MATCHWATCH : Shrewsbury Town (h)

[hughsies no.1]

Nights like last night really test your resolve for football - let alone supporting Reading.

We showed nothing, no patterns of play, no chances, nothing - and it was incredible we got a point.

Three elements of our team get us ticking -
1- Getting Wing on the ball dictating play
2- Getting Kelvin E. on the ball 1v1 against a full back
3- Knibbs high pressing winning the ball back in opposition half which leads to chances and vast majority of our goals

Frustrated the hell out of me that 1 and 3 didn't happen at all, and the one time 2 happened it resulted in a goal - but then we didn't continue to try and get him the ball despite it taking 30odd mins for us to realise it can be effective.

Yes Wing is being marked out of games, but it is on others to create space for him by working the ball and on the management team to produce patterns of play to allow him to get on the ball.

Where has the high press Knibbs gone who was top of opposition half turnovers under Selles?

I appreciate we are up against it - I'm not daft, but just basics for our thread bare squad - we need to rely on those 3 elements to get results.

Additionally, we miss Elliot obviously, Garcia looks cooked and needs a break - Abrefa always looks lively when he comes on and should start Saturday, and Craig had an absolute shocker.

And we go again Saturday vs Rotherham... sigh.

[Fezza]

The worst I can recall us playing this season. Campbell looked like he was running in treacle through the first half, Savage's passing was below his normal high standard and Craig was a complete liability - ran under the ball for the goal.

We still look disorganised in defence, Wing comes back to help at CB but the rest of the midfield always seem to be reacting rather than going into a shape.

I think we'd be better with Craig in DM and Abrefa at RB, resting Savage or Wareham (and putting Knibbs up top).

[traff]

Referee did well for me, got very little wrong. we`ve had worse much worse this season.

Agreed.
Dealt with Tom Daley (14) well too, although inevitable the equaliser would fall to him.

[RG30]

On an unrelated note, all the TV's at the food kiosks were turned off in the East Stand. Not sure if it was the same in other stands. More cost savings?

[Panas]

The extended highlights are pretty grim.

Shout out to Knibbs poleaxing Wareham when trying to tap it in after Campbell's shot in the second half. (Tbf I'm not sure he could have done much to get out the way, but it summed the night up).

Shrewsbury's goal is really poor. Not clear if Bindon gets clipped by their no. 27 as he goes to the ball, but if he heads that anywhere else then we clear the ball. Not exactly looking forward to what a Steve Evans team is going to do to us aerially on Saturday.

[stealthpapes]

The extended highlights are pretty grim.

Shout out to Knibbs poleaxing Wareham when trying to tap it in after Campbell's shot in the second half. (Tbf I'm not sure he could have done much to get out the way, but it summed the night up).

Shrewsbury's goal is really poor. Not clear if Bindon gets clipped by their no. 27 as he goes to the ball, but if he heads that anywhere else then we clear the ball. Not exactly looking forward to what a Steve Evans team is going to do to us aerially on Saturday.

missed header, weak header, failure to cover player and whatever that block was at the end.

[leon]

The extended highlights are pretty grim.

Shout out to Knibbs poleaxing Wareham when trying to tap it in after Campbell's shot in the second half. (Tbf I'm not sure he could have done much to get out the way, but it summed the night up).

Shrewsbury's goal is really poor. Not clear if Bindon gets clipped by their no. 27 as he goes to the ball, but if he heads that anywhere else then we clear the ball. Not exactly looking forward to what a Steve Evans team is going to do to us aerially on Saturday.

when the ball is initially played our 2 (two!) across the central midfield are completely bypassed - another three are pushed up so high as to be entirely pointless. Wing slows down to let his runner go past him. We mistime a couple of headers. Simple header forward and the guy who has walked past Wing scores uncontested.

We can't play like this in L1 it's completely mad. Teams stroll through us.

[Mr Optimist]

We played poorly but have another point towards a healthy points total should we end up with a deduction at any point between now and the end of the season, we should hopefully still be able to absorb it and stay up.

