A long way away with the international break, but hell, why not get in there early. At this moment, I'm not optimistic about this game - Reading have had a couple of duff results (losing at QPR and Preston), but also nice wins against Villa and Birmingham, as well as a perfectly respectable draw with Fulham. Jaap Stam has his side playing a short passing game, not too dissimilar to us, though arguably better, so I'm concerned we might see something similar to our game against Brentford, and I doubt our luck would stretch to earning more points in games like that. Some fans of theirs seem to think that their approach is a bit dull with a focus on keeping possession over taking risks, so don't be surprised to see their possession % in the 60s, but they are also patient and choose their moment to strike. A high energy pressing approach would seem to make sense to me (Gegenpressing, if you're a bit of a hipster ). As of today, I'll predict 2-0 Reading - that said, we need to be able to get points for games where you wouldn't expect, to justify points 'lost' in games where you would expect them. I think we've collected an okay, if unspectacular number of points so far, but this would drop into the downright 'poor' category if we can't get 3+ points from our next two games. It's a long season ahead, but I wouldn't want us to fall too far behind this early on.
Reading is a tough one, I think we ae heading for a loss there, if we pull 6 points or more from September games I think we should be happy but concerned.
'It's a long season ahead, but I wouldn't want us to fall too far behind this early on' Honestly think our season is only about staying ahead of 3 teams. I think we will be Ok as the budgets of Burton, Millwall, Barnsley, Brentford and Bolton can't compete with ours. Will 3 'Bs' get relegated this season ? Please the Lord we're not one of them.
I'd like to think we have enough about us to aim for 15th or higher, but time will tell. 17th or less would be failure and relegation a total disaster.
Reading has not really been a happy hunting ground for us and I am not expecting much but hope to see a good effort on my live streaming subscription. We have some tough games, on paper, coming up and the point tally after the next 5 matches should give us a better idea of our worth going forward. I am concerned that we may not be good enough to sustain an upper table position but the alternative isn't worth thinking about.
Funny how you keep chipping away at the money spent, yet you never mention anything about the income generated the past 12/18 months. Just because LJ never liked you stop being bitter
So what is the bottom financial line on our dealings since Lee's arrival? On the surface it might look like we have spent more then we reaped but perhaps if someone could do the maths then we may have a different opinion. The one problem might be the undisclosed portions of our transfer dealings.
