As always, friendly greetings from daib0 and guys & gals on the Reading âRoyals Rendezvousâ forum. Close season has come and gone, and weâre business as usual again. So onto Saturdayâs game â and I wondered if I could have a few views from yourselves to inform the members on my forum. Anyone can say what they like about the game, but here Iâd like to you all a few pointers which will surely help us in the Thames Valley! So here goes â just a few basic easy things: Here are my specific questions for you - A] * Fulham to many of us were an unlikely candidate for Premier relegation last season â did it come as a shock? I mean to say, we in Reading didnât really expect too much the previous season so relegation wasnât too unexpected really, but Fulham were a well established Premier club, unlike us ⦠B] * From what you have seen this season; is the Championship a more difficult proposition to handle than you could have at first imagined? Having said that, Iâm conscious weâve only played five games â and after 5 games just last season Blackpool were well clear at the top and look what happened to them. And the previous year when Reading won the Championship (2012-13) when we were ourselves pen-ultimate after six games. So Iâm not trying to knock you at all here, itâs early days yet, just wondered how you saw it! C] * A quick guess forward from now â with premier league experience so recently do you think that youâll be able to make a springboard from now on (or rather, after our game together!) ? D] * Any notable changes to your squad in the summer? E] * Any game in the Championship this season which you particularly look forward to? If so, against whom ⦠and why? F] * To Reading now â do you think they are of âplay-offâ quality? How do you view us in a few words? G] * How do you see Saturdayâs game going? Will you be fired up, will you be nervous, will the team respond? Could you leave me a score prediction? As always ⦠any snippet quoted will be fully credited with the member user name + forum. All the best lads ⦠daib0/David
Not a doubt but that all 2700 of us will be fired up and my only prediction is that we'll be singing loudest at the end.
...hahahahaha!! But seriously, it is more notable who stayed (which is essentially just Scott Parker, plus a few players we failed to sell like Rodallega & Ruiz). We have done a more complete overhaul of our squad than anyone else in the league bar Blackpool and that is a large reason why we've struggled out of the gate.
As Surlyc says, our poor start is to a greater or lesser extent down to having so many new players - 8 debutants in the starting 11 for the first week. Also, the level of inexperience - five members of last season's under 18s have started matches so far this season. We've got a sprinkling of experience and a lot of very promising youngsters who are still low on the learning curve and making the mistakes of inexperience. That was certainly my take on the first couple of games (Ipswich and Millwall), where I thought we played well. Then we had a couple of disastrous matches, (Wolves and Derby), but the last couple of games (Brentford in the cup, Cardiff) have been promising again. I think the deadline day signing of Smith will make a big difference alongside McCormack as well. I've said all along that we're likely to get 10-15 more points in the second half of the season than the first, as the youngsters learn the ropes and find their feet. I'm still optimistic that we'll be nearer the top than the bottom come the end of the season. We could do with getting that first league win under our belts though. Hopefully you'll oblige at the weekend!
Many, many thanks for the replies. I've laid them out here on Royals Rendezvous - http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/10169290/1 - there has been a lot of viewings in 24 hours so I hope this will be good publicity for your forum board as well ... David
