Written by kirsikka
Another game where three points should have been seen as needed given the struggling opposition. Also another chance to try and put in a good performance to keep the crowd onside.
The goal was a thing of absolute beauty. Zemura started the game back to his early season bright best, taking players on. One of his runs was the spark for the goal. Add in a lovely touch from Lerma and excellent work and finish from Solanke. Lovely stuff.
In the first half L Cook continued his recent excellent form, now with some important tackling added in to his game.
And then… we stopped. It was as if we assumed the game was over and we didn’t need to bother anymore.
At half time I wrote:
“It isn’t comfortable right now. Reading don’t look bereft of confidence going forward. If we don’t score, they will. We need to knock the stuffing out of them.”
We did the absolute opposite and spent 40 minutes inviting them to come and grab something from the match.
The second half was abysmal. There’s no other word for it. So safe when we had the ball until we crossed the halfway line when we were sloppy and lacking in numbers.
We sat back and let them dicatate. You could see the way it was going ten minutes in and I was urging Parker to change it somehow. He did nothing until 75 minutes when he made us even more cautious with the Pearson sub.
Seeing how we sparked into life after the equaliser almost made what went before even worse. We had it in us but didn’t show interest in making it happen. Or had been instructed to sit back.
This was a game where after 10 minutes we absolutely had them on toast but a complete lack of attacking bravery combined with poor quality on the ball let them back into it. Ponderous, ponderous, ponderous.
Points thrown away and a performance that was, frankly, rubbish after the first ten minutes.
Whatever the halftime changes were meant to do, they didn’t work. The fact that we carried on hoping it would get better was a managerial failing. If Parker takes the plaudits when we pick up the points, he should take the ire when we don’t win games that were there for the taking.
Positive performances:
Phillips – A wholehearted performance. The only player I can think of that deserves credit for the full 90.
L Cook (first half) – Tailed off in the second period but was good in the first 45.
Room for improvement:
Cantwell – I said at the weekend I can see what TC has about him but feel he’s yet to be really effective. After the initial good opening minutes, he was really poor. Wayward passing and bad challenges. Rightly hooked at half time.
Kelly – Some terrible distribution again. Needs to get his head back in the game.
Man of the match against Reading
L Cook
Phillips
Christie
Anthony
Lerma
Solanke
Someone else
Your say…
wimborne cherries wrote…
Also, I don’t want to pick on a young lad but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse ‘captain’ than Kelly. He’s undroppable because he’s left-footed but he cannot pass a football more than 15 yards, even the simple passes he smashes at his own player.
It won’t be a long term solution and won’t solve all our issues (far from it) but we really could do with Cahill for the next 7 weeks or so. His experience, leadership and calmness is absolutely invaluable.
langham added…
Been puzzling about the performance all the way home. We lost the plot – energy collapsed, motivation seemed to disappear, and we were bereft of onfield leadership. Reading near-played us off the pitch second half …. we were barely in the game.
Problems started at the back, where Kelly had a shocker (again). Can we afford to keep him on as captain? One issue is that he never gets subbed – no one else is asked to take formal responsibility and he goes on playing hopeful, inaccurate balls or negative lateral passes. Can we drop him for Cahill? Is it worth a try? And why do Christie and Anthony hug the touchline as if afraid to move infield … leaving Solanke once more playing against multiple Centre Backs?
Oh dear … that was a dire and demoralising performance, and once more Parker on Solent after the game mumbled and muttered without conviction. He seems bemused.
AFCBade wrote…
Had a long journey back home tonight so have had plenty of time to summarise my thoughts:
1. We can’t cope with midweek games unless we rotate more – think Lerma, Cook and Cantwell struggled tonight. This is a big issue for April.
2. Billing is often criticised but we miss his running off the ball so hope he is back refreshed for Saturday.
3. I worry about the ability of the team to cope with pressure. In the second half, you could see belief draining out the team as were outclassed by an ordinary reading side. Would help if had more leadership on the pitch -maybe time to bring back Cahill
4. Peterborough performance was so much better than tonight and maybe people realise it wasn’t as bad as they originally thought? The second half today was totally unacceptable.
5. Crowd stepped up support the side really well after the Peterborough reaction but players need to do their bit now.
6. I don’t get how so many predictions have us comfortably in second place by end of the season given the poor performances.
7. We now have 6 of the next 9 games away from home with opponents who will attack better than reading. I thought that might suit us but we had no counter attack capability when Reading pressed us back. That’s a real worry. –Join the conversation, click here.
