Oops nearly forgot

Joe Cole for me.

Ballack all the way. Had a great game, played the attacking and defending roles well, and a great goal. Paulo deserves some credit for the crosses he put into the box. Joey had an industrious game, but he also gave the defence too much recovery time when he was trying his 3rd cut back!

Ballack and Joey may be popular choices but i went for Paulo. He hasn't been playing in a while but did very well on the right defensively and made a great cross for Ballack's goal.

Voted for Bridge, good passing between him and Malouda on the left.

Close for me between Ballack, Cole, Ferreira and Maka,

Paulo as he came in and showed no lack of confidence after being second choice deserves something but Ballack gets it for me as he was running things and got the Goal

I voted Paulo

ballack. great to see paulo back and in good form (now with added crossing!)

Hard to choose...I was thinking of giving it to Cech for the fact that he didn't punch Hunt in the face "by accident".

I'll go with Paulo for the fact that he hasn't got much playing time and made every tackle when necessary; and set up the goal.

First half Ballack. Second half Alex.

Over the whole 90, Anelka or Alex. Hard to choose.

Paulo was alright defensively, (though there was still a number of glaring errors), against the world class attacking force that Reading have at their disposal, but he was still miles behind Belletti going forwards. "The cross" I hear you cry. Yes, the cross for the goal looked great, (do remember, even Cashley and SWP hit one good one every now and then), but I urge you to watch it closely and then comment. Did he time his run to perfection? Did he want the ball? Did he look up and pick Ballack out deliberately? Or did he hesitantly run very late to a ball he never wanted to have and just loft the ball over without looking?

You decide.

I can't help but notice that a lot of the people who criticised Jose for being too defensive and demanding a more expansive game are some of PF's biggest fans, and yet he has all the attacking finesse of Phillip Neville.

Felt SWP was very poor tonight. Two absolute gilt edged chances to finish the game and he never took them.

Gone for Ballack. He makes a difference winning headers in the middle and the box. Wayne Bridge, and Joe Cole also had solid performances. Anelka should have notched his second goal for the club. SWP squandered chances, and Malouda seemed to vanish for stretches. Glad to see them secure the points, but can't help but think we will need more goals against Portsmouth and Liverpool.

Glad to see it's not only me who thinks Alex, just. After he got clattered (or at least ended up on the floor) he seemed like a man on a mission, slightly possessed even thou shalt not past.

Alex for me

Sorry to post something off topic but:

West Ham 1 - 0 Liverpool

Just thought I'd mention it. You know. Just because...

Maka for me! Those 2 paces and his presence allover the midfield was great! Two bad (i.e. shameful) Shauny missed both chances!

Bridgey did a great job as well!!

The game should've ended 4:0 at least!!

I voted Renato Paolo Ferreira, with Ballack a close second.

The bums of the match were SWP, for all his misses, and Malouda, who goes missing for larges periods of the match.

I went for Alex too. I really like this guy. He dominates in the air, is pretty quick for a big man and is comfortable on the ball. I never thought I would say this, but I really don't think we are missing JT too much at the moment

Just, SWP's first chance was a great save from the keeper. I really don't think SWP could have done much more. The second one I haven't seen back yet but at the time I thought it was another good save. The big miss last night was Anelka. He had a completely free header and hit it straight at the keeper.

Ballack had a good first half but faded quite a lot in the second.

He had a completely free header and hit it straight at the keeper.

Actually, he didn't. He headed it into the ground, as all strikers are coached to do nowadays in the belief that the keeper will not anticipate the bounce of the ball. Personally I'm not a big fan of this "modern" technique.

Just, SWP's first chance was a great save from the keeper. I really don't think SWP could have done much more. The second one I haven't seen back yet but at the time I thought it was another good save.

The second was the better chance, there was more time, but on them both he had the opportunity to take the ball around Hahnemann.

Ballack had a good first half but faded quite a lot in the second.

I felt he had an excellent first half. He was the man making us tick. 2nd period he wasn't as influential but still played well.

The standard of refeering in the second half left much to be desired last night. Mr Dean was very whistle happy, most of them going in Reading's favour. As a result the game was very stop/start. There wasn't the flow to it that there was in the first half. Incidentally, while he was consistent in his punishment for every minor infringement at our end he completely ignored Cisse climbing all over Anelka everytime the ball was in the air.

I went for Alex too. I really like this guy. He dominates in the air, is pretty quick for a big man and is comfortable on the ball. I never thought I would say this, but I really don't think we are missing JT too much at the moment

I agree. However, he was lucky with the missed challenge on Hunt. I could see why he wanted to do it. Everybody in the ground wanted him to do it. But he could have got a card for that and been suspended for the Liverplod game.

