The Reading Fc Thread

[ThaiPauly]

Well we have now lost 5 games in a row

CHELSEA (H)

ARSENAL(H)

LIVERPOOL (A)

PORSMOUTH (A)

LIVERPOOL (A)

I wuld not want to play those teams every week..but they are now out of the way.

We now have Spurs, Blackburn, Charlton and Newcastle.

I am expecting some better results

I don't think we have become a bad side overnight, anybody who had just come up and had to play against those teams would probably have faired no better.

Stevie C has just got to rally the troops ..but its a pity that Soel's form has dipped..he was a revlation to begin with, yesterday he was dropped to the bench to make way for Glen little, who to be fair was our best player last year and every time he has come on as a sub he has done well.

Our main problem is our srike force. The two Irish strikers are not working...2 years ago they were both playing for Cork City, and cost 250,000 for the pair, they are not gonna get that many goals in the top flight and with Dave Kitson out till Xmas and Leroy Litta clearly not Premiership material we really need a loan signing with some ecxperience up front...I just hope that Coppell address this problem soon.

There are plenty of quality strikers out there playing in their teams reserves..Maybee Shevrenko would fancy a trip down the M4 till Xmas

[chonabot]

Reading v Tottenham

Madejski Stadium

Sunday, 12 November

Kick-off: 1330 GMT

Coverage on the BBC Sport website, BBC Radio Five Live, Score on BBCi & highlights on MOTD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading expect to welcome back captain Graeme Murty after the right-back missed the last four games with a hamstring problem.

Winger Bobby Convey (knee) is out along with long-term absentees Dave Kitson, Peter Mate, Aaron Brown and Simon Cox.

Tottenham defender Pascal Chimbonda and striker Mido are unlikely to play because of knee injuries.

Teemu Tainio, Calum Davenport, Anthony Gardner and Paul Stalteri miss out but Steed Malbranque should be fit.

Reading (from): Hahnemann, Murty, Sonko, Ingimarsson, Shorey, Little, Seol, Sidwell, Harper, Hunt, Doyle, Long, Lita, Gunnarsson, de la Cruz, Bikey, Oster, Federici.

Tottenham (from): Robinson, Cerny, Dawson, Lee, King, Assou, Ekotto, Davids, Jenas, Lennon, Huddlestone, Ziegler, Murphy, Defoe, Keane, Berbatov, Zokora, Ghaly, Dervite, Malbranque.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading manager Steve Coppell:

"I can say I'm confident our losing run will come to an end but I'm not.

"There are an awful lot of ifs - if we play well, if we do our jobs, if we don't relax at any time, if we take inspiration from the crowd.

"We are not falsely positive. We are realistic - we have been playing good teams and we're playing one on Sunday."

Tottenham boss Martin Jol on centre-half Michael Dawson:

"I don't think there are a lot of players like him. He is honest and he's good for other players.

"He is a great person, he wants to win, so I think he's a role model. As a young player, that is unbelievable.

"He's so fit for a big lad and he's enjoying himself and that's probably an advantage. He's very important for us and he's a very good character."

BIG-MATCH FACTS

READING take on Tottenham at the Madejski hoping to avoid a fifth successive Premiership defeat, while Spurs - taken to extra time by League One Port Vale in the Carling Cup on Wednesday - will be eager to extend a five-match unbeaten League run, and build on last Sunday's historic home victory over Chelsea.

Steve Coppell's Royals made a promising start to the first season of top flight football in their history, but they're now on the longest current losing run in the Premier League as they prepare to meet a third London club in a row at home.

This is the seventh League meeting of Reading and Spurs, but the first ever in the top League. The Royals were 'doubled' by the Londoners with an aggregate of 2-9, when they last met at second tier level in 1930-31 - Spurs winning 7-1 at White Hart Lane and 1-2 at Elm Park.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR have been alternating between wins and draws in the Premiership since the beginning of October, but they are still to pick up a first win away. This fixture pits the weakest home defence in the top table against the joint poorest away attack.

The North London club need one more win to register 200 all-time in the Premiership, but have not managed consecutive victories in 15 top flight fixtures, since defeating Manchester City (h) and Everton (a) on 8 and 15 April.

The two clubs are level in League competition - Spurs winning two, losing two and drawing two.

Come on.....you SPuuurrrsssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[redrus]

I'm gonna post this in the other thread too.

What the <deleted>, Spurs have got a brown kit, <deleted>, it makes Uniteds grey kit look good....

redrus

[redrus]

3 bloody 1....

redrus

[Seapok]

Well done Reading (3-1) always good to see the small clubs come good.

[chonabot]

No sour grapes here , well played Reading...

