No shame in that. Once their man was rightly sent off, their two banks of four gave a very disciplined display. Up to the sending off, I thought they played some excellent football going forward. Armstrong's goal was a superb strike, after a perfect knock down from Bradshaw. Good to see Paul McShane applauding the Barnsley fans after the final whistle. I was talking to a couple of blokes from BBC Radio Berkshire after the match and they were saying that was by far and away Reading's best performance for absolutely ages and how impressed they were with our team. It was good to see Dragon Tyke today, but he's now taken over from Arabian Ian for being a jinx! We take this on this chin and move on. No need for knee jerk reactions, or OTT criticism, in my opinion.
My lad's first match of the season. He gets Villa at home before he heads back to Uni, I'm blaming him! I was sorely tempted to leave him at Dodworth roundabout so he could hitch an early lift back to Uni and just take the financial hit on having the spare Villa ticket.
I'll not start a different thread after seeing this, I completely agree, it's exactly as I saw it too. Even with 10 men, when they weren't killing time, they looked like they still had goals in them and I can only give them credit for how they defended. Definitely the best side I've seen us play to date, very organised and used the ball really well. Quite impressed how we tried to break them down too rather than launching endless hopeful balls up front. Just one of those days, we've been better, and we've been worse, and the loose ball didn't roll our way today. If I'd been offered 6 points from the last 3 games if have taken them. Chatting to Iain Dowie in the car park after the match, he covered the game for Sky. He was adamant that their lad who was booked for the other incident with Hourihane should have walked. Considering how good Reading were, they were trying their best to lose their best players from the match.
They definitely struggled to contain us by fair means at times. Today's defeat certainly cannot take away from the fact we've made a very good start to the season.
I agree. I thought Reading were excellent today. I'd rather congratulate them than look for too much to criticise with our team. I thought our fans were superb too. Got behind the team throughout and applauded them after the final whistle. Good to see them showing a bit of perspective for what we've achieved so far. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk