v Reading (h) - 15/3/23, 7:45pm

[Admiral Nelsen]

12 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Good god.

How isn't this game Must Win? 

What's happened to our fans? Where's the ambition?

Reading absolutely riddled by injury and looking to not get relegated? Yet not must win?

 

I think it's just the phrase being used differently. It's not must win in the sense of if we lose, that's effectively the season done. 

 

But yes, this looks on paper the most winnable game that we have left, and we probably need to win about half of our remaining games, so it's 100% one that we should be taking to the bank. 

[Exiled_Rover]

9 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Wharton should come in but Morton is at least better than Garrett. But it is a massively weak area as even Buckley has not convinced in that role.

Is he?

[Sweaty Gussets]

10 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Wharton should come in but Morton is at least better than Garrett. But it is a massively weak area as even Buckley has not convinced in that role.

We could go 4th tonight with a win. 'Massively weak' is massively exaggerated. 

[47er]

47 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

There you go then, as I said, poor decision to choose this game.

I think probably the reasoning was that the crowd would have been embarrassingly low if they hadn't reduced prices.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

47 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

There you go then, as I said, poor decision to choose this game.

Same. Good initiative but really odd choice. If the final home fixture against Luton has anything on the line (which it should) then that would be a much more logical choice.

[neophox]

Im certain we will start like this

 

Pears

JRC - Carter - Hyam - Pickering

Travis - Morton

Thomas, Szmodics, BBD

Gally

 

One bad game wont take out JRC.... he know that he will have to improve to keep his place for the FA CUP.

 

[Mattyblue]

33 minutes ago, 47er said:

I think probably the reasoning was that the crowd would have been embarrassingly low if they hadn't reduced prices.

Midweeks always are (everybody expects it to be anyway), even a deal doesn’t really move the dial. 

So don’t waste your one tenner offer of the season on it.

As morten says, we have two tasty looking 3pm games against promotion rivals in the run in, no brainer to pick one of those (well, it should’ve been).

Edited March 15, 2023 by Mattyblue

[ben_the_beast]

Preview from a Reading perspective. I believe they picked up a few additional injuries in their last game

https://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/2023/3/15/23639405/blackburn-rovers-vs-reading-match-preview-2022-23-tomasson-ince

 

[Gav]

Joao always scores against us, so we're starting -1 in this game, but these are the games we should be winning at this stage of the season.

Rovers 3 Reading 1

[Cuppliance]

Haven't got any stats and I'm going off recent memory (which can be dodgy mind), but we seem to play Reading in mid week games a lot. It's happening twice this season.

[arbitro]

2 hours ago, Mellor Rover said:

Every team above and around us would class this is a must win

Assuming we don't win are you throwing the towel in?

[garnersfags]

1 hour ago, magicalmortensleftpeg said:

Same. Good initiative but really odd choice. If the final home fixture against Luton has anything on the line (which it should) then that would be a much more logical choice.

If the Luton game has anything on it, there will be 16,000+ Rovers fans there.

Tonight's deal was to increase the home attendance from 11 to 13,000+, which it has done.

It's vital that the team has the backing to get over the line tonight, as has happened in a couple of tight games. 

The extra attendance, in my opinion, will help to do this. It could be vital. 

What we really need to do is make the Riverside £10 for all remaining games, which would make for a better all round atmosphere, but tonight and the final 5 game package, is likely to be the end of promotions. 

I do have a sneaking feeling, tho, that they will find a way of adding 3000 to the Luton gate, esp if we need to win it....

Massive game tonight, COYB!!!!

[rigger]

7 minutes ago, garnersfags said:

If the Luton game has anything on it, there will be 16,000+ Rovers fans there.

Tonight's deal was to increase the home attendance from 11 to 13,000+, which it has done.

It's vital that the team has the backing to get over the line tonight, as has happened in a couple of tight games. 

The extra attendance, in my opinion, will help to do this. It could be vital. 

What we really need to do is make the Riverside £10 for all remaining games, which would make for a better all round atmosphere, but tonight and the final 5 game package, is likely to be the end of promotions. 

I do have a sneaking feeling, tho, that they will find a way of adding 3000 to the Luton gate, esp if we need to win it....

Massive game tonight, COYB!!!!

I agree with your £10 in the riverside idea. It is just a shame that it will never happen.

