1) Press. They're not used to being pressed as high and as hard as teams press us. They don't have as good a pair of centre backs, full backs or centre midfielders as us. So press hard. This is made for Cork, Hammond, Lallana and Chaplow who love to press high up the pitch. Crucial that Billy pulls his weight up there too. 2) Defend set pieces well. Pearce, Gorkks and Roberts need to be picked up by Jos, Jose and Rickie, leaving the likes of Deano and Frazer, both strong and decent in the air, to mop up the loose balls. 3) Use set pieces well. We still have the height advantage despite their set piece prowess. Use Fox's delivery, it's every bit as good as Harte's. 4) Get the ball into Rickie. Didn;t do it enough vs Pompey and when we did vs Palace we scored goals. Teams fear him and make mistakes when he's got it. 5) Get pace on vs Harte. He's not actually very good. 6) Remember we're the best team in the league, especially at home. Reading would be delighted with a point. We shouldn't be. Hope this makes you more confident. They can (and will be) beaten!
Chaplow or De Ridder could run at Harte all day long, we definitely need to exploit that. I think you've got it pretty much spot on. There's no reason we can't contain the players like Le Fondre, McAnuff, Leigertwood etc. We have a decent defence - Jose and Jos need to be at the top of their game, and with support from Cork and Hammond, I see no reason why we can't keep a clean sheet.
In all honesty though i believe we need to focus on not giving Harte too many oppitunities to cross the ball, i also have confidence however in Nigel realising their weaknesses where other managers/teams may not. We need Fox/Butters to have as solid a game as they did at Selhurt vs Kanu/Mcunuff.
also the defence needs to be careful about giving away freekicks around the box- harte is only second to rickie in this area. strange but the posts so far seem to have harte as the danger man
They don't have any superstars in their team like they did a few years ago, but they're all at a level where they're hard-working as a team. It'll be a tough game but I believe we can beat them.
True, Harte's scored a fair few more of those than Rickie this season! I think that they'll be more worried about stopping our wide players than using theirs to push ours back, particularly with it looking likely that McAnuff playing in the middle
Keep the ball better and for longer periods (this was the Brian Clough philosophy) becasue without it reading can't do much! With it they can! Mark very tightly and obviouisly score more goals than they do. Looking forward to the match and if we win 1-0 via an own goal or penalty or wahtever, Great!
So, put Billy on the pen spot, Rickie on the 16 yard line and press, press press in the first 15 minutes! That should do it but might leave us short at the back!
My thought process. Harte is their weak link, but he also is their dangerman. Defend as a unit from the setpeices we give away. They'll dive a lot to get them but we've got to be disciplined and limit their opportunities.
If we score first, why don't we just line up our entire team on the goal line? There's 11 of them, so there'd be at least two layers of players between the goal and the ball, proper parking the bus
Interesting suggestion. From a technical rules perspective, they could all use their hands to keep the shots out provided they were slightly behind the goal-line, then surely it couldn't be handball? And if the ball doesn't completely cross the line, then no goal is scored. Hmmm! No, let's just score a couple more goals as its much easier.
I've been studying Reading very carefully all season knowing just how important this match was going to be and I have found that there are several areas where Reading are technically better than Saints, so I would propose that we knee several of their players (surreptitiously) in the groin area right at the beginning of the game. After a good knobbling I reckon we'll win 8-1. Mind you, we might need a cunning way to distract the ref - I'll need to think this one out a bit longer.
Agreed. The key to this match is that Reading aren't used to having less possession. they will do on Friday and they won't enjoy it. This is how we need to win.
They pressed us something crazy at the madjeski so I fully expect that again. We'll need to pass the ball really well and get in behind them when they press. Would like to see Steve get his chance to go at their defence.
