Back to the business of the league then! After the FA Cup rout and the under-21s’ run-out in the Pizza Car Fizzy Cup Paint Trophy, Reading travelled to Stockport County to see what they could make of the side that came into this game second in the table, sixth in the form table over the last five games, with the division’s top goalscorer and being the league’s possession statistics leaders. Peterborough United they were not.
Unusually, we saw a very different line-up to the usual copy-and-paste Leam
Richardson effort, though mostly enforced due to injuries and suspensions.
Paudie O’Connor, as we anticipated, was unavailable due to suspension, so in came Josh Knight. With Benn Ward and Jeriel Dorsett out injured, Conor Masterson came in at centre-back to accompany him.
Andy Rinomhota was away on international duty, so in stepped Liam Fraser. However, a positive, unforced change saw Josh Stokes dropped to the bench and Charlie Savage moved up to play in the number 10 role.
Sean Patton and Jerae Jones were brought onto the Reading bench after scoring in mid-week, though it was a bench that was conspicuously missing a central midfielder to play in the pivot (Luke Howard or Tyler Sackey could have been called upon, or possibly even Kevin Mfuamba after his impressive mid-week outing) or any kind of centre-back, like Boyd Beacroft, who was part of the travelling squad.
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Godwin-Malife, Knight, Masterson, Roberts; Wing, Fraser; Lisbie, Savage, Kyerewaa; Marriott
Subs: Stevens, Ahmed, Williams, Jones, Stokes, Patton, Reid
First half
Stockport started the game with intent and, frankly, if you want a TL;DR, then all you need to know is that we never matched the same intensity, performance levels or incisiveness that they did throughout the entirety of the game.
The writing was already on the wall after an early ball was threaded through the middle by Stockport, but it had a little too much pace in the fourth minute, and Joel Pereira was lively to get out and claim it.
It didn’t take Stockport long and, in the sixth minute, a ball over the top caught out Haydon Roberts. Weirdly, instead of closing down the attacker, he drifted centrally. This gave the winger all the time in the world to get into the Reading box and play a low ball into the back post, which Wootton – the leading scorer in the division – was able to tap in.
1-0 Stockport and a poor start for Reading.
However, their lead (thankfully) didn’t last long. Stockport – a team comfortable passing it around the back – saw Lewis Wing (of all people) step up and put pressure on the defender to win the ball in the 11th minute, which found its way out to Reading’s right.
A few neat passes then saw the cross come in from Kyreece Lisbie. Savage did well to feint and let it run past him to find – who else? – Marriott lurking in the box – he buried his low effort at the first time of asking. 1-1 and a great response.
This helped Reading gain not only a foothold in the game but also confidence. An example of this was in the 14th minute when a long ball from Fraser, deep inside the Reading half, found Lisbie cutting in centrally and chasing.
It looked as if the Stockport ‘keeper had got there first, but the goalie – under pressure from Lisbie – made a mess of the clearance and the ball kind of bounced over and behind him, although wide to the right, which allowed Reading to sustain the pressure while the Stockport ‘keeper had to work to win the ball back and get play it out to safety.
It was all downhill from here.
Stockport wrestled the moment back, looking threatening, and the game became a bit more end-to-end after this moment before transitioning into Reading sitting deeper and Stockport dominating the possession.
A dangerous moment arrived in the 21st minute when Pereira was once again alert get off his line and claim the ball before the Stockport attacker could capitalise on a through ball.
Just after this, Roberts picked up a yellow card – no idea for what or why – which is his fifth of the season, ruling him out of the Bromley game. Based on what I saw today, this is possibly a blessing in disguise.
Stockport’s threat continued, with a goal ruled out for offside in the 28th minute. This came from a poor clearance from Daniel Kyerewaa on the edge of the box, who couldn’t get the ball under control.
However, for me, I wanted to see Kyerewaa push up the pitch to press the Stockport winger and put them under pressure, instead of just loitering on the edge of the box.
Under no pressure at all, the Stockport winger was able to whip in a cross from the right to the back post, where Reading – as usual – we were unable to win the header and saw the Stockport attacker get the chance on target, stopped by Pereira.
