Let’s talk about passing it around the back.

[Millsy]

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has cringed on multiple occasions this season as Rafael and our defenders live very dangerously passing around the back.

We could all see it very early on that all teams had to do was high press and force inevitable errors... except our team for some reason.

Despite teams employing this obvious strategy now pretty much every game, we have continued stubbornly with this philosophy.

Very hairy moments have occurred pretty much every game I can remember but it sort of doesn’t matter when you’re scoring for fun.

Today’s game (Stoke) was for me just taking the piss. I literally lost count of the danger situations. Even forgetting Rafaels braindead kick to their player for the second goal this game was littered with mistakes, half arsed underhit passes right in front of our penalty box with their players sniffing around centimetres away. It of course lead to goal 3 too but there could have been so many more.

We complained about this under Stam. There were some changes to improve this under Clement Gomesand Bowen but it seems we’re back to our worst but sort of accepting it because at least we’re able to score this season. That doesn’t make it ok though. That doesn’t mean it’s working.

I’m no football professional but surely there’s an answer to high press teams. And that answer isn’t just lump it up to Joao because they just put 2 or 3 on him. And it certainly isn’t just therefore carry on doing the same thing until the inevitable mistake.

I don’t know maybe it requires a keeper with very good distribution. Maybe it requires big powerful wingers (like Meite, Little, Antonio) so you have more than one option when you want to go long. Maybe it requires very good ball playing defenders. When Meite and Moore are out maybe it requires 4-4-2 so you have 2 to aim at in the box.

I don’t know, and neither should I because I’m not a football manager.

One thing I can clearly see as we all could is that we seem to be doing this dodgy passing it around the back far too often and teams are now loving it.

[SCIAG]

Not to be glib but the solution is to break the press.

Some of our most convincing wins in recent times - most obviously Luton - have come against teams that pressed us hard but we just passed around them. Contrastingly, when teams don’t press us we tend to struggle to break them down, they get nine men behind the ball and there’s no space for anyone to operate in. We overcommit men forwards and are exposed to the counter.

Or you could think about the playoff final against Swansea, where our front four pushed right up and Legs had to press Britton. That gave Swansea’s attacking players a lot of room to play in and left our defenders exposed. Contrast it to our wins against Southampton and West Ham nearly a year later, where our midfield sat very deep and we hit them on the counter attack.

Inviting the press by playing it short, and then breaking the press makes the later stages of the attack much easier and means you aren’t as vulnerable to the counter.

These days most teams do not bother to press Man City. Their defenders can just pass it round you, and of course Ederson is probably the best ball-playing goalkeeper in history. We probably can’t find someone quite like Ederson but we can learn to play it around teams. Our younger defenders are all excellent ball-players who have grown up playing out from the back, it’s the Reading way. But the challenge is really more about the midfield movement. I’m not sure it is a strength of Laurent and Rinomhota. It’s one of the things Swift is very good at - and he also has the best passing range in the squad.

The other solution would be to really focus on quick counter attacks. But when you’re the favourite, teams tend to be more cautious about committing players forward. That’s why inviting the press is so important - it creates space for Joao and Meite to attack, it creates room for our creative players to do their thing. And frankly it’s mostly working.

If you want teams to commit men forward then you have to seem vulnerable. So I think inviting the press is a good idea. The issue is breaking the press, which can be done through a combination of better decision making and systematic changes to the midfield.

[Hound]

Top post sciag

[Sutekh]

If you want teams to commit men forward then you have to seem vulnerable. So I think inviting the press is a good idea. The issue is breaking the press, which can be done through a combination of better decision making and systematic changes to the midfield.

So that explains the last 3 results. A deliberate ploy as Reading had become seemingly invincible but now opponents should see the club as being back to the vulnerable load of old toss that messers Stam, Clement, Gomes and Bowen had been very carefully fostering over the last 3 seasons thus now leaving the way open to get a great return of points from the upcoming hardest run of fixtures.

[Hound]

I think it’s an area we’ve missed Moore - some of his long range passing this season has been excellent

Of course part of the ploy is for the oppo to commit players to the press leaving them vulnerable to the longer ball - see the Barnsley sending off (though that was swift), Joao vs Wycombe/Rotherham.

[Millsy]

. . So I think inviting the press is a good idea. The issue is breaking the press, which can be done through a combination of better decision making and systematic changes to the midfield.

