MATCHWATCH : Derby County (a)

[windermereROYAL]

Subs killed the game, not for the first time. Can this Clarke experiment oxf*rd die a death now? The lad is so far out of his depth it’s almost mean.

Agreed. Why not play Puscas and Hoilett in that final period? Clearly Pauno has no confidence in Puscas.

To be fair, after that "performance" from Puskas, I can see why!

Anyone seen Westwood lately?

[tidus_mi2]

If you'd offered me 10/15 points this month I would have ripped your hand off so I won't be too critical, not a great showing by us but I really don't get the "Derby were terrible, how did we lose to them?" type of comments, they got their goal, defended well and frankly their goalkeeper made the saves he needed too.

It really fell on us, we were too slow 90% of the time and made it easy for them to defend, need to pick it up against Cardiff, hopefully we can get some players back so we can play less players out of position.

[Lower West]

the opposition did a good job on us.

Tactically out thought yet again.

[Lower West]

Especially Drinkwater - I know people love for some reason, but he was f**king slow, tired and shite, gave the ball away too many times.

Not as if he has played much football in the past 4 years.

[NathStPaul]

I never want to see George Puscas in a Reading shirt again.

[Once upon a time .]

Well I don’t think we were rubbish . Didn’t take advantage of a not very good team . We know that with this lineup we lack height and strength at the back . I think if you swapped the goalkeepers over it would have been a different result , certainly their keeper was in action more than ours , made saves that ours wasn’t asked to make .
Centre forward showed to be a problem tonight , neither Puscas or Clarke caused any problems .

[Crowbar6753]

With zero striking options we have to rely on our three attacking midfielders, and all game winners in their own right!! but tonight sadly all three were off their game resulting in very little scoring threat.
Hailalovic was the biggest culprit tonight with some pretty wayward finishing, however, i like him as a player and at least he was getting into the right positions.
I thought Laurent was immense at Centre back tonight and really could make a great career in this position. Has to be Laurent & Dann starting on Saturday with Yiadom reverting back to Right back.
Onwards and Upwards... move on to Saturday.

[leon]

Derby pulled off the neat trick of being able to press us high up the pitch and make it difficult to play out and also have all their team behind the ball to stop us from going through them.

Their shape was good but our utterly ponderous fanny ball really played into their hands.

[CountryRoyal]

Derby pulled off the neat trick of being able to press us high up the pitch and make it difficult to play out and also have all their team behind the ball to stop us from going through them.

Their shape was good but our utterly ponderous fanny ball really played into their hands.

Ejaria most guilty as per.

[paultheroyal]

Ejaria needs longer studs.
Tetek and Drinkwater were invisible for large parts.
If Dann was fit for bench he was fit to start, poor management.
Won’t get a better chance to beat Derby.
Game tonight cried out for some proper wing play.
Puscas was dreadful. Getting service or not you have to fight for the ball.

[CountryRoyal]

Won’t get a better chance to beat Derby.
Game tonight cried out for some proper wing play.

It really annoys me how we never seem to switch sides and have Ejaria on the right and Hal on the left whip balls into the box. Both are capable of a good delivery and to my mind when it’s not going to plan we could do a lot worse than try it and mix it up for a period of the game. It would also give their defence something else to think about.

[Notts Royal]

In the battle of the naughty boys - looks like this match is going to sell out!!!!!

A fair way short of a sell out. About 8,000 short.

Still 23 hours 45 minutes of sale time.
Suspect the full house will not happen as no way will we take 2000+

Do we take that number to any away game?!

[bcubed]

We really weren't that bad. We weren't great but we weren't shit. We created 4 or even 5 decent chances with decent play but tonight the finish was a little off.

Goal was them targeting an out of position player, which is fair enough but on another night the header loops over or wide.

Nothing much wrong esp. with the lack of options. One to just move on from.

Greed

We should probably expect to concede soft goals with such a makeshift defence and at the other end the chances just weren't finished off. It happens, especially with no striker to speak of. We looked much better with Hoilett up front against Boro. Puscas looks disinterested.

Also Swift seemed to be very deep for large parts of the game and Drinkwater further forward. If that was an experiment I hope it's ended.

[Millsy]

I never want to see George Puscas in a Reading shirt again.

Don't worry you might never have to.

