back from the game - norwich

[Harry Carry]

A good result but a poor performance really. Reading just give the ball away too easily and play themselves under pressure. Against a better side they would have struggled to get anything out of that game. They need a ball player in midfield. Karacan looks out of his depth and Cisse simply isn't good enough. Reading could do with someone like Clingan who can pass the ball and find a man. Too many easy passes went astray and I mean easy passes. Good job there was a couple of good moment from Kebe and Long.

You can really see the difference in quality between the Prem and Championship. Some of the football played last night bordered on pub football.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Silver Fox wrote:

Did all the people who've given marks actually go to the game? Because I'm trying to work out what Bikey must have been doing off camera to earn such praise? He looked a bit of a lazy liability in the pub to be honest.

FWIW Shane Long - 11

Bikey and Duberry were both excellent at the back.

[Norfolk Royal]

What a night! Concidering there were only about 500 of us, we made a hell of a noise. And LOL @ the Ipswich fans in our end. Legends.

Heres some of my best pictures:

That is a truely awful picture of me. But at least I've finally made it on to Hobnob.

Sorry I missed you lot.

I saw you Ian, I was sat across the way on roughly the same row with my ten-year old daughter.

My initial thought was that you didn't have much in the way of hair.

[londinium]

Silver Fox wrote:

Did all the people who've given marks actually go to the game? Because I'm trying to work out what Bikey must have been doing off camera to earn such praise? He looked a bit of a lazy liability in the pub to be honest.

FWIW Shane Long - 11

Bikey and Duberry were both excellent at the back.

Bikey was terribly lazy at times especially when he got skinned on the edge of the box and Rosenior had to take a booking for him.
His passing out of defence was absolutely woeful. I like the bloke but this is professional football and not a kick around in the park.

Duberry - fairly solid once again.

[CMRoyal]

You can really see the difference in quality between the Prem and Championship. Some of the football played last night bordered on pub football.

Just had a phone call from a depressed mate who's a Newcastle fan. I think he might disagree with you there, he said last night's match against Pompey was dire, lump it stuff.

[Uke]

Aparently Tabb and Armstrong had a bug.

Maybe they'd had a dodgy Mexican?

[Maguire]

Enjoyed that game.

Cheers then.

[Uke]

What a night! Concidering there were only about 500 of us, we made a hell of a noise. And LOL @ the Ipswich fans in our end. Legends.

Heres some of my best pictures:

That is a truely awful picture of me. But at least I've finally made it on to Hobnob.

Sorry I missed you lot.

Me too - follicularly challenged, greying and walking up the steps

My life is now complete

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Certainly not the best of games, but given the circumstances what else would you expect?

Both sides looked very nervy and the 1st half was pretty dire.

We just kept knocking on the door 2nd half and dare I say it, we looked better imo with Hunt on the pitch, even his set plays were good!!

Bikey continues to show why Coppell would always go with Ivar/Doobs if they were fit, he looks great one minute, then all over the place the next. He's not even any good on the ball and gave it away much more than Doobs, a player who gets a lot of stick over his passing.

Kitson's still playing too deep and I'm begining to think signing him was a mistake, we need centre forwards to lead the line the way Long did last night, Kits had his usaul nice touches coming deep to get the ball, but when the move finishes we have just one player in the box up against 4 defenders, with Kits jogging into the d. Considering how much it's going to cost us to bring him back, is it really worth it?

Sunday will be brutal, not a game to enjoy, it will come down to bollox and nothing else. They' ve shown bottle in the last few games, while Brum have fcuked it up, the ball is in our court.

Come on COLIN!!

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Certainly not the best of games, but given the circumstances what else would you expect?

Both sides looked very nervy and the 1st half was pretty dire.

We just kept knocking on the door 2nd half and dare I say it, we looked better imo with Hunt on the pitch, even his set plays were good!!

Bikey continues to show why Coppell would always go with Ivar/Doobs if they were fit, he looks great one minute, then all over the place the next. He's not even any good on the ball and gave it away much more than Doobs, a player who gets a lot of stick over his passing.

Kitson's still playing too deep and I'm begining to think signing him was a mistake, we need centre forwards to lead the line the way Long did last night, Kits had his usaul nice touches coming deep to get the ball, but when the move finishes we have just one player in the box up against 4 defenders, with Kits jogging into the d. Considering how much it's going to cost us to bring him back, is it really worth it?

Sunday will be brutal, not a game to enjoy, it will come down to bollox and nothing else. We've shown bottle in the last few games, while Brum have fcuked it up, the ball is in our court.

Come on COLIN!!

[papereyes]

Kitson's still playing too deep and I'm begining to think signing him was a mistake, we need centre forwards to lead the line the way Long did last night, Kits had his usaul nice touches coming deep to get the ball, but when the move finishes we have just one player in the box up against 4 defenders, with Kits jogging into the d. Considering how much it's going to cost us to bring him back, is it really worth it?

I always got told that's where one of your attackers needs to be on a cross - hitting the D as the ball is played, so any failures to clear fall at their feet.

My thoughts would be ...