Thanks SCiAG. As ever very helpful post.

I guess yes while there have been hairy moments most of the time I’ve been in awe at how we’ve done quick triangles and cut through them like butter and have found our attackers in lots of space.

It’s comforting to know that while yes it’s scary at times, that’s kind of by design really and we just have to accept it.

I couldn’t see it under stam, Gomes, Clement, Bowen but I have certainly noticed it with Pauno.

I guess the likes of me will complain when the fine balance of attacking chances v defensive errors favours the latter, and that’s probably down solely to Moore’s injury but I take points about the midfield too.

[Hound]

Tbf we did the play out pretty poorly throughout yesterday - not just the goals but multiple other occasions. It looked terrible and even I was getting massively frustrated with it

But we’ve done it very well in other games. Cardiff, derby and Boro come to mind. I think it’s a bit of a confidence, tiredness and concentration thing

[leon]

Tbf we did the play out pretty poorly throughout yesterday - not just the goals but multiple other occasions. It looked terrible and even I was getting massively frustrated with it

But we’ve done it very well in other games. Cardiff, derby and Boro come to mind. I think it’s a bit of a confidence, tiredness and concentration thing

It requires movement and quick passing to overcome a high press. The midfield this season has been head and shoulders better than we’ve seen in years however we’re still not good enough to play in this way.

[Snowflake Royal]

I detest passing out from the back, with a passion.

I can think of barely any goals conceded as a direct result of a punt upfield in the first 15 odd years of watching Reading before this fad arrived here and yet passing out we now regularly see half a dozen a season.

And I reckon we've scored as many goals from long balls up front this season as we have direct from passing out the last three seasons.

It's stupid, it's dangerous, the risks far outweigh the rewards and I'm sick of it.

[Hound]

But the long ball goals have been as a result of short passing in the rest of the game

Games moved on. All decent teams play out from the back now, and it’s what’s taught in all the academies - you’ll have to get used to it

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I think it’s an area we’ve missed Moore - some of his long range passing this season has been excellent

Of course part of the ploy is for the oppo to commit players to the press leaving them vulnerable to the longer ball - see the Barnsley sending off (though that was swift), Joao vs Wycombe/Rotherham.

Yes - was thinking that; need to stick with it in my view, we have ball playing defenders but we also need to remember to mix it up on occasions as we aren't Man City

[Snowball]

I think it’s an area we’ve missed Moore

Someone else posted about how many shots Moore has charged down

I've made the point that we weren't outplayed in any of these games
just made horrible mistakes. But a fair few of those mistakes could
have led to a blocked shot (rather than a goal) had Moore been playing.

had that happened we could be 7 points clear

[Hound]

I think it’s an area we’ve missed Moore

Someone else posted about how many shots Moore has charged down

I've made the point that we weren't outplayed in any of these games
just made horrible mistakes. But a fair few of those mistakes could
have led to a blocked shot (rather than a goal) had Moore been playing.

had that happened we could be 7 points clear

Yeah your stats were interesting

Highlighted during the last game that seemed that every shot on target against us recently had gone in - but yes that’s largely due to some horrendous errors at the back

Clearly a lot of our recent woes are done to low scoring percentage on our own chances. Though the errors at the back are infuriating- if we’d scored first in each game, when we arguably should have done - we’d have come out with 5 or 6 points at least

[Zip]

I detest passing out from the back, with a passion.

I can think of barely any goals conceded as a direct result of a punt upfield in the first 15 odd years of watching Reading before this fad arrived here and yet passing out we now regularly see half a dozen a season.

And I reckon we've scored as many goals from long balls up front this season as we have direct from passing out the last three seasons.

It's stupid, it's dangerous, the risks far outweigh the rewards and I'm sick of it.

Same here. We are simply not good enough to play this way. High risk with low reward as we constantly put our players under pressure and it often ends up with a hurried clearance anyway.

[Zip]

I think it’s an area we’ve missed Moore

Someone else posted about how many shots Moore has charged down

I've made the point that we weren't outplayed in any of these games
just made horrible mistakes. But a fair few of those mistakes could
have led to a blocked shot (rather than a goal) had Moore been playing.

had that happened we could be 7 points clear

Yep absence is really making the heart grow fonder of Moore. He throws his body in front of everything and makes so many blocks. Been a huge miss in the past couple of games.

