Back from the game - Pompey

[floyd__streete]

^ I am in the above picture. Boy have I put on weight in recent years

[Allyh84]

Nice. I was stunned at how loud Portsmouth's home fans were. Amazing support. (First time seeing Portsmouth play at home you see, despite living there for 3 years...)

[Arch]

Oh come on - Church is pretty woeful.

Agyemang is on his waaaaaaaaaay!

I can hear the merry gypsies play....

[Avon Royal]

Nice. I was stunned at how loud Portsmouth's home fans were. Amazing support. (First time seeing Portsmouth play at home you see, despite living there for 3 years...)

Portsmouth's fans were poor last night - they've been a lot louder than that in the past.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Rather disappointing that BFTG threads are spolied by idiots, I thought this site had Mods, time to do a bit of deleting.

[Ginger Ninjas]

Having not been to the Leicester game, the two Reading performances i've seen this season have both been pretty disappointing. There were some occasions in the first half when we strung a few passes together, and when Kebe got the ball, where we managed to look half decent going forward, but otherwise it was bereft of inspiration. On another night we could have won 3-1 (Kebe hitting post, Hunt's offside goal, handball/penalty incident) but by the same token we could have lost 4 or 5 to nil.

He's had some detractors on here recently, but Federici was by far and away our best player last night with three or four good stops. Didn't have the best view of the goal, so not sure who was at fault, but am concerned that all 3 goals we have conceded this season are from crosses where a man has been left seemingly unamarked - hopefully the coaches can work on this as it's pretty basic stuff.

I thought Hunt was particularly poor last night (although he wasn't the only one) and Brian not only got the substitution wrong (Manset looked to be doing ok), but should have had two attacking options on the bench - bringing on HRK for Manset meant we had nobody else to throw on in search of a goal. Think it would have been better to keep Obita on bench, or even include Williams, couldn't have done any worse.

Didn't think the Pompey fans were particularly loud last night (unlike a poster above), decent showing from the Royals fans (especially considering the relative performances of the two teams).

[pea]

Well HRK won more in the air than Hunt and Manset put together, and Kitson won everything in the air for them. Says it all about the game.

Yet again left thinking, "why the hell don't we have overlapping fullbacks". We completely failed to stretch their defensive line or pull any of their defenders out of position at any point in the game which completely plays into their hands. We missed Longs running the channels for doing that, but also having no overlapping fullbacks makes the wingers jobs very difficult, especially for Jobi as a rightfooted player on the left. Every time we got the ball down the wings there was no movement whatsoever, can understand Jimmy's frustration in the first half that no-one was giving him the option of a short pass or layoff each time he was on the ball. (after all, two of our goals have come from that sort of play). Two of our best chances came on the rare occassions that Griffin got up to support Kebe and give that option.

We missed Long's acceleration to hit them on the break when their full backs had got forward to support their attack (whenever they did we couldn't get the ball off them either and they got a shot on goal or a corner out of it every single time). Should have brought HRK on earlier just for his pace to get behind the Portsmouth defence.

Completely the wrong substitution to bring HRK on for Manset. HRK is great up front if the opposition are trying to score, for hitting on the counter and getting in behind their defence. Bringing him on after they're one-nil up and happy to sit deep and soak up the pressure is not the best move, bringing him on for Karacan and dropping McAnuff into CM so we could have a proper left footed winger would have been ok but we need Manset playing if the opposition are playing a deep backline.

Karacan must have had his worst game in a long long time, he wasn't shocking but he just couldn't play his game, didn't get anywhere near their players to hassle and harry them on the ball. He did make some great attacking runs in the first half when we could really have hurt them but our players on the ball rarely took advantage of them and got the ball to him.

Defensively Harte was really good but we really need a left back who will overlap if we're going to play Jobi on that wing. Griffin was apalling, can't understand his judgement sometimes and half the time he looked like he didn't want to touch the ball, letting the ball run out of play between his legs for their throw in, and often just standing still as his man made a run down the wing and had ages to pick a cross. Hopefully Cummings is fit enough to play at the weekend and I hope he stays in the team for good now, he's the sort of full back we need to play to hurt teams like Pompey.

