in the words of another ********. Matt Fortune @MFworldfootball Marco Materazzi has hit back at Rafa Benitez... in style! "I am a liar? Then he's skinny. I feel sorry for the fans of Chelsea" #CFC
Pretty sure that's right. And their defense is still beat up. Pretty sure Lescott is still their only fit CB.
It's a shame Livershite don't have Carroll to lump the ball up to. He could've been a real pain in the butt for City's makeshift defense.
If Reading stay up, Adam Le Fondre is going to be a legend there for a long, long time. Made his way up from non-league Stockport all the way through his youth career (as opposed to being at a bigger club and being judged to be not quite good enough, ala Jimmy Bullard and almost Tom Cleverley) and, up until last season, was playing in League Two. Now he is on 10 league goals in the Premiership (and two more in FA Cup) before February... scored an injury time equaliser against Stoke in his Premiership debut... scored both goals in Reading's first win of the season against Everton in November... and an equaliser in the 4-3 game against us (according to Wiki he is a Man Utd fan ), as well as against Arsenal... scored the 88th minute equaliser in Reading's ridiculous 3-2 win over WBA when they were 2-0 down with less than 10 minutes to go... scored both goals in Reading's 2-1 win over Newcastle (their first away win of the season)... and today scores two goals, in the 87th and 94th minutes, to get a draw against Chelsea. I am surprised he has not got more attention for his rags-to-riches, underdog story even just to make a Premiership side. Yet here he is, on pace for 15-odd league goals and maybe even 20 in all competitions, with seemingly every single one of them being a crucial, late equaliser or winner (or both), or a scalp against one of the biggest teams in the world. You have to be happy for the guy - there is no doubt Reading fans are. Incredible bit of trivia: Stockport's strike partnership from 2004-06? Adam Le Fondre and Rickie Lambert. With Ashley Williams of Swansea in the defense, and Norwich's John Ruddy in goals. Ruddy was on loan, the other three were all permanent players at the club.
We still have to play them twice so no I am not that thrilled , but seriously good turn around by Reading.
billyireland How do you know all of that? Do you actively research the backgrounds of unheralded players?
Hah, nah - but I do have a soft spot for guys who make it from nowhere, same for undrafted free agents and seventh round guys in the NFL like Kurt Warner or Donald Driver. I knew Lambert was a lower league guy and the same for Le Fondre, both a few years back (it got mentioned in the lead-in to this season and caught my attention), so I was happy for Lambert when he got a run earlier in the season and Le Fondre now, only the latter has had a knack for really catching my attention with his goals (not aesthetically, most have been scrappy scrambles in the box and such, iirc - but in terms of their importance and timing). I only just stumbled upon the fact that Le Fondre and Lambert were Stockport's starting strikers at the same time when looking up the former just there, and Williams/Ruddy were on Stockport's page as other notable ex-players. Also, Lambert left in 2005 for £100k, Le Fondre in 2006 for £350k and Williams in 2008 for £400k. Given that all three were in the starting XI for the 2004/05 season and assuming you could have got Williams for the same price (it probably would have been less, given that nobody picked him up for 4 more years), a 'yoyo' club could have realistically picked the three of them up for under £1mn. That is the quality of 20 Premiership goals (1o apiece) and one of the better defenders in the league this year. Not for us of anything of the sort of course, but for a Championship team or a newly promoted/very small club it could have been quite a nice little coup, though hindsight is of course a great thing.