It started out with a dreadful home loss to Scunthorpe 2-1. Followed by a decent win at Torquay, decent considering their good home form, in the Carling Cup. Next was a 1-1 draw with Pompey at Fratton. A bit disappointing seeing how horrid they are this year, but still a point is a point. The loss to Northampton, which knocked us out of the Carling Cup, was dreadful. 3 times with the lead and 3 times couldn't hold it. Then we lose on peanlty kicks. Back to league play and the 2-1 at Leicester, Gylfi's last game, was encouraging. Any time a team gets 3 points away from home is a great result. Then Gylfi was sold. Harte was brought in on a permanent deal and Zurab, who is yet to see any time, was brought in on a season long loan. After the off week we hosted Crystal Palace and won 3-0. 2 of the goals were from the spot and the third, and last goal of the game, was scored by Kebe in the dying moments of open play, in injury time, when the outcome had already been decided. This past Tuesday we traveled to East London for a game with Millwall. Milwall has been in fine form this season, scoring a bunch 'o goals but we got a point with a 0-0 draw, and then got out of town before any more objects could be thrown at our players. I know some will say we are off to a decent start with only one defeat in 6 and sitting 11th in the table currently. But I am a bit concerned as we move forward. I have serious doubts about our ability to score in open play. Losing Gylfi not only was the loss of a player would could score in open play (and off of set pieces) but he created opportunities for teammates. Right now I don't have any confidence in our strikers to score in open play. Church is lacking in form and confidence right now. Long has always been spotty, this year is no difference. Jobi has never been a threat to put a lot of balls in the back of the net. Hunt is a big question mark and as of yet has not regained his form coming off injury. And Kebe will probably be good for 10-15 again this year. But we have no answers for the 20 goals we lost with Gylfi. And both Brian and Nick both say there are no plans to bring anyone in on loan because, as Brian said, "there are not any players out there better than the ones we currently have". You're kidding, right Brian? I admire the confidence in your squad but I disagree with your assessment. Could it be that SJM won't let you spend any of the money the team got for Gylfi? I think over the course of the year there are going to be 1-1 draws that could have been 2-1 wins, and 1-0 losses that could have been 1-1 draws, if we had another option up front. I hope I am wrong and Brian/Nick are right but right now I have seen no reason to believe so. I think if we finish 11th this year, with this squad, we will be fortunate. BTW...if anybody whom reads this is a member of HNA see if there is anything that can be done to activate my account there. I got a nice computer generated e-mail from some bloke named Graham but so far my account has not been activated. I'd like to annoy you guys with my subjective opinion from this side, the US side, of the pond in on-line person. Hopefully we'll get 3 from our trip to 'Boro tomorrow (more penalties maybe?)...URZZZ.
A big "oops" at 'Boro. 1-3? I have a theory why the team, in McD's words, was "flat". You tell a team that you are flying them to a game they would normally bus to because you sold one of the teams best players, and friend to many on the squad, and that is not going to have the desired effect on morale. I think they probably would have chose to take the bus ride with Sigs on the squad as opposed to a flight without him anymore. So what's next? Sell Kebe so they can serve snacks on the flight next year? My humble suggestion to Reading's team management is the next time you are thinking to motivate the team in such a way please STFU!!!
No help up front...mid table obscurity. Get a striker and maybe, more likely probably, a serious push for the play-offs. Right now 13th and equidistant from the play-offs as we are from the drop zone, 6pts.
Six points off the second automatic spot and a good form of late. The Championship is tightening after it looked like QPR was off to the races early on. Ya gotta believe!
Yeah their form has been great lately. Plus a nice cup win against WBA. And Shane is on fire right now...great to see him get his form back. I am still hoping they get another quality striker during the window. If they do they have a chance to be an automatic qualifier. Leighterwood has really solidified/stabilized the midfield. Let's hope they can repeat the second half form that they had last season.
Well what a disappointing draw at Cardiff. There is some controversy about the equalizer being scored in the 96th minute after only 4 added minutes of time was announced. But with the skirmish and subsequent bookings I can see how it went to the 97th minute. The real controversy was the foul call to begin with. I hear it was a fair tackle and a very harsh foul call. Plus Feds was shaky, especially on the first goal he allowed. I felt in the next 3 games, the Cardiff game included, we needed to get a minimum of 5 pts. That is why I am so very gutted by only getting the point in South Wales after nicking a go ahead goal in the 90th minute. Next up QPR @ Madejski on Friday. Another massive fixture against the team at the head of the table. After that a trip to Carrow Road to meet 2nd place Norwich City. We still have a game in hand on 6th place Leeds United, while sitting only 4 points behind them. And only 9 points off the 2nd automatic bid with a game in hand on the team who occupies that place currently, Norwich City. That is why these 3 games, all against teams ahead of us in the table, are so massive. In other news the team signed Mathieu Manset who already had an impact, scoring against Cardiff. We didn't lose Shane Long to West Ham or Newcastle which is also huge. We're into the 5th round of the FA and have to visit either Chelsea or Everton, either one will be a tall order. As the saying goes this is where the rubber meets the road for determining how well we do this season. We need to pick it up a notch and not piss away points like I feel we did today. Focus boys, focus...