If you sell your best players and biggest goal threat it doesn’t take a genius to work out the negative effect on your play-off chances.

By far and away the biggest disappointment for me was our “fans” reaction to off-nights by youngsters Garcia and Craig. Instead of booing a misplaced pass, how about actually singing their name and giving them encouragement and support. We should all be in this together. There have been games over the last two seasons, as recently as Bolton and Mansfield, where the positivity of the crowd has helped us over the line. Calling out kids who are trying their best in a shit situation is not support.

[leon]

We played poorly but have another point towards a healthy points total should we end up with a deduction at any point between now and the end of the season, we should hopefully still be able to absorb it and stay up.

If you sell your best players and biggest goal threat it doesn’t take a genius to work out the negative effect on your play-off chances.

By far and away the biggest disappointment for me was our “fans” reaction to off-nights by youngsters Garcia and Craig. Instead of booing a misplaced pass, how about actually singing their name and giving them encouragement and support. We should all be in this together. There have been games over the last two seasons, as recently as Bolton and Mansfield, where the positivity of the crowd has helped us over the line. Calling out kids who are trying their best in a shit situation is not support.

I didn't hear any boos for misplaced passes.

Craig had a shocker but Campbell was absent on the right side for the duration of the game and should have been subbed far sooner with a change to formation to support him rather than leave him isolated. Same for Garcia. Very poor management all round.

[Clyde1998]

7975(291)

James Earnshaw posted that figure- someone else has posted 5975.

Certainly felt less than the Burnley game (even when taking into account the smaller away crowd). I imagine we could've got everyone in the East Stand without much trouble last night. Disappointing, but not surprised people aren't turning up.

[Mr Optimist]

We played poorly but have another point towards a healthy points total should we end up with a deduction at any point between now and the end of the season, we should hopefully still be able to absorb it and stay up.

If you sell your best players and biggest goal threat it doesn’t take a genius to work out the negative effect on your play-off chances.

By far and away the biggest disappointment for me was our “fans” reaction to off-nights by youngsters Garcia and Craig. Instead of booing a misplaced pass, how about actually singing their name and giving them encouragement and support. We should all be in this together. There have been games over the last two seasons, as recently as Bolton and Mansfield, where the positivity of the crowd has helped us over the line. Calling out kids who are trying their best in a shit situation is not support.

I didn't hear any boos for misplaced passes.

Craig had a shocker but Campbell was absent on the right side for the duration of the game and should have been subbed far sooner with a change to formation to support him rather than leave him isolated. Same for Garcia. Very poor management all round.

Maybe it was just around me (C1871) which is a shame. I’ve started going in there this season and had been generally impressed with the attempts at providing some atmosphere and usually positive support. Hopefully it was just one of those nights for everyone and normal service will be resumed on Saturday on and off the pitch!

Garcia isn’t a full back, under normal circumstances it would’ve been great to see him coming off the bench and playing left midfield or a free role in midfield to see what he is really capable of asyou can see he he has a touch of class about him and can glide past players, but is having to be thrown in the deep end in our patchwork set-up at the moment.

I agree Campbell never looked like he was going to get the better of their left back who had his number on the night and he looked as though he was resigned to the fact after half an hour or so. Craig is a strange one as I thought he wasn’t that bad on Tuesday. We lost it in midfield whether that was down to us or a hard working, well organised opposition, probably a bit of both, but I was waiting for one of Knibbs, Wing, or Savage to wake up but it never came, one of those nights/games, still, another point!

[Snowflake Royal]

We played poorly but have another point towards a healthy points total should we end up with a deduction at any point between now and the end of the season, we should hopefully still be able to absorb it and stay up.

If you sell your best players and biggest goal threat it doesn’t take a genius to work out the negative effect on your play-off chances.

