Davies - unlucky. Didn't do too much wrong. Saved us from a heavier defeat. 7 McCarthy - erratic . Seemed to be fed up with Potts. Not impressed but at least seemed to be trying to rectify situation. 6 Jackson - slow. Just looks out of his depth 5 Macdonald - Not at his best. 6 Yiadom. Some flashes of skill but also made a few mistakes. 6 Potts. Slow to react . offered little 4 Moncur. tried to keep things moving but simply too slow. 6 Mowatt . Waste of a shirt . Just doesn't offer anything 4 Williams . loads of mistakes but could see he was trying to orchestrate things. 6 Bradshaw . looked lost 5 Ugbo - Some decent turns but nothing to work from 6 Hammil - tried to create but wasted free kicks. 6 Pyne - mixed it up a bit 6 Hedges - direct, got a goal . Cheered us up a bit . 7
Assist from Payne as well. I haven't been to any pre season games so today was my first chance to see the new lads. I thought Mccarthy looked more like a centre back. Big lad for a full back. Also, why was Adam Hamill on the bench?
Davies 7 McCarthy 3 Jackson 3 Mac Donald 1 Yiadom 3 Potts 2 moncur 4 Williams 5 Mowatt 2 Ugbo 3 Bradshaw 2 Hammill 5 Hedges 3 Some of these ratings are very generous.
Davies 7 - Would probably have been five or six nil but for him and an, at best, average Bristol team declaring after half an hour. McCarthy 2 - Had the good grace to at least be near enough to his man to commit a few fouls but not on the pace otherwise. Jackson 0 - Can only assume their French striker had either been on the garlic and his breath stank rancid or for £5.5m he came with his own 10 metre exclusion zone as Jackson got nowhere near to marking him. Has the turning circle of the QE2, but more slowly. MacDonald 1 - Sorry, but it was blatantly obvious to me how much Angus relied on Robbo defensively and that selling the latter would do far, far more damage to the defence as a whole than just leaving a one man gap. Beaten far too easily for at least one of their goals. Yiadom 2 - There's only so long a good right back can get away with being pressed into service on his wrong side. Potts 1 - Played like he'd never met his team-mates before........oh, wait....... Williams 2 - Willing lad, would have been more suited to the schoolboy game in the nearby park. Regularly bundled off the ball as a physical insignificance. Slow, but like lightning compared to M&M. Moncur (aka Sloth Brother Number One) -1 - I might have given him 0 but he doesn't deserve that as his only real contribution was persistent hair-flicking (think a fat Tom Kennedy). Candidate for Love Island.......on his own. Mowatt (aka Sloth Brother Number Two) -2 - This lad does things on a football pitch the likes of which I've not seen before. Hopefully, I'll never see them again. Needs putting out of our misery. Ugbo 3 - There's something in there and he had a couple of nice touches but oh so easily manoeuvred off the ball by the misters playing centre half for Bristol. Bradshaw 0 - Non-scoring, non-contributing, has nothing to hurt defenders regularly enough with at this level. Lost. Hammill 5 - The only outfield player to visibly show he cared, for mine. Some nice touches and at least showed some spirit and urgency. Took our only half decent free-kick in the second half as opposed to the Sloth Brothers who were holding their own competition to see who could lob, slow, harmless balls nearest their keeper so that he had increasingly less difficulty catching them without needing to move (probably as moving appears anathema to both Moncur and Mowatt). Hedges 4 - Took the goal well and ran about a bit. Payne 1 - Came on, didn't look the part, did nothing, should've scored but at least his hokey-cokey misfire finishing left the Bristol defenders rolling on the floor with laughter enabling Hedges to fire home. Overall, I came away feeling that I'd just watched a below average Championship team so comfortably beat a hotch-potch collection of (much) lower league players, which is what we are, that they were able to declare, cricket style, after half an hour. At that point I really felt we were heading for another 'Reading moment' and a better team than Bristol would have given us it. There were no real redeeming features to the overall taste left by that performance imho. It wasn't like seeing the early days of, say, Conor H and thinking that this lad's got a couple of areas of his game to improve but in the meantime the wand on the end of his left foot will do more than adequately. There just didn't seem to be much there for Hecky to work with and I can't help but think about the old adage about what paying (relative) peanuts gets you. In between three memorably good teams during my time watching the Reds, other than the relegation to division 1 years we always seemed to have teams in which there were some good players to balance off a number of less good. A Futcher to keep us afloat at the back, despite also having a Hedworth, or a Dyer to score the goals, despite having a Mitch Ward in midfield etc. I didn't see any Futchers or Dyers potentially in today's lot, sadly. To end on a slight positive, I guess the three players I'd thought were going to be the best recruitments, McGeehan, Pearson and Lindsay, along with Mallan, who I've thought has shown some good touches, were all out. But boy do we need them to be good, we also need some leaders (a McShane type to organise and put fire in the bellies?) and of course, at least two men up front, Mr Pace/Goals and Mr Strength/Aerial Threat. Apologies to those of you who feel I'm harsh but for those of us there today like me blowing the entire monthly household 'entertainment' budget it's my view that the least what we saw deserves is toleration of a good therapeutic spleen venting! I'll be there Tuesday night, COYR.
Thanks lads, couldn't you have lied a bit and given them bigger marks. This just makes for depressing reading.
