Sheva, Pizzaro, Hiliario, Sidwell and Ben-Haim all turned out for the reserves and all I can say is all 5 have found their place in life. In a poor performance none of them stood out - ok the team had only trained a few hours together, but even so you would expect more from them, perhaps with the exception of Sheva whose coming back from injury. Of the youngsters on show, I thought Magnay played well, made a couple of errors, but so did B-H next to him, Jimmy Smith and Younghusband both had fairly good games; can't really say that Sidewell played that much better. Up front Pizzaro played just behind Sheva and Di Santo, I honestly thought he was too slow even at this level, how this guy is an international beats me. Di Santo impressed, when he settles in and finds his feet could be challenging for a place amongst the big boys next season; took his goal well has a good balance, works hard. Stoch came on for the last twenty and looked good. The only thing about this guy is his size, but look at Zola, given the right coaching I reckon Stoch could just about reach those heights, immense talent. Cummings and van Aanholt struggled a little against opponents who turn out regularly for Reading's 1st team. It has to be remembered that many of Reading's reserves play regular PL football, are seasoned professionals and are one size larger than our youngsters. No excuse for the first team four (not including Hiliario) they just don't cut it, saying that expect all four/five to play a part in the game against Barnsley.

Fair play to Sheva, to be honest. A former European footballer of the year turning out for the reserves. No complaining to the press. Just getting on with it. He may be past his prime, but the guy's still a class act.

Fair play to Sheva, to be honest. A former European footballer of the year turning out for the reserves. No complaining to the press. Just getting on with it. He may be past his prime, but the guy's still a class act.

+1

plus, sheva ran his arse of last night. no cating the billy big balls, just got on with it. unfortunately, he had the same luck as he does in the first team.

Fair play to Sheva, to be honest. A former European footballer of the year turning out for the reserves. No complaining to the press. Just getting on with it. He may be past his prime, but the guy's still a class act.

AC Milan star Kaka has revealed that Chelsea's Andriy Shevchenko persuaded him to sign a new deal at the San Siro.

http://www.eatsleepsport.com/articles/701287.html

Cheers Shevchenko!

Fair play to Sheva, to be honest. A former European footballer of the year turning out for the reserves. No complaining to the press. Just getting on with it. He may be past his prime, but the guy's still a class act.

+1

He's on 130k Per week FFS - he'll do what ever he's told!!!!

If he was any good he'd be in the 1st team!

its funny, but whenever any other team puts a player returning from injury in the ressies, its common sense. we do it, and its shunning them.

For the record I thought it was a good idea, unfortunately, all it showed was how far downhill he's gone since his Milan days - and for the most part I think it's in his head!

I think it paints a pretty damning picture of professional footballers if we actually have to give credit to a player for playing for the reserves without moaning. That should be the norm not something worthy of accolade.

I think it paints a pretty damning picture of professional footballers if we actually have to give credit to a player for playing for the reserves without moaning. That should be the norm not something worthy of accolade.

Spot on mate. Lets not forget he picks up just over half a million each month for the privaledge aswell

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

There are plenty of players of a much lower calibre than Shevchenko who would moan if they're not picked consistently in the first team, see Diarra for a good example of this ;p

Personally, if Shevchenko can play for the reserves and absolutely work his socks off still then I definitely think that's something to be commended.

You miss my point Blize - I am not disagreeing that there are plenty of people who would be moaning which is the very reason Sheva is getting praise for not moaning however it is pathetic that things have got to the state where a plaeyr is giving credit for not moaning. it just shows what a collection of billy big boots there are in football these days.

Agreeing with Loz - it should be standard practice in a squad as deep as ours for players who aren't currently involved in the first team to turn out for the reserves.

Its good for two reasons - match fitness and the opportunity to find a bit of form for the fringe squad players, and secondly to help in the development of the youngsters. Someone like Di Santo will have never played with a top-class strike partner, so he will definately benefit from the experience.

I don't think that Sheva or anyone else deserves praise for "not complaining" about it.

For sure Sheva deserves to be praised for this. Imagine if a sh*t hot trial lawyer. A real gun, mind you. The lawyer who John Grisham has wet dreams about - decides to move firms and suddenly finds himself not only out of court, but doing clerical work and arduous briefs with the kids looking for a 'foot in the door'. All the while watching while other less experienced lawyers get to hog all the limelight by going to court in their snazzy Armani suits while the world looks on.

You think this guy'd be taking it lying down? Or do you think he'd be b*tching and moaning and looking for another company to work for crying: 'This is wasn't what I signed up for!'?

apparently sheva asked to play in the ressies. he wanted to play last week to get his fitness but the game was cancelled. so he put himself up to play this week too. now we may not have seen the best of ghim as a player, but no-one can question his proffesionalism.

Another important factor here, in playing first teamers, is how the youngsters bed in with them, promoting some youngsters to first team training is all well and good but a match situation must be better and on Monday the likes of Smith and Younghusband more than showed that they are capable of playing against teams in the bottom half of the PL and could easily come on for ten minutes here and there in selected games. But alas I can see both Smith and Younghusband being released, unless we need them to make up the "English contingent" in next year's CL.

You miss my point Blize - I am not disagreeing that there are plenty of people who would be moaning which is the very reason Sheva is getting praise for not moaning however it is pathetic that things have got to the state where a plaeyr is giving credit for not moaning. it just shows what a collection of billy big boots there are in football these days.

pffff... nobody obviously ever taught you the beauty of the italian hand waving rant and exit from training after being told to play with the reserves... some people train just for that rant... shirt throwing... hand waving.. stomping on the shirt... tears accusing the coach of vast stupidity... england- a sad place to play football.

pffff... nobody obviously ever taught you the beauty of the italian hand waving rant and exit from training after being told to play with the reserves... some people train just for that rant... shirt throwing... hand waving.. stomping on the shirt... tears accusing the coach of vast stupidity... england- a sad place to play football.

One thing I've always felt we should adopt from the Italian game is the tradition of hardcore supporters going down the training ground after a particularly bad performance and scaring the crap out of the players/manager/owner.

Throwing things at them, doing their cars over, shagging their birds etc. That type of thing.

Don't forget the spitting!

Be great wouldn't it? Having a free hit at players for not giving it 100% or for just being rubbish.

Jimmy would have got the bejasus kicked out of him every week.

not sure you'd have wanted to shag jimmy-floyd's girl though...he likes them big.

pffff... nobody obviously ever taught you the beauty of the italian hand waving rant and exit from training after being told to play with the reserves... some people train just for that rant... shirt throwing... hand waving.. stomping on the shirt... tears accusing the coach of vast stupidity... england- a sad place to play football.

Bless him

haha.. never get sick of that picture do you?

did you see his latest antics? most amusing.

haha.. never get sick of that picture do you?

did you see his latest antics? most amusing.

who is it? Cassano?