Ballack. Looked really impressive yesterday.

if we can somehow get lampard to allow ballack to control the game like he has since lampard got injured, then we will have a hell of a midfield. essien or mikel holding, ballack controlling and lampard scoring. sounds good to me.

Just

Anelka's header - I'll revise my comment to say that he headed down in to the ground but straight in the direction of the keeper! I was suggesting that he might have been better to try and head it to one side or the other - irrespective of whether he headed it downwards or not. Basically, it hit Hahnemann.

SWP chances - I'll bow to your judgement on the second as I still haven't seen it back on TV, but I can't see that he had time to go around him on the first. He just managed to nip in ahead of the defender and could easily have gone down. Instead he stayed on his feet and by the time he was able to poke the ball goalwards Hahnemann was right on top of him. Overall it wasn't his best game though.

Agreed that Alex was fortunate in the current climate to escape at least a booking, but whatever Dean's fault's were last night he certainly wasn't card happy. How Cisse escaped a booking for bringing down SWP in the first few minutes I'll never know!

i go for alex...just for nearly taking hunt out...that almost made him a legend just for that

Paulo was alright defensively, (though there was still a number of glaring errors), against the world class attacking force that Reading have at their disposal, but he was still miles behind Belletti going forwards. "The cross" I hear you cry. Yes, the cross for the goal looked great, (do remember, even Cashley and SWP hit one good one every now and then), but I urge you to watch it closely and then comment. Did he time his run to perfection? Did he want the ball? Did he look up and pick Ballack out deliberately? Or did he hesitantly run very late to a ball he never wanted to have and just loft the ball over without looking?

You decide.

I can't help but notice that a lot of the people who criticised Jose for being too defensive and demanding a more expansive game are some of PF's biggest fans, and yet he has all the attacking finesse of Phillip Neville. .

sorry, I had to bite...

come on just- so stringent with your praise here I could have sworn jimmy or robben were back at the bridge.

f

I personally didn't notice the number of glaring errors paulo made, so was wondering if you could help me with that. also, as you know (cliche time)- you can only play against what you're up against.

as for the cross- really! firstly, one good cross does not make a good crosser, but who is saying it does? if jesper put in a good cross he would still deserve credit for it, surely? so whether paulo is a good crosser is irrelevant- the FACT is he did put in a very good cross and therefore deserves credit for it. as for whether he picked out his man- well that depends on whether you think that's the only instance where one can describe a cross as "good". personally, I saw paulo put a cross into a dangerous area, beating the reading defence, and we scored from it- that was a good cross.

(he also picked ballack out with a decent left footed cross in the second half).

I would love to have read what you made of belletti's performance in germany this season, because it seems to me you manage to turn a blind eye to belletti's weaker performances (to put them mildly), and yet even when paulo plays well there are things to complain about- you mentioned reading's "world class" attackers, but maybe also consider whether paulo has been playing regularly as well...

also, I don't think having a fullback who isn't great going forward necessarily contradicts wanting better or more attacking football- of course ideally we'd have a player with the strengths of both our rightbacks, but even so, barcelona managed with oleguer for example.

I sit in row 5 of the SU gate 6. I had a great view for the cross on the goal. Joe had the ball and was waiting for PF to make an overlapping run which he belatedly did. However, by running late he was stretching to reach it before it went out. He showed great technique to clip it in so deep and away from the keeper, but he hit it blind. And the late run made the cross harder than it should have been.

That left footed cross to Ballack near the end. Let me ask you a question, what had Paulo done with the ball on his right foot, and with all the space and time in the world not 6 seconds before? Answer. He hit the first defender standing ten yards away but, luckily, the ball rebounded straight to him for a second go.

Paulo is not a consistent crosser of a ball. In comparision, he's better than SWP, not as good as Belletti, about the same as Ashley Cole.

As for defensive lapses, in the first half Joe Cole clearly bollocked him, because on two occaisions when Reading pressed forward, PF was way too far infield leaving Cole isolated trying to deal with two players coming at him from wide. Cole was entirely right, though to be fair Paulo stayed in position for the rest of the game.

Also in the second half, when defending a cross from the left Paulo was caught ball watching allowing Lita a free header back across goal.

Overall he did have a good 7out of 10 game, but it wasn't anything as high quality as we have seen from Belletti this season.

You've been talking quite a bit of sense lately, Just. Seems that old age is agreeing with you! Now if we can only get you to take your blinkers off about scoring goals not being the single most important quality needed to be a 'Great' striker, we'll get on famously...