Firstly, no excuses about 'a weakened team'. That was a team well capable of avoiding a six goal defeat to Peterborough. As the manager said - one of the few sensible things he said - there were 7 or 8 internationals out there.
I don't usually bother with individual player ratings but there were an awful lot of scapegoats out there tonight, so here goes:
Federici - beaten at his near post for the first, a familiar weakness to Federici's game. Otherwise was doomed to failure behind a ponderous defence.
Cummings - one of my favourite Adkins quotes thus far last season was that "it doesn't matter which side your full back plays on, left or right, a full back can play anywhere". Is this why England line up with Baines and Cole both playing then
? Cummings frankly is a poor footballer even at this level, we've seen that enough times over the past 3 or 4 seasons. Conceded an embarrassing penalty for the fifth and was beaten all ends up all night long by simple balls played down the line. Ship him out.Gunter - massively mediocre player, was caught in possession to leave Posh with a 2 on 1 situation while it was still 1-0. They didn't take the chance, luckily his colleagues were just as obliging for the rest of the night.
Mariappa - Never understood the love for him. Played the largest chunk of last season, a regular in a side which conceded the joint highest amount of goals last season in the Premier League. Was turned inside out for the opener, naïve play. Didn't win big challenges, gave away free kicks and looked generally bewildered.
Gorkss - Should have been put out to pasture long ago. Conceded a penalty.
Defence as a unit: Take a look at the third goal if you get the chance, an absolute beauty. 3 on 1 defensive situation in our favour. In all fairness, they received very little protection from the following midfield:
Williams - Started brightly, broke from midfield, distributed the ball well. Second half faded, fitness seemed poor - as it seems with the whole of the team generally, why is this? - and delivered a series of utterly mediocre set pieces.
Akpan - Simply awful, every second touch had to be a tackle as he was caught in possession too often.
HRK - Another one who looks unfit, even fat (noted comments earlier - thankfully we don't call on my services quite yet
). Has looked poor in his fleeting appearances this season, very disappointing as he should be capable of much better.ALF - Pretty much anonymous, so that is standard ALF-starting fare then isn't it.
Pog - disgracefully disinterested once we'd fallen 2 & 3 behind, but gave us 2 or 3 quality touches in the earlier stages of the game. One of our most capable players yet he clearly doesn't like being here. Doesn't that say it all about Reading FC in 2013?
The manager? If you talk about scoring 100 goals and keeping 21 clean sheets and being Champions then don't be surprised if you're getting stick when you get rolled 6-0 by Peterborough when fielding a side which (on paper) should at least be able to compete with a club with a far smaller budget than our own. 2 wins from 13 now, one was a dead-rubber against Fulham, the other a narrow win thanks to a deflection and an own goal which perhaps we marginally shaded but which we also could very easily have lost given some clear cut chances we gave away. Adkins teams are too open and I don't particularly enjoy watching that. I enjoyed the Watford game as we quite honestly played some pretty and effective stuff first half, but when the opposition finally turned up second half they tore us a new @rsehole and we were all pleased with a draw in the end from a game we led 3-1 with 20 minutes to go.
The players? Jimmy Kebe has come out and got himself a move, seems we have another manager who can't get players to play for him! Pog would quite clearly rather be anywhere else. Judging by the body language tonight - the shrugging and the shaking of heads during the game - we have all the team spirit of Hitler's bunker in Berlin, circa April 1945.
In 2005 we mocked Warnock for sending a Sheff U team down with the declared intention that he didn't care about the same competition. We duly beat them comfortably. Perhaps Adkins can tell us supporters not to bother next time because the whole attitude around this game tonight - zero substitutions made - was disgraceful. At least Adkins has something memorable on his RFC CV at last.....have we ever suffered a heavier margin of defeat to a lower division side in a cup match?
