Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:56 pm

FT. FFS.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by TANGODANCER » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:56 pm

Come on Alf, come on Noone.....Robinson and....Buckley, Alf and...thbey clear. Henry, Buckley and...they win a free kick. We can do it, we can, we can, we can.......come on........they sally, wheats clears, Noone crosses, they clear. And just another four mins. We can......we can.......get a wallop in and rush em. Robinson goes, Buckley goes, Henry, Madine, Little, Noone, and......ohh and oooooooh agaion as it's deflected wide for a corner. Noone and...andohhhhhh keeper saves and...Noone eventually fires it wide. Why couldn't we do this sooner. We can, we can, we can..........can we....we win a free kick for offside against Barrow and.....Ben and.....one min and....out for a throw......and.....can we, can we, can we.....Robinson heads it out. They sally, we intercept and...Prats and......deflected for a throw. And.......and....Robinson, Bucley and.....ohhhhh the keepr saves again and...it's all over. We gave that away.....2-2.
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:57 pm

Wankers.
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Bijou Bob » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:58 pm

Really, really poor from PP not changing it earlier when we were under the cosh. He allowed them to push us further and further back and this tactic of allowing teams possession is just suicidal. They can't hurt you if they don't have the feckin ball!
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by DJBlu » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:59 pm

2 glorious opportunities to make it 3-2 at the end. Keeper pulled off 2 great saves.
Doubled our shots on target by going for it in the end. Here's an idea Phil. Go get a 3rd and a 4th as the defence aren't going to give you a clean sheet every game.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:01 pm

Sounds like we had four or five decent chances after the penalty. Big feck up from the manager, team. Two points from the last two and a nailed on defeat at the weekend, the ppg drops back below 1 per game again.

Winning 1 in 2 is better than drawing 2!

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:02 pm

Ten points dropped, eight of them from winning positions. You can't draw your way to safety from bottom place.

And the real kick in the swingers is that the points haven't been clawed back from behind – well, apart from when we became the only visiting team since God's dog died to go behind at Sunderland. If we kept doing that, it wouldn't feel so sour, it would feel like points plucked from the precipice of defeat instead of thrown into the void of ennui. No, this is us being unable to do the one thing you might expect a Parky team to be able to do: see the game out.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by TANGODANCER » Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:45 pm

Just something to chew on about Darren Pratley: He's scored a goal or two, taken a wallop of abuse, but how many times has he managed to get in the way of attempts that could have caused us to lose? Just wondered.
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by twilight » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:00 pm

I'm absolutely speechless and gutted. We totally had a shocking 2nd half and that was definitely 2 points dropped against a poor Reading team and their goalkeeper was horrendous and I blame Parkinson for the 2nd half. We just cannot keep throwing these precious points away!!

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by TANGODANCER » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:34 pm

I don't really moan too much about the team, I don't have that right, because I don't get to matches anymore, but bringing probably our two best box men on with three minutes to go? I can't claim we threw it away, the penalty was a real sickener, but it sure feels like that. The game was won, the points safe in the bag...and then it wasn't and they weren't. :cry:
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Harry Genshaw » Wed Nov 22, 2017 6:39 am

Reading really upped their game after we went two up and the signs were there for the remainder of the first half that we were still in a game. Barrow, Aluko and Blackett all stood out for them.

Pratley was excellent last night with Vela not far behind. Madine, who has been outstanding, was back to his frustrating worst though, winning little and his distribution, mainly meant for poor Armstrong was shocking.

Hindsight says PP should have changed it round but without the daft challenge from Ameobi (I thought?) we would have taken the 3 points.

On a positive note - both Noone and Buckley look like we have a threat on the bench now. We can still do this
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Lost Leopard Spot » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:02 am

Well, at least we didn't lose.
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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:03 am

Threw it away. Parky should have got some fresh legs on before they scored the first. Hindsight is easy to say, but when you have so little possession you need fresh chasers.

End of the day throwing away so many points is costly beyond belief. Its also IMO a sign of a team grafting really hard but not being quite good enough.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Dr Hotdog » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:12 am

Pretty Pathetic from Phil Parkinson last night really. What goes on on the pitch is a direct reflection of him.

