Back from the Game - Swansea (H)

[FiNeRaIn]

Different manager - same result.

Swansea had the better of the game and had it not been for our get out of jail free card with sig's free kick we would have lost. Another game we failed to score in open play from at home.

It doesn't matter who we have in charge if you've got crap players and no one who can score goals. Completely disinterested in the club these days and I won't be renewing next season unless I see some ambition from the club in appointing a non yes man who is bringing his own staff in and a reasonable budget. How people can be positive after a 1-1 draw with a team we were laughing at a few seasons ago is beyond me, shows how far we've fallen as a club.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Have to say bryn was immense at right back. And LOL at the best bit of skill we've seen all season!

Fair play to the manager for changing it at half time... Not too sure about taking off both forwards though...

[FiNeRaIn]

They are absolute certs for a top six place for me, so a point against them in our current predicament will do for me.

Totally agree with this.

I don't. It doesn't matter if we are playing brazil or herford - we fail to win regardless. We've still won ONE at home all season ffs.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Swansea don't look like getting promoted this season. They tailed off in the second half.

[Royalee]

Same old, same old. Madejski will be calling it 'much improved' though.

[Chaney]

They are absolute certs for a top six place for me, so a point against them in our current predicament will do for me.

Totally agree with this.

I don't. It doesn't matter if we are playing brazil or herford - we fail to win regardless. We've still won ONE at home all season ffs.

and THREE at home in a calender year

[winchester_royal]

Erm, it was alright wasn't it. Fair play to Swansea, they play some very good football and pull teams apart.....they are just devoid of a cutting edge aren't they. Reading are equally lacking in that position, the front two again today were utterly dire. Shane Long I have totally given up on anyway, but there is no excuse for Raisak - who has played at international level - to time his headers so poorly and win the ball so infrequently in the air, because it is not as if he offers an awful lot on the ground. Our front two were so utterly wretched today that we ended with not one recognised centre-forward playing for the last 25 minutes or so.

Someone sent a text in to Radio Berkshire this evening and - unusually for the dross that poses as vox pops on that station - called it just about right by saying that the fact that our best player was once again a stand in right back. Marek was his usual so-so self, wanting too much time on the ball. Gylfi was excellent, although he wasted a decent dead ball opportunity right at the end. McAnuff looked worryingly disinterested. Pearce had a far improved game. Nobody else took my attention really, other than the outstanding Leon Britton and excellent Nathan Dyer for Swansea. They are absolute certs for a top six place for me, so a point against them in our current predicament will do for me. A similar outcome is that absolute minimum required on Monday against a poor Plymouth side.

This is just about spot on IMO. They were very good, particularly in first half, and we did well to match them.

Gyfli just keeps getting better, another top performance from him, and it is perhaps suprising that given all the hype surrounding Henry, Karacan and Pearce; He, along with Church, turns out to be our best product by far.

[West_Reading]

Thought 1-1 was a fair result. In the first half we gave Swansea too much possession and I had a really bad feeling watching Gunnarsson up against Dyer early on. Matejovsky was excellent the few times he got on the ball and Long really should have got on the end of the through ball he was played by Marek. Gylfi again was excellent and really strong on the ball. Mcanuff had a really quiet game and Cisse I thought covered a lot of ground. Bertrand handled Dyer much better and this meant that Gunnarsson grew in confidence especially second half. Kebe and Robson-Kanu were excellent when they came on too and caused a lot of problems for the Swansea back line.

Federici - 7 - Done what was required and a couple of key saves.
Gunnarsson - 7 - Struggled against Dyer but was excellent in the second half.
Ingy - 6 - Won most headers but still doesn't look his same composed self.
Pearce - 7 - Excellent in the air and against some pacy Swansea attckers. Distribution is still poor.
Bertrand - 7 - Solid as always and handled Dyer really well.
Mcanuff - 6 - Not on the ball enough and wasn't effective when he was.
Cisse - 6 - Covered a lot of ground, didn't get much chance to support the attack.
Gylfi - 7 - Excellent when he was cutting in from the left and as well as his goal, put in another couple of great set piece deliveries.
Marek - 8 - I thought he looked a million dollars when he was on the ball although he did give away the ball cheaply on a couple of occasions. Played a sublime through ball to Long.
Long - 5 - Tried hard but he doesn't look as quick as previous years and wasn't strong enough.
Rasiak - 6 - Wasn't as strong in the air as he should be but did get stuck in.

Subs -

Kebe - 7 - Caused havoc with a few of his runs and looked dangerous every time he was on the ball.
Robson-Kanu - 7 - Strong as an ox and technically excellent. Like Kebe looks dangerous with the ball at his feet and running at defenders.
Karacan - 6 - Not on for too long but covered a lot of ground. Was turned inside out a couple of times by one of the Swansea subs (Allen?) but gave the defence good cover.

[FiNeRaIn]

Federici 6 - Didn't do much wrong
Gunnar 9 - MOM stopped certain defeat with that clearance.
Pearce 6 - Bit iffy but fairly solid
Ivar 6- Solid
Bertrand 6- Not one of his better games, solid, but little going forward.
Marek 8 - Good variation of passes, great through ball first half long too slow as usual.
Cisse 6 - Well oiled but didn't shine as much in recent games
Gylfi 8 - Poor free kick in injury time but very technical and good goal.
Mcanuff 5 - Poor today, final product woeful.
Long 3 - Shocking, simply not good enough to play for this football club. Poor pace with marek through ball, even when he was offside on a different chance he went round the keeper and messed it up, completely misjudged a simply throw in out for a goal kick - poor player. More red cards than goals this season, get an academy lad in instead.
Rasiak 6 - Limited but should have done better with mcanuffs lay off into him in the second half.

[Vicky Pollard]

Alright I suppose.

Kebe was very good when he came on, livened us up on the flank. Complete lack of composure with that chance having set himself up so well. McAnuff was daydreaming most of the game, not paying attention on Federici clearances, lost the ball and took hours strolling back onside. Generally didnt seem bothered about playing. And the short corner, Lol. Embrassing. Sigurdsson excellent, great free kick to boost us going into HT, whenever he cuts inside you can see him scoring a belter. Pearce needs to develop something other than hoofing to his game.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Nice too see our subs and technical sitches making a positive impact unlike BR's tinkerings.

We are gonna continue to have results like this until we sign a quality centre forward, the fact we are bringing in this Icelandic lad doesn't feel me with hope.

And also we need to stop playing SIg, until at least the end of January. He's far to good for us...

[Sir Dodger Royal]

Sorry old boy. The end result was yet again no home win.

It was rubbish and I mean rubbishhhhhhhhh

[Man Friday]

Anybody see the altercation between the bloke with his daughter and a neanderthal straight after the match going down the steps (East Stand) where the neanderthal was having a go at the bloke for not going down the steps fast enough because he kept turning around? I assume he was looking for his young son who he had been sitting with. Apparently while he was turning around his elbow knocked said neanderthal as he tried to push past. I think the idiot threatened to break his arms or something. Most people would have told him to feck off.

[FiNeRaIn]

Anybody see the altercation between the bloke with his daughter and a neanderthal straight after the match going down the steps (East Stand) where the neanderthal was having a go at the bloke for not going down the steps fast enough because he kept turning around? I assume he was looking for his young son who he had been sitting with. Apparently while he was turning around his elbow knocked said neanderthal as he tried to push past. I think the idiot threatened to break his arms or something. Most people would have told him to feck off.

So he delays the guy by walking like a nob, then elbows him as well? Fair play to the " neanderthal" for not knocking him out like most would.

[1871royals]

Marek - 8 - I thought he looked a million dollars when he was on the ball although he did give away the ball .

I really don't get the love for Marek. I thought he was poor again today. Cisse had been given the job to track Prately and Marek didn't put any pressure on the other 2 centre midfielders. BM should have matched up Swansea earlier but he isn't helped by having Marek putting in a very poor shift. Marek is a quality footballer but to be a championship CM you need to put yourself about more.

