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Match day thread: Reading

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  • I’m in a WhatsApp group set up with the aim of sorting out the mess Gareth Ainsworth has made of our club. Rob Couhig, Brendan Rogers, Carlo Ancelotti and Alan Smith have turned the season round for us. If you want in, DM me your mobile number ?.

  • Trevor hasn't got a mobile @arnos_grove!

  • RC is great, but it would be a little galling if we pulled off the great escape and he got credit for it!

  • This list shows all the teams who finished below 40 points since the division went to 46 games in the early 90s. Leeds did have a 10 point deduction in 06-07 (I may have missed a deduction somewhere else too).

    Even with all the bad luck we have had, a half decent run would see us very far from the worst points total ever.

    39: Southend 96-97
    39: Grimsby 02-03
    39: Charlton 08-09
    39: Wigan 14-15
    39: Barnsley 13-14
    38: Tranmere 00-01
    38: Brighton 05-06
    38: Colchester 07-08
    37: Peterborough 93-94
    37: Yeovil 13-14
    37: Sunderland 17-18
    36: Port Vale 99-00
    36: Leeds 06-07
    36: Swindon 99-00
    36: Bradford 03-04
    36: Doncaster 11-12
    34: Peterborough 09-10
    32: Bolton 18-19
    31: Ipswich 18-19
    29: Wimbledon 03-04
    29: Rotherham 04-05
    26: Stockport 01-02
    26: Blackpool 14-15
    23: Rotherham 16-17

  • @Shev said:
    RC is great, but it would be a little galling if we pulled off the great escape and he got credit for it!

    If we stay up , I don't give a monkey's who gets the credit!!

  • @Shev said:
    This list shows all the teams who finished below 40 points since the division went to 46 games in the early 90s. Leeds did have a 10 point deduction in 06-07 (I may have missed a deduction somewhere else too).

    Even with all the bad luck we have had, a half decent run would see us very far from the worst points total ever.

    39: Southend 96-97
    39: Grimsby 02-03
    39: Charlton 08-09
    39: Wigan 14-15
    39: Barnsley 13-14
    38: Tranmere 00-01
    38: Brighton 05-06
    38: Colchester 07-08
    37: Peterborough 93-94
    37: Yeovil 13-14
    37: Sunderland 17-18
    36: Port Vale 99-00
    36: Leeds 06-07
    36: Swindon 99-00
    36: Bradford 03-04
    36: Doncaster 11-12
    34: Peterborough 09-10
    32: Bolton 18-19
    31: Ipswich 18-19
    29: Wimbledon 03-04
    29: Rotherham 04-05
    26: Stockport 01-02
    26: Blackpool 14-15
    23: Rotherham 16-17

    Interesting to see Peterborough stinking out the Championship on two occasions there.

  • @davecz said:

    @Shev said:
    RC is great, but it would be a little galling if we pulled off the great escape and he got credit for it!

    If we stay up , I don't give a monkey's who gets the credit!!

    Great, because it was all me!

  • So 39 points to get ahead of Peterborough twice and ColU.

  • @MindlessDrugHoover said:

    @Shev said:
    This list shows all the teams who finished below 40 points since the division went to 46 games in the early 90s. Leeds did have a 10 point deduction in 06-07 (I may have missed a deduction somewhere else too).

    Even with all the bad luck we have had, a half decent run would see us very far from the worst points total ever.

    39: Southend 96-97
    39: Grimsby 02-03
    39: Charlton 08-09
    39: Wigan 14-15
    39: Barnsley 13-14
    38: Tranmere 00-01
    38: Brighton 05-06
    38: Colchester 07-08
    37: Peterborough 93-94
    37: Yeovil 13-14
    37: Sunderland 17-18
    36: Port Vale 99-00
    36: Leeds 06-07
    36: Swindon 99-00
    36: Bradford 03-04
    36: Doncaster 11-12
    34: Peterborough 09-10
    32: Bolton 18-19
    31: Ipswich 18-19
    29: Wimbledon 03-04
    29: Rotherham 04-05
    26: Stockport 01-02
    26: Blackpool 14-15
    23: Rotherham 16-17

    Interesting to see Peterborough stinking out the Championship on two occasions there.

    Looks like they will go for the hat trick next season!

  • @Wycombe85 said:
    Fred was excellent last night. Perhaps not the swashbuckling attacking performance we love to see from him, but he was good in possession, posed an threat and was disciplined defensively.