[Atko's Engine]

What a huge opportunity tonight is, on paper we have the easiest match of all our rivals but the attitude of the players & fans needs to be bob on, as do JDT's tactics.

If we do the basics right & play to our strengths we should be fine. I suspect Reading will seek to frustrate, but we need to fire at them right out of the blocks so their gameplan goes out the window very quickly.

Despite Buckley being injured, there are decent options as direct replacements (Morton, A Wharton, Garrett or even JRC) or indirectly through formation tweaks. I

I'm not gonna lie, I'm v nervous, but what a great thing that is to feel!!

COYB!!!! 

[garnersfags]

42 minutes ago, rigger said:

I agree with your £10 in the riverside idea. It is just a shame that it will never happen.

Yes, they seem more interested in how it looks on tele than in the general, all-round atmosphere. If all full-price adult Riverside tickets were £5 less than the cheapest BBE/JW ticket, I genuinely think we would have bigger crowds, as well as better atmos. 

This also needs to be reflected in ST prices. 

Come On You Mighty Blues! Only 6 hours to go!!!!

Edited March 15, 2023 by garnersfags

[Exiled_Rover]

59 minutes ago, arbitro said:

Assuming we don't win are you throwing the towel in?

With the form the chasing pack is in, not picking up 3 points tonight makes it incredibly difficult to finish in the Playoff places.

[roversfan99]

2 hours ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Is he?

In my opinion, just about. Although neither would get in the midfields of any of the chasing pack.

2 hours ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

We could go 4th tonight with a win. 'Massively weak' is massively exaggerated. 

Perhaps and of course I am just speaking relative to other parts of the team but it worries me. If the club had total faith in them for the here and now, we wouldn't have tried to bring in a midfielder in January and fucking that up I worry could cost us.

[oldjamfan1]

It is all going to come together tonight. We will blow them away and run out comfortable 5-1 winners to give our goal difference a boost.

I say this with confidence, because I am working and we normally win when that is the case.

[Sweaty Gussets]

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

In my opinion, just about. Although neither would get in the midfields of any of the chasing pack.

Perhaps and of course I am just speaking relative to other parts of the team but it worries me. If the club had total faith in them for the here and now, we wouldn't have tried to bring in a midfielder in January and fucking that up I worry could cost us.

It's how the team functions, not how the individual parts of the team function.  And CM is a difficult position for anyone because of how JDT sets up his team. LOB may well have improved us but there's no guarantee he would have played as well as he did for Hudds unless their team was set up exactly how JDT sets Rovers up. 

I agree it may well cost us. A fit Buckley would have spared the admin idiots blushes to an extent because he's better at this moment than both Garrett and Morton. We need the Morton of early season to appear again, he was good back then. 

[garnersfags]

Phew,  thanks for recovering 👍

[Gav]

59 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

It is all going to come together tonight. We will blow them away and run out comfortable 5-1 winners to give our goal difference a boost.

I say this with confidence, because I am working and we normally win when that is the case.

You want to put a stop to that, working late I mean, you're the boss!

[wilsdenrover]

10 minutes ago, Gav said:

You want to put a stop to that, working late I mean, you're the boss!

Or at least just make it look like you’re working…

[oldjamfan1]

42 minutes ago, Gav said:

You want to put a stop to that, working late I mean, you're the boss!

 

31 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Or at least just make it look like you’re working…

Fair points, I’m too professional for my own good sometimes 😉

[Aqualung]

I've tried to buy a match pass on RoversTV but the website doesn't seem to be working when trying to make payment. 

Anybody having similar problems? 

[bluebruce]

I think a Rovers fan posting on the Reading forum summed up how I feel heading into this one:

I am primarily a Blackburn fan (I do have a major soft spot for Reading so I come on here to keep up with the goings on). Let me tell you, this is the perfect game for Rovers to lose.

Against a team that is out of form
Former manager
A striker that always scores against us (Lucas Joau)
Against a team with no away wins so far this season
Against a team with no goal in a long time
Midweek game
Tickets are £10 and its just too much of a good opportunity to take to get a win in front of a bigger than normal crowd.

Call me cynical but I've seen it too many times as a Rovers fan and I'm predicting a Reading win.

Apparently it's actually 3 away wins Reading have this season, but still. I dread games where we have an opportunity to undo a team's run of bad form. I also dread coming up against ex-players and to a lesser degree ex-managers. I really want to watch tonight, but I feel it might almost be a good thing that I can't due to work.