[Snowball]

I think it’s an area we’ve missed Moore

Someone else posted about how many shots Moore has charged down

I've made the point that we weren't outplayed in any of these games
just made horrible mistakes. But a fair few of those mistakes could
have led to a blocked shot (rather than a goal) had Moore been playing.

had that happened we could be 7 points clear

Yep absence is really making the heart grow fonder of Moore. He throws his body in front of everything and makes so many blocks. Been a huge miss in the past couple of games.

Not sure whether it's his speed of thought, speed over five yards, or guts
but he sure do blockalot

[Hound]

I detest passing out from the back, with a passion.

I can think of barely any goals conceded as a direct result of a punt upfield in the first 15 odd years of watching Reading before this fad arrived here and yet passing out we now regularly see half a dozen a season.

And I reckon we've scored as many goals from long balls up front this season as we have direct from passing out the last three seasons.

It's stupid, it's dangerous, the risks far outweigh the rewards and I'm sick of it.

Same here. We are simply not good enough to play this way. High risk with low reward as we constantly put our players under pressure and it often ends up with a hurried clearance anyway.

We were absolutely good enough doing it in the first 8 games

And not in the last 3. Might be due to absences, fatigue, confidence, concentration or something more nuanced from the oppo beyond my basic understanding

Ian, bit surprised with you as you were defending us doing much what we were doing in the games vs Rotherham and Wycombe about tiring out the oppo and waiting for a chance. And we scored goals in both those games by tempting players to push on and leaving Joao with a run at their CBs

[Zip]

I detest passing out from the back, with a passion.

I can think of barely any goals conceded as a direct result of a punt upfield in the first 15 odd years of watching Reading before this fad arrived here and yet passing out we now regularly see half a dozen a season.

And I reckon we've scored as many goals from long balls up front this season as we have direct from passing out the last three seasons.

It's stupid, it's dangerous, the risks far outweigh the rewards and I'm sick of it.

Same here. We are simply not good enough to play this way. High risk with low reward as we constantly put our players under pressure and it often ends up with a hurried clearance anyway.

We were absolutely good enough doing it in the first 8 games

And not in the last 3. Might be due to absences, fatigue, confidence, concentration or something more nuanced from the oppo beyond my basic understanding

Ian, bit surprised with you as you were defending us doing much what we were doing in the games vs Rotherham and Wycombe about tiring out the oppo and waiting for a chance. And we scored goals in both those games by tempting players to push on and leaving Joao with a run at their CBs

It worked in some of the early games in that the opposition tired during the second half although I would argue we didn’t play particularly well. I’ve never been a fan of passing like this and it does often end with hurried clearances following a sequence of high risk passing around the back.

[Snowflake Royal]

I detest passing out from the back, with a passion.

I can think of barely any goals conceded as a direct result of a punt upfield in the first 15 odd years of watching Reading before this fad arrived here and yet passing out we now regularly see half a dozen a season.

And I reckon we've scored as many goals from long balls up front this season as we have direct from passing out the last three seasons.

It's stupid, it's dangerous, the risks far outweigh the rewards and I'm sick of it.

Same here. We are simply not good enough to play this way. High risk with low reward as we constantly put our players under pressure and it often ends up with a hurried clearance anyway.

We were absolutely good enough doing it in the first 8 games

And not in the last 3. Might be due to absences, fatigue, confidence, concentration or something more nuanced from the oppo beyond my basic understanding

Ian, bit surprised with you as you were defending us doing much what we were doing in the games vs Rotherham and Wycombe about tiring out the oppo and waiting for a chance. And we scored goals in both those games by tempting players to push on and leaving Joao with a run at their CBs

I wasn't defending playing out from the back. I was defending defending well and being patient in possession.

I want to see us pass the ball in the middle third, play direct in the defensive third and high tempo in the attacking third.

[Hound]

I’d argue those are likely contradictory. Can’t be patient in possession if you’ve played direct from the back.

How many goals have we actually conceded from playing out from the back? 1 I think - stokes second. Yet I’d suggest at least 2 of our goals scored have come from the oppo playing too high to press (plus Barnsley send off). And I’ve not even really thought about our other goals and if they’ve come from passing it out

I can’t remember us conceding many since Stam tbh from actual mistakes passing it out. Sure there must have been some but it’s a really low percentage