Reading@Liverpool- 11/4/06 - Pre/During/Post Match {r}

[throwin64]

Shots: 15-3 Reds, on goal 4-1.

[prvev]

Might have been nice to have Convey, Lita and Murty today, eh?

Lets hope they're all available next week. I'd guess it will be back to the normal 4-4-2, so Lita will at least get a spot in the bench.

[throwin64]

The Reds are simply killing the match off now. It's all over but the interviews at this point.

[Pablo Chicago]

Shit pass from Sidwell to Seol at the top of the box.

[Pablo Chicago]

Well that line-up experiment didn't pan out. Time to go back to the drawing board.

[prvev]

I know this was expected from such a tough run of games. But this sucks. I really hope for at least a point next week against Spurs, to get something going. Hopefully it will be a close to full squad.

Alright, I think I'm going to go kill Liverpool in FIFA. With Kitson. Argh.

[soccerhigh]

hey coppell,

Seol is not a freakin Centerforward!!! He's been playing as a winger/flanker in his National team and his previous clubs all his life!!! Use his 1V1 and his crossing skills!!!

very disappointed today... Reading needs to spend some $$ this winter...:rolleyes:

[mschofield]

'Well, the heady days of Sept are a distant memory. We should have expected a very tough run, and we're in it. But given other results, it's a dogfight from here on out. Still, would have taken this place, at this point in the season, if laid out as a possibility before the season started.

But we need to start building points. Fast.

[Breezy]

http://home.skysports.com/matchratings.aspx?fxid=298583&clid=108&cpid=8

[RichardL]

Anfield, a place that makes travelling fans thankful of being able to return home with their hubcaps and car stereos in their possession, let alone take any bonus points with them, awaited Reading on the last leg of their mission impossible tour. Their challenge, should they have chosen to accept it, was to take points off a Liverpool squad assembled for a shade under £100 million (compared to Reading’s a rather more modest £5 million), and after witnessing at close quarters the boarded-up, burnt out, “give us £5 and I’ll look after your car, like, mister” urban blight that occupies the surrounding streets of the area, the three points looked more likely. At least the secure school compound next to Goodison in which I parked, unlike the one used on a visit to Man City and their equally delightful Moss Side environs, didn’t feel the need to have its fences topped with razor-wire and rotating spikes. One wonders if the security there was to keep thieves out or the kids in.

With Kitson still injured, Seol apparently also carrying a knock, Lita off-form and Long still looking like it’s perhaps a year too early in his development, and also perhaps mindful of a similar situation 17 years ago, where his recently promoted Crystal Palace team were hammered 9-0 at Anfield, Coppell fielded a more cautious line-up than usual, with only Doyle up front. Rafa Benitez, whose team selection policy usually offers an amount of rotation reserved for the Catherine wheels that will be nailed to fences up and down the Country on this Guy Fawkes night, played nine of the 11 that brushed Bordeaux away 3-0 in the champions league on Tuesday, but I suppose they don’t travel well.

Reading started reasonably enough, and even created the first real chance of the game after Little, finding his feet if not necessarily Reading heads after a long spell out, set up Harper for a good chance. His shot was blocked by the outstretched boot of Carragher. If it’s your day, or perhaps if your name is Ingimarsson, those deflect past the keeper and loop into the net. This one went behind for a corner.

Liverpool scored with their first real chance of the game a few minutes later though. Steven Gerrard’s chipped through ball picked the lock of the defence as cunningly as the scallies of the surrounding streets do to the houses nearby, picking out Crouch. Crouch went up for the header, or perhaps just stood where he was, it’s hard to tell the difference, and played either a perfect knock-down, or had an awful attempt at goal depending on your viewpoint. Sadly for Reading, unfamiliar 5-man defences often have problems with communication, and Reading’s here were like a carrier-pigeon with a blindfold. First Marcus wandered off his line like a pensioner looking for the toilet, neither coming to win the high ball or be in any position to deal with it after it’s headed. Then the Reading defence revealed that when they’d gone past the Shankly gates they’d mistakenly taken “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to be a challenge, allowing Dirk Kuyt to do just that, giving him more space than an energetic but uncoordinated man on a dance floor, and he tucked in an open goal.