At this point, you could only hope Reading would read the warning signs: get better at defending the back post and, if you can’t do that, then at least get better at stopping the crosses from coming in.
Almost as soon as I wrote that in the 32nd minute, a long ball from Stockport saw a header won on the halfway line, which the attacker ran onto. For some bizarre reason, while understandably the two Reading defenders tried to block the run, they were unable to.
Then came a quick ball to the onrushing midfielder, who made another quick pass to the Stockport attacker lurking at the back post, unmarked, with no-one near him, to tap in. 2-1.
Initially I thought it was Masterson who stood off the running attacker, but on second review it seemed to be Wing who was caught ball-watching to allow the attacker into space behind him, but questions also need to be asked about where on earth Roberts was too, particularly given that Knight and Masterson were pulled over to the right to deal with the runner.
Just really poor defensive work, once again, and even more frustratingly, another example of us being caught out at the back post.
Kyerewaa jinked his way down the left in the 39th minute and put in a brilliant and feracious left-footed cross, which no Reading player was able to attack. That was a shame because any contact would have led to a goal.
However, this loose ball was picked up and put back into the box for Marriott to have an attempt, which was blocked and landed to Savage, who was lurking in the six-yard box. He got an effort away but it was quite a tame one on his weaker right foot, mostly owing to being caught wrong-footed by the arrival of the ball and under pressure from the Stockport defender.
In the 42nd minute, Stockport came close again as the winger was able to use his quick feet to get past Knight and get a low effort away that just went wide of the post.
This was becoming a theme for Reading – the inability to stop these low balls coming in from out wide and the inability to make the clearances from them was seriously damaging any chance they had to make inroads into levelling the score. Stockport were all too aware of this weakness.
Again, immediately after writing this, in the 45th minute a low cross from the right came into – you guessed it – the back post, and we were spared conceding a third goal by the Stockport attacker putting his effort over the bar. Once again demonstrating our inability to win the ball in the first place to either stop the cross in or stop the effort on goal.
Almost the same thing happened again in the three added minutes, but fortunately, Pereira showed safe hands to get high and claim the ball in from the right and alleviate the pressure from the attack.
Lisbie picked up a yellow card in the 49th minute for a reckless challenge/elbow on the Stockport defender, possibly showing his frustrations as the first half closed out with Reading behind.
Half time: 2-1
To give you something of an insight into my process of putting together my match reports, I write the events as they happen and then, after the game, try to reword things into the past tense.
At this stage, I’m raging because Stockport are clearly a good football team, demonstrated by their ability to move and pass the ball well, but our absolute inability to adapt to their shape and style and stop the crosses in and stop the Stockport attackers winning the ball at the back post is just beyond a joke.
As good as this Stockport side played, we made them look so much better.
Reading were very much still in the game at this point, and had shown moments when a few incisive, quick passes could get through that Stockport middle and break the lines, with the many willing/capable runners that we had in our attack. But we just couldn’t seem to wake ourselves up from sitting deep and allowing the crosses.
I understand we are a counter-attacking team but, to initiate a counter-attack, you need to show the aggression and/or intent to win the ball and look a bit lively.
Second half
No changes in personnel or shape were made by Reading at half-time, so you hoped that, at the very least, Richardson had put the proverbial rocket up their backsides.
It took all of… 20 seconds to dispel this thought, with the Stockport left-winger having a free run down the wing, cutting into the box and putting a great shot on target that Pereira was forced into a good save to block.
On the evidence of this, it was going to be a very long half.
Shortly after, Roberts took a poor touch when sweeping up to let the ball go out for a corner, which led to another strong save from Pereira. At this point, Pereira seemed to be the only person keeping Reading in the game.
If anything, Reading had seemed to regress even further from the performance of the first half, and Stockport appeared to be energised by Reading’s negativity.
In the 51st minute, Knight nipped in to win the ball and this led to a bit of handbags between Knight and the Stockport player that Knight had won the ball from, though fortunately, the referee just gave them both a talking-to.
However, a change of tact did arrive. Just not for us.
Stockport decided that, instead of attacking us with balls out wide to the back post, they decided to expose our non-existent midfield pivot by running through the middle unchallenged and letting loose a shot on the edge of the box in the 52nd minute. 3-1 Stockport and it was already, frankly, game over. If it wasn’t already.
