Relegation

[Donny Ironside]

We go through this every year.

Get a grip. It isn't even September, we're 18th after 4 games and we've scored 7 goals without any significant contributions from Joao, Meite, or Ejaria. Add a left back and get the missing players fit and suddenly we'll have a really solid squad. We looked very very good against Preston, don't get carried away by a couple of poor performances. You win some and you lose some.

Yeah, we might go down. But to be honest, we're just as likely to finish in the top half.

I like your optimism and I hope we finish top half. Ejaria is overrated and Joao and Meite won’t be back until next year at the earliest. Also, not sure a LB can really save us tbh.

We need to find goals and a manager/coach who can organise the defence.

Ejaria is underrated because of all the people going on about how overrated he is. He’s a very good player at this level.

We’re doing fine for goals and we know that our defenders are good enough and that our current staff can and have organised them. Need to start winning the ball at set pieces ofc.

It is as much a mental thing aswell. We cannot seem to compete with teams that "go at us" and we just crumble. Especially with the youngsters we have now who have just been thrown into the deep end.

[Donny Ironside]

If you looked at our squad and availability on paper, you would expect the issues to be going forwards, not at the back. We have Rafael, Yiadom, Moore, Morrison, Rinomhota and Laurent available so even with a makeshift left back we should be harder to score against. But we're soft.

At the other end, with all the injuries we have, you'd expect us to really struggle, but we're doing fine because Swift is fit and firing and Azeez seems to be cut out for this level.

I can see us improving at the back with the experience and players available, but equally I could see goals drying up too if anything happens to Swift.

I'm not panicking yet as I think there are a lot of poor teams this year, but we won't be pushing at the top of the table again.

Think the problem could also be that Moore and MM's heads have gone? They might want out and just seem to be a shell of themselves.

Doubt they want out.Nobody else given the level of his performances,is going to pay Moore £35k a week.Equally Morrison decided to give it one more year,rather than retire to his hairdressing salons.Obviously I hope their levels pick up;but Moore has been very inconsistent over the last three years and it might have been one year too far for Morrison.TBF though on the latter;until his injury Morrison was my player of the season last season and I had no problem with him being awarded a new contract.

Moore has always seemed to me that he thinks he is better then the club and wanted to use us as a stepping stone. He has not got that now so who knows.

[Hound]

We go through this every year.

Get a grip. It isn't even September, we're 18th after 4 games and we've scored 7 goals without any significant contributions from Joao, Meite, or Ejaria. Add a left back and get the missing players fit and suddenly we'll have a really solid squad. We looked very very good against Preston, don't get carried away by a couple of poor performances. You win some and you lose some.

Yeah, we might go down. But to be honest, we're just as likely to finish in the top half.

I like your optimism and I hope we finish top half. Ejaria is overrated and Joao and Meite won’t be back until next year at the earliest. Also, not sure a LB can really save us tbh.

We need to find goals and a manager/coach who can organise the defence.

Ejaria is underrated because of all the people going on about how overrated he is. He’s a very good player at this level.

We’re doing fine for goals and we know that our defenders are good enough and that our current staff can and have organised them. Need to start winning the ball at set pieces ofc.

I know whoscored has its limitations but Ovie has scored 6.87, 7.12 and 7.17 over the last 3 seasons. Anything above 7 is generally about top 20 in the division. it matches up to someone like Jed Wallace for example.

But no, he 'slows the game down'

[SCIAG]

So there's two approaches to this that us fans can go with.

We can create an awful atmosphere around the clubs and at games, calling for the manager to be sacked and for the owners to spend money. This is what we've done for roughly the last 6ish years - which, to be fair, resulted in one play-off final and zero relegations. But also some very poor matchday experiences and us being a financial basket case.

Alternatively, we can support the manager and club and try and build a positive environment. You know, cheer when players do well, not jump on their backs when things don't go right immediately. Why not just try it for once?

Nail, head!

I don’t know of another fan base which hate their own quite as much as us.

As far as fans go we are generally very forgiving and it takes a lot for us to to want a manager gone.

No we aren’t

We regularly boo the team off at half time.

The fans turned on Stam very quickly after he got us to third (there were even people complaining while things were going well).

Last season we finished seventh. We were excellent.

We’re four games into the new season, we’re in 18th, and there is already one major thread worrying about relegation and another calling for our manager to be sacked. That’s not “very forgiving” or “taking a lot to want a manager gone”, it’s near Chelsea levels of entitlement.

