Rovers vs Reading at Virtual Ewood

[BlackburnEnd75]

3 minutes ago, philipl said:

People objected at Half Time to my describing four Reading players as Premier League class.

My four are Cabral the keeper.

Esteves (aged 18)

Richards (aged 22)

Olise (aged 18)

We have talented youngsters but Esteves in particular is Elliott level something else and comfortably outshone Elliott last night.

Esteves was the best player on the pitch. Only 18 too, wonderful talent.

[JacknOry]

3 minutes ago, philipl said:

People objected at Half Time to my describing four Reading players as Premier League class.

My four are Cabral the keeper.

Esteves (aged 18)

Richards (aged 22)

Olise (aged 18)

We have talented youngsters but Esteves in particular is Elliott level something else and comfortably outshone Elliott last night.

Estevez and Olise were class - absolutely. Though Olise had it easy as he wasn't playing against a RB. 

[Mercer]

7 hours ago, Vilesinner said:

Individual errors and misfortune cost us.

But Evans isn't suited to the middle 3, and JRC would be better suited there imo.

 

 

What cost us is the manager who signs players and select players who are either prone to error or simply not good enough and hence error prone - it's compounded when he continues to select them!

You also make your own luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sadly, I think Mowbray's journey finishes back on Teeside with a huge pension pot courtesy of Rovers.

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Mercer

[Lancs Rover]

9 hours ago, Parsonblue said:

No complaints about the result.

Reading's first goal was unfortunate but after that we defended very poorly.  Mowbray and Venus were both very good defenders in their playing days and yet we seem unable to construct a defence that actually looks the part.

At the moment we look far too suspect at the back - Lenihan has been dreadful this season and tonight was embarrassing.  JRC and Douglas both look good going forward but defensively look suspect.  Up front we rely far too much on Armstrong and need others to chip in with goals.

As for the great debate on statistics there is only one that matters - Rovers 2 - Watford 4 - everything else is window dressing.  A bit like Kean wittering on about entries into the opposition penalty area when you've just been hammered!

My complaint: We scored two goals at home but were sitll beaten.

it's the defence, as you say, and it's screamingly obvious.

There's no point being nice on the eye and still losing.

Every training session should be about sorting the defence out.

Oh, and bring Nyambe back.

[ElTwis]

Morning all! First time I've logged in to the forum in 13 years I believe but for some reason this year has got me excited to be a rovers fan again. 

 

What a frustrating game last night, I agree with those suggesting JRC shouldn't be right back, seems to me TM rates him and wants him in the game but can't find the right position for him beyond realising he should be somewhere wide. Nyambe for me next game. 

 

It's probably unfair to judge Pears from last night, conceding after 9 seconds is bound to knock anyone's confidence, especially if he's being asked to play the keeper/sweeper role as appears and this is alien to him. Incidentally, can anyone find a keeper who's conceded faster on debut?! 

 

Not sure whats happening at centre back but I think playing with 2 full backs expected to attack is playing a part. Let's maybe let the defenders defend, especially with 5 attack minded mid/fwds ahead of them. 

Finally, I worry about the balance of the team, we seem to have a lot of players who are realistically attacking midfielders but no further defined roles? I don't know, its good to watch sometimes, we'll see how it works out. 

So, first post in over a decade! I still have faith in TM, we're never boring to watch at the moment and the seasons only just started... I think it's going to be a fun ride

[arbitro]

Under Mowbray we are a bi polar team, play well, play poorly, win well, lose poorly. There doesn't seem to be an in between and promotion challenging teams can get results with indifferent performances. I said before the game we needed to do what has stood us in good stead so far and press high up and keep the intensity. We didn't really do either and allowed Reading to do that to us. At times we were all over the place and whilst many will point to individual errors the collective was poor I thought.

As many people now say Mowbray is Mr Average who will absolutely keep us mid table with as many lows as highs.

[K-Hod]

Fell asleep really early last night and didn’t manage to catch any of the game.

