BFTG - Blackburn

[Gunny Fishcake]

Well it looks like everyone is scared to start a BFTG tread.

I thought we actually looked pretty decent today,
.

What's the name of your guide dog ? I'm lost for words if people thought we did ok today ,it was a truly dreadful game with most players not even breaking sweat yet alone their knees dirty, I can't recall either keeper making one decent save . Boring crap

[Lacoste]

Clarke

"we're unbeaten in three"

#outofhisdepth

[Sutekh]

OK game, should have beaten them but then as we now haven't won any of the last 11 against Blackburn (D6 L5) it was hardly a surprise.

Mackie nicked MotM, Pog worked hard but doesn't get into the box enough. Thought Karacan was excellent on his first full game back.

Also felt the officials all looked like OAPs!

[urz13]

Thought we played well on the whole. I'd like to see us at least attempt to play through the middle occasionally though - our game plan revolved around passing it sideways until we could get it to McCleary or Mackie. I'd like to see more runners from midfield down the middle of the pitch - several times there was lots of space but nobody made the runs to exploit it.

[tmesis]

We passed it around nicely but creativity is woefully lacking. We rely entirely on getting crosses in, which wouldn't be so bad if we weren't so terrible at crossing the ball.

I come to Reading games now expecting it to be crap and tedious, and it's very rare that it's not.

[blueroyals]

We passed it around nicely but creativity is woefully lacking. We rely entirely on getting crosses in, which wouldn't be so bad if we weren't so terrible at crossing the ball.

I come to Reading games now expecting it to be crap and tedious, and it's very rare that it's not.

The reason we rely entirely on balls into the box is because Pogrebnyak was our only striker. We played 1 through ball to him and he managed to trip over himself. That's why we don't do it. He doesn't make any runs, plays with his back to goal for the majority of the game and rarely plays on the shoulder of the last defender, as you'd expect a decent striker to do.

As soon as Appiah came on we started playing balls through the middle.

And we weren't terrible at crossing. There were 4 or 5 decent crosses. Again, Pogrebynak was either somewhere on the halfway line tripping over himself or, if he was in the box, he'd have both heels planted into the grass expecting the ball played on his forehead, rather than moving to meet the cross.

[Platypuss]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Change the record, seriously.

[Victor Meldrew]

A bit surprised at how contented people were with a 0-0 where in the whole game we had 2 shots on target with Kanu's being more like a back pass.
I thought our Chelsea boys played quite well and Kanu was slightly less bad than normal-is it in his contract that he has to play every game regardless of how badly he plays?.
Our one hope v Bournemouth and Arsenal is IMHO McCleary but unfortunately he hasn't looked as good since his injury.
Did Clarke really make the point about being unbeaten in 3 as if drawn home games against Cardiff and Blackburn and a draw at relegated Blackpool are reasonable results?
Draw all of your games and you are in with a shout of relegation-I hope Clarke doesn't turn out to be as cautious as he so far appears.

[ladida_gunner_graham]

A bit surprised at how contented people were with a 0-0 where in the whole game we had 2 shots on target with Kanu's being more like a back pass.

I refer you to the "How far we have slipped" thread. Expectations are so low that yes, yesterday felt like an OK performance. I hope that in 12 months time, this game would be seen as a disappointment.

[Royalwaster]

A bit surprised at how contented people were with a 0-0 where in the whole game we had 2 shots on target with Kanu's being more like a back pass.
I thought our Chelsea boys played quite well and Kanu was slightly less bad than normal-is it in his contract that he has to play every game regardless of how badly he plays?.
Our one hope v Bournemouth and Arsenal is IMHO McCleary but unfortunately he hasn't looked as good since his injury.
Did Clarke really make the point about being unbeaten in 3 as if drawn home games against Cardiff and Blackburn and a draw at relegated Blackpool are reasonable results?
Draw all of your games and you are in with a shout of relegation-I hope Clarke doesn't turn out to be as cautious as he so far appears.

True - but when contrasting it with losing our previous 4 matches, 3 draws are an improvement .... On balance - getting 3 points out of the last 9 is not bad ... it's like winning 1 and losing 2 ... kind of OK given that the aim now is simply to keep ahead of the bottom 3.

[billybraggsbeard]

I wish people would stop with this rubbish. He's a striker - "strong challenges" does not make a strikers performance good. Goals and shots on target do. Pog had neither today. It was a poor performance.

Have to disagree.
He's one member of a team. He contributes to the team and his contributions have improved hugely this year. To simply write those off because he is a striker is crazy. Presumably Ian Harte's goals were irrelevant because he was a defender ?
Obviously we need him to score more, but his all round contribution is also important.
There have been some very high profile examples of strikers who scored few goals but were highly regarded....

He's one member of a team who is meant to score goals, that's his job and why he's paid circa £40k a week to do that and he's coming up hopelessly short in that department

[Nameless]

I wish people would stop with this rubbish. He's a striker - "strong challenges" does not make a strikers performance good. Goals and shots on target do. Pog had neither today. It was a poor performance.

Have to disagree.
He's one member of a team. He contributes to the team and his contributions have improved hugely this year. To simply write those off because he is a striker is crazy. Presumably Ian Harte's goals were irrelevant because he was a defender ?
Obviously we need him to score more, but his all round contribution is also important.
There have been some very high profile examples of strikers who scored few goals but were highly regarded....

He's one member of a team who is meant to score goals, that's his job and why he's paid circa £40k a week to do that and he's coming up hopelessly short in that department

But to say that any performance by a forward that does not include a goal is just daft.
Yes, we need a striker who hits 20 goals, but a 20 goal a season striker won't score in over half the games. There is more to it than just scoring goals and of late Pog has played well even in games he has not scored in.

[wingnut]

While not disagreeing with your last sentence, Saturday was not one of them. When playing the striker role in a 451 a significant part of that role is to make bloddy sure you're in the box when the ball is out wide. Now, when you're the player with the ball, obviously that's going to be a tough ask but if it's not you then really it's no wonder that folk on here point the finger.

[billybraggsbeard]

It seems now that we are not allowed to criticize Pog just because he's working harder under Clarke than he did under Atkins
I for one am very happy he's decided to start justifying his enormous wages, but i couldn't really care less what he does round the rest of the pitch , we have other players to do that, i want him to score goals , lots of goals. No he won't score in every game but he should be ending up in the higher teens or low twenties .

[Ian Royal]

I think we can some this up that he needs to do better on the fundamentals, but we appreciate his hard work, even if it doesn't do enough to make up for the lack of goals and in particular shots. He's not worthless. He's just not good enough.

It's as much McDermott / Adkins / Clarke's fault though IMO. We play him as the front / target man. That's simply not what he is. He needs a pacey natural goalscorer next to him to run beyond and profit from his hard work. He's the deeper striker of a two. but because he's big, he's just lumped up and the ball's lumped up to him.

[Nameless]

It seems now that we are not allowed to criticize Pog just because he's working harder under Clarke than he did under Atkins
.

Well that's you out of the discussion....
As soon as anyone claims ther 'are not allowed' to say something they've obviously lost.
Of course you are allowed to say what you want, just don't get all pathetic just because not everyone agrees with you !
Pog's got his faults, for a long time he was a waste of space. But to not give him credit for the significant improvement he has shown just because he isn't scoring a goal a game is, to me, unfair.