I don't know how many times we have to lose a lead for him to realise that (t)his team is incapable of seeing a game out, whether it's a 2-goal cushion or one, or whether it's a home match or away. He clearly deals in hope more than expectation. Nice(!) to see Noone and Buckley get a run out after a fairly inept 87 minutes from Armstrong and Sammy. Young Ameobi was blowing hard ten minutes into the second half.
Robinson went walkies for their first, chasing a cleared ball from a set pieced towards the half-way line. They break down their right, cross it in a wallop. And Sammy wants to give his head a shake for running behind a speeding forward in the box like that. We've all seen it, the forward 'buying' the contact and the refering buying the fact that he had been impeded. Fine Margins. We scored from 2 set pieces and until the substitutions barely fashioned anything from open play. Was Le Fondre unlucky with his glancing effort? I thought that kind of shit was meat and drink to a man of his talents?

I still don't get Armstrong. Isn't he a forward? He didn't chase a ball down by the corner flag (assuming we'd scouted Reading and knew that they like to dilly the feck around at the back) and then about 20 seconds later young Robinson gets booked because he has to make a late lunge because his fellow youngster left him high and dry stood around in no-mans land. With a better winger in front of Robinson we could be dangerous down that flank. At least Henry was on hand after to give him what for.

I just don't know. But draws are not going to get us out of this shit. Especially ones against teams 4-5 points ahead of us. You can't dress up the fact we're 6 unbeaten when we've just thrown away a two goal lead in a very winnable game. 2-nil up and yer fuuked it up, do dah, do fecking dah. Where next?

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by bristol_Wanderer3 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:37 am

View from the West Stand Upper:

Absolutely gutted we didn't win this game!

This game was typical of the Norwich and QPR games, and many more we will see this season, where the opposition value possession and keep the ball whilst probing for openings, whilst we get it forward quickly, and look to counter the opposition's quality with running power whilst hoping to score from our more direct approach. Reading took the possession game to the extreme, with the goalkeeper, presumably under orders from Mr Stam, reluctant to kick it long and prepared to engage in precarious looking passing triangles with his own defenders across his six yard box. Reading's orange might have been slightly brighter than that of the Dutch national team, but their style of play was certainly an attempted variant of the total football pioneered by Dutch national teams of times gone by.

There isn't much point with fancy passing manouvres covering the whole length of the pitch if you can't defend basic set pieces, and so we found ourselves 2-0 up midway through the first half from our first chances of the game, both from basic balls from Vela set pieces. From then on, we sat back and chased and Reading probed and probed and probed. At first we looked comfortable, them toothless, but it became one way traffic, and once they got their first on 75mins it wasn't really a surprise they got an equalizer, although Ameobi clearly never intended to make a tackle to concede a really unfortunate penalty. We still nearly won it, with two really good chances as we chased the game in the last few minutes.

I have seen quite a bit of Reading under Stam, and we are not the first team to have surrendered leads to them, and won't be the last. They might not be quite good enough to consistently pull off results from their style of play, but one advantage of slowing the game down, and keeping hold of the ball for long periods is that you both mentally and physically tire teams out, and openings appear later in the game. And so it proved.

We have had such a terrible start that we are always under extra pressure now and losing winning positions hurt a lot more as a result. The more I see our best team the more convinced I am it is more than good enough to consistently get results, but at some point injuries will occur and there are areas of the team where we will not cope if injuries hit that part of the team. Therefore, we really need to be as far out of danger as possible when that happens, and games like this keep us locked down there, and so the sense of frustration walking out of the Macron last night.

Motm Prately btw. He was everywhere in an attempt to press and prevent Reading playing through us, and he scored.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:32 pm

bristol_Wanderer3 wrote:
Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:37 am
View from the West Stand Upper:

Absolutely gutted we didn't win this game!

This game was typical of the Norwich and QPR games, and many more we will see this season, where the opposition value possession and keep the ball whilst probing for openings, whilst we get it forward quickly, and look to counter the opposition's quality with running power whilst hoping to score from our more direct approach. Reading took the possession game to the extreme, with the goalkeeper, presumably under orders from Mr Stam, reluctant to kick it long and prepared to engage in precarious looking passing triangles with his own defenders across his six yard box. Reading's orange might have been slightly brighter than that of the Dutch national team, but their style of play was certainly an attempted variant of the total football pioneered by Dutch national teams of times gone by.