After finally playing brilliantly for two games in a row finding some rhythm being dropped for no reason I don't blame him for losing a bit of momentum. But he wasn't bad anyway. Better than any other striker we tried tonight.

As everyone say he needs to play with someone. So what do we do when 1-0 down? Bring on Jamari to play alongside him? No. Take him off and stay with 1 striker. Just insane.

[Needle]

I never want to see George Puscas in a Reading shirt again.

Don't worry you might never have to.

After finally playing brilliantly for two games in a row finding some rhythm being dropped for no reason I don't blame him for losing a bit of momentum. But he wasn't bad anyway. Better than any other striker we tried tonight.

Better than one of the U18s? Well done George.

You got his name on your shirt didn't you?

He's a fraud

[CountryRoyal]

Yeah look it’s no secret we don’t play to his strengths but he really should be doing better regardless.

4 goals in 30+ appearances says it all for your senior striker. He’s finished under Pauno, don’t see him improving unfortunately under the current circumstances.

If a new manager comes in and finds the best way to play with him then who knows but as it stands it’s pretty bleak.

[URZZZZ]

Yeah look it’s no secret we don’t play to his strengths but he really should be doing better regardless.

4 goals in 30+ appearances says it all for your senior striker. He’s finished under Pauno, don’t see him improving unfortunately under the current circumstances.

If a new manager comes in and finds the best way to play with him then who knows but as it stands it’s pretty bleak.

Puscas has always been at his best playing off the last defender, running in behind, relying on strong service. For that, you’re probably looking for at least a strike partner or deliveries from out wide. We have neither

On the other hand, we have a midfield who want to play intricate passes through the centre and as such, you want a striker partner to hold the ball up and let the midfield play off of you (e.g Swift against Preston)

Just seems to be a general lack of cohesion between the midfield and attack when Puscas is asked to do that role (aside from 30 minutes against Peterborough). It’s a shame as it’s clear there’s something there but we’ve never been able to get it fully out of him and quite frankly at the moment, he’s going the same way as Baldock did last season - not a goal threat and rather ineffective

[Royal_jimmy]

Got back shortly after midnight.

We were not switched on, were under par and deserved nothing tonight. Derby looked a solid mid table side but on a better performance we'd have probably won that game. I felt there was a lack of anticipation in our play and we messed about too much in possession near our own box again. Opponents are picking up on this and are pressing us.

Feel sorry for Puscas. We're 1-0 down and we take our only senior striker off. Then 5 minutes later we take off Halilovic and being on Clarke? I think Puscas and Pauno must have had a bust up based on Puscas not even acknowledging the manager after being subbed.

Swift was our MoM. Only one who played well really. The goal was a combo of poor defending not stopping the cross and poor keeping. Southwood keeps coming forward for crosses so no surprised he was lobbed from a header.

Rubbish turn out from our fans tonight. 1 coach and Derby is only a couple of hours away. Ticket prices weren't that expensive.

[CountryRoyal]

Rubbish turn out from our fans tonight. 1 coach and Derby is only a couple of hours away. Ticket prices weren't that expensive.

Think the current fuel situation has probably had an impact. It did for me, I couldn’t get fuel until last night but when I tried to get a ticket the TO said unable to collect at Derby.

[Stranded]

Got back shortly after midnight.

We were not switched on, were under par and deserved nothing tonight. Derby looked a solid mid table side but on a better performance we'd have probably won that game. I felt there was a lack of anticipation in our play and we messed about too much in possession near our own box again. Opponents are picking up on this and are pressing us.

Feel sorry for Puscas. We're 1-0 down and we take our only senior striker off. Then 5 minutes later we take off Halilovic and being on Clarke? I think Puscas and Pauno must have had a bust up based on Puscas not even acknowledging the manager after being subbed.

Swift was our MoM. Only one who played well really. The goal was a combo of poor defending not stopping the cross and poor keeping. Southwood keeps coming forward for crosses so no surprised he was lobbed from a header.

Rubbish turn out from our fans tonight. 1 coach and Derby is only a couple of hours away. Ticket prices weren't that expensive.

Halilovic was done, may even have had a small knock as he did signal to the bench.

The plan clearly has been to rest Hoilett, so Puscas started but his momentum was shot and team were not playing to his strengths.

So we reverted to what had been working then Halilovic had to come off. Clarke was the only real option to keep that shape