[Snowflake Royal]

Not sure why people think ejaria is going to be out saviour. He’s been bang average for a long time. Slows the game down, and doesn’t score enough. Tempo has been talked about a lot in the last couple of weeks, lack of tempo I mean. Ejaria is just going to make it worse. Rather we cashed in on him tbh.

4 goals in 54 games for us and 4 assists last season. Style over substance with him.

Tbf Swift was often similar in his first few seasons, he might come good. Another option at least.

I think we've actually played quite well going forward. Azeez, Swift and Laurent have mostly kept thr tempo up.

[Snowflake Royal]

We go through this every year.

Get a grip. It isn't even September, we're 18th after 4 games and we've scored 7 goals without any significant contributions from Joao, Meite, or Ejaria. Add a left back and get the missing players fit and suddenly we'll have a really solid squad. We looked very very good against Preston, don't get carried away by a couple of poor performances. You win some and you lose some.

Yeah, we might go down. But to be honest, we're just as likely to finish in the top half.

Well said. Preston should have been 4 or 5, we were the better side st Stoke until we had to bring off Swift and look how they've started. 2 deflections there too. Bristol and Coventry were poor but we look like we will score in most games, just need to sort the defence and things may look rosier.

I tend to agree. But those of us who are less reactionary make these same excuses at this time every year as well. And the positive hope never materialises in significant improvement.

[URZZZZ]

I like your optimism and I hope we finish top half. Ejaria is overrated and Joao and Meite won’t be back until next year at the earliest. Also, not sure a LB can really save us tbh.

We need to find goals and a manager/coach who can organise the defence.

Ejaria is underrated because of all the people going on about how overrated he is. He’s a very good player at this level.

We’re doing fine for goals and we know that our defenders are good enough and that our current staff can and have organised them. Need to start winning the ball at set pieces ofc.

I know whoscored has its limitations but Ovie has scored 6.87, 7.12 and 7.17 over the last 3 seasons. Anything above 7 is generally about top 20 in the division. it matches up to someone like Jed Wallace for example.

But no, he 'slows the game down'

His game is about drawing defenders away with his quick feet and hence opening space up elsewhere so his contributions shouldn’t just be measured via his goals/assists but even you’d have to admit that 1 goal contribution in the second half of last season is really poor for a player of his supposed quality

Similarly I don’t think you could argue he is too slow at making decisive actions. Sure, it may be an “overused cliche” but it’s still incredibly frustrating. Echoes of Swift in the 2017/2018 period in that there’s something there but struggles to show it regularly - compare that to Swift now

[Snowflake Royal]

Ejaria is underrated because of all the people going on about how overrated he is. He’s a very good player at this level.

We’re doing fine for goals and we know that our defenders are good enough and that our current staff can and have organised them. Need to start winning the ball at set pieces ofc.

I know whoscored has its limitations but Ovie has scored 6.87, 7.12 and 7.17 over the last 3 seasons. Anything above 7 is generally about top 20 in the division. it matches up to someone like Jed Wallace for example.

But no, he 'slows the game down'

His game is about drawing defenders away with his quick feet and hence opening space up elsewhere so his contributions shouldn’t just be measured via his goals/assists but even you’d have to admit that 1 goal contribution in the second half of last season is really poor for a player of his supposed quality

Similarly I don’t think you could argue he is too slow at making decisive actions. Sure, it may be an “overused cliche” but it’s still incredibly frustrating. Echoes of Swift in the 2017/2018 period in that there’s something there but struggles to show it regularly - compare that to Swift now

Never trust those average ratings. The actual stats they're based on are usually OK, but trying to give an overall score doesn't really work.

Simple fact is Ovie doesn't deliver enough goals. Has to improve. And I bet if you looked at the last 8 games with him, the scoring rate would be worse than it is currently.

[NathStPaul]

I am more interested in him creating goals rather than scoring them, that is his primary function in our team. Use his undoubted on the ball ability to create for others.

What are his assist stats like?

[under the tin]

Last season we finished seventh. We were excellent.

That gets a Jeremy Paxman style Yeaaahhh


We were excellent at the start of the season, were a picture of inconsistency in the middle of it, and garnered a massive 11 points out of a possible 33 in the run in !

[Hound]

I know whoscored has its limitations but Ovie has scored 6.87, 7.12 and 7.17 over the last 3 seasons. Anything above 7 is generally about top 20 in the division. it matches up to someone like Jed Wallace for example.

