Burnley 4th Round FA Cup game!!

[Mr Angry]

I was stunned at how poor Burnley were to be honest; i thought McCann at left back was shocking, so its no surprise to read it was his first game for ages.

Apart from a brief spell off pressure midway through the 2nd half Burnley posed zero threat.

Eagles was kept so quiet by Griffin in the first half that he switched to attack Betrand in the 2nd.

As has been said, a generally poor game but I felt the better team on the day deservedly won.

(I would still have Jensen as our keeper though - the guy is a genuine legend!!)

[J50]

I was stunned at how poor Burnley were to be honest; i thought McCann at left back was shocking, so its no surprise to read it was his first game for ages.

and McCann is not a left back but a left sided midfielder (and a very good one at that...). This season's regular LB Jordan had a hamstring and the other one (Kalvanes) was on home duty with a new baby on the way...

[Royal With Cheese]

Agreed broadly with that J50 - although we only have to beat West Brom at home to book a ticket to Wembley.

er, isn't the next round (after beating WBA) the Quarter Finals? We'd have to win that game too to book a trip to Wembley. Or am I wrong?

Nope you are correct.

Yes - getting a bit carried away with Cup fever in the Cheese household last night!

[Mr Angry]

I was stunned at how poor Burnley were to be honest; i thought McCann at left back was shocking, so its no surprise to read it was his first game for ages.

and McCann is not a left back but a left sided midfielder (and a very good one at that...). This season's regular LB Jordan had a hamstring and the other one (Kalvanes) was on home duty with a new baby on the way...

Fair enough, but it must be a worry for you that you don't have enough depth or capability in your squad to even get a draw against a team in the bottom 3 of the CCC and who have had 2 home wins all season, against Blackpool and Burton Albion. We started last season with Stephen Hunt playing left back after Shorey went to Villa, and whilst he is an excellent left sided midfielder, he was all at sea at left back, and it could be argued that the points we lost at the start of last season cost us automatic promotion.

That having been said, good luck for the rest of the season as its always good when clubs who have just got promoted fail to live down to the "experts" predicitions and have the temerity to not get relegated!!

[handbags_harris]

Well I guess the marginally better team won on the day but that was about all. We looked a bit disjointed to begin with...First half was just crap, dull and rubbish from both sides - the only excitement coming from Rasiak's dive in the box. Second half started better and we looked ok for a while and your keeper kept you in it with 3 good saves. Then we faded and you came into it, not creating that much, but a couple of chances went begging, and it looked a penalty at one point, though it was a long way away for us. As the game wore on you looked most likely to win - and showed the desire to do so - and that proved to be the case with a well taken goal. So, not much in it, not a good performance from us to be honest - we were there for the taking and better Reading teams that I have seen in the past would have walked it. I thought that your delivery into the box was very good, crosses and corners whipped in nicely. I don't think you will be singing "Que sera sera..." for much longer, but your singing it at the end did provide some amusement after a rather dull and cold afternoon.

See, I don't necessarily agree with that. We were the better team, and deserved to win by a bigger margin than we did IMO. First half was crap, but before looking at Rasiak's theatrical fall you have to look at your defender who had his arms around him and deliberately prevented Rasiak from making any inroads to attack the ball. That is foul play, and therefore was a penalty, and unfortunately referees never give penalties unless you go down. That is the only justification I can give for Rasiak's actions, I don't like it, but the way the game is it is a necessary evil. The other problem was that we had Andy D'Urso refereeing, a man who is always likely to not give the obvious decision and then two minutes later give a ridiculously soft one against you.

Second half, again I thought we had the better of apart from a spell midway through when Federici made three saves, one quite excellent, and one at his near post as well! We posed much more of a consistent threat to the Burnley goal, and duly got our reward for our endeavours on 87 minutes. There was, of course, another penalty shout, and this time one of the most obvious infringements on McAnuff but, as I said earlier, we had Andy D'Urso refereeing. An outrageous decision IMO, and the sense of injustice which prevailed spurred us on after that I feel. Certainly Sigurdsson should have scored a minute after that, Church brought a good near post save out of Jensen, Mills made Jensen tip one over, and they're just the ones on the highlights.

In short, I thought Reading showed more effort and desire to win the game, Burnely looked either disinterested or genuinely poor (I'm not sure which), certainly they were a poorer side than the teams which we played four times last season and we were better than them in each of those. It wasn't a great quality game, and we're not going to see that much with Mcdermott in charge given the direct nature we play under him, but we were better than Burnley.

J50, five times I've seen Chris Eagles play for Burnley now, and he's done nothing to convince me that he's a anything but overrated because he has been on the fringes of every game. Burnley fans love him though, so there must be something about him...?

[J50]

See, I don't necessarily agree with that. We were the better team, and deserved to win by a bigger margin than we did IMO. First half was crap, but before looking at Rasiak's theatrical fall you have to look at your defender who had his arms around him and deliberately prevented Rasiak from making any inroads to attack the ball. That is foul play, and therefore was a penalty, and unfortunately referees never give penalties unless you go down. That is the only justification I can give for Rasiak's actions, I don't like it, but the way the game is it is a necessary evil. The other problem was that we had Andy D'Urso refereeing, a man who is always likely to not give the obvious decision and then two minutes later give a ridiculously soft one against you.

Second half, again I thought we had the better of apart from a spell midway through when Federici made three saves, one quite excellent, and one at his near post as well! We posed much more of a consistent threat to the Burnley goal, and duly got our reward for our endeavours on 87 minutes. There was, of course, another penalty shout, and this time one of the most obvious infringements on McAnuff but, as I said earlier, we had Andy D'Urso refereeing. An outrageous decision IMO, and the sense of injustice which prevailed spurred us on after that I feel. Certainly Sigurdsson should have scored a minute after that, Church brought a good near post save out of Jensen, Mills made Jensen tip one over, and they're just the ones on the highlights.

In short, I thought Reading showed more effort and desire to win the game, Burnely looked either disinterested or genuinely poor (I'm not sure which), certainly they were a poorer side than the teams which we played four times last season and we were better than them in each of those. It wasn't a great quality game, and we're not going to see that much with Mcdermott in charge given the direct nature we play under him, but we were better than Burnley.

J50, five times I've seen Chris Eagles play for Burnley now, and he's done nothing to convince me that he's a anything but overrated because he has been on the fringes of every game. Burnley fans love him though, so there must be something about him...?

You're just slightly more biased that's all, the assessment of the game is pretty similar in reality. I agreed with Coppell on tv that neither were penalties when looked at on tv, the attackers went down all easily - you are allowed to put your hands on the opposition, though if you do so you run the risk of them (eg Rasiak) taking a dive, which he did. I wish you'd scored early on then it would have made a better game of it to be honest and me and the little lad (who insisted on wearing the full kit) were bored and freezing. The chances you had were only half chances and comfortable saves for any keeper I would say - the only one you should have scored was the free header? We were poor on the day, probably the worst of the season so far, dunno why. Thought you closed us down pretty well at times, maybe it was that that held us back. Eagles is always hot and cold - though clearly you've only seen him cold. If he was hot all the time he would still be at ManUre... though he has had much better games than that this season, linking well down the left with Jordan (missing on Sat). In many games he has been the main man for us, but alas not on Sat.