I find it funny that people always go on about his "great" passing ability. He came back into the side against Cardiff so he's had roughly 15+ consecutive starts and set up 1 goal. In that period Kebe, Sigur, Mcanuff have all set up more goals than him. Marek is trying to set up poor quality strikers but that isnt affecting our other creative players.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Have to say bryn was immense at right back. And LOL at the best bit of skill we've seen all season!

agree, and all that from the bloke that can't do 90 minutes anymore

For those that weren't there................on an attack he was on the Eaststand touchline faced with having two players blocking his way through........a simple lob over the pair of them, followed by deftly dancing through them to recieve the ball the otherside of them ...............was simply brilliant

[ZacNaloen]

Anybody see the altercation between the bloke with his daughter and a neanderthal straight after the match going down the steps (East Stand) where the neanderthal was having a go at the bloke for not going down the steps fast enough because he kept turning around? I assume he was looking for his young son who he had been sitting with. Apparently while he was turning around his elbow knocked said neanderthal as he tried to push past. I think the idiot threatened to break his arms or something. Most people would have told him to feck off.

Most decent people would have apologised for being an impatient git and recognised that the guy was looking for someone.

[FiNeRaIn]

Marek - 8 - I thought he looked a million dollars when he was on the ball although he did give away the ball .

I really don't get the love for Marek. I thought he was poor again today. Cisse had been given the job to track Prately and Marek didn't put any pressure on the other 2 centre midfielders. BM should have matched up Swansea earlier but he isn't helped by having Marek putting in a very poor shift. Marek is a quality footballer but to be a championship CM you need to put yourself about more.

I find it funny that people always go on about his "great" passing ability. He came back into the side against Cardiff so he's had roughly 15+ consecutive starts and set up 1 goal. In that period Kebe, Sigur, Mcanuff have all set up more goals than him. Marek is trying to set up poor quality strikers but that isnt affecting our other creative players.

I don't get the people with this opinion. How can you not see his obvious quality? Another example of why he has no assists was that ball he played through to long today, beautifully weighted - long has about as much pace as peter kay and got beat by the keeper. Any half decent striker would have sailed through and slotted it home. Marek is a class act but due to the ineptitude of players he's had around him for two seasons he can't shine. He's a prem player with prem quality who needs prem minded player to read his clever balls. Reading players make the obvious run far too much.

[rg6royal]

Thought today we fully deserved a point.

First half Swansea had so much possession but didn't really create much. Second half the formation was different and we looked alot better. Thought Bryn had a very good game at RB but was living on the edge with the ref on getting a second yellow card.

Didn't see both goals as I was down in the concourse so a bit annoyed about that!

Overall, I think a point was a fair result and hopefully we can go into Monday's game with some positives...

[Victor Meldrew]

Much as expected really-Swansea ran the game in the first half playing the type of football we did under McGhee and we didn't close their players down and just stood and watched as they passed their way through our defence to score.
In the second we had a go and on balance deserved a draw because of the effort but oh for a bit of guile-Marek has it but often just doesn't do enough IMHO.

What I found really disappointing was that it took our coaching staff 40 mintes to realise that Britton was running the game,at times unchallenged.
I think everybody in the ground could see after 10 minutes that Britton needed to be closed down but it took our management another half an hour to suss out the situation which really is poor-a Sunday League manager would have been quicker in changing things.
Also both Marek and Cisse were playing very deep at times almost alongside our centre-backs which is really negative when you are at home.

Having said that,the substitutions were probably right especially with the old boy Rasiak needing to be protected for another game in 2 days' time.
Without him what other options do we have?
Our game plan now seems to be to play long-ball to Rasiak and hope for Knockdowns (unfortunately Shane Long doesn't have the footballing brain to anticipate anything) and look for set-pieces so without Rasiak our style won't work and so he had to be rested.

I like Swansea but I don't think they will get promoted because they don't have a Jason Scotland up front and probably don't have the cash to get one.