What Lennon Thought - Reading

Whilst happy to see his Bolton Wanderers side extend their unbeaten run to five, Neil Lennon believes on another day his side could have come away from Reading from three points.

The Trotters were held to a goalless draw at the Madejski Stadium, with Tim Ream, Darren Pratley and Max Clayton all coming close to breaking the deadlock.

Reading did threaten on occasions, particularly from set pieces, but in the end the game would end in a stalemate.

“I thought we did okay in the first half without ever really working the Reading goalkeeper,” the manager said after the game.

“In open play, particularly in the second half, we created by far the better chances and on another day I feel we could have won the game.

“Reading were a threat at set pieces and created some really good chances from knock downs in the area, but in general play I felt we were better.

“I’m disappointed we didn’t score today. It’s the first game since we’ve come in that we’ve failed to find the back of the net.

“Overall, I’m satisfied without being ecstatic with a point.

“It’s obviously important to keep the unbeaten run going, but let’s not get carried away. We’re five games without defeat – if we we’re to get into double figures that’s when we can start patting ourselves on the back.

“There are no easy games in this division and slowly but surely we’re working our way up the table.

“What we are lacking at the moment is a bit of quality in the final third, but our build up play is very good.

“Our goalkeeper is also in fine form, and with our back four and two midfielders we have a very good platform on which we can build. We just need that end product to cap off our good play.

“Craig Davies is a bit of a worry for us right now. He came off with a bit of a hamstring complaint. We’ll assess him over the next couple of days and see where he is.”

Despite travelling with the side to Berkshire, Eidur Gudjohnsen was forced to watch the game from the sidelines.

Lennon added: “We’re still waiting on clearance for Eidur. I’m told these things can take five hours or five days, so it’s one of those. We hope to have him involved next weekend.”

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Not sure what game he was watching but we didn't look as if we had a snowball's chance in hell of scoring in the one I saw. Reading on the other hand might have sneaked a couple.

If we are ever going to pull away from the relegation zone we need more in the final third but for now we remain 4 points out of it. With Eidur missing a couple of sitters in the U21s game I'm not really expecting him to be the Messiah either.

We had two good chances where the ball was flashed right across the goal and anyone making the right run would have had a tap in. 

Other than that all our possession was in front of their back four.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:We had two good chances where the ball was flashed right across the goal and anyone making the right run would have had a tap in. 

Other than that all our possession was in front of their back four.

That's like saying a shot over the bar would have been a goal if it was lower.
I interpreted those two as "crosses to nobody", but at a stretch they could be described as chances even though there was nobody near them. But we could hardly be described as unlucky in front of goal. We're just not creating enough despite holding on to possession better so we need more than a striker to sort this out.
If we'd peppered the goal and woodwork, I'd agree with what Lennon and Pratley etc are saying but it wasn't like that so I'm concerned that they actually believe we were a constant threat.

wanderlust wrote:

Hipster_Nebula wrote:We had two good chances where the ball was flashed right across the goal and anyone making the right run would have had a tap in. 

Other than that all our possession was in front of their back four.

That's like saying a shot over the bar would have been a goal if it was lower.
I interpreted those two as "crosses to nobody", but at a stretch they could be described as chances even though there was nobody near them. But we could hardly be described as unlucky in front of goal. We're just not creating enough despite holding on to possession better so we need more than a striker to sort this out.
If we'd peppered the goal and woodwork, I'd agree with what Lennon and Pratley etc are saying but it wasn't like that so I'm concerned that they actually believe we were a constant threat.

Lennon said in the first 10 seconds of that video.

"I'm satisfied with the performance but we didn't create enough chances... we didn't create any really, second half we looked a lot more dangerous" 

Hardly lavishing praise on them.

Thought we played okay in patches but we're badly missing Mavies's drive and a little bit of quality going forward. Thought Clayton grew into the game well and Dervite was excellent for me throughout. OI was surprised that an Adkins team would play as direct as Reading did but Mills dealt with Cooper well and I never thought we really looked in trouble.

We don't press teams as quickly as we do at home, maybe that's a conscious tactic from Lennon to be more solid but I didn't think we had the same tempo and running when we went forward as we have in previous games.

Overall a solid performance and we'll be more pleased with a point than Reading, but the lack of chance creation is a bit worrying especially with Lee going to the Asia cup in January.

The main difference between Freedman and Lennon tactically is that Lennon encourages closing down and trying to retain possession in the midfield rather than letting teams come on to us. This has reduced defensive errors as there isn't constant pressure on the back 4. All well and good defensively, but we need more than that if we are going to rise up the table. Lee's free role suits him but even without him going off in January and Mavies sidelined we are still struggling to create quality chances or at least better quality than hopeful balls into the box.
We need a better solution at LB, two creative midfielders who have good engines and I think we'd be close to being dangerous.
What we're likely to get is Eidur and Heskey. Don't think they'll be able to do the required job - in fact I just hope that Eidur doesn't make a tw@t of himself, but for me, staying out of the relegation zone would be acceptable.

i think Eidur could do a good job as a creative midfielder these days, but we still need a proven goalscorer even though Craig Davies has been doing well.

Laughable that people (wanderlust) are attributing our lack of creativity to the fact Mark Davies is injured.

He has done bugger all for 3 years now, bar the odd game. The last time he played well and made a difference was Leeds away last season.

You're clueless if you think we're a better team with Pratley in there instead of Mavies.

bwfc1874 wrote:You're clueless if you think we're a better team with Pratley in there instead of Mavies.

Name me three games Mavies has dominated in the last 4 years.

haha changing the goalposts already.

started with "made an difference in" now it's games that "he's dominated" 

He made an impact the other week when he scored.

Davies will make an impact from time to time, but for 89 minutes he will be anonymous.

Pratley isn't great obviously, but over the course of a game he gives more than Davies.

Of course I fully understand things look different from your armchair in Aberdeen though.

Davies has qualities Pratley doesn't. He's got a good touch so if you give him the ball in a tight space he's likely to hold onto it (like Lee).

He can also carry the ball from midfield forward into space and is a direct runner, its particularly effective in relieving pressure and putting the other team on the backfoot.

Pratley can't do either of those things, but he can hassle, run and compete better physically much like Muamba. They're very different players but as we struggle to hold onto the ball and have few players with good technical ability we're a much better side with Mavies in it. It's not about dominating games for a player like him, he makes the players around him look better and helps to create dangerous situations.

bwfc1874 wrote:

Pratley can't do either of those things, but he can hassle, run and compete better physically much like Muamba. They're very different players but as we struggle to hold onto the ball and have few players with good technical ability we're a much better side with Mavies in it. It's not about dominating games for a player like him, he makes the players around him look better and helps to create dangerous situations.

You've gone off topic. The original point was that we miss Mark Davies. We don't because he's never fit, and the odd game he does play he's anonymous for 89 minutes*.

* I may have made that up, has he actually played 89 minutes in the last 3 years?

Iv explained to you the qualities he brings and hence what we miss when he's not in the team.

bwfc1874 wrote:Iv explained to you the qualities he brings and hence what we miss when he's not in the team.

Yes, but you might as well say we miss his magical qualities because there's no proof he has those either.

So you think Pratley's better on the ball than Davies?