I have been thinking about where to start with this week’s analysis of the Luton Town performance, and for the life of me I still don’t (days after the event) understand how we managed to lose a game that we led 3-1 after 51 minutes.
After much debate in my head, I have decided to start with the positives, as it will take me much less time to articulate.
The good
Firstly, how lucky are we to have Jack Marriott playing for us at this level? A first-half performance that I doubt will be bettered in League One
this season, with three very different goals, all executed by a man who must now rank as one of our best signings ever.
I didn’t really give Marriott’s first goal the credit it deserved in real time, but having watched it back a few times, he was razor sharp to anticipate the back pass, and then brave enough to go in where it hurts to apply the finish, taking goalkeeper Josh Keeley and the covering defender with him.
Marriott’s second was pretty much all his own work, with a superb run and finish from the edge of the box. And his third came courtesy of Kyreece Lisbie pestering the full-back into a mistake, before squaring for Marriott to complete his hat-trick.
In a first half that had many positives, Reading played some of the front-foot football we were promised when Leam Richardson arrived, with Lisbie really impressing with his work rate and ability to push the opposition back with his pace and directness.
On the other side, Daniel Kyerewaa continued to delight and disappoint in equal measure, beating his man on numerous occasions but rarely providing a final ball that found a Reading player, which seems to be a worrying pattern of his play.
Udoka Godwin-Malife looked impressive at right-back, and it’s so refreshing to have a full-back who can get forward to support the play but still have the pace and fitness to get back and defend – something sadly lacking on the left side.
The bad
Unfortunately, that’s where the positives end and the negatives take over, starting with the aforementioned left side of the pitch. To say Jeriel Dorsett had a stinker is being kind, and while I don’t like singling players out after a defeat, this isn’t the first time his abilities as a player at this level have been called into question.
Dorsett can now be considered pretty experienced at this level, yet he still doesn’t seem to understand how to cover as a defender, when to engage or sit, and who he is supposed to be marking when the opposition attack. I may be wrong, but when Dorsett first broke into the team, I seem to remember him being pretty quick. Now however he seems to have lost most of his pace and has bulked up so much that he can hardly move.
With Dorsett often unable to find a Reading player with each ball he played, and Kyerewaa failing to deliver with his final ball, I seriously worry that it won’t take a tactical genius of an opposing manager to quickly figure out that we are pretty lop-sided when it comes to ability levels on different sides of the pitch.
I’m sure many have seen the half-time clip from the Luton dressing room. Jack Wilshere’s team talk was not exactly inspiring or tactically astute – it pretty much centred around carrying out instructions and not forgetting everyone had “talked about what was needed before the game”, certainly not a Pep Guardiola masterclass. But it was somehow still enough for Luton to come out in the second half and score three goals without reply.
If Dorsett took the honours for being the worst player on the pitch, then Lewis Wing was not far behind. He lost out in just about every duel in the middle of the pitch, found very few Reading players when he played forward, and left gaping holes in the centre on several occasions.
The thing is with Wing: he sets such high standards that any performance below an 8/10 or 9/10 is felt far more than it probably would be if it were any other player on the pitch, such is his influence on the rest of the team.
While Wing was poor against Luton, he has earned enough credits in my opinion to be afforded a few off days, which can be counted on one hand. The difference is that I go to watch Reading expecting Dorsett to have a bad game but never go anticipating Wing will have one.
I have also seen this week several supporters questioning Wing’s abilities as a captain. Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion, but I do think Wing’s positive influence on the team extends to much more than we all see on the pitch, and often you look up to someone who carries the team with their ability rather than their voice.
So, with just 90 minutes of the season played, we are already questioning a defeat that should never have happened, players that are simply not good enough to be anywhere near the starting XI, and a seriously unbalanced formation when you compare what we have to work with on the right compared to the left.
Yes, it’s only one game and there were positives. I just hope that those positives far outweigh the negatives as we move through the season.
The matchday experience
Talking of positives versus negatives, a quick word on the apparent £5 million spent on stadium improvements over the summer.
The pitch looked very good despite recent issues with growth, the PA system was a lot clearer than last season, and my seat was blue again, although it felt as if someone had been rubbing it with sandpaper.
Sadly however, the urinals in the gents’ toilets throughout the stadium (although maybe Club 1871 had theirs fully furnished) had either been pinched and sold for scrap or were somewhere in transit. Whichever is true, there is no fun in queuing with 150 others at half-time for a share of a 3ft-wide urinal.
The WiFi, both inside and outside of the stadium, is still very poor (in my experience) and much of the feedback about catering facilities outside of the stadium seems to be quite negative.
As someone who doesn’t buy food in and around the stadium (and hasn’t for many years), I can’t really comment on the price or quality of what’s being offered. The main problem though seems to be the prices charged for largely inedible food from the vendors outside SCL.
I did see that the response to this from the owners was that they had no influence over the prices charged. To offer a different viewpoint, I would say the owners can influence the prices charged by these vendors. Maybe lower the extortionate prices charged for each pitch, which would in turn encourage vendors to reduce their prices and still make a profit. Just an idea, but remember, it is football for the people after all.
This Saturday we head to AFC Wimbledon for a quick reunion with Andy Yiadom, who I hope will get the positive reception he deserves from the travelling supporters.
I am confident that lessons will have been quickly learnt from the Luton game and we win the game quite comfortably.
AFC Wimbledon 1-3 Reading
(Yiadom, you just know it’s going to happen / Marriott again, Wing, Lisbie)
6,744
Until next week.
Much love and c’mon Urzzzz!
Dixey
