Tanner is a long way ahead of the likes of Davies. I'm not so sure on that bit, Davies was *the* next big thing, especially with that goal against Chelsea. He was in the Obita position of Pre-season with the team but never quite pushing on for a few years. Thankfully Obita managed to embed himself ...

what's happened to Samuel? Did he get injured when out on loan? I thought he'd get some more first team squad opportunities this year than he has, given we're pretty light up front. Yes, he went on loan and needed knee surgery after being subbed in the first half. He's also not performed as well as...

How do parachute payments work if you get relegated > promoted > relegated? Is there a crossover on the final year of the first relegations payments and the first year or the second relegations payments, or do they nullify eacother? Your parachute payments stop if you get promoted, and the money is...

F[u]ck off you armchair dwelling knob and stop sticking your nose into everybody else's business. I take it Ian Royal isn't very popular? He does seem the type to listen to games on the radio, and then make dubious judgements as a result. [img] http://yew360.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/clearman....

I have advocated "giving up" on a season and bedding in academy players twice in the past. The first time, we didn't do it, and we got in the playoffs. The second time, we didn't do it, and we got promoted. McDermott was right both times (In Brian We Trust), and now I think Adkins would be...

Ascotexgunner not sure why Akpan tried to head the ball at ground level when he could have possibly got a foot on it.

Have you seen Akpan kick the ball?

I loved reading those tweets on the previous page, especially the one about not producing first team players when the list of former academy players currently in the top 2 tiers of English football is: Gylfi Sigurdsson Jem Karacan Alex Pearce Alex McCarthy HRK Simon Church Simon Cox Ben Hamer Jorda...

In many ways the same as Kebe, but for some reason Kebe is the messiah to many and McCleary isn't. Nah, McCleary is the player people like to pretend Kébé was. Unplayable one match in three, otherwise anonymous, not great defensively. Kébé was much more consistent, particularly under McDermott. McC...

Liverpool would also probably have won if they had Cardwell, or our defenders, or if their subs had been as good as ours. And our strongest area is midfield! No, the difference was the 2 keepers, Reading's was very good Liverpool's rather poor. Seeing your earlier report it's quite clear that you (...

Incidentally it was good to see a Reading side not playing long-ball but the result would probably have been different if the keepers had swapped sides.. Yeah if only keepers weren't part of the XI and each team was randomly assigned a goalie :roll: Liverpool would also probably have won if they ha...

Thinking about it we must have a bad academy given that Liverpool have shown interest in two of our academy graduates in the past two years and their current first team manager played a part in setting it up. Who are those that Liverpool were interested in? Pearce was the only person in the world w...

I've never watched an U18 Reading game before and only watched 60 mins last night. Would you agree we 'hoofed it long' and does anyone know if that is our usual strategy? Nah, it's total bollocks from the Liverpool fan. Last night, both teams tried to play good football. Liverpool's players, partic...

Yeah, it was definitely onside.

In fairness to the Liverpool player, he seemed to genuinely be suffering - but he was definitely risking playing someone on.

SPARTA

Is this really the man we want captaining our first team?

Yes.

Quality. The YouTube and TV coverage makes this report rather redundant, but I'm still gonna give it. Ward- couple of excellent saves including a worldy in the first half. Maybe could have done better for some of the goals. Excellent distribution, chipping passes to the full backs with ease. Watson-...

I would be hugely surprised if the Academy doesn't lose us money, but the chances are that even Le Fondre doesn't make us as much as we "invest" in him. You can't use normal business logic exactly. It's more like a stock market, where it is likely you'll lose on most of your investments bu...

There is more than one way of presenting a misleading picture... With DOGSO, a screenshot is inherently misleading, because it doesn't show the movement of players or, crucially in this case, the ball. For all we know, the panel have thought "well, Drenthe's not moving straight towards goal... ...

Some say we're in decline, others say we are no longer over-achieving. The line between success and failure is fine - Remember when we won the league with 106 points losing just 2 games?.... well does anyone remember the previous season which finished with pretty much the same side? Even the manage...

The problem is your use of a still image more than anything, it presents a misleading picture. You could just as easily show a screenshot of Afobe through on goal with the ball by his feet and Gorkss out of shot. I increasingly think the appeals panels have been told to be extremely generous, there ...

You'd have to be utterly stupid to try and judge DOGSO by looking at a single still image...

The panel could have decided, for example, that Drenthe did not have the ball under sufficient control for that to be an "obvious" goal scoring opportunity.