By far and away the biggest disappointment for me was our “fans” reaction to off-nights by youngsters Garcia and Craig. Instead of booing a misplaced pass, how about actually singing their name and giving them encouragement and support. We should all be in this together. There have been games over the last two seasons, as recently as Bolton and Mansfield, where the positivity of the crowd has helped us over the line. Calling out kids who are trying their best in a shit situation is not support.

I didn't hear any boos for misplaced passes.

Craig had a shocker but Campbell was absent on the right side for the duration of the game and should have been subbed far sooner with a change to formation to support him rather than leave him isolated. Same for Garcia. Very poor management all round.

Maybe it was just around me (C1871) which is a shame. I’ve started going in there this season and had been generally impressed with the attempts at providing some atmosphere and usually positive support. Hopefully it was just one of those nights for everyone and normal service will be resumed on Saturday on and off the pitch!

Garcia isn’t a full back, under normal circumstances it would’ve been great to see him coming off the bench and playing left midfield or a free role in midfield to see what he is really capable of asyou can see he he has a touch of class about him and can glide past players, but is having to be thrown in the deep end in our patchwork set-up at the moment.

I agree Campbell never looked like he was going to get the better of their left back who had his number on the night and he looked as though he was resigned to the fact after half an hour or so. Craig is a strange one as I thought he wasn’t that bad on Tuesday. We lost it in midfield whether that was down to us or a hard working, well organised opposition, probably a bit of both, but I was waiting for one of Knibbs, Wing, or Savage to wake up but it never came, one of those nights/games, still, another point!

If Garcia isn't a fullback I don’t know what he is, because it certainly isn't a midfielder or winger.

A modern fullback maybe, i.e. someone who wants to be a winger but isn't good enough.

[leon]

We played poorly but have another point towards a healthy points total should we end up with a deduction at any point between now and the end of the season, we should hopefully still be able to absorb it and stay up.

If you sell your best players and biggest goal threat it doesn’t take a genius to work out the negative effect on your play-off chances.

By far and away the biggest disappointment for me was our “fans” reaction to off-nights by youngsters Garcia and Craig. Instead of booing a misplaced pass, how about actually singing their name and giving them encouragement and support. We should all be in this together. There have been games over the last two seasons, as recently as Bolton and Mansfield, where the positivity of the crowd has helped us over the line. Calling out kids who are trying their best in a shit situation is not support.

I didn't hear any boos for misplaced passes.

Craig had a shocker but Campbell was absent on the right side for the duration of the game and should have been subbed far sooner with a change to formation to support him rather than leave him isolated. Same for Garcia. Very poor management all round.

Maybe it was just around me (C1871) which is a shame. I’ve started going in there this season and had been generally impressed with the attempts at providing some atmosphere and usually positive support. Hopefully it was just one of those nights for everyone and normal service will be resumed on Saturday on and off the pitch!

Garcia isn’t a full back, under normal circumstances it would’ve been great to see him coming off the bench and playing left midfield or a free role in midfield to see what he is really capable of asyou can see he he has a touch of class about him and can glide past players, but is having to be thrown in the deep end in our patchwork set-up at the moment.

I agree Campbell never looked like he was going to get the better of their left back who had his number on the night and he looked as though he was resigned to the fact after half an hour or so. Craig is a strange one as I thought he wasn’t that bad on Tuesday. We lost it in midfield whether that was down to us or a hard working, well organised opposition, probably a bit of both, but I was waiting for one of Knibbs, Wing, or Savage to wake up but it never came, one of those nights/games, still, another point!

I think the problem was because of Campbell's position and a lack of midfield (with Wing almost playing as a 5th defender we only had two in there) there was a massive gap in our right flank Craig was under pressure throughout. I actually felt sorry for him I think an established RB would have struggled with the lack of support he was getting.

He does dither when it comes to closing down players especially when we have numbers and going forward his final ball was really off, but agreed they were well organised and that just exposed even more our poor set up.

