It's like playing with 10 men with cisse in the side at the moment. We'd had won if we'd started Zamora instead of him. He didn't contribute enough last night to justify being in the side even with that wonder goal. He's bound to score occasionally because he's so bloody selfish... Cisse puts all his effort into getting a goal for no.1, and doesn't support the rest of the side. It was a ridiculously over the top celebration last night, and you could see how pissed off he was V Norwich when Zamora got the goal from the penalty rather than him. Players like park are bound to have poor games if the only man in front of them refuses to come to them even slightly to collect the ball, and stubbornly places himself between the oppositions two centre backs, without showing any movement or desire. He's constantly got his hands on his hips and looks lacklustre. I got the impression the side was set-up last night almost exclusively for cisse's benefit. We bypassed the talented midfield too often by going long and trying to thread balls through to cisse. I think Hughes tried to use last night to get cisse back on form and give him some confidence, and the performance of the side suffered as a result. Edit: although the ref didn't help either. It was interesting to see how we coped when a side pressed us high up the field too. Cesar likes to roll the ball out to the defence, but Reading hustled us too much for this to be easily possible. We were definitely missing fabio/bosingwa at fullback, who offer an assured skillful presence on the ball to give Cesar an outlet. Onouha/dire looked a lot nervier when recieving the ball from cesar, so we ended up taking long goal kicks more regularly than recently.
Good post Grifter. I agree. To build on your points - we played alot more in the air than the Spurs or the Chelscum game because of the confidence of the back four (not) to play the ball out. Cisse - needs to balance with the team - he was selfish - and dumb - when he did come back to defend - as he has obviously been told - we were left with no option of the quick break to exploit his pace - it was as if he was sulking when he had to come into our half and this disabled our play. Vs Zamora - he NEVER holds the ball up - always selfish. Even more so than Adel in his first year. But we do need a goal scorer - not sure how or if Hughes will solve this one.
I think the celebration was more relief than anything. You saw it with Newcastle on Sunday as well. The team wanted more than anything to get Cisse (the other one) to get on the score sheet and even gave him the penalty and I think yesterday was a similar scenario. When he's firing he'll score dozens of goals for us and in regards to the penalty he posted on twitter afterwards that he was angry with himself that he'd ****ed up but immediately thanked Zamora for "saving my ass."
Very true Westlondon. dyer-hill-mbia-onouha Each of our back four had something working against them yesterday. To me, dyer looked a little fatigued(understandably). Hill doesn't have the vision to play the ball out from the back, and feels more confident with a long punt up field. It was Mbia's first game, and he was probably taking time to get used to the pace of the English game(he reminded me of Diakite on his debut last season). And Onouha isn't a left back. This probably contributed to Cesar having a slightly nervier game, as his style of goalkeeping rquires a back four who're confident on the ball. Re-cisse, i'll lose some respect for Hughes if he plays him against west ham purely because of that goal. It's a shame Zamora didn't start, but given how crucial he's been recently i can understand the desire to protect him. When he was introduced, he got fouled out of the game, and recieved no protection from a very weak ref. Had he played all 90, Reading might actually have been penalised. As it was, only being on the pitch 20 minutes meant their defence could foul him for the entirety of his brief stay, knowing that their wasn't enough gametime remaining for the accumulation of these fouls to be spotted/penalised. The ref really was terrible. I expected him to get his ruler out of his back pocket for the positioning of walls.. Incredibly pedantic for the inconsequential aspects of the game, clueless in all other regards. The shorey free kick should never have been given.
I saw that but didn't buy it. He just looked pissed off he hadn't added +1 to his number of goals for the season. There was no pleasure on behalf of the team for getting back in the game. Remember his goal Vs Chelsea when we were 6 down? He looked absolutely ecstatic! Any other player would have just picked the ball out of the net and solemnly got on with the task. He was more fussed about getting a goal for himself than the fact his team were getting humiliated.
You are right - no one has really slagged off the really bad ref we had last night!! We wasted time making players re take throw in and free kicks then missed some shocking fouls. A jobs worth. That's why we lost!! I feel better now.
We were watching the game and I said he reminded me of Legs, he could be the worst player on the pitch and then produce a 30 yarder out of nowhere. This was 10 seconds before the screamer that flew into the net. My mate also called the pen 5 secs before it happened too. I thought Mbias yellow was shocking and I also thought their yellow could have been a red as well. Maybe someone on the side stands had a better view.
If Ciise stickes the ball in the back of the net regularly, I don't really care how selfish he is. Many top goal scorers are.
Cisse has played 348 minutes in league and cup for us this season, and has scored one goal against Reading's reserves. In the time he's taken to do that, he's denied us numerous other goals by simply being on the pitch and not contributing to the teams performance. Make no mistake, he was abject last night, and then scored a thunderbolt out of nowhere from outside of the box. It wasn't due to excellent build up play on his behalf, or brilliant positioning. He simply had a crack on a shot you'll miss 9/10 times and managed to pull it off.
I didn't see the game last night. His record as a goal scorer with us last season and pretty much throughout his career is excellent. We certainly need someone to score goals for us as well as Zamora, and if Hughes doesn't get Cisse scoring it is very hard to see who else in the 25 is going to get enough goals to keep us up. Maybe Mackie is good for a few, but I doubt he will manage that many at this level.
I agree with this, but we have to pick players based on current form rather than what they've done in the past. England have made that mistake far too many times.. Cisse was crucial for us last season, and i'm still confident he'll play a big role, but currently he's not playing well. He's probably a confidence player, and something needs to be done to give him a boost, but we can't carry him in the first team whilst he's regaining his form. Appearances from the bench are all that can be justified in my opinion at the moment, but hopefully with a few goals he'll become the player we know he can be. Incidently, Zamora has played 452 minutes this season, got 4 goals, and is probably the biggest contributer to the side with the rest of his play. He's only failed to score once when starting, and that was Vs Chelsea.
I was in SAR and there were some terrible reffing decision. Last minute a Reading mate decided he fancied coming along with us, and he even agreed that "the ref has never taken a premier league game, and probably never will on this showing..". It wasn't a great performance from the R's, but with the addition of some decent officiating, i think we'd probably have nicked it.. Clive from LFW seemed to think Hunt should have been sent off prior to clattering Faurlin
Other than he's not scored in the PL yet this season, with limited chances, I think he's been ok. He looks to me to have created more goal chances from wide positions as sub, than Park or SWP have created with much more playing time all season.
You're getting angry at a pacy forward for not doing a target mans role! It's obviously not his position but don't blame him for holding the ball up skills and heading skills cos they're obviously not his key points!
Do you have any examples of chances that he's created? Bosingwa and SWP have scored as many as him so far. I don't think there's anybody who thinks he's looked good when he's played this season, so how's he "been okay" ? He's contributed the same number of PL goals as Park/SWP so far this season, but a fraction of the ammount to the team. Also, he got 1 in 18 for Lazio when playing on the wing, and was very inneffectual, so that's not an option.
A striker who's determined to get on the scoresheet!? Disastorous! I think estatic is the wrong word though. More an outlet of anger at the teams embarrassing performance.
A better example would be the penalty he missed but Zamora scored the rebound, he was gutted and had his hands on his head. Hes a very selfish player. Clearly not a team player or hed have been delighted with the rebound goal.