I should have been at the game , maybe if I'd turned up ,things would have been different

Oh well , 10 match unbeaten run came to an end , sooner this week than last week I guess.

Still unbeaten in Europe, last 8 of Milky way cup, heres to the next 10 games lads...

Well done the Royals.

ps , Chr1st I've done shight in the compo this week but....

[ThaiPauly]

Great game for Me of course....never expected there to be a 2 goal margin in it. I suspect that many Spurs fans would say thats the worse Spurs have played in a long time. We harried and hassled which is the only way we can play, and in the end it came good for us

Will that brown kit ever see the light of day again?

Thanks for the nice comments.

[ThaiPauly]

THREE wins in a row and back in 7th place

I think any relegation fears I may have had at the start of the season are surely dispelled now.

Bolton at home next..not easy, but anything from that game will be worth having

Chok Dee

[redrus]

THREE wins in a row and back in 7th place

I think any relegation fears I may have had at the start of the season are surely dispelled now.

Bolton at home next..not easy, but anything from that game will be worth having

Chok Dee

Keep it up mate, I'm keeping an eye out for your results....

redrus

[Mossfinn]

THREE wins in a row and back in 7th place

I think any relegation fears I may have had at the start of the season are surely dispelled now.

Yes I think so too TP, I was getting a little worried a month ago at the back end of a poor run, I thought you might get dragged into the relegation fight before xmas.

three good wins and that has dispelled that initial fear.

Good Luck

Moss

[ThaiPauly]

THREE wins in a row and back in 7th place

I think any relegation fears I may have had at the start of the season are surely dispelled now.

Yes I think so too TP, I was getting a little worried a month ago at the back end of a poor run, I thought you might get dragged into the relegation fight before xmas.

three good wins and that has dispelled that initial fear.

Good Luck

Moss

Welcome to the READING thread Moss..you are most welcome and your appearance is much apprecitead.

Thank you for your kind words...but I always felt we could hold our own here...but we ain't gonna beat Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, or Liverpool..and that was basically our bad run..we can mix it up with the clubs that are NOT considered top six, and hopefully here in lies our long term future in the EPL

Charlton, Watford and Sheffield all have to play them as well

We have3 more points than Sunderland ended up on and are 50% of the way to the magical 42 points that most clubs say will stave off relegation , having played 33% of our games..we wil be OK

[ThaiPauly]

READING 1 BOLTON 0

NOW I AM CONVINCED WE ARE STAYING UP

Just shows that money does not always buy suceess

[soihok]

Nice one Reading.

Its really great to see these over paid, over hyped,clubs slide closer towards the Championship.

Keep it up........unless you are facing the Blades

[Mossfinn]

NOW I AM CONVINCED WE ARE STAYING UP

Not only that TP, but apparently playing with style too.

It does help having a fine Irish striker mind, 8 goals now isn't it!

Good Luck

Moss

[ThaiPauly]

NOW I AM CONVINCED WE ARE STAYING UP

Not only that TP, but apparently playing with style too.

It does help having a fine Irish striker mind, 8 goals now isn't it!

Good Luck

Moss

Thanks Moss...Kevin Doyle..Premiership's joint top scorer..cost 120,000 pounds

At 22 I wonder what he would be valued at now?

[mrbojangles]

Well done Reading. Up to 6th place now, with a game in hand over quite a few of the other teams

[ThaiPauly]

I think we deserved our point at The Bridge yesterday.

Their own goal was poestic justice as they beat us with a similar lucky goal at our place

[farangconnection]

I think we deserved our point at The Bridge yesterday.

Their own goal was poestic justice as they beat us with a similar lucky goal at our place

Yes, but Reading make the Chelsea and Leeds teams of 70/71 quite tame in comparison. Jeez you lot are a hard lot of bastaads.

[soihok]

Watched the game last night and ..well...nice one Reading.

Good game

Shame they did,nt win though.

Cheers

[nev]

nice to see a team come to old trafford and play good attacking football.

good luck for the season!!

steve coppell next united manager!!

[ThaiPauly]

Cheers Nev,

it was always gonna be a tough game....the differnce was Ronaldo, my choice as Player Of The Year.

When we lost Murty it was always gonna be tough. I thought the sending off was very harsh, and I would question United's last goal as offside. But the last few minutes were thrilling to watch as a 10 man team gave United a few problems, although I knew we would not equalise

I was pleased with our performance..we ain't no team of Superstars, we just have to get stuck in and hope for the best.

I really hope we will be back at The Theatre of Dreams again next year, we now have quite an easy month on paper starting with West Ham at home tomorrow, then 2 more home games and only one away in January and if we play like we have in the last 2 games against teams that are below us we should be able to grind out a few results.....having said all that we are still 10th but ther is a definate gap now between us and Spurs and not that many points between 10th and 18th unfortunatley.