A ripple of applause greeted the goal from the Anfield crowd, who struggled to raise above apathy beyond the “Anfield Experience ™” level when Gerry and the Pacemakers told them what to do before kick-off.

The apathy looked justified as for the rest of the first half Reading struggled to do anything at all. Little and Gunnarsson were combining well down the right, but sadly the goal is 30 yards to the left of that position, and the balls in were finding the heads of the reds, rather than Doyle of the Royals.

With the way things have gone lately the early goal could have knocked the stuffing out of them more than a dropkicked Christmas turkey, but if there was a crumb of credit for the first half it was that they didn’t concede a second. To be just 1 down at the break would give them a fighting a chance, even if it would still be like fighting with one arm tied behind the back.

The second half was an improvement of sorts. The fear was still that it could have got uglier than a game of spin the bottle at a Star Trek convention, but at least Reading started to look they wanted to score, rather than just wanting Liverpool not to. For the first time in a while, Reading held the ball, rather than treating possession like a game of pass the parcel during a letter-bomb scare, and took the game to Liverpool. Unfortunately, while Reading were certainly knocking on the door for long spells, they weren’t doing it loud enough for anyone to hear. Dangerous balls were played in, but the Liverpool defence swept up any danger like a bunch of housewives on speed before a Reading player could get near it.

Reading could possibly have had a penalty as Gerrard’s raised arm cleared a ball into the box, but ref Uriah Rennie either saw a foul of almost subliminal contact on him, or assumed Gerrard’s arm had been grafted onto the Reading player’s body in a pioneering piece of temporary surgery. We thought for a second or two we’d scored as well, but the effort bundled over from close range was ruled out for some kind challenge on the keeper. Jose Mourinho will no doubt call for another FA enquiry.

But just as Reading’s bubble of optimism was growing, Kuyt flew in to burst in with his second. Breaking away almost immediately from the disallowed goal, Liverpool forced a corner. From it Hahnemann was unable to hold a close range shot, and Kuyt showed the poacher’s eye for goal lacking in Reading’s team with Kitson out, and buried it, along with Reading’s chances, like a manic gravedigger.

To their credit Reading didn’t fold, but the chances created were tamer than a fluffy kitten. Sidwell, Seol and Hunt all had late efforts that tested the patience more than the goal. How much Seol’s fitness contributed to his absence from the team remains to be seen. Reading certainly could have done with his height and willingness to shoot up front, and the number of shots Liverpool mustered, even if most were more speculative than Aristotle contemplating the meaning of life, perhaps indicated 5 at the back wasn’t a resounding success.

So it ended 2-0 and the game certainly split opinions. Some saw positives from it, in that we actually competed with Liverpool for stretches of the game, particularly in the second half, and with a different rub of the green could have got something. Others are more nervous about the lack of shots and another defeat, and are already sharing Saddam Hussein’s nightmares about trapdoors opening beneath them.

Overall though it’s ended a spell of mismatches akin to Diego Maradona taking on Peter Crouch in a stick-insect look-a-like contest, and there’s a feeling that the real season resumes next week. With it taking a hideous 5 and a half hours to drive up, and results elsewhere not going our way, and a killer headache for the drive home, it wasn’t may, or Reading’s day. But it’s always darkest before dawn, so there’s hope for the first chinks of daylight in a week’s time.

[T_Rock]

Well, I just finished watch my recording of the match....Thankfully, this run of tough matches eases up a bit.

[Katsbox]

...

First Marcus wandered off his line like a pensioner looking for the toilet, neither coming to win the high ball or be in any position to deal with it after it’s headed. Then the Reading defence revealed that when they’d gone past the Shankly gates they’d mistakenly taken “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to be a challenge, allowing Dirk Kuyt to do just that, giving him more space than an energetic but uncoordinated man on a dance floor, and he tucked in an open goal.
...

The second half was an improvement of sorts. The fear was still that it could have got uglier than a game of spin the bottle at a Star Trek convention...
I still have some spreading to do, apparently, before I can rep you on one of your best reports this seaon. Excellent analysis AND gafaw-out-loud funny. Thanks as always.