Thought Bamford was good again outside the box. Linked up a lot of play. Seemed reluctant to shoot from long range instead opting for difficult passes. Thats confidence.

Poor in the box. 2 or 3 wondeful balls fizzed into great areas and he wasn't where you'd want him to be. I don't think he hit the near post hard enough at times either although opposition are packing the front post when we attack as they know we will be trying to cut it back.

Thought he got about a bit more in the second half, but looked completely shot that first half. Hate having a go at him, because it’s not his fault that he’s only striker we have on the books, but 2 goals in last 10 games is a massive concern.

Its frustrating. Would be great to see how someone like Mitrovic would do in our side but then he was £28m and Bamford £7m. When you consider Reading paid £8m for Puskas who has only 8 goals its worth considering its not easy finding players who can score goals consistently.

Bamford's just not good enough. Sorry if that hurts people's feelings. But, agree, why sign Kev?

i love what bamford does for the team and think he is important for our style of play. but today i thought he was off the pace and his passing was below par. almost seemed uninterested.
a very baffling decision to not give ken 15 minutes or so when patrick was having one of his least influential games imo.

I imagine 3 reasons:
1. To take over from or challenge bamford If/when ‘bielsa ready’
2. So we have someone who answers the description ‘striker’ on our books if paddy gets crocked/suspended’
3. So we can say we had a great January transfer window and did all we could.

Bamford needs a partner up there, his build up play can't be criticized. Charlie Adam put on some beef, didn't he!

Whilst Bamford's lack of goals is a weekly frustration for me, I've always appreciated his work rate, build-up and hold-up play and defensive work for the team. This gets him off the hook normally.

Today however, I thought he was poor in every department except for when he got back to defend.

I could see him being substituted before the first half ended, but I suppose that would kill whatever confidence the lad has left.

For me, I felt that the way the Reading game was going would have suited Augustin better than Bamford, but I have enough faith in Bielsa to accept that he must be correct to have thought otherwise.

Overall, a good performance in difficult weather conditions - another clean sheet and 3 more points in the bag.

He was poor first thirty minutes, but I thought his general play got better after that.

A few things he just needed to throw himself at, but he's low on confidence and those sorts of things come with that.

He did what strikers who lack confidence do. He stayed away from the decision making part of the game, where he would have to show for a header or a shot. He laid the ball off when a decent striker would take it on, he arrived half a yard late when he needed to put himself about, and he spent a lot his time chasing lost causes when eh should have paced hiself for opportunities to attack Reading.
He wasn't the only one, mind. Costa, Harrison, and Klich all hesitated with delivery and allowed Reading to regroup, when we saw, in one moment from Pablo, what happens when you are incisive.
It was a good result in poor conditions, but we could have easily dropped a couple of points. We don't see JKA day to day like Bielsa does, but surely he's got enough in his tank for 30 minutes to justify a shot at the the forward role. Imagine how the players around him would react if he grabbed a couple of goals. Ball supply and speed of delivery would increase dramatically.

I thought Klich was splendid today

Watching Big Kev warm up I said to the lads, not alot of inspiration there,

Bamford did ok. He made a few sloppy passes that were pretty easy but then again so did many others in the last third.

I think JKA would have come on at 70 mins if we hadn’t scored but once we did then no way should he take Bamford off for him.

i've seen better games from reading this year. we shut them down beautifully except for a few half chances and a good save from kiko at the death. i have a lot of faith in bielsa, he's why we are were we are but i'll be interested to hear why kev didn't get a runout today

I always said I’d rather we signed payers and didn’t need to use them and went up than didn’t sign and missed out through lack of players.

You can be sure that if we hadn’t signed him then Bamford would have gotten injured moment window closed.

However this is a very costly signing at 1.7 mill loan fee and 30/40k wages to not be scoring but not even playing.

I trust in Bielsa’s use of him I don’t trust in the clubs deals, it really speaks volumes about the current value of this signing when Bamford is hugely criticised yet not even subbed,

What we don’t need right now is Augustin continually saying he’s ready to play.

I thought Poveda meant to be an improvement on Clarke yet nowhere near playing first team.

Sooner we’re fed less bull by Kinnear on these transfers the better.

Delighted that players have responded to the blip we had after christmas. My main concerns are still cover for injuries and the inability or reluctance to rotate a number of players some of whom will have international call ups kicking in too over last few months of season.

It is very unfortunate that we just cannot get likes of Forshaw and Roberts fit to ease the burden but it should not be that surprising or not something that couldn't have been foreseen given their history with us so far.

It all hinges on the core group of players we have seeing the job through. I think they have just enough to be able to do it.

Stinks of a player, who earnt too much not doing a great deal.

Waste of a w@nk

If we were getting a player in, where it was all about readiness to play and making a contribution to the latter part of season we would have been better with Sharp. He wouldn't have been perfect but I am convinced a short term loan deal to help support getting us over the line it would have been better than this.

I can only hope the guy scores us the goal that takes us up or something because the games are counting down now and he is nowhere near displacing a striker our of sorts and trying his best.

comment by Kebablegs (U17699)
posted 13 hours, 29 minutes ago
Thought Bamford was good again outside the box. Linked up a lot of play. Seemed reluctant to shoot from long range instead opting for difficult passes. Thats confidence.

Poor in the box. 2 or 3 wondeful balls fizzed into great areas and he wasn't where you'd want him to be. I don't think he hit the near post hard enough at times either although opposition are packing the front post when we attack as they know we will be trying to cut it back.
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Yep Dallas fizzed a couple of great crosses across the six yard box which were manna from Heaven for any decent striker. Bamford just never seems to be in the right place and everything is "just too far in front of him" or "just too high for him" or "just behind him"
I know the crossing from both flanks is poor most of the time but surely some of the blame must lie with Bamford himself

Bamford was excellent outside the box - only mishit two passes in short succession in the first half.

He can't get away from defenders in the box, Costa should have aimed for him instead of the far corner, and I wish he would keep his eyes open and focus on his foot and the ball when attempting at goal, using his peripheral vision to understand where others are when aiming.

"We're not going to gamble in signings"



Only signs Augustin and Poveda