple of months...but alas we're not.

There's no magic wand where football is concerned, Players have to want it, I believe last night they wanted it, Unfortunately a team called Reading put the mockers on their plans, A Reading that are in turmoil but a Reading team that has a pretty good performance rating this last 6 games.

I was disappointed last night...so much so that I turned down a free ticket for Saturdays game, I'm a bit like you I can get wound up by results and performances, PW commented after the Burton game when asked "have we a few more gears to go through" PW said "maybe we are at 5th gear now" so this is it, We're a league1 team with League1 players that sometimes play well and sometimes play bad, Just because we get the top end of 26/28k home gates and we have EPL standard ground and training facilities, We need better players to go with it...ATM we have a squad capable of getting to the play offs at the very least...time will tell if Warnes happy to stay down with the dead men 😉 

[DavesaRam]

Well I got lucky last night! Woo Hoo! But only in that I didn't watch the match! But I have done my penance by reading this thread all the way through, so now I am as miserable as everybody else!

Someone said that Warne in one of his interviews admitted to by-passing the midfield, and that he only wanted the midfield players to have two touches of the ball - one to control it, and the second to move the ball on , either to where it came from, or out to the wings. I appreciate the desire to get the ball forwards quickly, and is why I enjoyed the change from Rosenior-ball, which was based on boring the opposition  to sleep then attacking them while they were indisposed. And by-passing midfield is the problem, probably in more ways than one. If you remember when we went to Cheltenham, who were the weakest team in League One, who hadn't scored, and who had a non-existent midfield, so Warne decided to by-pass the midfield that wasn't there!!! Duhhh!!! And so caused the debacle of that match. It, and the matches immediately before and after triggered the fan response, which got everyone bollocked for not licking Warne's feet all the time. And suddenly there was a change, starting with the Lincoln (?) cup match where we played really well, as if he just sent the team out and let them get on with doing their thing! And we embarked on the good run, where we started to involve the  midfield, and played the ball at ground level, and Collins started to put himself in the penalty are instead of out on the wings.

Up until we were completely outplayed by Peterborough, since when we have slowly reverted back to what caused the fan outrage again. Did Warne use Peterborough's superiority to say "Right! That's it. We got outplayed, so its back to doing it my way"? Pure conjecture, but hopefully you can see where the idea fits in. So apparently all we did at Reading was get the ball out wide and lump the crosses in to our resident absentee striker/general offside man, and may have pointed out that all they had to do was double up in the flanks and Derby were like the proverbial Dalek at the foot of the stairs. Duhhh!!!! Again!

Re the lack of passion and overall sloppy play: we have seen it from time to time, especially early on in the season, but not to the levels described last night. Could it be that the players are hacked off being forced to play sub-football, because they know they are capable of so much more? When you have Bird and Hourihane who are capable of playing a bit, but who are forced to just boot the ball to the wings or simply up the field? Did any of you see de Bruyne's return after injury in the match against Newcastle United? He came on midway through the second half and transformed the match. We could sign three de Bruynes and you'd never know they were on the pitch because of our abuse of midfield! Is that why so many people are fed up of Bird's apparent invisibility? (Now there's a conundrum!) Are the players therefore on a go slow in protest?

A few weeks ago I was right on the edge of "Warne Out", but his apparent change of heart after the fans kicked off, and the good run made me shift back to backing the guy. If we carry on with this non-football against Cheltenham, I won't just move back to "Warne Out", I will be thinking of setting up a Crowd-fund to get him out. I am that cross and disappointed. Imagine who angry I might be if I'd had to watch the match as well!

Edited January 24 by DavesaRam

[Ghost of Clough]

3 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Ah, so it's style you want, not results?

You don't get points for style. It's great of you can achieve both, but I very much care about how many points we are off the top, because that will dictate which division we're playing in next season, and I'd prefer it to be the Championship. As it stands, Warne has a better chance of taking us there than a new manager with no chance to bring in "his" players and no chance of a honeymoon period. Sacking a manager when you're in the play-off positions doesn't have a great history of success AFAICR.

I think even Phill Brown would struggle to not finish top 2 with this squad. Someone like Warnock would jump at the chance of managing us thhrough to the end of the season, and it's easy to see him gettting a lot more out of us than we've seen

[Dcfcsr92]

1 minute ago, Ram-Alf said:

Wow that's some statement yoof what's it based on...2 away games?, Teams have a wobble or in Crewtons mind a "Wibble 😁", I was really hoping we'd be sitting on top of the division this Morning, It would have been nice to see for all the hard work that's been put in the last couple of months...but alas we're not.

There's no magic wand where football is concerned, Players have to want it, I believe last night they wanted it, Unfortunately a team called Reading put the mockers on their plans, A Reading that are in turmoil but a Reading team that has a pretty good performance rating this last 6 games.

I was disappointed last night...so much so that I turned down a free ticket for Saturdays game, I'm a bit like you I can get wound up by results and performances, PW commented after the Burton game when asked "have we a few more gears to go through" PW said "maybe we are at 5th gear now" so this is it, We're a league1 team with League1 players that sometimes play well and sometimes play bad, Just because we get the top end of 26/28k home gates and we have EPL standard ground and training facilities, We need better players to go with it...ATM we have a squad capable of getting to the play offs at the very least...time will tell if Warnes happy to stay down with the dead men 😉 

I feel warne knows if we go up we will struggle, we are not good enough for the championship how many times has warne said himself that we wasnt our best? Thats why everytime we get close we drop off again. I agree reading are a very good side i said before the game it would be tough but i didnt think we would be as poor as we were, after the weekend i didnt think we could get worse but we did

[Ghost of Clough]

Just now, Dcfcsr92 said:

I feel warne knows if we go up we will struggle, we are not good enough for the championship how many times has warne said himself that we wasnt our best? Thats why everytime we get close we drop off again. I agree reading are a very good side i said before the game it would be tough but i didnt think we would be as poor as we were, after the weekend i didnt think we could get worse but we did

I think everyone at the club knows this squad would struggle in the Championship. In fact, I there isn't a L1 squad which wouldn't. Any side getting promotion this season will make at least 7 signings in the summer, as is always the case for promoted sides.

[kevinhectoring]

31 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

The danger of just short-sightedly blaming Warne for all our failings is you remove accountability from underperforming players. It's always a combination of factors, never just one.

Warne’s RD interview was interesting. He magnanimously said he brings Bradley on to score from set pieces and since he didn’t score, that was one Warne got wrong. Apart from that …  it’s all down to the players. 
 

The problem is : if the players are continually blamed and if they don’t believe in him as a tactician, then they lose their motivation. And his ‘gas out’ approach can only work if they are 100% motivated. 
 

Players enjoy playing good football. He needs to find a way to get them playing better football