Kitson late show gets Royals back on track

Lord Steven of Coppellshire celebrated his 1000th game as a manager with a hard-fought 1-0 win away at Doncaster Rovers. Changes were made by The Gaffer who opted for what was effectively a 4-5-1 formation with Bikey recalled for Pearce at centre back, Kevin Doyle joined the midfield out on the right (Jimmy Kebe was moved to left wing)  and Dave Kitson ploughing a lone furrow when Rovers had possession. At times we controlled the game with Rovers happy to hit on the counter. The match was heading for a goalless draw when in the 82nd minute a clever Matejovsky pass found Chris Armstrong who found Dave Kitson. The prodigal son (mk. II) struck a sweet curling left-foot shot past Neil Sullivan to resurrect our automatic promotion hopes just three days after they had looked dead in the water.

A great win, with a determined and mature performance. We absolutely need to post back-to-back away wins for (possibly?) the first time this season and beat Colin's Crystal Palace on Saturday. Game on, this thing will go to the wire!

Coppell's 1000th match

As has been widely reported tonight's game will be SC's 1000th game as a league manager. He joins an exclusive club of just 17 gaffers, and I think only Dario Gradi and the Purple One are still active in football league management. It's an astonishing landmark and the man is truly a legend; it'd be fantastic to get a win tonight, not least because of the way things have been going lately. I'm going to predict a hard-fought 2-1 win for the Royals, and hearty congratulations to Mr. C. Even if we don't win!

Tenacity, nonsense and despair

Just when you had almost forgotten Alan Pardew he's kindly reminded us what an absolute plank he really is by making some ill-judged and truly offensive remarks on MotD2 last Sunday. Frankly I'm not that surprised he's put his foot in his mouth, he always struck me as one of the great exponents of the gormless post-match comment, splitting infinitives at will and mixing his tenses with the best of them (Peter Reid was the master of this particular art: 'He's went in there like a dose of salts, to be fair' etc). What's more surprising is that he's been asked for an expert opinion on football. Clearly the man's out of his depth when quizzed about such matters, to be fair.

Best team against Donny?

With the Doncaster Rovers game just 36 hours away and Steve Coppell bemused as to what to do next, I thought it would be timely to pick my own starting eleven.
I think we desperately need to win the game to reignite any lingering ambitions of automatic promotion, so....

Marcus - gets the nod after a solid showing and a superb save

Kelly - is he available? Can't do any worse than Row-zed-nior

Bikey - has to get in, Hoofberry ain't good enough

Pearce - no contest

Armstrong - still the best option

Tabb - presuming he was injured on Saturday, if recovered he must start tomorrow

Marek - an enigma for sure, but worth the 'risk'

Cisse - showed enough in the Charlton game to be included. Not sure why he was ommitted on Saturday

Little - one of many underperformers against Ipswich, but good for an hour and then hopefully Kebe can stretch them

Hunt Jr. - why has he been dropped? Can't be any worse than Doyle and Kitson right now

Long - our best performing striker, give him a proper run in the team

Coppell 'hasn't a clue' as Royals slump continues

Steve Coppell is an honourable and intelligent man whose frank admissions in post-match interviews offer a refreshing antidote to the usual rubbish spouted by so many other managers, so his comments after the 1-0 defeat at the hands of Ipswich Town will come as no surprise. SC admitted it 'he hadn't got a clue' why things were going so badly at home, and opined that we were 'almost looking for a gimmick' (a thinly-veiled reference to the Little and Kitson deals perhaps?) to change things around. On paper surely we have the players to get out of this division, but something isn't right and time's running out. The gaffer got it spot on when he said 'we're a soft touch' at the moment at the Madejski - Ipswich didn't really have to bring their 'A' game to get a result. After a promising start when we hit the bar from a set-piece header you could sense half way through the first 45 that the away team had weathered the 'storm' and were growing in confidence. I'm usually less than prescient but my prediction of a goal for Town soon after half time became reality almost immediately after the restart. Jon Stead's belter of an overhead kick was a rare moment of class in a poor match, the other moment was a wonderful save from the recalled Marcus to keep us in the game. We created so few chances that it's hard to recall a decent attempt on goal. It's seems almost ridiculous to criticise individual performances such is the malaise that hangs over the club at the moment, but how on earth Michael Duberry continues to keep Andre Bikey out of the team is a one of the great mysteries of our time (yeah, OK, I exaggerate slightly).

We are playing so badly without any reason that can be clearly defined so perhaps it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility that we could suddenly click and find the form that has eluded us for so long. Three away games on the bounce seems a perfectly feasible place to start.

In a season that has been so unpredictatble, disjointed and frustrating I'm not going to hazard a guess as to what will happen over the next 9 games. We might go on an unbeaten run, but we might struggle to make the play-offs.