However I think there are worse teams than us in the EPL so I am hopeful we can do it.

Coppell for United...well you never know..he has been around long enough to know whats what and I for one would not object to him furthering his career with one of the Worlds's best teams..but Lord only knows who would replace him at our place..he is a Demi-God at Reading.

Cheers

TP

[ThaiPauly]

Reading 6 West Ham 0

That really buggered up my predictions on the Footy Compo this week

[soihok]

Good grief 6-0

Well done.I did n,t see the game but it sounded like it must have been teams worlds apart.

Now we dont want none of this 6 goal nonsense when Sheff U come to see you in a few weeks ,,,,do we?

[mrbojangles]

Reading 6 West Ham 0

Excellent result guys. Don't think anyone saw that one coming. Especially Alan Curbishley

[chonabot]

Reading 6 West Ham 0

That really buggered up my predictions on the Footy Compo this week

Nice result for the Royals !

[ben01]

6th in the table, a solid performance against Sheffield today, even Fergie was watching us, as we are his opponants next week. Fastest Premiership goal of the season today

We CAN be a force to be reckoned with I feel, but I would still be happy with 17th spot.

We HAD to win today as our next games are against Man United, West Ham , Chelsea, Arsenal and Pompey

Not many points coming our way over the next 4 weeks....but U never know.

Any other Royals fans...PLEASE add your comments here, same goes for any Reading admirers, of which I know there are many.

Come on UR'ssssssssssssss

i really do hope the royals do well.....but as for being a force............nah......

thats what wigan, west ham thought...........and possibly charlton for a few years.....they unfortunatley havent got what it takes to progress that final big hurdle.............

[ThaiPauly]

I think we deserved our point at The Bridge yesterday.

Their own goal was poestic justice as they beat us with a similar lucky goal at our place

Yes, but Reading make the Chelsea and Leeds teams of 70/71 quite tame in comparison. Jeez you lot are a hard lot of bastaads.

Only when we play Chelsea Martin

[ThaiPauly]

6th in the table, a solid performance against Sheffield today, even Fergie was watching us, as we are his opponants next week. Fastest Premiership goal of the season today

We CAN be a force to be reckoned with I feel, but I would still be happy with 17th spot.

We HAD to win today as our next games are against Man United, West Ham , Chelsea, Arsenal and Pompey

Not many points coming our way over the next 4 weeks....but U never know.

Any other Royals fans...PLEASE add your comments here, same goes for any Reading admirers, of which I know there are many.

Come on UR'ssssssssssssss

i really do hope the royals do well.....but as for being a force............nah......

thats what wigan, west ham thought...........and possibly charlton for a few years.....they unfortunatley havent got what it takes to progress that final big hurdle.............

Thanks for your imput Mate...a "Force to be reckoned with" means that maybee we will stay up..as I said we would be very happy to be 17th. An everton a Bolton a Villa a Fulham (and we are certainly no worse than them) Look at the league table we are above some very good teams..9th with nearly two thirds of the season gone. What we have is stability ..and that is our strength..our players know each other inside out ..upside down..there is no rotation policy..the first 11 picks itself (baring injuries or suspensions) week in week out..that why there will be no ..or very little activity in the transfer window for us...if it ain't broke ,,don't fix it is Coppells motto.

However we will field a reserve team in the FA Cup guaranteed...we do not care about it ( see WHU last season) ..survival is all we care about now..If we can stay up for 2 or 3 seasons with the TV cash flowing in then maybee we can buy some expensive players although that is no guarantee of suceess...look at the teams that are below us who have players whose names trip off the tounge

Maybee in 5 years time if we can stay in the EPL that long we may be a force..we can expand our stadium to seat 60,000 ..it was built that way...for the future..just hope I live to see us win the Premiership...none of my ancestors did

[ThaiPauly]

Very happy with a 1-1 draw at Goddison.

We could have won but Andy Johnson is our nemisis..he has scored against us 8 times in 8 games So it was no surprise to see him score the equaliser.

Once again I think that we showed that we can compete with teams in the top half of the table.

Only drawback was Kevin Doyle's injury, so it looks like dave Kitson's long awaited return maybee a little sooner than planned.

Next two games are at home to Sheffield United and Wigan...so I am expecting 6 points..but would settle fo four

[soihok]

Hold yer horses Pauly.

We all know that Reading are playing better than Sheff U.

But

Portsmouth were lucky to escape with a draw and the Arse lost.

Its not over till its over .

May the best team win.

I wish I could be there ,be it aint going to happen.

Cheers