It goes 1 Mayo the dog, 2 Ghost the Guinea Pig, 3 Laura, 4 Crystal and 5 the big, fat, bullied old man!
It feels like the owners have actually given up, and last season was our one shot. The exodus that followed the play off defeat seems to back it up. I don’t think the owners are that interested any more, now they know they’re not going to buy the ground, which means revenue will always be capped at a fairly low level.
i agree that we are under strength. Reading were today & a lot of teams are. We are totally lacking direction though. Schopp has to go for me, wish he'd gone before the break. He has no idea about setting up a team in the championship. We are nailed on for relegation now, from a play off team. Even you must admit that he's not up to it.
I’m not defending him in the slightest, but today was far more positive and probably the bet we’ve played since QPR. Reading didn’t have the same level of player missing from their Starting XI as us but their bench was seriously weak. All kids and then a Brazilian international. I think Schopp has been dealt an incredibly difficult hand. I think the squad is of far less quality than last season overall as well. I also think it’s likely he isn’t the right man for the job too.
I cannot bear to subject myself to re-watching that but were Reading far more defensive than I had realised at the time? They barely threatened our goal and left us to enjoy the majority of the midfield. Did they sit back and crowd the defence, content to hit us on the break? That doesn't seem like the tactics of a form team at home but now that's what it feels like. Reading looked very substandard, except in defence. It would explain why we didn't have any joy up front. That's no excuse for not having plans to break them down with runs but it would make me feel a little better about the whole thing.
We were quite dominant at times yesterday, particular in the second half, but you always knew we had to score if we were to get anything out of the game. One switch- off down our left by Britain and we were losing. Unfortunately, the same player saw a great effort come back off the post. Countless promising attacks broke down due to wrong decisions such as having that extra touch, playing wrong ball and inaccurate passing. I honestly felt that if we got one we’d get more. There was certainly no lack of effort from anyone yesterday, lack of confidence at times definitely. As always when you’re struggling at the bottom, things don’t go your way.