Stevenage - FA Cup 4th Round Thread

[79Royal]

Job done. Messy at times and Stevenage deserved their leveller. Looked better when McAnuff switched to the left and he started to cause them problems when it got stretched. Great cross for Longy's goal.

Thought the ref got it right for the pen appeal. Ingi pulled everything out of the way and the guy just ran over him. If the ref was a distance away, he may have given it, but his positioning was perfect.

Sums it up perfectly.

[Stranded]

So, who do we wnat in next rouind? Another 'easy' one? Or a big money tie?

Orient at home.

Judging by how we charitably dropped our level of play to that of Stevenage (or below in places) I'd like a Prem team in the hope we up our performance.

I wouldn't say we dropped our level, Stevenage's change of formation just had a very positive effect on their performance. Once we came to terms with it we started to impose ourselves again.

Want a winnable home tie, so Orient, Sheff Weds, Brighton or Crawley. Save playing the big sides until we have no choice.

[tomrfcurz]

Don't know if its been mentioned but 12 corners! Did we actually create anything from any of them?

[rhroyal]

Don't know if its been mentioned but 12 corners! Did we actually create anything from any of them?

No, we dicked about with all of them until they equalised.

[79Royal]

Don't know if its been mentioned but 12 corners! Did we actually create anything from any of them?

No, we dicked about with all of them until they equalised.

There was some method in that though. Stevenage had all 11 players in the box for our corners, so we were playing it short to try to get a couple of them to push out. Unfortunately, our crossing from most of those corners wasn't good enough.

[sandman]

Job done. Messy at times and Stevenage deserved their leveller. Looked better when McAnuff switched to the left and he started to cause them problems when it got stretched. Great cross for Longy's goal.

Thought the ref got it right for the pen appeal. Ingi pulled everything out of the way and the guy just ran over him. If the ref was a distance away, he may have given it, but his positioning was perfect.

Soccer Saturday said that it was a dive. Not the first time this week that have Sky caught someone doing something they shouldn't.

[RoyalJames101]

Reading: Federici, Griffin, Harte, Mills (C), Ingimarsson, Leigertwood, Karacan, Robson-Kanu, McAnuff, Long, Church
Subs: McCarthy, Khizanishvili, Armstrong, Cummings, Tabb, Antonio, Hunt

Ingimarsson in but Mills takes captaincy. Howard is announced injured despite playing for the reserves midweek. Kebe is ill and Pearce out due to injury, all according to the RFC Twitter account. Alex Pearce is however present at the game so rules out 'discussions with another club' that may be inevitable thoughts from some!

Saw Pearce in the stand today.

[RoyalBlue]

What was that cupped-ear celebration all about? Has Long been getting grief from the fans today?

That puzzled me when I saw it on the TV replays. Very definitely didn't get any stick from the left side of the away stand and doubt he got any from the right either. Didn't really hear grief being given to any of our players, with the exception of a little amount for Church. People seemed very tolerant of Church, even though he had an absolutely dire game. Even the effort appears lacking now. Don't know what is happening but he is a shadow of his former self. Needlessly and far too easily gave the ball away on the edge of their area with most of our team committed forward and this directly led to their goal.

Have to say though that Mills should have defended better on that break. Not sure why he raced so fast out wide, allowing their guy to easily cut inside him. Should have stood off slightly and tried to keep the guy out wide where there was no immediate danger.

I can only think that Hunt wasn't fully fit (shouldn't have been on the bench if that was the case!) or that McDermott was somehow completely blind to Church's performance.

[biscuitman]

People seemed very tolerant of Church

He was terrible but I think the tolerance comes from him still being young, local-ish and from the acedamy. No point swearing at him and slagging him off from the stands because it won't help. McD has him sorted and I trust him to get the best out of him very soon.