Two winnable home games, just two points collected, scoring four goals and conceding four goals. It’s hardly form that screams ‘promotion push’, is it?
For those of you not into stats, I can also reveal that Barnsley had two shots on target and scored from both, while Exeter City had two shots on target and scored from both. Normally that would tell you the teams we were playing are clinical in front of goal, but we were playing sides in the lower half of League One, so clinical really isn’t something
you associate with either.
Barnsley
So, let’s start with the Barnsley game, which for me was a slightly better performance than against Exeter, due largely to the excellent debut of Haydon Roberts, who gave us a much better left-sided balance, and looked very comfortable going forward and supporting attacking play.
If I were to be critical of any part of Roberts’ game it was the fact that he got forward a little too much at times and left us exposed in wide areas, but overall, it was an excellent start to his Reading career, topped off with a goal on his debut.
On the other side of the pitch, it was a day to forget for Andy Yiadom, who was woefully out of position for Barnsley’s first goal, and did little to cement any argument that he should be our first-choice right-back. That said, he wasn’t helped at times by big gaps opening in front of him and being left in one-on-one situations throughout the first half.
When Yiadom was eventually replaced on 79 minutes, Ryan Nyambe gave us a glimpse of what he could bring to the side and was excellent in his first few minutes as a Reading player.
The central defensive partnership of Paudie O’Connor and Jeriel Dorsett did little to impress, as both struggled with the fundamentals of defending and passing to our own players.
O’Connor really impressed earlier on. However, in recent weeks his lack of pace and general play when the ball is on the floor have been exposed frequently, and unless we play opposition who lump the ball up to their attacking players, he starts to look ineffective.
Dorsett wasn’t much better in my opinion, and for someone who cites centre-back as his natural position, he looked seriously lost for most of the match, which makes you wonder what Finley Burns must do to start a game.
In midfield we lacked any creativity, and many of our attacks were started (and often ended) with the rinse-and-repeat process of giving the ball to Lewis Wing, who found one of our players 50% of the time and a Barnsley player – or the first three rows of all four stands – for the other 50%.
The way Wing plays (or the way he is being asked to play) opens him up for criticism, as he is often the starting point for our play going forward.
Our ability to continue moving forward is typically driven by Wing’s passing accuracy, which for a long time now has been some way off the level expected of him. Again though, it’s difficult to solely place the responsibility on Wing when often he has little movement in front of him.
In front of goal, Jack Marriott once again proved why he is so important to this side, and although his 84th-minute goal may have hit the back of the net in slow motion, his clever touch and accuracy in finding the corner demonstrated why he remains one of our best signings for a number of years.
Marriott was also a constant nuisance to Barnsley’s back line all afternoon. Just imagine how good he could be with more service!
Exeter City
Moving on to Tuesday night’s game against Exeter, it was more of the same but slightly worse, assisted largely by a bizarre formation that saw Will Keane and Marriott often occupy the same pockets of space, only for none of them to be found with the resulting ball played to them, often hit from 40 yards away.
Dorsett again struggled in his ‘natural’ position at centre-back, and he was helped by the fact that O’Connor had one of his better games, which also included his first goal for the club.
Nyambe and Roberts once more demonstrated they could both be shrewd signings at this level, and Keane showed his striker’s instinct with his first goal for the club. With a little more fitness to get him up to speed, he too could prove to be a good bit of business between now and the end of the season.
Our midfield for most of the night though was non-existent, and apart from a few creative passes and break-up-play tackles from Charlie Savage, I struggled to be even slightly impressed with anyone else in a Reading shirt.
In truth the game was mostly forgettable, with more than one player having an off night, against opposition who quite frankly were not great.
The problem for me with performances like this is sometimes not the performance itself, it’s the explanation for it afterwards. Manager interviews that claim “we did enough to win the game” and the “players are disappointed” merely detract from the blindingly obvious: that we were too slow to do anything, couldn’t pass to anyone in a Reading shirt, and never did anywhere enough to win the game.
It’s also nice to know the players are disappointed, but nowhere near as much as the supporters, who once again braved a cold Tuesday evening to watch another performance that was passive more than promising.
Finally, a word on the continued abuse directed at Daz Wareham during the game on Tuesday evening, which I have to say slightly confuses me.
While Wareham Snr may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’m not sure that continued references to him not being a very nice person (if you know what I mean) are the best way for a section of our support to direct their frustration.
If you choose to promote yourself on social media then you can expect to receive both positive and negative feedback, which I’m sure he is aware of. Having watched a few snippets of Mr Wareham’s social media presence, I can confirm that some of the content is cringy in a gameshow sort of way, but certainly not worthy of the abuse he received from a minority on Tuesday evening.
Rather than being annoyed by it, I feel pretty sure Wareham Snr is secretly thanking us for providing him with more content and talking points for his online offering, and I wouldn’t mind betting he’s also accumulated a few new followers as a result of the abuse, even if many of them do so out of sympathy.
This Saturday we travel to Northampton Town, which can again be labelled as ‘an opportunity’ in terms of three points.
With the Cobblers struggling at the wrong end of the table and without a win in their last seven, it’s games like this that we need to dominate from the start – and ensure we come away with nothing less than a win.
Northampton Town 1-3 Reading
(Eaves / Marriott, Doyle, Savage)
6,900
Until next week.
Much love and c’mon URZZZ!
Dixey
