Supporting Reading Football Club is not a straightforward task. One week you’re the cock of the walk (celebrating a last-minute win against Stockport County thanks to a Lewis Wing screamer), the next you’re a feather duster (wondering what on earth the players have been doing on the training ground for the last two weeks after a well-below-par performance at Leyton Orient).
“Outfought and outran” were the words of the gaffer after the game, and it’s hard to argue with him there.
Here’s how the fans
reacted to the game…
Dom Ballard
There does seem to be a sense of inevitability every time we come up against a former player.
Ballard represented us for only a few months, with his loan spell being effectively cut short by a bad knee injury. It looks like he’s recovered from that and then some now though, scoring a perfect hattrick on Saturday.
There was a mixture of frustration, expectancy but also appreciation at the forward’s performance from the Loyal Royals…
A substandard showing
Despite Ballards’ hat-trick literally being the difference, it’s not as if his star quality swung an otherwise even contest. We were well below par all afternoon, and the hosts were thoroughly deserving of the win.
It should keep being reiterated that we are a team in transition, which means there will be inconsistencies, but that doesn’t make results like this any less frustrating.
The fans were not happy with what they saw, and made their feelings known post-match…
Conclusion
The most frustrating thing for me is that this performance came in the very next game after a win that should’ve been a shot in the arm for our season, albeit the games were nearly two weeks apart.
We had a nice, long rest in the run-up to this game, but we looked leggy, lethargic and completely off the pace.
Perhaps we overreacted a little to the win against Stockport, and for that reason we need to be more level-headed after Saturday’s loss. This is where we are as a team: we’re nowhere near the finished article and perhaps we should just expect inconsistency.
Anyway, I’d like to think Saturday was no more than a blip in the upwards trajectory Leam Richardson has had us on over recent weeks. But we’ll only know that in a few weeks’ time, I suppose.
URZ!