Loved the chants at the little kids in the front row though

[pea]

Nice. I was stunned at how loud Portsmouth's home fans were. Amazing support. (First time seeing Portsmouth play at home you see, despite living there for 3 years...)

Portsmouth's fans were poor last night - they've been a lot louder than that in the past.

(@allyh) Barely heard them last night, might have just been because of where I was standing but I thought they were awful...

[Big Foot]

Nice. I was stunned at how loud Portsmouth's home fans were. Amazing support. (First time seeing Portsmouth play at home you see, despite living there for 3 years...)

Portsmouth's fans were poor last night - they've been a lot louder than that in the past.

(@allyh) Barely heard them last night, might have just been because of where I was standing but I thought they were awful...

^This

[M-U-R-T-Y]

Furthermore

Reading lose an away game early in the season to a side we always bloody lose to, (a result a lot of you were already predicting) - doom, gloom. Reading win an away game early in the season to a side we always beat, OMG PROMOTION


WTF is wrong you with guys? Just calm down, it's early days yet.

[Allyh84]

Nice. I was stunned at how loud Portsmouth's home fans were. Amazing support. (First time seeing Portsmouth play at home you see, despite living there for 3 years...)

Portsmouth's fans were poor last night - they've been a lot louder than that in the past.

(@allyh) Barely heard them last night, might have just been because of where I was standing but I thought they were awful...

Behind the goal they were very loud. This is one of those "were you at the same game I was" moments I suppose.

[Snowball]

Agree "it's early days" but that's two out of three performances where the defence was very poor.

First half, going forward, we weren't too bad.

Griffin, Karacan, Kebe had shots on target, plus Kebe hit a post.

Pearce, Harte and McAnuff missed (half) chances.

But our striking pair weren't getting shots away. Not a shot, on or off target unless I missed one.

At the other end Federici had to make 5 saves, one very good from Kitson who should have shot earlier and scored.
he also had to get to two dangerous crosses. Pompey also missed a sitter

Pompey had a better midfield than us, overall they were better than us and their defence fought harder. 0-0 was a tad flattering.


Second half, once Pompey scored, IMO it was all over. I expected them to get a second.

HRK had one good shot, good save, McAnuff wasted two more. His shooting is APPALLING.

Last season in the 46-game league he had 71 shots, 48 on target for 4 goals. Hardly seems worth getting them on target.

This season so far he has had eight shots. SEVEN off-target and one hit the woodwork.

He either needs to learn to shoot or STOP SHOOTING. Pass or continue to dribble. A striker you isn't. 4/56 and counting.



Kebe looks like he knows he's better than his team. Feds made plenty of saves (except the important one) but
the only player who really looked like he wanted it was Jimmy. VERY bad day at the office.


We may well beat Barnsley on Saturday, and 7 points from 4 games is play-off form,
but ATM we don't look a patch on last season's second-half team.

[Hoop Blah]

Completely the wrong substitution to bring HRK on for Manset. HRK is great up front if the opposition are trying to score, for hitting on the counter and getting in behind their defence.

Interesting thoughts on the game pea. Picking up on this one though, it's the result of starting a player who we obviously don't think can last 90 minutes and so you've effectively pre-planned a substitution before kick-off and limited your options to effect the game as it requires depending on how it pans out.

I was quite surprised to see the make up of the bench, considering how we often hear how aggressive we are and always out to go for the win etc etc etc. To have just one real attacking player on the bench just stinks a bit of selection by what's the easiest not what's right (eg Obita is easier to drop than Tabb or Howard).

A long way to go before we start seeing a real indication of how the season will progress but I still think it's plain to see we're short of a bit of quality.