But no, he 'slows the game down'

His game is about drawing defenders away with his quick feet and hence opening space up elsewhere so his contributions shouldn’t just be measured via his goals/assists but even you’d have to admit that 1 goal contribution in the second half of last season is really poor for a player of his supposed quality

Similarly I don’t think you could argue he is too slow at making decisive actions. Sure, it may be an “overused cliche” but it’s still incredibly frustrating. Echoes of Swift in the 2017/2018 period in that there’s something there but struggles to show it regularly - compare that to Swift now

Never trust those average ratings. The actual stats they're based on are usually OK, but trying to give an overall score doesn't really work.

Simple fact is Ovie doesn't deliver enough goals. Has to improve. And I bet if you looked at the last 8 games with him, the scoring rate would be worse than it is currently.

But then I’d expect our conceded rate is also a lot higher. He is a midfielder not a forward. 3 goals and 5 assists isn’t bad. But yes if he can say double that I’d say he’s the complete midfielder - time on his side

Undoubtedly he can improve - too slow to make decisions and not decisive enough - yes agree with, but that’s not slowing the game down. And his form tailed off at the end of last season like everyone else in the side

I’d say the not trusting the average ratings is just a convenient excuse to make a point. Check the top 20 from last year and I’d suspect they’d include pretty much the most effective players from last year by nearly all accounts

[Snowflake Royal]

His game is about drawing defenders away with his quick feet and hence opening space up elsewhere so his contributions shouldn’t just be measured via his goals/assists but even you’d have to admit that 1 goal contribution in the second half of last season is really poor for a player of his supposed quality

Similarly I don’t think you could argue he is too slow at making decisive actions. Sure, it may be an “overused cliche” but it’s still incredibly frustrating. Echoes of Swift in the 2017/2018 period in that there’s something there but struggles to show it regularly - compare that to Swift now

Never trust those average ratings. The actual stats they're based on are usually OK, but trying to give an overall score doesn't really work.

Simple fact is Ovie doesn't deliver enough goals. Has to improve. And I bet if you looked at the last 8 games with him, the scoring rate would be worse than it is currently.

But then I’d expect our conceded rate is also a lot higher. He is a midfielder not a forward. 3 goals and 5 assists isn’t bad. But yes if he can say double that I’d say he’s the complete midfielder - time on his side

Undoubtedly he can improve - too slow to make decisions and not decisive enough - yes agree with, but that’s not slowing the game down. And his form tailed off at the end of last season like everyone else in the side

I’d say the not trusting the average ratings is just a convenient excuse to make a point. Check the top 20 from last year and I’d suspect they’d include pretty much the most effective players from last year by nearly all accounts

He does alright defensively, but his primary role is clearly attacking.

He plays in line with Swift and Meite, pretty close to a forward if not a complete one.

We can all see where our defensive deficiencies are right now and missing Ovie doesn't make top 5.

[Brogue]

I am more interested in him creating goals rather than scoring them, that is his primary function in our team. Use his undoubted on the ball ability to create for others.

What are his assist stats like?

20/21 37 games 5 assists
19/20 36 games 5 assists
18/19 16 games 2 assists

89 games 12 assists

[NathStPaul]

I am more interested in him creating goals rather than scoring them, that is his primary function in our team. Use his undoubted on the ball ability to create for others.

What are his assist stats like?

20/21 37 games 5 assists
19/20 36 games 5 assists
18/19 16 games 2 assists

89 games 12 assists

Not great is it? His decision making is highly questionable at times, needs to be more decisive in the final third of the pitch.

[URZZZZ]

His game is about drawing defenders away with his quick feet and hence opening space up elsewhere so his contributions shouldn’t just be measured via his goals/assists but even you’d have to admit that 1 goal contribution in the second half of last season is really poor for a player of his supposed quality

Similarly I don’t think you could argue he is too slow at making decisive actions. Sure, it may be an “overused cliche” but it’s still incredibly frustrating. Echoes of Swift in the 2017/2018 period in that there’s something there but struggles to show it regularly - compare that to Swift now

Never trust those average ratings. The actual stats they're based on are usually OK, but trying to give an overall score doesn't really work.

Simple fact is Ovie doesn't deliver enough goals. Has to improve. And I bet if you looked at the last 8 games with him, the scoring rate would be worse than it is currently.

And his form tailed off at the end of last season like everyone else in the side

Possibly arguable that Ejaria’s downturn in form coincided with Richards’ downturn in form (or vice versa?)