At this point, you wondered that, since Richardson’s half-time team talk clearly hadn’t worked, what was he going to do to arrest this? Well, dear reader, he did what he always does: nothing. 60 minutes in and still no change in shape or personnel or instruction arrived.
It’s almost as if Stockport began to pity us, as they occasionally let us have the ball. In the 61st minute, we got a cross into the actual Stockport box and nearly found Marriott. This must have given Richardson a nosebleed, such a momentary attacking show of intent.
In the 66th minute, Savage ran into the box and got a shot away to the near post, which the goalkeeper parried. Lisbie won the ball and played a clever backheel across the six-yard box, which nobody was there to receive.
It only took 20+ minutes of the second half for Richardson to realise this wasn’t working (was he just scrolling through his TikTok or something?) but, in the 67th minute, Masterson came off for Randell Williams, which brought about a change of shape.
It seemed Reading went to a back three of Dokes, Knight and Roberts, with a midfield three of Fraser, a very deep-lying Wing and Savage, and wing-backs of Williams and Kyerewaa, with Lisbie pushing up to support Marriott up top.
After this shape change, Stockport had two more chances. So much for that then.
In the 74th minute, Josh Stokes came on for Kyerewaa. At this point, who the hell knew what Richardson was trying to achieve, but it really did look like Wing had dropped back into defence and I couldn’t really figure out who was supposed to be where or in what shape.
Reading had a chance in the 77th minute from a Williams throw, which led to a corner after a Stokes shot. As noted on the commentary, Stockport looked uncomfortable when we put the ball into their box. Nice of Richardson to consider this approach after going 3-1 down and realising that you need to get in the box to score goals.
In the 82nd minute, perhaps sensing this, Richardson introduced Jerae Jones for Savage and Jamie Reid for Marriott, presumably to give Marriott a rest on his comeback from injury. Certainly an interesting role of the dice to bring on Jones, and I’m here for it.
Reading certainly looked more lively after the changes from the 77th minute onwards and had more of the ball, though they still struggled to create meaningful opportunities, and you sensed Stockport had simply sensed it was a case of job done and they were happy to cede possession and conserve their efforts.
Though, they still occasionally threatened, with three minutes of extra time, they had an effort go just wide from the edge of the box. Which, sadly, was probably better than anything we managed to muster in the final 10-15 minutes of the game, and Stockport weren’t even trying at this point.
Fraser picked up a yellow for hauling down a Stockport midfielder to prevent him running through into the Reading half – picking one up for the team – and the game didn’t really fizzle out, more so the ref just put Reading out of their misery.
Full time: 3-1
So then. What did we learn? Nothing. Honestly.
I apologise for being so negative, and I know we’re missing key players, but this was so painfully predictable to watch. We had no energy, no ideas and no ability to stop the crosses coming in or win the headers at the back post.
We had no answers, once again, to a side that is better coached, and Richardson was far too slow to find solutions to the problems unfolding on the pitch. It’s once again another poor away showing that was painfully predictable.
Indeed, I’d say today was something of a robbery. Unfortunately for us, the robbery was that Stockport were unlucky to have only scored three goals and it could have been more, had it not been for Pereira rediscovering some of his best form and Stockport just eventually losing interest in trying to play against a side which had nothing to offer against them.
All bar one player covered themselves in any kind of glory today, but Roberts was especially poor. Left-back is becoming a huge area of concern for us, in terms of actually having the available personnel not injured and also having them able to play to a good level consistently.
I suppose I should try to find some positives.
Ermmm… Pereira was good? I’d say it was his best performance so far this season by a country mile, though let’s just momentarily gloss over the reason why it had to be that.
It was great to see Jones get a run-out too. Savage had some moments – his movement was crucial for Reading’s goal – but when you leave the barn door open behind you, it amounts to very little in the great scheme of things.
This was a good Stockport side – have no doubt about it and they deserve to be where they are in the table. However, the most galling thing is that we barely came close to testing them and it was almost like we were resigned to defeat from the get-go.
While players are responsible, Richardson has to be accountable and start producing answers for these passive away performances and a lack of in-game management/answers to sides who are more energetic and/or better coached than we are.