So, whilst I can’t comment on any events from said game, I can comment on the fact that if we keep conceding so many goals, we won’t be going anywhere. Very disappointing.

[G Somerset Rover]

26 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Fell asleep really early last night and didn’t manage to catch any of the game.

So, whilst I can’t comment on any events from said game, I can comment on the fact that if we keep conceding so many goals, we won’t be going anywhere. Very disappointing.

Indeed. The excerpt from TM’s post match presser used on the official Rovers social media posts last night was: ‘we can’t defend like we did tonight if we want to win football matches.’

Our media team must just have that on copy and paste. 

[JHRover]

Conceding 4 goals at home is unacceptable. No amount of excuses gets around that. Even if we had drawn 4-4 it would have been unacceptable to concede 4.

Most managers presiding over such a things would be embarrassed and feeling the heat.

But not Mowbray. All part of the 'journey'. Imagine Allardyce having that sort of attitude after being hit for 4 at home. He'd have had players pinned up on the wall in the dressing room.

[tomphil]

Touched on it the other day how with our set up now we'll take a pounding now and again inbetween pounding some teams ourselves. Very much goes with the turf and when we set up more defensive and possession based we tend to create absolutely nothing then lose by the odd goal or draw.

Between a rock and a hard place at the min but i still think there is just too much chopping and changing around that we never find balance. Bottom line is still the defenders aren't good enough week in week out it's just a fact you need real quality to play quality winning football.  Otherwise you need a well oiled machine that does the basics well together week in week out.

Either way here it's bang on course another average midtable points return.

[Ruaney]

I still can't find the words for last night. Absolutely perplexed! 

Lenihan needs to be dropped for Ayala - his form has been questionable for quite some time now. He is supposed to be the leader but he's making some baffling decisions at the moment.

Pears - awful debut. The commentator kept saying he had nothing to do which was really REALLY annoying. He let 4 goals in. He wasn't commanding. He didn't organise his defence. His positioning was often questionable. His distribution was sub-par - awful debut whichever way you look at it.

Evans - Nothing player. Literally offers nothing and is a hindrance. Would have been better placing a traffic cone in the middle of the park.

JRC - Love him but was really exposed at RB last night in the first half. Showed what can/ does happen when you leave an actual RB out of your team in Nyambe. First-half performance had a correlation with Bennet's performances there. Obviously a lot better in the second half but Reading kept their foot off the gas for the majority.

Sam Gallagher - Very poor. First touch - awful. In possession - awful. Wasteful and very frustrating. He literally ruined/broke down every positive play we had once he came on.

 

I know I said I couldn't find the words but I found some.

[Stuart]

9 hours ago, JHRover said:

I find it all so predictable listening to him.

I seriously think we should ditch 'Arte et Labore' and replace with 'always tomorrow, never today' as our club motto. 

I find it especially frustrating reading comments online about how brilliant Reading are and how they are what we should aim to be.

Hang on a minute. We played them at Ewood not 10 games ago after the re-start last season. They were in the bottom half of the table and we put 4 past them. 

How have they gone from being a nonentity in the bottom half to suddenly being the trailblazers and superior to us? I think we all know the answer to that and it is within the dotted lines in the dugout. One mon has come from a foreign country to work here for the first time only a couple of weeks before the season started and transformed a struggling side beyond recognition into promotion contenders. The other after nearly 4 years in charge can't break the glass ceiling and goes around in circles on his journey.

It’s early days and Reading may well not stay at the top end for the whole season but aside from a spell of a few hours due to a lunch time kick off, Mowbray has had is in the top six for one weekend during the last three seasons - only a few weeks ago. That fact alone “counts” in some quarters as progress.

We need to be challenging and not simply hovering around because other teams don’t capitalise. The only teams we have beaten this season occupy the bottom three places in the league - barring a club with 12 points deducted.

We are going nowhere.

Yet no changes are made to the back room staff - everyone is doing their best. Effort is regarded as more important than ability. He doesn’t even make changes at half time when things aren’t going in the right direction!

