The game itself is a chance for Dodds to show he can learn and adapt. His (paraphrased) “I’ll play this way until I get chased out of the club” comments don’t give you much hope he [edit] will have a Bloomfield moment where he swallowed his pride and ditched the formation he persisted with despite it clearly not working.
The current situation with Dodds feels very similar to how we were at the time of the Port Vale and Orient games two seasons ago. Our biggest problem is relying too much on breaking high presses with rapid, pin-point accurate passing along the backline and a holding midfielder, and we can’t do this reliably. When we get the ball out of that area, my impression is we are a good team to watch and work the ball well into the final third. We have problems applying a finishing touch in the final third, though I’m more hopeful that will come good if we aren’t so static and negative with the ball at the feet of the backline.
I’m secretly hoping the traffic lights by The Hour Glass are still there and the chaos causes me to miss the whole game.
Sadly I think we’ll be beaten again and it’ll get very toxic on the terrace (although I’m beginning to form the opinion that the Frank Adams Stand is just as divided about our situation).
Phil was at the match on Tuesday against Exeter in the home end…assuming because Reading game was the following day it allowed him to support the team he loves
I spoke to him about his decision. The only reason he left is because he wanted to develop his standup comedy routine and then Reading came along and offered him a rich vein of material.
If we lose, I just want to see a full-on attempt to win the match for the whole 90+ minutes, not just some futile effort to claw the game back from 2-0 down. Control can do one. It’s derby day, and the fans DEMAND we win.
Would love to see them get stuck in a bit more physically today and really go for goals if the opposition are poor. We’d all take a scrappy win but should be interesting.
The last I heard of RC’s whereabouts he was back at home, so doubt he will be there. Let’s hope the game is played in the spirit it should be and the crowd behave themselves. Good luck for the season (after today, of course).
As far as I understand it Reading were massively underfunded and understaffed for several years, RC and JJ don’t have the biggest contact books in the industry and it’s not a stretch to say we’ve rubbed some employees up the wrong way or made it clear they weren’t needed so to be expected that a load of them would turn up down the road.
One change for your Chairboys as Dan Harvie replaces Taylor Allen.
Ewan Henderson makes the squad for the first time after recovering from injury, Magnus Westergaard is back on the bench, but Junior Quitirna misses out with a knock.
