Disappointing result but a lot of positives taken

[gator]

I was at the game and we looked very casual. There was no urgency about our game, we did not look dangerous in attack at all!! We had nothing out on the wing.
I like Park, but he is useless on the wing - he'd be better off playing in the centre. He can't cross a ball and he was rightly substituted despite being our captain.

I blame Hughes for that defeat. You don't play two workers like Park and Mackie in the same team. He should of played just one and started with Wright Phillips, who would of given us more pace as well as maybe stretched Reading's defence. I'm a bit worried about Faurlin and Granero playing together too. They're both great players and they do link up well, but they wont get us many goals this season, and we need the midfielders to chip in with the goals because Zamora isn't going to score that many. I'm not convinced by the Zamora-Cisse partnership, they seem like they're on a different wave length.

The only positive I can take out of that game is that is was only the League Cup and not a Premier League match. Nice to see Cisse and Hoilett find the back of the net too, as well as Cesar saving a penalty

It's good to read an opinion from someone that actually watched the match because with no tv or internet feed most of us are basing our opinions on just the result without knowing how bad it looked! The result sucks and I really can't see how many positives can be taken from the match!

[Busheyboy]

the only positive I can take is that I'm POSITIVE our defendng is hopeless.
I've sad on numerous threads that if we can't keep clean sheets and defend better, we're going to struggle. We will create and score goals but we must stop conceding so easily

It's good to read an opinion from someone that actually watched the match because with no tv or internet feed most of us are basing our opinions on just the result without knowing how bad it looked! The result sucks and I really can't see how many positives can be taken from the match!

[dave58]

disagree we didn't play well defensive frailties exposed poor at the back no left back is killing us at the moment

[stainrod10]

First of all we played really well, we just need to learn to keep a lead and defend properly.

BUT, this is a major factor that we seemingly can't do anything about. None of the other points matter if we can't put this right.

[Rebel R's]

****e result,end of.....how anyone( even on this board) could possibly make a positive thread out of it I don't know

[Busheyboy]

we must learn to defend properly. This should be priority for the management to address immediately
if we can't defend, it doesn't matter who we've got up front, we'll always concede goals.
End of

[GoldhawkRanger]

We should have put the game away earlier on but didnt close it out! There are no positives which we haven't seen already against significantly better opponents, pretty much our full strength team got beaten at home by an average Reading team. Its not good enough!

We HAVE to beat West Ham on Monday, nothing else would be good enough.

[Yousef]

Keep the faith. I will make my first match v WBA and we will win :drunk:

[Bluehoop]

5 games in to the league campaign and people are calling for the managers head. Have you all forgotten just how many managers we've had in the last 3 or 4 years? How about a bit of stability? The team is brand new and starting to show signs of becoming a good passing unit - the performance at Spuds was as good as Rangers have been away from home in years. Sure, defensively we are struggling, but as I've said on another couple of threads, we have 4 first team defenders out injured, Nelson rested and M'Bia making his debut when clearly not match fit. We are also playing without a left footed left back (as in one who only uses said foot for standing on). Hughes often takes time to make an impact and yes, I know about last season's record - but, as above, this is a whole new team so it's back to square one. It will take time but the shoots are there, based on performances against Chelsea, Man City and Spuds I believe things will have taken a positive swing in the coming weeks. So, back to the manager, Hughes is a top manager, his ideas take time to settle but when they do, his teams become very effective. Sadly, we have a very impatient fan base, but hopefully the Board are not so twitchy. Remember, many of these players were only sold on coming to the R's because of Hughes so imagine the unsettling effect a sacking would create.
One final thought - who is the most successful manager in English Football history? It took SAF 5 years to win anything with United and there is a very poignant comment in the bio about his early days at OT - Following an early season run of six defeats and two draws in eight games, a banner declaring "Three years of excuses and it's still crap...ta-ra Fergie." was displayed at Old Trafford, and many journalists and supporters called for Ferguson to be sacked. Ferguson later described December 1989 as "the darkest period [he had] ever suffered in the game", as United ended the decade just outside the relegation zone. However, Ferguson later revealed that the board of directors had assured him that they were not considering dismissing him. Although naturally disappointed with the lack of success in the league, they understood the reasons for the sub-standard results (namely the absence of several key players due to injury) and were pleased with the way that Ferguson had reorganised the club's coaching and scouting system.

