Hey guys, itâs daib0 and as many will know I'm a Reading fan 110% in peace. Itâs nice to be playing you, itâs been a while now, but judging from last weekend weâve every reason to be nervous! So, what do you make of the game at the weekend? How bitter was the pill of a play-off final appearance without the end result? (the experience is fresh in our memories too â¦). Well ⦠are you dreaming in making it back to the promised land quickly?! Surely a promotion push is a realistic possibility? Who are your current danger men, and which are the young talents we should be looking out for in the future? Iâm highly active on our friendly forum âRoyals Rendezvousâ and here is our match presentation and game thread â fullest respect possible shown to Watford: http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/9938929/1 Any comments and views welcome, and any questions for us just get back on this thread ⦠I'll do my best to answer Cheers, Daib0
Hi fella - I am looking at a 2-2 draw! Tell us why is our ex quality player Aidy left off your bench? - there are a lot of rumours kicking around about players being caught on the pipe!
To answer your questions: 1) I think most level-headed supporters would see a draw as a good result on Saturday, although if we are serious about automatic promotion, we will have to beat teams like Reading. A cagey 1-1 draw is my gut feeling. 2) It hurt at the time, but missing out on promotion may have been the best thing for us. In hindsight, we weren't ready - the owners and management (and the majority of playing staff) had been involved for less than a year; promotion would have been too much, too soon. 3) As eluded to above, automatic promotion is the ultimate goal this season. Anything less could be construed as a failure, but this is a tough league where nothing can be taken for granted. The players seem to handle the pressure well, however, and we should be there or there abouts. 4) Obviously the first name that springs to mind is Troy Deeney. Powerful, pacy, intelligent - he is virtually unplayable when in the mood, and he's been in the mood a lot lately!! Centre-back Gabrielle Angella is dangerous from set-pieces (3 goals in 3 games so far), Fernando Forestieri can be the best player in this division on his day, Ikechi Anya is in great form on the wing, and with Almen Abdi and Lewis McGugan in there, you can guarantee that we will score goals from midfield. I hope this gives you some good insight, can't wait for the game!
we don't know to be honest, we assume he's right in there knocking but Adkins is looking to rotate - but it's been raised by a number of fans that they're not happy with his exclusion ...
It's no big thing to give credit to the opposition when it's rightfully due, and besides what's the point in getting 'narky'? - one year we get the rub of the green and another it's your turn. But this year wouldn't surprise me if we were both right up there!
I agree - nice to see some discussion with opposing supporters that is not just there to wind each other up. Well done daib0. Unfortunately I just took a look at the Royals Rendezvous link, and saw on there a comment from another Royals fan along the lines of "where were all the Watford fans before the Pozzos took over". Where do these ridiculous views come from? To my knowledge our typical home crowd was hardly different last year to each of the 3 years before, and I suspect lower than when Aidy Boothroyd was here. Some opposition fans in their desire to have a pop at Watford seem to make it up as they go along!
And there are the by now almost de rigeur comments regarding cheating/wrongdoing over loan signings - won't be long before the FFP comments start surfacing I suppose.
Although I'm a Royals fan, I have to say you're dead right on this after looking at the offending comment tonight - and so I've made a plea to them to be as 'sociable' as possible in their comments, hope they listen. Actually, in this case I think it probably came out far worse than it was really intended, because there's no real dislike at all of Watford (like the Royals do hold for Portsmouth and Millwall for example!) ...
For some Reading supporters to have a pop at us for our supposedly new batch of "plastic supporters" is a bit rich! So where exactly were a huge chunk of the 16,000 Reading season ticket holders a few years ago? Besides success is of course going to bring in extra fans, it'd be pretty weird if it didn't.
Hopefully it''ll be a good game with plenty goals, decent crowd and atmosphere. We've sold 3,100 tickets & there's today + POTD so hopefully top 3,500. Is it right both Jason Roberts and Jimmy Kebe are not available? Good for us if so as the latter always looks a threat - against us at least! On the "where were they before" comment - some 'fans' are just childish and a little bitter....
The Reading fans appeared to take exception to my "teams like Reading" line, so perhaps I should clarify: if we are to gain promotion and ultimately stay in the PL, we need to show that we have what it takes to beat the teams that are going to be in and around the top 6, such as the likes of Reading. In other words, it was a compliment. Feel free to re-post that in your forum, just to clear things up.
Hi guys, another Reading fan in peace, as I hope daib0 will vouch. I'm also the resident RR pessimist, which I'm sure he will also vouch. Looking forward to the game. I've got it down for a draw, at best for us, because Watford have been mighty impressive in the first couple of games. With the style of play Adkins has introduced, which is very pretty to watch, if we had a decent stiker, I might think we could edge a win, but as it is.................. But, whichever way it goes, lets hope for a good game. As for derogatory comments, well. we all know there will always be a few. But lets concentrate on the football.
SuffolkRoyal is one of the very best guys. But ... he also has a magic kettle, in case we're a goal down half-way through the second half!
Good to see fair and sensible opposition fans here. Shame about one or two on the reading thread though, strange how juvenile "it's not fair" "they're cheating" accusations come out when the opposition find an alternative way of running things that IS within the rules (cheating is breaking the rules) and fair is playing within the rules. I was proud when we punched above our weight getting 11/10ths out of our players on a shoestring budget, I'm now proud we're getting 13/10ths out of superior players within a tight budget, the perception from those outside the club is what it is but we're bringing great quality football, bringing through young talent to a higher level than ever before all within a model that protects our suppliers and the tax man. What is not and never was fair is a team accepting a goalwhen the ball never went within a yard of the goal or a club working behind the scenes to take another clubs manager but heho thats water under the bridge and like we said a few years ago lets let the football do the talking. Reading are actually a club I have a lot of respect for in that they have built on a relatively sustainable model albeit with a large chunk of external investment, what was unfortunate was the attitude of some Reading fans 3 years ago about how they were the big IAM club, the clubs are very similar in background and nothing between in terms of right to be favourites for going up...
