A warm hello once again to all Potters fans â for those who donât know me itâs a Royals fan 100% in peace, and I represent Readingâs âRoyals Rendezvousâ. It would be really interesting for us to have any general comments from you, like how you see the game going and general thoughts on your own team, and your (honest!) opinion of Reading. Trust me, our members love to hear what other fans have to say ⦠These simple following ideas might be used as a very basic guide in case youâd like to write to something slightly longer, but donât feel you need to answer a âshopping listâ because any (sociable!) comments are equally welcome ... A] How is your squad developing this season, and what did you make of the winter transfer window this time around? B] How are the younger academy players doing, any names we should remember for the future? C] Well, itâs a re-run of last season at the top of the premier so far, both Manchester clubs are really turning the heat on, perhaps for Stoke itâs been a bit of an âiffyâ season so far. But, taking reality as it is, where do you think you will finish the season if all more-or-less goes well? D] How strong do you see the premier teams around generally, and err ... how much hope is there for the Royals considering our recent improvement - please give honest answers, Iâm not expecting them to be particularly positive!! Just a word on âRoyals Rendezvousâ - weâve always prided ourselves on large and in-depth match presentations, which largely feature on the team we are playing and not on ourselves. I hope you might all enjoy browsing it this week â http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/9818296/1 We go to a lot of detail! Many thanks, hereâs to a good game! Iâll try to look in daily so any questions from yourselves, just get back on this thread ... daib0/David
Firstly diabO, welcome. I have nothing but admiration for the way McDermott has stuck to his guns this season, still trying to play attractive football, come what may, UNLIKE a certain football team I can mention!!! Also I think that your owner(s) deserve a pat on the back as it must have been a temptation (for some) to pull the trigger after a disastrous start to the season. Hope you survive. Once upon a time, i.e. a couple of months ago, I would have backed Stoke to take 3 points from all but the top 4 in the league, at home. Fast forward to Saturday, I would not put money on it as our defence has gone into hibernation, your Le Fondre is scoring goals for fun. The only hope that we have is that the curse of the manager of the month = McDermott strikes on Saturday. Not being unduly pessimistic daib0, just realistic as I honestly think that should we lose on Saturday, then we will be in a dogfight at the bottom. All the best ONB PS - you may surmise that I am not Pulis's greatest fan, nor is he on my Christmas Card list
To be honest I cannot see why there is a fair bit of pessimism, I've also noticed this a bit on the match thread! There are still plenty of teams that would so happily give a fortune to swap places with you. You 'only' need three wins in the remainder of the season, and it might well be just two this season. So, whatever happens Saturday, and I honestly don't really know what to predict, I don't believe it will define your season at all because I see you perfectly safe ...
Diabo, Hello, you have a really good chance this weekend, our illegitimate leader has pee'd off the players and the fans with the way he does things, anything could happen and there is no confidence in us gettting any kind of positive result. I think that Pulis needs a result this weekend more than at any other time, there is a feeling that he is under pressure to end a bad run of results but there is no confidence in his ability to engineer one.
I can only really repeat what's said above.. If Reading go down, it would be a travisty IMO. YOU play the right way, your player's seem to enjoy every game, win, lose or draw. And Mr McDermot is a top man and Manager. As Nicky say's go back a month or so, we we're so confident at home it was almost like a win,win situation. The last straw for me was.. the Wigan game. Two goals up, coasting it and ONE man single handedly threw away 2pts. The player's looked drained, uninterested and many fans we're having a go at Mr Clueliss. That said... I am HOPING more than anything for 3pts ASAP. IF it happens on Saturday fantastic. IF not Pulis will be under massive pressure. I honestly don't know? this game could go either way. The only certainty is that we will start slowly and that should not be happening at home. Good luck the Reading after Saturday of course.
Very nice and sincere comments lads. Still, what you're doing in today's world is fully worthy of praise; I'd say that Stoke and WBA are the two clearest examples of what Reading hope to achieve this decade. Never too big for your boots, you just get on with the game in hand. I think that anyone who survives in the top flight without being a yo-yo club is in a fantastic situation - promotions are nice, as we discovered in 2006 and last season of course, but the tears of going down ... that's difficult to swallow!
Valid points, but I have to say that over the last few years there have been some very poor prem teams that have made it easy for the rest. We haven't seen a season similiar to when West Ham went down on 42 points (I think)!
not being funny,but i think we will get the win, TP knows he needs a win. The fans are getting fed up of the way we play, so i hope we play like we did on boxingday againest liverpool, TP has got to get them fired up. Reading could stay up,because there are plenty teams around the drop zone,there is still a long way to go.
I was hoping it would be Arsenal Man city and the 5 past 7's, to be honest I wouldn't like to call who will go down this year.
I sincerely think you WILL stay up Daib0.. Wigan in honestly we're useless last week, it was Pulis taking off our 2 BEST player's which messed our midfield around simple as. Wigan can play a bit but looked so ordinary until IMO Clueliss handed them a pt. In fact we could maybe should have LOST that game. MY PROBLEM with Pulis is simple enough.. we play Chelsea, Citeh, Utd and yes Liverpool and the player's go ALL out to prove a pt. BUT no offence against the LOWER team's for whatever reason, we struggle? I see your Manager takes and talks each game as it comes and fair play to him and your player's for doing that. THAT is the ecact opposite of what Pulis has done at Stoke since day one IMO. I'm talking about HOME games now. Saturday? I fear the worse simply because we have a STUBBORN Manager who is AFRAID to LOSE ANY game. QPR, Wigan and the Saints will go I think.
On our forum I am considered, by some, as a pessimist. I prefer to think of myself as a realist. As things stand, there are five teams in the relegation mix, we are one of them. There are a few others who could get drawn into it but I cannot see one of them being Stoke. Around Christmas there was a poll on our forum about whether McDermott should go, and there was quite a few in favour. It took me a time to get there but, eventually, I was one of those saying he wasn't going to improve things and he should go. Here we are, 6 weeks later, and I doubt you'd find a Reading fan who would utter the words "McDermott out". Such is the way of things in football, and fickle fans. Four more wins for you guys and you'll be safe. And with thirteen games left, four wins have to be within your grasp. As for tomorrows game, I haven't got a clue what the outcome will be. Because of our recent form we have to be hopeful of getting something from the game, but I wouldn't want to predict a result. I'm just hoping for a decent game and any points we might get will be a bonus.
good post Suffolk, to be truthful I think we all basically are realists - even those leaning on the optimistic side like myself. No way did I see us out of the bottom 3 in February back at Christmas-time either; but the Premier is certainly no charity, you can't take anything for granted like you can in the championship, they'll punish us hard for it. So the Coppell-McDermott Reading motto "WNG" (win next game) is why Brian is really doing what few of us saw - putting confidence into a team hardly up to premier level if we're honest. But he did it the same last season, and the prebious two also - producing better than expected results with an 'ordinary-ish' squad due to his incredible man-management. Still don't know how he does it, picking up players from the bottom two tiers and in no time at all turning them into top level warfarers ...
TP will have to win this game tomorrow, anything less and the crowd will 100% turn on him. His days as Stoke manager are numbered now!
