The View From Churchmans

A third home draw against a bottom-of-the-table club in four weeks, and I guess it's bye-bye to the playoffs now, if only because all four clubs above us are playing so well. I guess the most surprising thing about this scoreline was how few of us predicted it beforehand. In retrospect, what on earth possessed us to even think we might beat Brighton? What is it about our team which results in them being ... More...

The "simply not good enough" of the last home game seems a lot longer than ten days ago now. Given that Leicester went mad at Portman Road and we've yet to see Pompey, it perhaps wasn't surprising that Reading - the third-placed side - were just about the classiest opponents we've seen here this season. It's no fluke they're where they are: their movement was excellent, their speed often unanswerable, and even with ... More...

Twenty minutes gone, Hermann collapses like he's been shot after an innocuous-looking tangle with a defender, he's pounding the turf with his hands in absolute agony, the physio's administering gas and air, Mrs R next to me is being reminded of childbirth, and quite frankly I'd rather have been anywhere else than watching this distressing scene. The impact of the rest of the afternoon wasn't much different, it was just in a slower, more ... More...