Reading v Ipswich

[JJH]

What a goal.

 

[Super_horns]

When efforts like that go in you know it's your night!

 

[Magic]

Mick's gonna fire Ipswich up for our game now. Hmm.

 

[Rammy]

I want to laugh, but we play at Reading on Tuesday...

 

[KevinMcallister]

Bialkowski started the season as number one, but he missed a couple of games and Gerken came in. Hopefully Gerken will be back on the bench on Tuesday, I don't rate him at all.

he did look like he was in a bit of a pickle tonight

 

[Magic]

Glad we played Reading already. The point there is looking decent now.

 

[Veggie Legs]

We were awful at the back tonight, but credit to Reading, they were very good all over the pitch.

 

[Madejski]

Been saying a result like this has been coming..

 

[KevinMcallister]

i feel this is good for Leeds, they will be on edge hopefully

 

[mpmbee]

Ipswich fans are maybe starting to see why most Brentford fans were happy to see Douglas leave. Awful performance from him. Reading are looking good this season though, a completely different side to last year.

 

[Dazza]

Best performance from us for a few years. Blackman was superb again with 2 assists and a goal. Certainly proving a lot of Reading fans wrong, myself included. Tshibola was motm for me. Outstanding performance and he looks a real prospect. Glad he signed a new deal earlier in the week.

 

[Tom_ITFC]

Ipswich fans are maybe starting to see why most Brentford fans were happy to see Douglas leave. Awful performance from him. Reading are looking good this season though, a completely different side to last year.

Yes, very poor. Too slow.

No midfield what so ever so McGoldrick was constantly dropping back meaning that the shape of the team was disrupted.

Defense though, a shambles. My take on it:
Gerkin - Needs dropping, lucky to make it back into the team after Bialkowski's dad passed away.
Chambers - Played his best at RCB a few years back, seemed to have lost it when playing back there a few times this season. Played at RB for too long?
Smith - So one footed and therefore should not be playing RCB. Shot of confidence
Berra - Very clumsy with the ball at his feet, cannot direct a header and hasn't been as solid as last season defensively. Backed off too far without looking at the ball for the second goal. If he turned around he would have seen the poor touch from the Reading player and last season would have been there in a flash.
Knudsen - Poor start to the game but showing some positive signs.
Sort it out Mick! Town fans realised this in February (if not before). He fixed the defense in his first half season. Gradually got worse since Berra was brought in...

Up front, we look very good however.

 

[Madejski]

A few defensive errors for Ipswich, but building on from the comments on Douglas above, I think your main problem was in central midfield. Aside from their yellow cards, I can't remember anything that either Douglas or Skuse did? Games are won and lost in the centre of the pitch..

The amount of counter attacks we had where it was just our three strikers against your four defenders was scary. We only scored two goals from those positions too (second and fourth) and could have done more with a better final ball. And on all of those occasions your midfield were nowhere to be seen.

We had the same problem beginning of last season where our midfield left our defence hopelessly exposed, and teams could run at our defence with lots of freedom, and we ended up conceding a lot of goals. They aren't bad defenders too, Pearce was our POTS in our promotion year, Gunter has been very solid for us and Wales for a few years, but the system wasn't working for them. This then lead to lots of silly errors, perhaps due to lack of confidence? Slowly over time we've sorted this problem, and almost always have a sitting midfielder now.

Did you have different midfielders last season or something?

 

[Tom_ITFC]

Straight away I could see that our two CMs weren't doing their jobs. As we had Fraser, Sears, Pitman and McGoldick, our two CMs should have played a DM role in a 4231 formation. From what I could see, we were playing 442 with Sears at RM.

We have got Bru and Bishop, arguably two of our best 3 CMs out injured. At this point in time, Douglas should be 5th choice behind Coke.

 

[TractorBoys]

Yeah, Bru & Bishop still to come back, we miss them badly, really unimpressed with Douglas.

Gerken had another mare, got to see Bart back between the sticks on Tuesday surely.

Reading looked great, exceeded my expectations.

 

[Madejski]

We looked pretty good, hard to say as you did hand us a couple of goals.

Definitely the worst we've looked defensively so far this season though.

 

[Veggie Legs]

Tom_ITFC I think you're a bit harsh on our defenders as individuals, it's a tough job when you're getting no protection. Gerken absolutely needs to be dropped though.

 

[Tom_ITFC]

Tom_ITFC I think you're a bit harsh on our defenders as individuals, it's a tough job when you're getting no protection. Gerken absolutely needs to be dropped though.

Admittedly this looks harsh after a very poor game, however having seen them week in week out, these have been my views for a while (especially Berra's). If no protection means we can't play attacking football, does this not show as a defence, we are not good?