aguy2die4
16 Dec 2006, 11:57 AM
i lost my feed at 1-1......cant get it reconnected...
olegunnar
16 Dec 2006, 11:59 AM
Its over. Pretty horrible second half. Maybe the worst half of the year.
Couldn't agree more. Worst half of the year, atleast of matches I have seen.
Moral of the past few matches: James Harper, stop scoring dammit :)
korean_soccer123
16 Dec 2006, 12:02 PM
lol ya i have to agree with u, the worst half oh the season.........im starting to think that reading have been really lucky all this time........:rolleyes: .
i saw sheefield united play today, and i am beggining to feel they will overtake reading this season. they have been playing the muchhhhhhh better football over the last 5 games. Anyways good luck against ur next opponents
RichardL
16 Dec 2006, 02:43 PM
Reading fans exiting the Madejski Stadium were left with nothing but irony to enjoy as The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment” got an inopportune playing over the PA system, and in the entertainment stakes this was much more lights going out and a kick in the balls than cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume. Steve Sidwell described the second half as the worst performance since he joined the club just under 4 years ago and few will be rushing to argue.
The inquest into this game will be about what went wrong, but what went right would perhaps be more valid for much of it. Reading welcomed back Murty, Seol and Little from last weekend’s festival of yawns at Watford, but this game also started with the sleepiness of a small fishing village in Cornwall, even if the ball did at times make at least a casual acquaintance with the playing surface this week.
If the Reading team looked like they were more concerned with what they were going to buy Auntie Valerie for Christmas than playing football, they were fortunate in the Blackburn started as if the had less to offer than a one-armed man in an archery contest. Passes weren’t really finding their mark. Little didn’t really look fit, and Hunt at times played gingerly as if he had not only a couple of fractured ribs, but a few fractures in most limbs too. Seol’s curiously undefined role again didn’t appear to quite work, and Doyle was again left more isolated than Mel Gibson’s career prospects.
Perhaps more in spite of their play than because of it, Reading did have the better of the first half’s chances, not that there were many of them. Harper forced a good save from Friedel when perhaps should have done better. Sidwell headed against the bar, as well as well over it from the resulting corner, but it was Harper who finished the move of the first half, perhaps the only good move of the first half, calmly sliding a through ball past Friedel to open the scoring. Blackburn’s best effort in the period was disallowed for offside.
Concentration and focus have been factors in the professional way Reading have played this season, and both were in evidence today. Sadly Auntie Valerie and here bath salts were the object of that concentration today as any warnings Coppell must have given them weren’t heeded, and any tactical instructions clearly went in one ear and out the other without so much as pausing in between to admire the view.
Blackburn, on the other hand, came out like they just had the kind of roasting that isn’t the type players film on their mobile phones, and looked like a different team. They stepped up a gear or two. Reading didn’t. You still almost felt it wasn’t going to be Blackburn’s day - two more disallowed goals completed a hat-trick of offside “goals” for them (the linesman presumably got to keep the flag after the game) yet the alarm bells were ringing so loudly that you felt the Fire Brigade would turn up and call for the stadium to be evacuated. Blackburn’s McCarthy, who’s had the previous three disallowed strikes, finally got one to count, heading in from 6 yards. All eyes turned to the linesman, for this decision wasn’t clear-cut either, but he let this one stand.
What happened to Reading? I just don’t know. Their pattern of play looked like it’d been repainted by Salvadore Dali. Passes were cut out more often than swearing in a Joe Pesci film that has been specifically ruined for regular TV broadcast. With the works office party season upon us, they looked like they’d had theirs last night, with most moves having a touch of a “several Kronenbourgs later…” feel to them, and the whole display looking more embarrassing than someone at one of those office parties having to play a forfeit of having to dance alone to The Full Monty’s “You Can Keep your Hat On” in front of 200 work colleagues. I say “someone”…
With the game locked at 1-1 and everyone crying out for changes to change the game, one was made, with Oster coming on for a less than fully fit looking little – when you can notice Little looking slow, something is not right. Seol, very much off the pace in the second half, as were most, had been replaced earlier by Lita, whose only contribution to brightening the day was made by his lurid fluorescent yellow boots. Oster did indeed change the game. With his first touch he played a cross-field pass which was cut out by Bentley, who strode forward and unleashed a shot from 25 yards which would remind people of the days when as an Arsenal youth player he drew comparisons with Dennis Bergkamp. 2-1 and game over, as there was more chance of Paisley shirts making a come-back in the remaining five minutes than Reading doing so.
And that was that. Not entertaining, and as Paul Weller would probably agree, a day for feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away
prvev
16 Dec 2006, 02:50 PM
two more disallowed goals completed a hat-trick of offside “goals” for them (the linesman presumably got to keep the flag after the game)
Haha, nice.
Anyway, yea. Today sucked. Hopefully at least a point is gained next weekend against Everton, or we would probably be looking at 4 straight losses with Chelsea and United away up next.
skippy
18 Dec 2006, 02:34 PM
Hopefully at least a point is gained next weekend against Everton.
Hopefully being the key word. Everton looked pretty good against Chelski and led the game twice. They can take confidence from the game even if they didn't get any points. The Royals will have to play well to get points in their next contest.
rms5555
18 Dec 2006, 02:44 PM
You mean there next three games.