We give the impression it's all too easy.......and I never felt nervous in this game at all. We've had the measure of every team we've played. We are playing comfortably in second gear. The trouble is, we don't have a natural striker. Someone who will take shots and will take up good offensive positions. We're asking two natural wingers to play up front, and they have been found wanting, which is disappointing but not totally unexpected. All our games have been fine margins. The bread has been landing butter side up until now, but today, Reading took their scrappy goal and saw out the game with relative ease.....as we would have done had we scored. I was hoping we could turn a game around once going behind, but I had the feeling we would labour and unfortunately that was the case. Reading are doing very well so far this season, but make no mistake they will not but in the play off zone come the end of the season.....but neither will we unless we either sign a striker (which we wont) or we get Gray, Deeney, Welbeck in the team. Suarez was a huge loss and he's exactly the type of player that could make a big difference, by taking the odd chance when we're on top......but the owners know best and £10m was too good to turn down!!. Most games will be like this until we play with a natural striker........until that time......one or no goal matches are the order of the day.
Two home wins on a nice slick Vicarage Road carpet where quick passing and dribbling has been easier than the two sticky pitches at Reading & Sheffield Wednesday we've played on. Running with the ball today and at Hillsborough has been awkward and snappy passing difficult. Not the reason we lost but it didn't help. Maybe the forward players could drop deeper and drag their markers forward to allow runners to get onto long passes held up by the pitch could be a tweak to the way we play away from home if the pitches are going to be this dry in general.
Didn’t think we deserved to lose but when you are so toothless up front it is always going to be struggle. Desperate for a no9. Sarr isn’t a centre forward, and if we are going to play 3-5-2, I don’t see where he fits. Service from midfield wasn’t great either, and Hughes would improve the team massively.
As much as we cannot see the three at the back working, we currently have no fit players to change it. Sarr and Pedro flying down flanks and crossing balls in to Murray, Gray, Deeney or Perica will change a lot of our useless forward play. Until that happens or can, we will have a lot of 1-0;scrappy wins/)loses.
I’m sure one of the club interviewees on Hornets Hive last week mentioned Sheff Weds didn’t water their pitch ahead of our game, deliberately leaving it very dry and slow.
As others have stated. No point in Sarr staying unless we play with wingers. Agree, other than this. Still think we need a strong midfielder who can organise the younger lads. Chalobah and Cleverly can't be relied upon.
We missed TDB once he went off. I thought Kabasele could have stayed in the middle with Puscas when he scored for Reading. There is a good team being built but it will take time. Goals change games and we are powder puff up front. Why oh why do we always have so many injuries? Fourth game in and we can hardly put a team out - Cleverley clearly not fit, Sema looked like a guy who hasn't trained, TDB gets crocked, typical game for us!
Sarr should not have done it. He was hauled off immediately by Ivic. Next time it happens I hope we carry on playing. The way they then booted it deep into our half was also unacceptable. Bunch of shysters who are wetting themselves probably at the moment with the thought they might be the dark horses this season. Mid table mediocrity for them awaits. Bang average team even if Ejaria and Joao turn up.
Strange thing about Chalobah is now his fitness has pretty much returned, his natural ability has fallen away. Seems incapable of putting the two things together.
Members on here are not all 'bed wetters' as some claim on here. The Championship is extremely weak this season. We are one of the weaker teams in my opinion. It was a very poor game against a weakened Reading side. It appears in these early days that Bournemouth will walk this league due to the dross surrounding them. Tell me, no fan actually believed the hype that we would get promoted or finish in the top 6. It was woeful today,
Harsh on Cleverly. Chalobah once in a blue moon shows what he can do then for the rest of the game proceeds to be awful. He was woeful hanging onto the ball unable to make his mind up or panicking with the ball. At least he threw himself into a couple of challenges which was heartening instead of shirking them.
Harsh on Sema, but yes, agreed. Why oh why didn't we take off TDB the first time he went down, that could be a really serious one now
I meant in terms of his age and injury record. He won't be able to play every game. Need another 'box to box' midfielder
Any decent contribution apart from the usual sarcastic stuff? Read the thread and you'll see most people agreeing the performance wasn't good enough and we need to improve, so I'm not sure the point of your indirect snipes? Anyway.... Don't think it's a coincidence we've struggled to score goals, with no genuine number 9 up front. Feel for Ivic that he lost Gray to injury, Perica to a stupid suspension, Suarez and Welbeck refusing to play, Deeney unfit and Murray not fit for purpose so far. Think we'll look a more balanced and creative side with Hughes and Gray back, although I do think we need another CM, we're looking way too lightweight and Chalobah still seems off it. I'd also like Ivic to be more willing to switch up the shape mid-game. Another game closer to the close of the window, where we'll start to see what our squad will look like, and what they're capable of.
Why do you always do this type of thing?.....it's very weird. I don't even read your posts......yet you constantly claim you agree with me. You're a bit of a quirky poster, and I don't mind you.....but just stop with this constant "I've said this too" reiteration. My opinions are my own, just as yours are. If there's any similarity, it's a coincidence. It doesn't need pointing out every 5 minutes.
Very true. We need a decent midfield core. Hughes will not be up to speed. Caps may stay and needs to get to fitness. Another player on loan. Busquets or perhaps Tommy Doyle at Abu Dhabi.
Putting on a clapper disguise for a minute, get Andre Gray, Troost-Ekong and Hughes in that team, switch to 4-2-3-1 // 4-3-3 and we will win most games I think. But we will keep plodding along indifferently with this current shape I bet.
I agree that we need to be playing a proper striker - but that's not magically going to turn us into world beaters. We played with a real losers' mentality today. No confidence, full of nerves, fearful. Strange as we've been on a decent run up until now. Heads down all over the shop. For the past few seasons, in my opinion, a huge part of our failures has been a lack of leaders on the pitch. Deeney, for all his faults, was one on his day. Who was the leader out there today? A team of talented, 'on paper' quality players, who couldn't dig in and overcome a motivated, cohesive side in Reading. Sound similar to last season? We have got to somehow strengthen the mentality of the squad.
I was joking. Everyone spits that out as if it's some sort of indisputable black or white fact. Basically, the issue I've had with the Pozzos is that they prioritise their player trading over our team. This exemplifies it perfectly. We need an out and out striker and a left back as a priority, but have just sold two players who would have made our team much better. Instead our owners have cash and we have a crap first 11 with barely functional parts, as we saw today.
Ivic's preferred formation is 4-2-3-1. I think he went with 3-5-2 because of the players we had available. He's stuck with it because we were getting results. The international break should give him a clearer idea of who he can pick from and chance to develop a different system. I hope.
Agreed. It also makes little financial sense tbh. Promotion to the EPL is far more lucrative than selling all assets and confining the club to Championship obscurity for the foreseeable. I must be missing something though. Tbf I didn't go to Harvard.
If you claim you don't mind me as a poster, how can you claim you don't even read my posts? The reason I always do this is that you do regularly seem to agree with ME not the other way around. However, you always seem to make out those thoughts that seem to be very much what I have already said are all your own. Therefore either, we do uncannily think alike or, you do read my posts before you post yours.
I couldn't agree more. It's really disrespectful to tar everyone with the same brush. There are plenty of happy clappers and head wobblers on here too.
The Reading central defenders came off that pitch without a care in the world, it was like a training game for them, Deeney would have smashed them leaving Pedro to fill his boots we need him in the game !