Seems one of those players who needs the rest of the team functioning to excel properly. Was a passenger for the last block of games where the whole team were performing really poorly. As opposed to Meite for example who was still scoring on a weekly basis

His best run was that block of Christmas games under Bowen where he was linking up really well with Blackett, Adam and Swift. Whole team were performing then which gave him more of a platform himself. If he can start taking games by the scruff of the neck himself, who knows the potential he has (probs not at Reading though)

[Stranded]

We go through this every year.

Get a grip. It isn't even September, we're 18th after 4 games and we've scored 7 goals without any significant contributions from Joao, Meite, or Ejaria. Add a left back and get the missing players fit and suddenly we'll have a really solid squad. We looked very very good against Preston, don't get carried away by a couple of poor performances. You win some and you lose some.

Yeah, we might go down. But to be honest, we're just as likely to finish in the top half.

Well said. Preston should have been 4 or 5, we were the better side st Stoke until we had to bring off Swift and look how they've started. 2 deflections there too. Bristol and Coventry were poor but we look like we will score in most games, just need to sort the defence and things may look rosier.

I tend to agree. But those of us who are less reactionary make these same excuses at this time every year as well. And the positive hope never materialises in significant improvement.

I'm not even trying to be optimistic - I'm just taking a step back from it and can see that the club is a mess and not every issue will be solved by VP getting the elbow.

If he goes:

- we still have 10+ players (mostly key) out of contract in the summer. Not all will go (if we stay up) but all will have agents who will be having conversation with other clubs about moving there next year - in short they will likely have exit plans and will have regardless of performance and the teams finishing position. For example, the likes of Laurent and Swift will have plenty of suitors next summer regardless of how they play - Reading being "a mess" gives them a bit of a free pass.

- we still won't have enough decent options to drop underperforming players esp. with 1 or 2 injuries. Can VP really drop Moore at the moment with McIntyre possibly injured and no LB?

- we will still only be able to sign loans/freebies - change manager now and the chance to bring the former possibly goes with it as there is only a week left to do so.

VP has a shit hand and isn't doing as good a job as he possibly could but with the above and around 80% of last years goals currently unavailable and very little space to replace them (also remember we couldn't strengthen in Jan - when we all knew we needed too), it's hardly a shock that we are stuggling today.

I'm fully aware though, if we get to the October break with only 1 or 2 more wins on the board by then (i.e 3 wins from 11) then it would be a very hard sell to plough on with him.

[CountryRoyal]

I like your optimism and I hope we finish top half. Ejaria is overrated and Joao and Meite won’t be back until next year at the earliest. Also, not sure a LB can really save us tbh.

We need to find goals and a manager/coach who can organise the defence.

Ejaria is underrated because of all the people going on about how overrated he is. He’s a very good player at this level.

We’re doing fine for goals and we know that our defenders are good enough and that our current staff can and have organised them. Need to start winning the ball at set pieces ofc.

It is as much a mental thing aswell. We cannot seem to compete with teams that "go at us" and we just crumble. Especially with the youngsters we have now who have just been thrown into the deep end.

Tbf we have in recent years always struggled against physical and pressing teams, something which will only be exacerbated with the new mandate this season of “letting the game flow”.

[CountryRoyal]

Nail, head!

I don’t know of another fan base which hate their own quite as much as us.

As far as fans go we are generally very forgiving and it takes a lot for us to to want a manager gone.

No we aren’t

We regularly boo the team off at half time.

The fans turned on Stam very quickly after he got us to third (there were even people complaining while things were going well).

Last season we finished seventh. We were excellent.

We’re four games into the new season, we’re in 18th, and there is already one major thread worrying about relegation and another calling for our manager to be sacked. That’s not “very forgiving” or “taking a lot to want a manager gone”, it’s near Chelsea levels of entitlement.

Agree to disagree then.

[Stranded]

I am more interested in him creating goals rather than scoring them, that is his primary function in our team. Use his undoubted on the ball ability to create for others.

What are his assist stats like?

20/21 37 games 5 assists
19/20 36 games 5 assists
18/19 16 games 2 assists

89 games 12 assists

Not great is it? His decision making is highly questionable at times, needs to be more decisive in the final third of the pitch.

Played 65 key passes last year - which are classified as passes before a shot at goal is taken.

[Donny Ironside]

I am more interested in him creating goals rather than scoring them, that is his primary function in our team. Use his undoubted on the ball ability to create for others.

What are his assist stats like?

20/21 37 games 5 assists
19/20 36 games 5 assists
18/19 16 games 2 assists

89 games 12 assists

7.41 per season

Not good enough for our most creative player