The lads trained at the Cottage this morning and all look well, despite a few bumps and bruises from Saturday. The biggest doubt for tomorrow night is the weather with dense fog again predicted. Can only hope that the officials get it right this time and call the game off early if there is any question about the game being able to finish. Reading will be without Jordan Obita following his red card at the weekend. However after two defeats they will be bristling for this one and we can expect another rough encounter. For us, can't see the Gaffer changing much; not that he's got a lot of choice except at the back. Fredericks looked out of sorts from the outset on Saturday although Jokanovic hinted this morning that he took him off at half time on Saturday because of the petulant yellow card. Going for same again however. .........................Button............. ..Fredericks...Kalas..Madl...Malone... .......................McDonald..... ..............Cairney......Johansen.... ....Aluko...........Martin......Piazon.... PS We have an awful lot of players sitting on 4 yellows. If we get properly stuck into this game, the side for the Cup tie on Saturday might well pick itself!
I'm wondering if McDonald might be dropped, Jokanovic has a habit of dropping players who make mistakes that lead to goals. He might bring in Parker. He seems to have a favourite in Martin a the moment, seems he can do no wrong at present. May be bring Odoi in a RB and put Fredricks at WB put Piazon on the bench.
The man we've got tonight is Steve Martin. Our refs seem to be coming around again quite quickly at the moment. It was only at the beginning of December when we last saw him; in the 2-1 win over Rotherham at the Cottage. People were rather complimentary about Mr Martin after that game. Only one player went in the book, a Rotherham chap. In his 4 games since, the yellow card has appeared a meagre 8 times. Bringing his total for the season so far, in 22 games, to 54 yellow and 2 reds (that Newcastle game referred to in the last post about him). Kind of proves that you can be a good strong ref without necessarily throwing cards around. So fingers crossed for another good performance from him tonight (bearing in mind all those players of ours sitting on 4 yellows!).
Interesting line up. Guessing at this formation: ........................Button........ ..........Kalas.....Madl.....Ream... ...................McDonald..... ..Fredericks..Cairney..Johansen..Malone.. ..................Aluko..Martin... Which can obviously revert to 5-3-2 if necessary.
Frustrating again, encroachment by their player to score and another poor penalty by Martin. Think you have to look at our end product and say not good enough again.
Pretty poor performance I thought particularly second half. We looked tired. I thought Fredericks was poor second half but I listened to Radio Berks on the way back and they thought he was our best player. Strange how we see the same game and think differently. The penalty, I don't know what to say - SEVEN misses this season !! Unbelievable.
Yup Beerens by a country mile Equally not convinced it was a penalty in the first place. Mr Martin (the other one) went down the popularity scale significantly. Not just those two decisions, which were critical, but also by allowing Reading's disruptive tactics. None of that excuses our own poor tactics (stand up Gaffer) and poor individual performances (stand up Malone, McDonald, Martin .. and the rest)
We were crap, there's was never a pen in a million years, not a foul any where on the pitch, we missed a pen, so ****ing what, totally pissed off, Martin scored when he went the other way against Barnsley, why bloody hell change it, please refs no more pens it's to painful
We've missed an opportunity over the last two games to put pressure on the teams above in the play-off places, with below par performances. We still have a third of the season to get through and lots of winnable games. But we are starting to have to rely on other teams going on a run of poor form so we can catch up. I think there will still be teams looking over their shoulders at us waiting for us to gatecrash the play-offs, but we have to put pressure on them. At present we are putting pressure on ourselves with the missed penalties, who will want to take the next one ?
My first away game his season,in the play offs not in a million years, this team needs strengthening C/H C/F a must, but lets not hear about the return of the porker