    Great to see him finding his form at such a crucial stage of the season. He certainly owes Norwich one after the bloody nose, denied penalty and the Vranic stamp/dive at his expense at Carrow Road. I'm sure Bayo will be reminding him in an effort to make him angry!

    Fred is coming good, but he makes me nervous when defending as he gives away fouls in really dangerous areas. One last night...the opponent kicked the ball out for a throw in and Fred kicked him...free kick to Reading.

  • Agreed Fred's attempted interceptions are classic forward tackles, and makes me extremely nervous when he ventures into our penalty area.

  • Last night Fred did some magnificent defending. Threw himself at a few aerial challenges. His work rate has gone through the roof.
    A lot of people rightly praising Wheeler. He’s ‘Bloomfield +’ at the moment covering the whole pitch and a focal point for a lot of the link play. Obita & Knight are great talkers. Knight’s foul lingo and hard stares remind me of a young Roger Johnson. He’s the hardest man I’ve seen wearing pink boots. Big heart indeed.

  • @carrickblue said:
    And TACRITE IS BWK

    They All Come Round In The End

    BWI on my part then.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    @davecz you are totally right. I heard Rob C told that Ainsworth to stop hoofing it, explained some tactics to him and told him which players to pick. Stop picking your mates Ainsworth he probably said. Dictate games and start winning as well.
    Get Stockdale in, Keep Adeniran and Nmandi on the bench. He was very thorough.
    He's probably been saying it over and over and over again since the start of the season like some of the posters on here to that Ainsworth but he wasn't listening. It took a message to 'the fans' (which we all know meant to that Ainsworth) and now results are picking up.

    Wonderful plagiarism (if that’s the right word, @Wendoverman). Too subtle (really?!) for some, it seems.

  • Sheffield Wednesday lost, so 5 points behind them on equal games played.

    I can't really see anyone above Huddersfield being in too much trouble without deductions, so it appears to be a six team mini-league now.

  • Plagiarism? You mean expertly researched imagined factuality surely @micra and about as subtle as a Rob C bollocking.

  • Better though than the elephant’s proverbial.

  • In fairness, after the Sheffield Wednesday defeat, there did seem to be a fairly defeatist (if realistic) vibe around the place. Certainly on here (obviously guilty) but I seem to remember even GA’s post match interview being more downbeat than usual. It certainly felt the end of the road.

    Whatever the actual meaning or intent of RCs message was I do think the timing was spot on. A sort of gee up message that’s there is still a long way to go and it’s better that we do it with our heads held high. We are Wycombe. We don’t deal in realism. We deal in dreams.

    Sometimes a well-timed word can be enough to shake people out of their malaise. And to me, that’s what it has done.

    Not saying it’s the cause of our upturn in form, but i do think it has an effect of lifting a lot of the gloom which has so far proved beneficial.

  • A perfectly timed intervention and a surprisingly radical and so far successful change of direction.

    And the efl discussion about the need to balance things out across the season (reported by @Shev) clearly extended beyond what referees and their assistants needed to do to bring about a change of fortune. I refer of course to the requirement for certain players to deliberately miss their penalties.

  • If Rob Couhig took credit for a great escape, @aloysius would spontaneously combust

  • @LeedsBlue said:
    If Rob Couhig took credit for a great escape, @aloysius would spontaneously combust

    And we all know that for some having to give GA any credit would induce ulcers...

  • @LeedsBlue said:
    If Rob Couhig took credit for a great escape, @aloysius would spontaneously combust

    Actually I was extremely impressed by the Couhig message. At the time I parsed it as telling Gareth that his job being safe meant that he had licence to play more attacking, cavalier football without worrying too much about losing - that the final part of the season was about entertainment rather than league position. And that's exactly what we've seen since - with points coming our way as a result.

    Now I'm not one to blow my own trumpet, but all of the tactical changes we've seen since are those that I've been banging on about most of the season (drop Bayo and Bloomfield, play with wingers rather than three forwards, move Knight to midfield, bring in Stockdale) but I strongly suspect that Gareth needed the chairman to tell him to play in a different way rather than mere @aloysius.

    I've been thinking a bit about what Rob Couhig's vision for the club actually is and I think I now have a better idea after that message to the masses. Maybe one to discuss in the fallow summer months. In the meantime, I'll just say that while I think Rob Couhig has made some major mistakes since coronavirus hit, he's far from alone in that. And the missive he sent goes very firmly into the positive column in the ledger, as far as I'm concerned.

