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Preston North End & Plymouth Argyle: The Alternative View

New season, new manager, new style, new optimism?

By davemc_exile
Ben Hoskins/Getty Images

Proper football is back! To start this season we have a double helping of the Alternative View with views and reports from both the Preston and Plymouth games. Reading came into this season with eight new signings and a legendary centre back in Jaap Stam. Pre-season we have looked to play a passing game, and that’s continued into the League and EFL Cup with somewhat disciplined play.

Preston - Championship

It’s fair to say that the Lillywhites fans aren’t over enamoured with their team's performance at Reading, with questions being asked over tactics and signings. Reading were dominant in a first half display, which you could argue was one of the best we have seen in a long while. The only thing missing from it was a few more goals. The main focus of the fans' views were the tactics, with many fans saying that #PNEFC were far too negative in their approach to the game. Whilst others were far from impressed with a couple of mindless idiots who seemed intent on going base jumping half way up the stand!

And as usual on to the social and media scene.

Social

There is only one place to start and that’s #PNEFC support of the emotional display to Eamon Dolan

#Respect

Day tripping

Guy's it's the first game!

I know this feeling!

Move over Barca, new passing team in town!

Well suppose it's optimistic!

Media

Nationals

The Daily Mail are equal with gushing praise for us as well as hammering Preston. 'Unambitious', 'poor', and coming to the Madjeski to frustrate and failing in that are some of the comments they make about #PNEFC. However, saying that, there are a few comments about our 'inept' finishing (Mr Rakels) and a slight lack of an end product are their comments. However the one that made me chuckle was the comment about our display being straight out of Sir Alex Ferguson’s playbook. If we have half the success that Stam did in his time at Old Trafford then think most fans will be happy!

Over at the Guardian and they are equally full of praise for Stam’s tactics, and heavily comment on an outstanding performance from John Swift. Again interesting comments on Stam, this time comparing him to a US Secret Service Agent. I will leave you with that one...

Now then the Daily Express have really let themselves down. One paragraph for Reading and precious little for everthing else? Really guys c'mon the Premiership hasn’t started yet. However they did rate our kit 5/10 which gets a pull page spread. Hmm...

Online

A similar approach to the Express is on ESPN FC. Being honest I wouldn’t waste much time with these as generally it’s a copy of Sky’s report.

Speaking of SkySports, they understandably concentrate on Swift, and say we dominated the game, also you get (once past the adverts) 2.17 of coverage, but I do get where they're coming from with inept finishing. Also worth watching for Deniss taking two defenders out for Swift's goal.

The BBC is its usual factual self, concentrating on Swift and also in the roundup make a poignant reflection on our tribute to Dolan.

Locals

Lastly we look at the local thoughts, and starting with The Lancashire Evening Post, they say it was a deserved victory for Reading and that Grayson effectively got the tactics wrong. However they also say that after the six minutes of sustained pressure at the end, they could have got a point...

GetReading's Charles Watts is a much happier bunny at the start of this season and gives GMac our 'main man' tag, however he does make a valid point that we have some difficult games coming up which should prove a sterner test.

Plymouth - EFL Cup

As you can imagine an EFL Cup game between #ReadingFC and #PAFC doesn’t get much coverage, and the Twittersphere and news media pretty much point to it not being high on anyone’s agenda.

Still here’s the best of the tweets and the 'coverage' from the media scene.

Social

Always said fans love effort

Come on it can't be, can it?

Quote of the night

To quote a Aerosmith song - Dream on

Mightily impressive

Media

I'm expecting the tumbleweeds to come blowing down Hurst Way given the media coverage...

Anyway SkySports nail it, - it was easy, plus we get a huge, whopping 1 minute 7 seconds of coverage.

The BBC ain't much better, I mean come on less than 100 words, that's taking it to a whole new level! Basically, Joey scored, Beerens scored and Plymouth missed. Yep that's it.

GetReading give the main man to Swift, however from my angle would have given it to Beerens. Charles is still smiling and reckons it was another fantastic first half and the rest of it a training exercise, probably not far from the truth.

Finally down at the Plymouth Herald the verdict is that Reading were just too good for Argyle, and that we passed the ball exceptionally.

The Last Word

Well two games in quick succession and a couple of tricky away games on the horizon. Both games had exceptional first halves and effective second periods, however I still think that we need to put away the attempts we get, as against Wolves and Newcastle we won't get as many chances as we have had in the first two games. Still it's two wins from two games and a passing game that would rival Barca (well almost). As I've said, it's a good start and one we need to build on. One game at a time guys, May's a long way off. I'm back next week with another double header until then - C'mon Urzzzz.

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