Reading - Arsenal - 10/22/06 - Pre/During/Post Match [R]warning, includes Arse CL r]

[mschofield]

Wow, Reading chasing hard, and arse holds the ball for, what, three minutes? Pool next, eh? Wow, this is a really good team. Nothing to be said other than that.

[prvev]

Almost over now..

[mschofield]

Almost over now..
could have been said 80 minutes ago...

[prvev]

[QUOTE=mschofield]Pool next, eh?QUOTE]

Yep. I wonder what type of lineup Liverpool will put out for it. They may want to play a few regulars to try to get them back to playing well.

[prvev]

could have been said 80 minutes ago...

Very true.

[aguy2die4]

defeat for Reading, yet it was fine bit of display of great football by Arsenal, lovely to watch if one wasnt wincing all the time.

Henry and Co. (except for Van Persie in the 1st half, much better in the 2nd) was on fire today, the early goal probably helped them to settle their nerves. In fact i believe that early goal really helped Arsenal today. They usually play with bit more trepidation despite their skill, when they fail to score in the first 20min, which would have helped out reading a lot. But today it was not to be case.

They dominated the midfield with 5, whilst Reading's midfield was missing in action. De La Cruz was a liability but Arsenal even made Sonko look bad.

Seol had a great volley attempt at goal, Long and Doyle all tried to make something happen, but there just was no finishing finess. Perhaps Kitson, had he been fit to play, could have improved things slightly, but Reading in the last 3 or 4 games seems to be the type of team who first priority is to get the ball some where near the goal by what ever means then and only then start to think about how to get it in the goal. Can see how that could have worked and it indeed did work in the Championship, but ManU, Chelsea and Arsenal showed them it does not quite work in the Prem.

Arsenal on the other hand have a route all planned out once they initiate an attack. Of course it helps that they have sublime passing skills and pass the ball in to free spaces rather than to the feet of players.

A loss was in the cards anyway so no great dissappointment but to let 4 in with no reply, bit of a bruising on the ego. Lets hope Coppell and Reading make this a steep learning curve for Reading in the Premiership. As mschofield already said, Arsenal was the 1st team so far in the Prem to have really played Reading off the field.

[RichardL]

Rather like Joseph McCarthy’s Che Guevara Appreciation Night, it just never happened for Reading this afternoon as Arsenal pulled Reading apart like a small boy pulling the limbs of an insect. Whatever Reading’s gameplan was, keeping things tight early on would surely have been a part of it. Instead, inside the first minute an Arsenal forward drifted past a challenge softer than a warm blancmange and set up Thierry Henry in front of the previously almost impregnable north goal.

It set the tone for the rest of the afternoon as Arsenal looked every inch a team who ought to be champions, even if you still have that nagging feeling they won’t be. Against a team as good as Arsenal, even if Reading weren’t architects of their own downfall, there were at least involved in the preliminary sketches. In a week where Reading’s play has been analysed like the Zapruder film, Reading perhaps tried to too hard show they weren’t the assassins they were portrayed to be, allowing Arsenal’s 11 Jack Ruby’s to take the revenge some people seemed to demand.

Despite conceding four overall, it’s perhaps the lack of penetration up front which is a cause for concern for Reading. Simply Reading aren’t holding the ball up well enough, or passing well enough. Territorially we probably did better than in the Man Utd and Chelsea games, and if corners counted for points we’d be right up the league after winning no fewer than 10 of them today, but the only time we were able to induce a Jens Lehmann hissy fit was when he was challenged for a loose ball, inevitably by Stephen Hunt. Hunt’s a good player to bring on for the last 20 minutes, but he doesn’t really have enough to cause problems from the start at this level. Hopefully Convey’s injury will clear up quickly.

With Hunt failing to create much, and Seol being kept quieter than a Trappist monk on a sponsored silence, the hope was to get to half time and regroup. Arsenal had other ideas and good passing move saw Hleb ghost into the box to double the score.

It’s often said that just before and just after half time are the worst times to concede goals, and against Arsenal Reading did both, and you almost felt they could have scored during half time too. Another good exchange saw Van Persie put through, and the game was more over than a paisley shirt business after just 50 minutes.

After that the only question was how many. The answer, somewhat mercifully, was just one – a penalty conceded by Hahnemann with no complaints by either team.

After that Arsenal were content to sit back but Reading still weren’t able to do much more than continue their corner practice – and for once this season they really look like they need to practice them. Stephen Hunt contrived to have the miss of the game, putting the ball over from about 8 yards, just topping Rosicky’s(?) effort which looked to be more a chance to give an inhabitant of the wheelchair section a memento of the game rather than an effort to score.

As good as Arsenal are, a side with genuine aspirations of consolidation shouldn’t be stuffed like a Christmas turkey like Reading were today. We won’t be playing teams of Arsenal’s quality too often this season, even if the Arsenal fans’ taunts of “we’ll never play you again” showed a curious lack of grasp of the league fixture system. Last season Reading showed great character in bouncing back from setbacks, even if there were only two of them, but bounce back we need to do or run the risk of spiralling down like a spider being washed down the plughole.

I’m sure there are loads of Reading fans feeling lower than a snakes testicles, and today might not seem a great day to be a Reading fan, but compared to the previous 135 years, it’s still f’ing marvellous.

[T_Rock]

...the Arsenal fans’ taunts of “we’ll never play you again” showed a curious lack of grasp of the league fixture system.

And that is why I look forward to your post match comments. Thanks for the much needed laugh at the expense of the Arsenal fans. A bright point on this depressing day.

[mschofield]

[QUOTE=mschofield]Pool next, eh?QUOTE]

Yep. I wonder what type of lineup Liverpool will put out for it. They may want to play a few regulars to try to get them back to playing well.
yeah, but what, exactly, constitutes a regular for them. They can sit six and put out a team that's played together several times already.
As much as i dread arse, I don't dread pool. They're a better side than Reading, that's clear. The talent gap, again, is huge. but Reading can give them trouble.

[JJxvi]

Geez, unfortunately my fears were realized. I love the way they play and make it look fun out there (outside of Lehman who acted like an ass). Much prefer to watch them do that to other sides, though...

[prvev]

[QUOTE=prvev]
As much as i dread arse, I don't dread pool. They're a better side than Reading, that's clear. The talent gap, again, is huge. but Reading can give them trouble.

Agreed. This game (and the league one being played in a couple of weeks) is more similar to the ones against Chelsea and Manchester United, and I think at this point Liverpool aren't playing as well as either of those teams.