[URZZZZ]

As with the majority of games we’ve played against 3/5 defenders this season, we struggled. Particularly against a 5-2-1-2 as the front two press up, the “1” sits on Wing, we have no out ball, end up under pressure and hoof it up the pitch losing it. Theoretically there should be space out wide but it doesn’t happen. Tempo is too slow and the movement is too static up top. It was reminiscent of the early Stam days at times except we don’t have the individual excellence these days to win us games!

Given the sort of player Hunt was, an excellent “support striker”, it is surprising he won’t consider changing things up, playing two up top etc, even if just to change the course of a game. He seems to have the Selles habit of just changing the fullbacks/wingers around and hoping something will change. It rarely does make a positive impact unfortunately

[RoyalBlue]

Tbf on the reading pen she looked straight at the Lino and checked with him before giving the decision. It was his call to make

He made very few calls/decisions on the night and quite a few of those he did make were wrong! Certainly didn't deserve to be called an 'Assistant Referee'.

Ref did really well IMO. Very few glaring mistakes/wrong calls (they will all make some in a game).

The way Shrewsbury fielded a number of players from an Olympic Diving team, we could've ended up two or three players down by the end had we had one of the previous crap officials we have had to endure this season. This ref saw straight through their antics and dealt with them when the dissent started.

[RoyalBlue]

Saw it twice on replay from different angles, a dive in my opinion, but appreciate it’s all about opinions. One thing I think we all agree on was this it was a dreadful performance

It's never a dive at any angle. Blackman grabs his foot.

This. you could argue that WiFi overran the ball but it was a penalty for sure.

Special mention for the ref tonight who was abysmall - completely out of her depth.

Seems you are very much in a minority with that view. I wonder what it is based on!!

[Hound]

Tbf on the reading pen she looked straight at the Lino and checked with him before giving the decision. It was his call to make

He made very few calls/decisions on the night and quite a few of those he did make were wrong! Certainly didn't deserve to be called an 'Assistant Referee'.

Ref did really well IMO. Very few glaring mistakes/wrong calls (they will all make some in a game).

The way Shrewsbury fielded a number of players from an Olympic Diving team, we could've ended up two or three players down by the end had we had one of the previous crap officials we have had to endure this season. This ref saw straight through their antics and dealt with them when the dissent started.

Yeah the ref herself was fine, no real issues at all. Don’t want to patronise but thought she got the majority right. It was a shrews pen imo

Our penalty should have been flagged by the linesman, it was right in front of him and a much better view. It was a pen and he should have called it.

[stealthpapes]

wrt penalty, the reverse angle - which the linesman should have seen, right? - was pretty clear that (a) keeper had made contact and (b) Kelv could have played the loose ball.

penalty.

[hughsies no.1]

https://x.com/james_e1871/status/1890054981568565548

Nights like last night really test your resolve for football - let alone supporting Reading.

We showed nothing, no patterns of play, no chances, nothing - and it was incredible we got a point.

Three elements of our team get us ticking -
1- Getting Wing on the ball dictating play
2- Getting Kelvin E. on the ball 1v1 against a full back
3- Knibbs high pressing winning the ball back in opposition half which leads to chances and vast majority of our goals

Frustrated the hell out of me that 1 and 3 didn't happen at all, and the one time 2 happened it resulted in a goal - but then we didn't continue to try and get him the ball despite it taking 30odd mins for us to realise it can be effective.

Yes Wing is being marked out of games, but it is on others to create space for him by working the ball and on the management team to produce patterns of play to allow him to get on the ball.

Where has the high press Knibbs gone who was top of opposition half turnovers under Selles?

I appreciate we are up against it - I'm not daft, but just basics for our thread bare squad - we need to rely on those 3 elements to get results.

Additionally, we miss Elliot obviously, Garcia looks cooked and needs a break - Abrefa always looks lively when he comes on and should start Saturday, and Craig had an absolute shocker.

And we go again Saturday vs Rotherham... sigh.

[WestYorksRoyal]

We miss Elliott for his individual quality, but also that it means teams can't simply just man mark Wing as it leaves too much space. We're a bit of a one trick pony without him.