Arte labor supra

 

[MarkBRFC]

1 minute ago, Stuart said:

It’s early days and Reading may well not stay at the top end for the whole season but aside from a spell of a few hours due to a lunch time kick off, Mowbray has had is in the top six for one weekend during the last three seasons - only a few weeks ago. That fact alone “counts” in some quarters as progress.

We need to be challenging and not simply hovering around because other teams don’t capitalise. The only teams we have beaten this season occupy the bottom three places in the league - barring a club with 12 points deducted.

We are going nowhere.

Yet no changes are made to the back room staff - everyone is doing their best. Effort is regarded as more important than ability. He doesn’t even make changes at half time when things aren’t going in the right direction!

Arte labor supra

 

How can you forget that magical week in August 2018 after we beat Brentford 1-0 at Ewood? We spent a whole week in the top six, then lost 4-1 at Bristol.

Infact we have only spent 10 weeks in the top 6 of this league since relegation in 2012, and six of those weeks were straight afterwards under Ke*n & Black.

We're going nowhere anytime soon.

[47er]

9 minutes ago, Ruaney said:

I still can't find the words for last night. Absolutely perplexed! 

Lenihan needs to be dropped for Ayala - his form has been questionable for quite some time now. He is supposed to be the leader but he's making some baffling decisions at the moment.

Pears - awful debut. The commentator kept saying he had nothing to do which was really REALLY annoying. He let 4 goals in. He wasn't commanding. He didn't organise his defence. His positioning was often questionable. His distribution was sub-par - awful debut whichever way you look at it.

Evans - Nothing player. Literally offers nothing and is a hindrance. Would have been better placing a traffic cone in the middle of the park.

JRC - Love him but was really exposed at RB last night in the first half. Showed what can/ does happen when you leave an actual RB out of your team in Nyambe. First-half performance had a correlation with Bennet's performances there. Obviously a lot better in the second half but Reading kept their foot off the gas for the majority.

Sam Gallagher - Very poor. First touch - awful. In possession - awful. Wasteful and very frustrating. He literally ruined/broke down every positive play we had once he came on.

 

I know I said I couldn't find the words but I found some.

Cannot understand what's going on with Nyambe unless he's told TM he's definitely leaving at the end of his contract and we'll get noting for him.

Even then I'd still play him, he's got an incentive to play well and get the best deal he can. Why ruin JRC who is not a full-back?

Sick of Mowbray making it so complicated when its a simple game.

[47er]

1 hour ago, ElTwis said:

I still have faith in TM,

Agreed with all you say but that!

[garnersfags]

Unfortunately, when analysed without emotion, we have been unable to match, dominate or beat anyone in the top half. 

When this changes consistently, we can talk about a top 6 challenge. 

Regardless of recent form, we will not be promoted with Williams in the team. I know this is currently a controversial statement, but nobody has EVER suggested he would be the answer to our defensive inadequacies, either in our relegation season, or today. 

We will contunue to be an entertaining team that ships goals. 

This is heartbraking, as just like everyone else, I have been swept along on the tide of emotion as we have soundly beaten the struggling teams, and made some positive signings. 

The Forest result showed more or less where we sit in the division.  

Edited October 28, 2020 by garnersfags

[Stuart]

17 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

How can you forget that magical week in August 2018 after we beat Brentford 1-0 at Ewood? We spent a whole week in the top six, then lost 4-1 at Bristol.

Infact we have only spent 10 weeks in the top 6 of this league since relegation in 2012, and six of those weeks were straight afterwards under Ke*n & Black.

We're going nowhere anytime soon.

I take it back. I must have missed that magical moment.

You are right, no progress since August 2018 does sound right to be fair.

[davulsukur]

9 hours ago, yankfan said:

Anyone want to admit the pressing 4-3-3 line up is leaving out center half’s exposed.  Maybe with Travis back we could play this way but Johnson and Evans don’t provide enough cover for our outside backs to be so advanced.  Add to that our captain certainly isn’t good enough to be left even numbers.  