Reading 1 - Everton 0 http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/mar/01/everton-reading-live Favorite part of the Article... 88 min: Phil Neville tosses the armband to Phil Jagielka as he exits the pitch for Jose Baxter, Everton's final throw of the dice. "I know I email in saying this a lot but it needs to be said," says Alex Hanton. "So *ahem* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGHHH! READING!! We're going to go out of the cup to Reading??? !!!!! Why!!!!! *sob*" Feel his pain. Hoping for Aston Villa in the 6th Round, Reading can avenge last years defeat!
Massive result, never saw it coming...especially after letting 3 in during our last league game. At times we seem to play better against premier league teams than we do against teams in our own league. Next Sunday against City. What I would give to get one more win and make it to Wembley... Nice win against 'Boro yesterday too...5-2. Like what I am seeing right now. Is there still time to get a top 6?
Well just for an update... Citeh bounced us from the FA Cup. Nothing to be ashamed of there though. We ended up playing 2 midfielders at defense and still only lost 1-0. Great run again this year. Back to back final 8's knocking off the likes of Liverpool at Anfield and Everton at Goodison. Alex McCarthy got the start for England's U-21 team and kept a clean sheet in England's 4-0 victory over Denmark. Congrats and great job Alex!!! As far as league goes we sit at 7th place only 3 pts off of 6th with a game in hand and a goal differential of +18 which is massive. Next 2 fixtures are at Madejski. Pompey next Saturday followed by Preston, who sit at the foot of the table the Tuesday after. Each and every game is huge from here on out. We should get some of our lads back from injury including Pearce, and hopefully Cummings and Mills. And finally it was 5 years ago today that we clinched promotion to the PL with our draw at Leicester...for you viewing pleasure and some great memories I bring you the following. Enjoy ... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aqbOaYy_1Y&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL"]YouTube - Reading fc promotion riot[/ame] Hopefully more great memories in the offing this year...C'MON URZZZZZZZ!!!!
LOL...I am up late tonight. And they've won again since your last post. A thriller at City Ground. Hell, they are just 4 points off an automatic promotion spot. Our goal differential is +22, which could be huge in a tie breaker scenario. Yeah, at worst I am hoping they make the play-offs. We've won 6 on the bounce heading into Tuesday's game with Scunny. It will probably be a tougher game than a person might think seeing Scunny is in the drop zone. But they already beat us once this year and in their last fixture they thumped league leaders QPR on the road. So nothing will be easy but if they keep playing like they are...who knows how high we could finish? We just need to not get ahead of ourselves and like the team has, take it one game at a time. And one more thing...Brian McDermott is a friggin' genius. I am thinking the man should be knighted. The way he has this team focused and organized is top notch. Glad Madejski gave him the raise he did...Brian more than deserved it.
Wow that is a tight race for 2nd place, gotta love that this can happen in the Championship Division! Shane Long with 22 goals!
Massive game with Leeds this Friday. Prolly the toughest of the remaining games, tho none of them will be easy.. Shane's having a huge year. But the player honored as part of the Championship PFA team of the year was Ian Harte. Tbf, I doubted whether he had the pace to be able to play at this level again...and boy was I wrong. Congrats to him on the honor. Shane had a helluva year too and could have easily made the team of the year. 22 goals and a player who just terrorizes other team's backlines with his pace, work rate, and wears people down. He and Kebe were huge this past weekend against Leicester. You see Kebe's 90+ yd run which ended in the Hunt goal? Passing people like they were standing still...
Playoffs!!!!!!!!!! As much of a lottery the playoffs are, I feel pretty good going into it. Cardiff have been in a bad form and their morale has been shot down. I think we can get past Cardiff in two legs and plays Swansea in the final. I want to see Rodgers' face when we win the final at Wembley.
Wembley!!!!!!! 1 more game boys. Bring it home! For some reason, I feel fairly confident in this game. As long as Kebe is healthy for the game, I think we have a great chance at the premier league. URZZZZZZZZZZ
Game is Monday at 3:00 pm local time, which translates to for us in the US; 10:00 am - eastern time zone 9:00 am - central time zone 8:00 am - mountain time zone 7:00 am - pacific time zone It will be broadcast live on Fox Soccer. C'MON URZZZZZZZZZZ
Just popping in to wish you all the worst luck possible on the pitch tomorrow. Nothing personal, of course
A bad ending to a good season. Some poor decision making in the back cost us. We almost made it back from 0-3 down but at 2-3 Karacan hit the post then the 2nd penalty conversion for Swansea, after a needless body check by Griffin, put the game to bed and it ended Reading 2 - 4 Swansea. Probably be saying goodbyes to Long, Kebe and Federici at least. I thought Phil Dowd had a sh-t game as the ref. Both penalties were legit but I watched Long get knocked around the whole first half in which we weren't awarded a single free kick, handballs by Swansea in their box ignored, etc...but we did pick-up 3 yellows and had a player, Jay Tabb, and a coach, Nigel Gibbs, sent off at the half. I have never seen such a one-way display of reffing in my life. It is a shame we didn't have Howard Webb for the final like we had for the second leg against Cardiff. It is what it is I guess. I don't know if it would have made a difference but it was a pathetic display by Dowd.