Before I started to write this, I had worse words in mind to describe Reading’s 1-0 loss at Wigan Athletic, but I’ll settle with the more benign “frustrated”. You can, and probably will have, thought of worse words yourself too.
It was frustrating not just because of the result, and not because we didn’t put any of our chances away. It wasn’t even because, in the first half especially, we didn’t seem to have a clue how to handle Wigan whatsoever. It was just that we’ve seen this result before. Loads
of times. Hundreds of times, it seems.
From about 10 minutes in, my spidey-senses were tingling. We were off. We never really were on either. All of our actions seemed to be disconnected. Our tempo was turgid, our use of space was negligible, our physicality seemed absent, our sheer intent was AWOL.
Whether it was complacency or carelessness, we didn’t look as if we wanted it. Wigan were bottom of the table, and hadn’t scored a goal since forever. We started the game as if it would be akin to the MK Dons fixture. This was anything but.
Whatever we expected, it wasn’t what we got. But the problem is, like we have seen in many, many away games, when we don’t start well we rarely pick up the performance. Yes, we might have still won, or at least Jack Marriott might have scored, but the performance belied the result. This was more of the same.
This time, we had none of that fortune or a moment of brilliance. It was flat throughout. It simply wasn’t a comfortable watch. It felt like we’d score by accident or it would just go in via an arse or something, anything.
The quality that we’ve seen a lot of this season just wasn’t on show. It wasn’t even on the bench. It was left in Reading before they’d got on the bus.
Heavy lies the head
Whatever the reasons are for this, I’m going to put some pressure on the captain, Lewis Wing. For the first 30 minutes, I didn’t notice him. At all. A captain shouldn’t be invisible, but he was.
He did improve, slightly, and did put in a good block at one point, but it’s too little of a part. It’s not enough. It’s not enough from your captain. Yes, we know he’s struggling for form, but that, in my opinion, is because the captaincy is now a burden.
He’s not a natural leader – that is not in any doubt. The entire reason why he was made captain was because he was our best player. He’s not even our best midfielder now.
A captain shouldn’t be selfish, but Wing is so desperate to score that he’ll persist with pinging a shot from 30 yards out just because it’s his go-to shot.
Which I understand to a point, but this is not the action of a captain. A captain should think about the greater good, what is the best action in any moment. It is not the time for pure vanity or the personal desperation to score. A captain has to rise above. He’s not doing that. He’s not doing his job.
This is now the dilemma Leam Richardson has. The player that was made captain because of his performances is now not performing. So what kind of captain does he have now?
It’s not one that other players have to aspire to because other players have outperformed Wing in every single game this season.
If Wing weren’t the captain, it would be a much easier task to drop him. But he’s not even being substituted when the team desperately needs a different kind of injection.
So how can he be dropped when Wing plays every single minute? We don’t know what a midfield without him looks like, not even for five minutes.
This does seem like an attack on Wing, and believe me, I have been against dropping him despite my protestations about his captaincy, but something has to change.
That said, neither Charlie Savage nor Liam Fraser did anything to bolster their chances during the loss to Chelsea under-21s earlier in the week.
So, where do we go from here? I wish I had the answer, but Richardson has a lot to consider.
Other issues
But, despite this, the defeat was a collective one. We weren’t clinical, determined or persistent enough. To a man they were not at the races. Nobody stood out, nobody really took the bull by the horns and say: “Sod this, I’m taking charge.” It was just all a bit meh.
It was probably a game more suited to Marriott and possibly, George Earthy too. We missed their guile and tenacity.
Josh Stokes put himself about a bit, but didn’t get the rub of a few decisions and got frustrated.
And I guess that’s what they all felt. What we all felt. Frustrated.