We can't play 4-3-3 against the better teams. We are far too fragile on the counter.

Bournemouth, Watford and Reading, 2 teams you expect to be near the top end of the league and Reading who currently occupy top spot have managed to score 10 goals past us in 3 games.

Watford and Reading pretty much had the game sewn up within 18 mins, scoring either 2 or 3 goals leaving us a mountain to climb in both situations. Bournemouth were 1 up on 25mins and we were chasing the game from then on, equalising twice before still being unable to keep the ball out of our own net for a 3rd time. 

We can put the poorer teams to the sword but even Coventry hit the post before we scored.

Mowbray needs an alternative formation/set up for the better teams, 4-2-3-1 perhaps which leaves us less exposed on the counter. We aren't going to steamroll over every team, our players aren't good enough and the defence is comically woeful at times.

[LeftWinger]

I was thinking - if I could choose any ex-Rover to add to our squad from the last 30 years at their absolute peak, who would I go for? The fact it wouldn't actually be Shearer, Duff or Friedel speaks volumes. I'd go for Hendry. I really think we're an old school, blood and thunder type centre half away from being competitive in this league. I don't think even Shearer could score enough to compensate from how porous we are at the back.

[bluebruce]

Can't believe I've just read TM going on about how it's difficult for Pears to adapt to our style from Boro's. He is a fucking goalkeeper! Ok it affects the passing around at the back part of the game but what the hell does that have to do with the four goals we just shipped??

Not to mention if he is set on playing a sweeper keeper and that's such a key part of our game, why he signed someone who isn't one.

[Giant]

We lacked any pace whatsoever in defence and midfield last night. If we are to play a high line, at least two defenders need to be rapid.

[Gamst]

Been a difficult start to the season and we are clearly underachieving so far. We need to remember that due to COVID and injuries there has been a lot of chopping and changing which hasn't helped matters. We have also had some tough games with last night and next Saturday being examples and played teams at a bad times (fleg forest). It goes without saying though that you have to compete better and deal with adversity more effectively if you want to compete at the top of the league and patience will rightly wear thin if this inconsistency persists. 

I think there is enough positive stuff there to suggest we stick with Tony to see how it plays out though. We are playing some brilliant football and at times we are unplayable, when was the last time we could say that? We also have the strongest team in years despite a very challenging economic climate and that deserves praise and should offer us some hope that things should improve as teams around us with inferior squads flounder. It feels like we are waiting for something to click to find consistency, be more clinical and challenge against the better teams. The defense is an issue, although I think its more to do with the balance and formation than individuals. There are signs that there's a really good team in there somewhere, but at some point soon this needs to translate into consistent wins! 

[Exiled_Rover]

6 minutes ago, LeftWinger said:

I was thinking - if I could choose any ex-Rover to add to our squad from the last 30 years at their absolute peak, who would I go for? The fact it wouldn't actually be Shearer, Duff or Friedel speaks volumes. I'd go for Hendry. I really think we're an old school, blood and thunder type centre half away from being competitive in this league. I don't think even Shearer could score enough to compensate from how porous we are at the back.

If you're going defence then surely it's Samba. We need his pace at the back.

[Exiled_Rover]

1 minute ago, Giant said:

We lacked any pace whatsoever in defence and midfield last night. If we are to play a high line, at least two defenders need to be rapid.

System doesn't work with two slow-ish FBs and a slow-ish midfield. Rothwell coming back with add more mobility to the midfield, but it's still not ideal.

[Mattyblue]

6 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

Can't believe I've just read TM going on about how it's difficult for Pears to adapt to our style from Boro's. He is a fucking goalkeeper! Ok it affects the passing around at the back part of the game but what the hell does that have to do with the four goals we just shipped??

Not to mention if he is set on playing a sweeper keeper and that's such a key part of our game, why he signed someone who isn't one.

“There was no intention to get him any game-time this soon”

Surely your sub keeper has to be ready to play at a moments notice?

Jam tomorrow.