Football is a deeply, deeply odd game at the best of times. Especially so when Reading put in their best display of the season to win 3-0 at Blackpool, then have 10 days of rest and preparation time, before…
whatever on earth that was tonight.
Aimless, sloppy, turgid, vacuous, uninspired – take your pick of depressing adjective. The bottom line is that this was for the most part as bad as Reading have been this season.
It started off in the worst possible fashion, a cross from Reading’s right ricocheting off a couple of players and eventually into the net, via Jimmy-May Morgan. The Royals responded well for a short time but soon faded, outclassed by a Peterborough side increasingly confident with the ball and effective with their press at shutting the hosts down.
The second half was particularly flat from the off, so it came as a shock when Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan stole in behind on the hour mark to equalise. Parity lasted just eight minutes though, Harry Leonard expertly controlling the ball on the edge of the area and slamming home into the bottom corner for what would prove to be the winner. There, depressingly, the action pretty much ended – Reading utterly incapable of mounting a serious challenge to Posh’s second lead of the evening.
I’m struggling to get my head around how we’ve managed to put in such an incompetent performance after managing the exact opposite at Bloomfield Road. Last time out, Reading were professional and efficient. For so much of this evening though, it felt as if those playing in blue and white may as well have only met each other five minutes before kick-off.
Second-half woes
Reading’s failings tonight largely boiled down to an all-too-familiar issue: a worryingly weak second half. The Royals were chasing the game for the vast majority of that period, but could only conjure up one scrappy equaliser and an injury-time Paudie O’Connor header from a corner by way of convincing chances after the interval.
Reading were concerningly wayward in possession: simply not good enough individually or collectively. No threat, no intensity, no momentum, little sense of knowing what they wanted to do or how to get it done. This was, again, an inversion of the Blackpool performance, when it was the Royals who grew into the game after the restart.
Was this all down to poor work being put in on the training ground? Possibly, but Reading showed in a bright but unsustained first-half spell that they could get at Posh when they played confidently on the deck. The Royals had a good performance in them.
What really seemed to be the problem against Posh was a poor mentality. Put tactics, formations, lineups and substitutions to one side: players need to be able to problem-solve and take individual responsibility when things aren’t working – as was blindingly obvious when the visitors were in the ascendancy in the first half, and in the second when Reading were unable to lay a glove on them. If we even knew how to put the glove on in the first place, that is.
Reading needed senior players in the heart of the action – such as Lewis Wing, Charlie Savage, Paudie O’Connor and Derrick Williams – to stand up and take charge tonight. To lead by example and make things happen. But in reality, so much of the play that went through them was pedestrian and uninspired, ending in sloppy passes or speculative long balls to no one in particular.
That’s not to lay the blame solely on them though. No one had a particularly good evening, really caused Posh problems or gave you the sense that they were busting a gut to turn the match around. This was very much the kind of performance that should lead to strong words from the manager after the game and tough questions being asked about how to make a vast, immediate improvement ahead of Saturday.
The gaffer
I’ve got mixed views on Richardson’s role in all this. Yes, he’s had a lot of time available on the training ground, but he’s also needed more competitive matches to get his ideas properly bedded into this group – practice can only do so much. The sparse fixture list hasn’t helped.
On paper his team selection (no changes to a winning side) made sense.
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Abrefa, O’Connor, Williams, Dorsett; Wing, Savage; R Williams, Doyle, Kyerewaa; Ehibhatiomhan
Subs: Stevens, Yiadom, Burns, Garcia, Rinomhota, Ritchie, Marriott
So too did the second-half introduction of Jack Marriott for Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan – the latter had played poorly despite equalising shortly before going off – and I didn’t have an issue with Andy Yiadom and Andre Garcia replacing Kelvin Abrefa and Jeriel Dorsett in the last 10 minutes. Swapping out full-backs for more attacking options when that card is there to be played is a perfectly good idea: full-backs have an important role in build-up and creativity.
Bringing Kamari Doyle off for Matt Ritchie wasn’t a good call though. It meant winger Randell Williams (who hasn’t done well enough yet in a Reading shirt) moving to the 10 role – not a great use of his qualities.
Attacking options from the bench were fairly limited overall, which is surely something Richardson will want to address in January. Swapping Andy Rinomhota in for, say, Savage, could have been the injection of impetus and muscle in the middle of the park that Reading needed to get up the pitch more convincingly though.
With all that said, this game just feels like a massive shame. Reading had a huge opportunity to build on an excellent result at Blackpool, even if that had to come via a poor showing and comeback result, but the hosts couldn’t even manage that in the end.
We’ve gone so quickly from being able to glance up the table with expectation to looking over our shoulder once more. I’d actually rather not look, just yet.
Onto Bradford on Saturday then. Reading need another swing in performances – back onto the ‘Blackpool away’ side – if they’re to get anything from a tough match. Here’s hoping.