Kebe needs to open up on defenders a bit more and make them scared of his pace.
Cisse was pretty dire but I accept his job could have been to hold it tight for 60 minutes. Karacan was immense in his workrate up and down the pitch.
LOLittle: That said, I have not seen a corner as bad as Hunt's at the end of the first half. The little hobbit worked hard.
Dan Harding impressed me a lot. Rosenior still annoys me with some of the stupid things he does - unchallenged headers to the feet of opposition players etc.
Kitson did well. Not very well, but linked well with Marek and Long at the end of the game. Marek opened the game up - some nice passes into space that brought Kebe into play a lot more.
Bikey was a lump. Duberry a slightly more effective lump. Hahnemann had very little to do.

Long was MotM without the goals, let alone the second header which was quality - great leap, found that yard of space between two defenders and got it down into the corner.

[papereyes]

You can really see the difference in quality between the Prem and Championship. Some of the football played last night bordered on pub football.

Outside of the Top 4, plus Villa, Everton, possibly City and Spurs, the Premiership is not that special.

There's plenty of teams that could have slotted in perfectly into that game.

[Uke]

You can really see the difference in quality between the Prem and Championship. Some of the football played last night bordered on pub football.

Outside of the Top 4, plus Villa, Everton, possibly City and Spurs, the Premiership is not that special.

There's plenty of teams that could have slotted in perfectly into that game.

True, but it's never stopped Harry from quoting a cliché

[Blue Biscuit]

First half wasn't great, we gave the ball away too much....but second half was much tighter. We kept possession and played some good triangles. Kebe was too much for Norwich in the second half, as was Jem. Little had possibly his worst game ever, and Kitson was far too deep. Long was the pick of the team. Worked hard throughout and took his goals well. Defensively we looked ok. Harding got some stick from the Norwich fans, (Ipswich reject etc..) which did seem to put him off initially, but second half he was ok.
As an aside I was impressed by Clingan the Norwich player. We could do worse than get him during the summer.

[The 17 Bus]

Aparently Tabb and Armstrong had a bug.

Maybe they'd had a dodgy Mexican?

Or a pork chop!!!

[Snowball]

Longy likes to play against Norwich that four this season..

Much as I rate (and have always rated) Shane, he has scored three versus Norwich

He won the penalty at home in the 84th minute (SHunt scored) and then scored himself in the 86th.

He got two versus Charlton at the Mad Stad

So he earned us two extra points home and away to Norwich, one (really two) home to Charlton
a point away to Saints, won the penalty for the last-minute equaliser at Watford

7 points

scored the winner AND kicked off our line versus Sheffield Wednesday, so another 2 points. That's 9 points (at least) he'd directly won us

[Maguire]

Longy likes to play against Norwich that four this season..

Much as I rate (and have always rated) Shane, he has scored three versus Norwich

He won the penalty at home in the 84th minute (SHunt scored) and then scored himself in the 86th.

He got two versus Charlton at the Mad Stad

So he earned us two extra points home and away to Norwich, one (really two) home to Charlton
a point away to Saints, won the penalty for the last-minute equaliser at Watford

7 points

scored the winner AND kicked off our line versus Sheffield Wednesday, so another 2 points. That's 9 points (at least) he'd directly won us

Can you quantify how many he's lost us by missing chances or just being utterly dogshit?

[The 17 Bus]

what Long needs is a run in the team, we have seen he can score goals, but in his 4 seasons has not really had a chance, a lot to do with having Doyle, Lita and Kitson ahead of him.

Perhaps sometihng has clicked that whatever happens Doyle might move on, Lita will def leave, and Kitson may return to Stoke, therefore it can be Hunt (n) and long as the players in the shirt at the start of next season.

[Snowball]

Kitson's still playing too deep and I'm begining to think signing him was a mistake, we need centre forwards to lead the line the way Long did last night, Kits had his usaul nice touches coming deep to get the ball, but when the move finishes we have just one player in the box up against 4 defenders, with Kits jogging into the D. Considering how much it's going to cost us to bring him back, is it really worth it?

!

Put it another way. If we announced that we were going to spend 4.7 MILLION for a player who has scored


02 goals in 08.2 games, Championship, Reading 2008-9
00 goals in 11.2 games, Premiership, Stoke 2008-9
10 goals in 29.2 games, Premiership, Reading 2007-8
02 goals in 09.8 games, Premiership, Reading 2006-7
18 goals in 28.4 games, Championship, Reading 2005-6
19 goals in 37.0 games, Championship, Reading 2004-5
05 goals in 11.4 games, Championship, Reading 2003-4

56 goals in 135.2 games = 1 goal every 2.4 games (that's not bad)

but only 14 goals in the last three seasons, only 12 in the last two, only two goals in 19.4 games this season

wouldn't there be an outcry that the price was about 4 million too high?

I like Kits, but being hard-nosed, we would be better off NOT signing him, demanding the full whack from Stoke, over time, and using the money to buy another striker

or play hardball and get a much better price.

[Snowball]

Can you quantify how many he's lost us by missing chances or just being utterly dogshit?

Well, talking this season, he has clearly won us at least 9 points and only started ten times, only been on for the equivalent of 15 games

and I published the stats recently to show that he didn't play AT ALL in 5 of our ten defeats, and only a couple of minutes in one other

So 10 defeats and 6 absolutely nothing to do with Shane