There isn't much point with fancy passing manouvres covering the whole length of the pitch if you can't defend basic set pieces, and so we found ourselves 2-0 up midway through the first half from our first chances of the game, both from basic balls from Vela set pieces. From then on, we sat back and chased and Reading probed and probed and probed. At first we looked comfortable, them toothless, but it became one way traffic, and once they got their first on 75mins it wasn't really a surprise they got an equalizer, although Ameobi clearly never intended to make a tackle to concede a really unfortunate penalty. We still nearly won it, with two really good chances as we chased the game in the last few minutes.

I have seen quite a bit of Reading under Stam, and we are not the first team to have surrendered leads to them, and won't be the last. They might not be quite good enough to consistently pull off results from their style of play, but one advantage of slowing the game down, and keeping hold of the ball for long periods is that you both mentally and physically tire teams out, and openings appear later in the game. And so it proved.

We have had such a terrible start that we are always under extra pressure now and losing winning positions hurt a lot more as a result. The more I see our best team the more convinced I am it is more than good enough to consistently get results, but at some point injuries will occur and there are areas of the team where we will not cope if injuries hit that part of the team. Therefore, we really need to be as far out of danger as possible when that happens, and games like this keep us locked down there, and so the sense of frustration walking out of the Macron last night.

Motm Prately btw. He was everywhere in an attempt to press and prevent Reading playing through us, and he scored.
Agree with much of this. I feel though that Parky needs to use subs more in these situations. Fresh legs, fresh runners. He's reluctant to do so and part of me gets it. We don't have a midfield change that doesn't weaken us. But you can see Pratley and Henry tire and just that little 1/2% weariness can tell. It nearly did against Norwich and did last night. I mean there is no guarantee a sub or two on 70 minutes changes the result, but I just think with the lack of possession its hard for chasers to last 90 minutes.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:58 pm

Dr Hotdog wrote:
Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:12 am
Where next?
This lot:
Screen Shot 2017-11-22 at 12.39.42.png
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Clearly, clearly, we're more likely to win some games than others. Like you (and others, including BWFCi) I worry that we're not winning enough of the ones we should to tide us over the ones we'd be very lucky (or atypically brilliant) to win.
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:32 pm
I feel though that Parky needs to use subs more in these situations. Fresh legs, fresh runners. He's reluctant to do so and part of me gets it. We don't have a midfield change that doesn't weaken us. But you can see Pratley and Henry tire and just that little 1/2% weariness can tell. It nearly did against Norwich and did last night. I mean there is no guarantee a sub or two on 70 minutes changes the result, but I just think with the lack of possession its hard for chasers to last 90 minutes.
He likes his stats, does Parky, so I'd be surprised if he wasn't aware that from the 76th minute onwards we have scored 1 and conceded 11. (Perhaps amazingly, that's not the worst concession rate – Hull have shipped 12 late goals, but they've scored eight.)
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We're fine from 45 to 75 minutes - considering our position, squad, injuries etc, 3 goals per 15-minute section (over 18 games) is not a bad return; in fact, there's only 10 teams who concede fewer in 46-60, only 8 fewer 61-75. But we are clearly very vulnerable (and, at the other end, toothless) in the final 15 minutes.

Part of that is doubtless attitudinal - retreat, panic, pray, concede – but Parky has repeatedly said how good it is to have extra options to bring on like Buckley, Noone, Morais, ALF. It seems to me we need to replace the entire front three by the 75th minute, 80th at the latest: they can hare after the oppos as "first defenders", and they might also ask fresh questions of the defenders who by then have generally comfortably figured out our first-choice players' MO (Madine: back into aerial duels and claim for free-kicks, Arma: head down and cut inside, Sammy: look like you're going to backheel it out of play then lurch forward). It's not like we're scoring second-half – only Birmingham have bagged fewer after the oranges - so we may as well use the relative strength in depth to try different things.

(Both datasets from Soccerstats - dig away.)

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:09 pm

Yes, that is what I think we should do DSB. Certainly Vela, Ameobi and Armstrong are candidates for withdrawal for fresh legs.

He's being a bit slow to do so IMO.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Hoboh » Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:49 pm

Just 'not losing' at least means we are half way there, might be too little too late though.

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Re: Reading, righting and a rhythm attack.....At Home to Reading ..21 Nov.

Post by Lost Leopard Spot » Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:55 pm

Hoboh wrote:
Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:49 pm
Just 'not losing' at least means we are half way there, might be too little too late though.
I think you'll find it's merely a third of the way there. Hence why it's a pisser.
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