The last seven days or so have been a bit of blur. The 90 minutes of slapstick comedy we saw at Doncaster Rovers, Rob Couhig’s open letter backing Leam Richardson, a whodunnit dressing room leak and a 10-out-of-10-for-effort attempt at crisis comms from the club: it’s certainly been a week.
My overarching feeling before the game against Cardiff City was that I just wanted this season over and done with – and that’s been further compounded by today’s events.
Alas, we are not able to be graced with that
mercy just yet. Cardiff were rolling into town to try and repeat Lincoln City’s feat from two weekends ago: get promoted at the SCL.
Let’s get the housekeeping over and done with. It seems in the palaver of the last week a few more players picked up knocks, with Kadan Young, Charlie Savage, Dez Williams and Liam Fraser all departing the starting XI.
However, there were also positives as Jack Marriott returned to the matchday squad, and Andy Bloody Rinomhota started a game of association football(!).
Reading (3-4-2-1): Pereira; Burns, O’Connor, Dorsett; Nyambe, Wing, Rinomhota, Roberts; Kyerewaa, Lane; Ehibhatiomhan
Subs: Norcott, Stickland, Abrefa, Fraser, Ritchie, Patton, Marriott
I can’t lie, but this all feels rather trivial. At the time of writing, I’m finding it tricky to spur up the oomph needed to meaningfully surmise my thoughts on today’s game.
The first half was certainly better than what we’ve been used to recently. We carried a threat, with Jeriel Dorsett, Daniel Kyerewaa and Paddy Lane all going close with various efforts.
I must add that our threat mainly came from complacency and mistakes from Cardiff’s defenders, but it’s an objective fact that our forward players looked brighter than we’ve become accustomed to.
If we weren’t in the mess we were in, and were still genuinely in the playoff race, today would’ve still been a difficult game to get anything from. Cardiff are now in the Championship, and for good reason.
Still, there was a depressing ease to how they took the lead: a drifted ball into the box, and Rubin Colwill being given the space of RG2 to plant his header into the back of the net. 1-0 to the visitors.
Half-time: 0-1
Just after half-time, there was a bit of suicidal defending thrown into the mix for good measure, with Finley Burns and Paudie O’Connor trying and failing to step up in time, leaving Omari Kellyman one-on-one with Joel Pereira.
The striker duly despatched, 2-0, and the party started ramping up in the away end.
Fair play to the players, who did show a bit of fight – a bit too literally at times, with O’Connor and Kyerewaa having a bit of a tussle with Perry Ng and Ryan Wintle. That fight resulted in a consolation goal with a Wingy free-kick being parried into the path of Kyerewaa, whose rebound effort pulled it back to 2-1.
And it could’ve gotten even better than that as Marriott could’ve, and possibly should’ve, done better with his first touch – failing to loft a loose ball over Nathan Trott in the Cardiff net.
But it was the Bluebirds who would have the final say in this game. Ng planted a neat strike into the bottom corner to wrap up all three points. 3-1, game, set and match.
It got even better for the visitors as, up until that point, Stockport County winning at Exeter City meant they were still technically a League One team in 2026/27, and we were being spared the indemnity of having a second team seal promotion on our home patch.
However, with seconds to go in Stockport’s game, Exeter’s goalkeeper (seriously) equalised – sending the away end at the SCL into raptures.
Full time: 1-3
Firstly, congratulations to Cardiff. The table doesn’t lie at the end of the season, and they deserve to go up.
From a Reading perspective, the players didn’t fold or collapse. And in isolation, today we came up against one of the best two teams in this division and the performance was better.
However, it always felt like our role today was to be extras in Cardiff’s story: there to just be the team the Bluebirds beat to get promoted, which stings.
Even if we’d have managed to grab a draw from today, or even a win, I would’ve struggled to feel any real positivity or optimism. Our issues are deeper than whatever could’ve happened in today’s 90 minutes – so, for me anyway, the result was always going to pale into insignificance.
The fact of the matter is that, for two home games in a row, a team has celebrated promotion on our own turf and neither of them have been us. Obviously how the fixtures fall is uncontrollable – however, it is a cruel but apt metaphor for where we are as a club.
Seeing the Cardiff players celebrate after the game induced a pang of hurt in me that I didn’t know I had the ability to feel after the emotional turmoil of this season.