  • Whilst I partly agree with the sound coming out of your trumpet @aloysius, surely it is abundantly clear that our improvement in results and overall performance has predominately arisen due to Uche returning from injury and getting up to speed. It would not have improved the situation by dropping Bayo prior to Uche's return as we would have had zero threat up front as was evidenced by losing the first seven games of the season without Bayo.

    Incidently, Bayo has not been dropped, he is currently crocked by having to play twice a week for so long.

  • I think most people have called for these changes on the Gasroom - certainly Bloomers given an extended rest. I think the shape in midfield with Wheeler & Knight grafting away whilst Anis trys to play the modern day mezzala role is really working well.
    @mooneyman is spot on with the resurgence of Uche who might be the finest ‘mobile’ target man I’ve seen since Andy Rammell. No disrespect to Bayo I just think he’s a one off !

  • Yes and no @mooneyman. Ikpeazu has been back in the squad since mid December and was starting by the end of the month. We could have switched style much earlier.

    Relying on Bayo to the extent we have surely leads to questions over whether we recruited wisely enough over the summer. It's not just hindsight to suggest that starting the season with Bayo (who'd not set League One on fire last campaign and had just had a major operation on his knee), Samuel, Kashket and an already injured Ikpeazu was not ideal preparation for the Championship. Perhaps Gareth should have recruited better in the summer, perhaps Rob Couhig should have given him more money to have done so. Another one to ponder over the summer.

  • @aloysius said:
    Yes and no @mooneyman. Ikpeazu has been back in the squad since mid December and was starting by the end of the month. We could have switched style much earlier.

    Relying on Bayo to the extent we have surely leads to questions over whether we recruited wisely enough over the summer. It's not just hindsight to suggest that starting the season with Bayo (who'd not set League One on fire last campaign and had just had a major operation on his knee), Samuel, Kashket and an already injured Ikpeazu was not ideal preparation for the Championship. Perhaps Gareth should have recruited better in the summer, perhaps Rob Couhig should have given him more money to have done so. Another one to ponder over the summer.

    Interested in who you might have earmarked for this role? Shit hot champ strikers are not really knocking about under £100k

  • @kiscokid said:

    @aloysius said:
    Yes and no @mooneyman. Ikpeazu has been back in the squad since mid December and was starting by the end of the month. We could have switched style much earlier.

    Relying on Bayo to the extent we have surely leads to questions over whether we recruited wisely enough over the summer. It's not just hindsight to suggest that starting the season with Bayo (who'd not set League One on fire last campaign and had just had a major operation on his knee), Samuel, Kashket and an already injured Ikpeazu was not ideal preparation for the Championship. Perhaps Gareth should have recruited better in the summer, perhaps Rob Couhig should have given him more money to have done so. Another one to ponder over the summer.

    Interested in who you might have earmarked for this role? Shit hot champ strikers are not really knocking about under £100k

    Remind me how much we paid for Ikpeazu?

    Gareth and Richard Dobson have shown themselves to be masters at recruitment over the years. I imagine they had other targets if a budget could have been agreed.

    I also note the suggestions that we were after Joe Pigott in the January window but he rejected us because he wanted a full season of Championship football next year. Would he have said that in the summer if we'd put an offer in then?

    We also took Muskwe on loan in Jan. Do you think he wouldn't have been available in the summer?

  • @arnos_grove said:
    I’m in a WhatsApp group set up with the aim of sorting out the mess Gareth Ainsworth has made of our club. Rob Couhig, Brendan Rogers, Carlo Ancelotti and Alan Smith have turned the season round for us. If you want in, DM me your mobile number ?.

    I’m in a group with Gok Wan and Trinny & Susanna. Their suggestion that Gaz refreshes his Spring wardrobe by parking the black leather biker look and going back to a smart casual unstructured blazer and tight chinos* ensemble in club inspired blues, seems to have done the trick in turning the season round.
    *Gok was happy to restyle the biker look further but was overridden by the girls.

  • @aloysius said:
    I'll just say that while I think Rob Couhig has made some major mistakes since coronavirus hit, he's far from alone in that.

    What are they then? I think the club has handled the whole situation better than most

  • Don't google 'sh1t hot camp strikers for less than £100k' on a work laptop

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