hands up if you seriously thought we would get something today????
Back from the arsenal game and to be honest it wasnt as bad as i expected it to be! yes you have read that right. i never expected to get any points today in reality (it would have be nice but come on...) and everytime we have played arsenal we have been hammered (even at 2-1 last season, they murdered us), so i was quite happy with 2-0 today as it could have been alot more!
the team was better than last weekend's fiasco, they actually went out there and played football, even those the team lineup totally confused me. the players had come out before the game and there was no hunt, shorey, oster, long or little on the pitch! confused or what???? put it this way no one had any idea what was going on. i know coppell said there were going to be changes but seriously i dont think any of us expected all 5 of those players to be dropped. Also dropping to the bench were Doyle and Marek. so the team ended up like this: marucs, murty (rb), ivar (cb), sonko (cb), bikey (cb), rosenior (lb), convey (lw), harper (cm), cisse (cm), kebe (rw), kitson (st). bench - fed, doyle, marek, doobs, fae. talked about suprised!! i know i was esp the inclusion on fae, doobs and kebe! even sonko really. not as if they have played in a while! but coppell was going 5-4-1 (although towards the end bikey was playing upfront!).
Reading actually started off ok, but as soon as arsenal scored, things changed and reading slipped abit. the second goal was one of those deflections which i hate, esp as it wasnt going in until it hit bikey!! ahh!! but give them their due, after the break they came out again and we had a few chances, kitson even jumped a few times!!! never does that. he had to work hard on his own upfront and he did ok. the only problem we had was the lack of the final ball, it just wasnt there.
My men of the match today though we Marucs and Murty!!! Marcus made countless vital saves and what a relief to have murty back! the people behind me were slagging him off the whole game, which did my head in, as he was way better than rosenior was last weekend and he hasnt played for 5 weeks! he was getting stuck into the arsenal players and provided the cool calm head that has been missing recently. he was congratualing the players when they made vital clearences or saves, as well as creating runs forward. he even got smacked in the face by Helb, which the ref missed completely (same old story there), when in fact arsenal should have nbeen down to 10 men. welcome back murty!!!
but on a serious note, we need something next weekend against wigan. its going to be a tough one, the jjb is never a nice place to visit, its got one of those atmospheres. i would take a point from there (even though 3 would be nice) and then at least that would give us something to go into the spurs game (our final home game) with. liverpool did us a favour today by beating fulham, but dam boro, inconsitant as ever! bolton are now out of the relegation zone for the first time in ages, and thats left us 17th. i just hope aston villa can do us a favour against brum tomorrow in the derby! fingers crossed.
pictures of todays trip up as soon as i can, until then...
the team was better than last weekend's fiasco, they actually went out there and played football, even those the team lineup totally confused me. the players had come out before the game and there was no hunt, shorey, oster, long or little on the pitch! confused or what???? put it this way no one had any idea what was going on. i know coppell said there were going to be changes but seriously i dont think any of us expected all 5 of those players to be dropped. Also dropping to the bench were Doyle and Marek. so the team ended up like this: marucs, murty (rb), ivar (cb), sonko (cb), bikey (cb), rosenior (lb), convey (lw), harper (cm), cisse (cm), kebe (rw), kitson (st). bench - fed, doyle, marek, doobs, fae. talked about suprised!! i know i was esp the inclusion on fae, doobs and kebe! even sonko really. not as if they have played in a while! but coppell was going 5-4-1 (although towards the end bikey was playing upfront!).
Reading actually started off ok, but as soon as arsenal scored, things changed and reading slipped abit. the second goal was one of those deflections which i hate, esp as it wasnt going in until it hit bikey!! ahh!! but give them their due, after the break they came out again and we had a few chances, kitson even jumped a few times!!! never does that. he had to work hard on his own upfront and he did ok. the only problem we had was the lack of the final ball, it just wasnt there.
My men of the match today though we Marucs and Murty!!! Marcus made countless vital saves and what a relief to have murty back! the people behind me were slagging him off the whole game, which did my head in, as he was way better than rosenior was last weekend and he hasnt played for 5 weeks! he was getting stuck into the arsenal players and provided the cool calm head that has been missing recently. he was congratualing the players when they made vital clearences or saves, as well as creating runs forward. he even got smacked in the face by Helb, which the ref missed completely (same old story there), when in fact arsenal should have nbeen down to 10 men. welcome back murty!!!
but on a serious note, we need something next weekend against wigan. its going to be a tough one, the jjb is never a nice place to visit, its got one of those atmospheres. i would take a point from there (even though 3 would be nice) and then at least that would give us something to go into the spurs game (our final home game) with. liverpool did us a favour today by beating fulham, but dam boro, inconsitant as ever! bolton are now out of the relegation zone for the first time in ages, and thats left us 17th. i just hope aston villa can do us a favour against brum tomorrow in the derby! fingers crossed.
pictures of todays trip up as soon as i can, until then...