Imagine if the OT faithful had got their own way, or indeed if the Board had been somewhat less patient.

[eghamR]

5 games in to the league campaign and people are calling for the managers head. Have you all forgotten just how many managers we've had in the last 3 or 4 years? How about a bit of stability? The team is brand new and starting to show signs of becoming a good passing unit - the performance at Spuds was as good as Rangers have been away from home in years. Sure, defensively we are struggling, but as I've said on another couple of threads, we have 4 first team defenders out injured, Nelson rested and M'Bia making his debut when clearly not match fit. We are also playing without a left footed left back (as in one who only uses said foot for standing on). Hughes often takes time to make an impact and yes, I know about last season's record - but, as above, this is a whole new team so it's back to square one. It will take time but the shoots are there, based on performances against Chelsea, Man City and Spuds I believe things will have taken a positive swing in the coming weeks. So, back to the manager, Hughes is a top manager, his ideas take time to settle but when they do, his teams become very effective. Sadly, we have a very impatient fan base, but hopefully the Board are not so twitchy. Remember, many of these players were only sold on coming to the R's because of Hughes so imagine the unsettling effect a sacking would create.
One final thought - who is the most successful manager in English Football history? It took SAF 5 years to win anything with United and there is a very poignant comment in the bio about his early days at OT - Following an early season run of six defeats and two draws in eight games, a banner declaring "Three years of excuses and it's still crap...ta-ra Fergie." was displayed at Old Trafford, and many journalists and supporters called for Ferguson to be sacked. Ferguson later described December 1989 as "the darkest period [he had] ever suffered in the game", as United ended the decade just outside the relegation zone. However, Ferguson later revealed that the board of directors had assured him that they were not considering dismissing him. Although naturally disappointed with the lack of success in the league, they understood the reasons for the sub-standard results (namely the absence of several key players due to injury) and were pleased with the way that Ferguson had reorganised the club's coaching and scouting system.

Imagine if the OT faithful had got their own way, or indeed if the Board had been somewhat less patient.

Don't think anyone's calling for the managers head on this thread ....just saying there are no positives in losing at home to Reading's second string.

[Del]

--We are getting better and better performance-wise every game, all we need to do now is get the ball in the back of the net more often and we'll be fine!

-.

We scored 2 goals at home against Reading, which should've been enough to beat them.....

What we need to do is learn how to concentrate after scoring a goal and not let teams score straight from the kick off ala City and Reading. We need to learn when it is not the time to mess about with the ball and try intricate passes, which if intercepted, puts us in trouble, and we need to learn to be solid at the back. They scored 3 last night, and had many breaks when it sounded we could've conceeded, not to mention a missed pen, albeit a ridiculously awarded pen.

[Busheyboy]

improve our defending, we have good players going forward and poor ones at the back.
Look at our goals conceded last season and this, very poor.
Figures don't lie. How many goals do we need to score to win games?

[rmj1982]

tell you what lets have 33 more positives performances and end up with a mere 20 points absolute joke, sick to death of all this lets take positives,there are no positives in defeat i dont care that hoilett and cisse scored we lost again to a much weakened reading team, and i cant see us beating west ham either.

[sirduncs]

perhaps we need to have a specific tactic for once we have scored. based on what i saw last night, we don't, and we are vulnerable then particularly as we don't change our game play.

it is wearing thin watching us score and take the lead only for the oppo to bang one in fairly soon afterwards. likewise we tend to concede a goal then be soft and concede another in quick succession. the former was in evidence against man city and also against reading last night. the latter was our undoing in both the swansea and the spuds matches. it's almost like after the killer blow of us putting the ball in the opposition's onion bag, we then show 'em our soft underbelly and give 'em the chance to level it.

[Busheyboy]

I'm positive of one thing DON'T CONCEDE GOALS = DON'T LOSE MATCHES it's not rocket science