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Opinion

Reading fans with diverse comments after drawing with Newcastle

7 years ago
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Newcastle supporters packed the away end with 3,704 travelling on a Tuesday night, also sparking the Reading fans into action.

A near capacity crowd of 23,121 against Newcastle and the biggest of the season so far, almost eight thousand more than their last midweek match when only 15,710 turned up.

The Reading fans commenting appear to be a real mixture of regular attenders and others dragged along because it was fifth v top, or simply because of the expected better match/atmosphere.

When analysing the game most had something positive to say about Newcastle United but the biggest talking point across the board, was probably the issue of just how good/entertaining the match had been overall.

Can you have a very good 0-0?

Reading fans commenting via their top message board HobNobRoyals:

‘That was an enjoyable 0-0 despite the lack of clear chances either way.

2nd half atmosphere was pretty good, fair play to the day trippers swelling numbers over the 23,000 mark.

Toe to toe with them, a draw was fair, would have bitten your arm off for a draw at the start and am glad we got it.’

‘I didn’t hear Newcastle sing about taking the record (number of points), but our lot certainly sang about having it.

The Toon were good value, not a bad bunch, I don’t begrudge them the league.

Ref had a very good game.’

‘Enjoyable 0-0, but for me it was clear Newcastle were happy to go home with a point. same tactics as Saturday for them. sit off us and try to hit on the break.

Bit of luck when they hit the post in the first half. but for me we looked genuine play-off contenders tonight, but oh for a cutting edge.’

‘You are easily pleased.’

‘My first home game since last season.

A great footballing experience.

Excellent support from both fans, exciting game, lovely bus back to the nags, (thanks RBC) and great bunch of geordie fans in the pub after the game. 9/10 for the fan experience, could only have been improved with that last crossbar going in.

Great work from all involved.’

‘Cracking 0-0. Really good atmosphere. Thought we played really well against a very good side at this level. Game could have gone either way as both teams had chances.’

‘Throughly professional performance from Reading. Rarely troubled, standard saves from Ali in the first half. I honestly thought Newcastle would come at us and fully go for the win but they sat back off us quite a bit and from about 60 minutes onwards, I don’t really remember them having a meaningful attack.’

‘Seen some excellent matches this year (Brentford, Fulham, Huddersfield) and not so excellent (QPR) and that was definitely in the not so excellent.

Whilst respecting the fact Newcastle are league leaders with the best away record in the division, it was all too slow and predictable on ball retention without a willingness to be brave and to have a go.

The pitch doesn’t help but hardly the match to entice the missing thousands back to the stadium.’

‘Cagey performance where defences came out on top, Newcastle edged it and had the best chances but a draw was a fair and unexpected result.’

‘I think it was a gutsy performance against the champions-elect.

One of the best nil-nils I’ve seen anyway.’

‘Enjoyed that. Good, competitive game.

Ok both sides made too many errors but the fans for whom that was their first of the season will want to come again.

The fact that Shelvey was anonymous suggests our midfield were doing something right!’

‘IMO we were awful in the first 45 and could’ve easily been 3-0 down. That people are saying it was a good performance just sums up how dull and poor we’ve been at times this season.’

‘Made my morning when my Geordie mate who yesterday said we’d get torn apart came up to me, patted me on the back and said “your lads played really well, like”.’

‘It’s funny – I was on the bus with some Newcastle fans on the way back and they were saying that they thought the game was pretty awful and the standard of football dreadful. They were asking me if ‘it’s always this bad’ at the mad stad.

However I thought it was one of the more interesting Reading games i’d seen this season – certainly better than Wolves on Saturday.’

‘We were so poor in the first half I nearly fell asleep – all of our possession was just in front of our penalty area and Newcastle had the bulk of the chances.

We were much better in the second half.’

‘Newcastle were set up well (and quite deep) and shut off all the opportunities to go forward. A couple of panicky moments in possession aside which Newcastle failed to capitalise on, I have seen much much worse this season.

When Newcastle opened up a bit in the second half, we got forward much more.’

‘I’m happy enough with the safety-first approach against good counter-attacking teams like Newcastle – but I’d rather a bit more attacking oomph against other teams.’

‘Thought a draw was a fair result. If they’d scored during their period of ascendancy in the first half then I doubt we’d have got back into it but credit to Reading, dragged themselves back into the match and played their part despite never really looking like scoring.

Newcastle threw fewer and fewer players forward in the second half and clearly took the point with 20mins to go.’

‘You could hear both sets of fans clearly on the commentary… newcastle probably more obvs.’

‘Considering how many of them there were, I didn’t think they were actually that loud.’

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