[brendywendy]

Even though Reading have only beaten Pompey twice in 22 games. Today's game showed we lack cover for both Strikers and Wingers. We had one winger on the bench today... We had over 10 shots but only two shots troubled Jamie Ashdown. I have said the same thing since Shane Long left for West Brom. We need a new striker. Everyone has replyed saying Church will come strong. The lad hasn't even scored 10 goals for Reading in 2 years. Brett Williams even though we are working on him he is 26 years old there is no way you can create a decent 20+ goalscorer in the Championship. Reinvestment is required to take Reading back up to the big time.
Reading are on a slide and will do what Southampton have done. Gone down to League One reinvest, rebuild the club and look they scored 5 away from home. And my favourites to go up.
Reinvestment is the key to success.

As you can only have 5 subs on the bench and assuming you have a goalkeeper, why would you have more than 1 winger on the bench or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

But what club, other than one that has had its squad messed up by its chairman's financial policies, fill its bench with a keeper and four midfielders? No specialist defender or striker!

please see wikipedia article on utility players.

brynn. HRK
midfielders. one is a decent CB, one is a decent striker option.

[BR2]

On a lighter note, I never knew Where's Wally was a Reading fan, he's even got the glasses!

I'm the bloke sat in front of the guy with glasses looking (with so little grey hair)so much younger than I really am.
As for the game I pretty much agree with what has been said.
If Kebe doesn't perform we don't perform.
Can't be bothered to do ratings other than:
Feds 8
Hunt 3
Jobi 4
Hunt must be one of the thickest players around-the ref had just spoken to him and their Pearce so what does Hunt do?
In his next challenge he blatantly led with his elbow and could have been sent off.
Manset tried hard but how on earth,as Floyd says,after a pre-season of fitness work are we going to get him to last the whole game?
I hope to be proved wrong but to my eyes HRK is not a central striker-he has the physique but is a bit nancy and he lacks the dexterity of movement to play there IMHO.
Seeing Kanu and to some extent Kitson holding up the ball so well while midfield players joined in showed what we lack and apart from "Give it to Jimmy" or hitting the ball long we are a very unimaginative side and playing to hit teams home and away on the break is hardly progressive football.
Early days and a good wake-up call after the players looked as though they had already won the league after the win against a disjointed Leicester.

[Terminal Boardom]

But what club, other than one that has had its squad messed up by its chairman's financial policies, fill its bench with a keeper and four midfielders? No specialist defender or striker!

please see wikipedia article on utility players.

brynn. HRK
midfielders. one is a decent CB, one is a decent striker option.

The key word is specialist

[Hoop Blah]

I actually think that Gunnarsson is probably more a defender than a midfielder these days too.

A good enough one? Possibly not unfortunately but I think he'll see more action over the season at the back (unless we sign more reinforcements) than further forward as his stamina and power slowly wane.

[brendywendy]

But what club, other than one that has had its squad messed up by its chairman's financial policies, fill its bench with a keeper and four midfielders? No specialist defender or striker!

please see wikipedia article on utility players.

brynn. HRK
midfielders. one is a decent CB, one is a decent striker option.

The key word is specialist

why would you waste a bench place with a specialist defender/striker when you can cover all teh bases by using the very decent utility players you have for just that purpose. they become even more important now we are down to 5 subs on the bench.

imo.

and it seemed to work just fine throughout 05/06, by the way.

[Gordons Cumming]

Furthermore

Reading lose an away game early in the season to a side we always bloody lose to, (a result a lot of you were already predicting) - doom, gloom. Reading win an away game early in the season to a side we always beat, OMG PROMOTION


WTF is wrong you with guys? Just calm down, it's early days yet.

Ditto

This is HNA you know....................

[Hoop Blah]

why would you waste a bench place with a specialist defender/striker when you can cover all teh bases by using the very decent utility players you have for just that purpose. they become even more important now we are down to 5 subs on the bench.

imo.

and it seemed to work just fine throughout 05/06, by the way.

Gunnarsson was the only real utility player we had in 05/06 though wasn't he? He played 90% of his games in his true position, centre mid, and we had proper specialist cover for the rest of the side (we took a real gamble on Ingimarsson and Sonko which thankfully paid off, that doesn't mean it's likely to work again).