Two staggering things happened today during the course of this football match. First, and most importantly – despite the result – 1,536 Reading fans made the long journey up to watch this game, in horrible conditions. What an absolutely magnificent effort from each and everyone one of them.
The second staggering thing: we were largely outplayed by a newly promoted Port Vale side who are battling against relegation and, prior to today, had only picked up 10 points at home. Make that 11 now.
How did
this happen? Read on and we shall unravel the mystery together.
The line-up was somewhat interesting, with Jack Marriott shaking off the injury picked up against Bolton Wanderers on Tuesday and able to start. However, Haydon Roberts was unable to do likewise, so the question was: who would start at left-back?
Derrick “Dez” Williams surprised us all (at least, he surprised me) and made a return from injury to the starting line-up, with Benn Ward shunted over to the left-back position and Jeriel Dorsett on the bench.
Kadan Young returned to the team on the left wing, with Charlie Savage continuing his time in the number 10 role and Kamari Doyle moving out to the right.
This felt like a somewhat unbalanced line-up, but all things considered, at least Savage wasn’t playing on the wing. You have to learn to take the small wins.
In other news, Randell Williams returned to the bench, which was nice to see.
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Nyambe, O’Connor, Dez Williams, Ward; Wing, Fraser; Doyle, Savage, Young; Marriott
Subs: Stevens, Yiadom, Burns, Dorsett, Lane, Randell Williams, Ehibhatiomhan
There was some concern before the game regarding the condition of the pitch and you could see why: the rain had really battered it and it looked awful to be playing on.
However, sincerely, watching this game, either the players from both sides were able to adapt to it well enough or it wasn’t as bad as it looked. A few players getting muddier than usual was about as bad as it got.
First half
The game started with Reading in the ascendancy and, in the fifth minute, a great pass from Doyle outside of the box to find a running Young out wide on the left led to a good shot, which was saved by the ‘keeper.
This led to a Lewis Wing corner, and a Paudie O’Connor header which came close but went wide.
For the first 10 minutes or so, Reading were able to pass the ball around comfortably at the back, with Port Vale not pressing hard. This was positive to see, to know that the pitch was not affecting the movement of the ball, or the Reading players were adapting sufficiently to the conditions.
However, this was pretty much the only spell of the game when Port Vale didn’t press effectively. Once they realised that any pressure on the back line would cause any Reading player to have a monumental lapse of faith in their ability to play football, we found no way back.
Paudie O’Connor conceded a free-kick in the ninth minute, out on Reading’s right, around 30 yards out, which led to a poor in-swinging effort from Port Vale which Reading were able to clear easily.
This soon then led to Ward conceding a free-kick in a similar place over on the left, which led to a much better cross into the box which Reading struggled to clear, but eventually did, after blocking a couple of efforts on goal from within the box from Port Vale, thanks to some good defensive work from Doyle.
In the 13th minute, Port Vale were able to find space between the Reading defensive line and Reading midfield, just outside the area, and slide a ball in on Reading’s left, which looked dangerous, but fortunately amounted to nothing with Joel Pereira on hand to cover. The warning signs really were there from this early on.
Port Vale then picked up the mantle as the more dominant side for the next 20 or so minutes, and should have gotten a goal in the 16th minute after a really bad corner caught out the Reading defence and bounced early in the box and found its way – somehow – to a lurking Port Vale attacker, whose shot was fortuitously blocked by Dez Williams.
A later effort in the phase of play from further outside the box was saved low by Pereira. Reading really got away with one there.
In the 18th minute, some good passing on the left between Savage and Young found Liam Fraser lurking on the edge of the box, who teed up Wing to his right, and Wing was very obviously urged to shoot. Shoot he did, and a poor effort went out for a corner, which then led to Doyle taking a shot in the box which went just wide.
A statistic came up at the start of the 20th minute that said Reading had had 73% of possession thus far. Worryingly, Port Vale still looked like the better side, having had better chances at this point.
Ryan Nyambe made a great inverted run in-field in the 21st minute and got the ball out of the Reading area and into the Port Vale half, leading to a bit of ping pong around the Port Vale box and an effort from Doyle that went wide for a corner.
A Savage corner led to another Wing effort, which went well wide.
Reading had an attacking spell in the 23rd and 24th minutes with a few crosses not finding their targets, with Port Vale sitting deep and the Reading fans chanting them on, but on Reading pressed to find an opening, mostly focussing on the left side of the pitch to create something – but not finding a way through.
The only other thing of note from this period of the game was an incredible pass from Fraser from the Reading half to find Nyambe out wide and far up the pitch in the 28th minute. It led to nothing, but it was a joy to watch.
Port Vale then took the mantle on from this point and, in the 34th minute, after some Port Vale pressure, Fraser made a mistake to give the ball away to Port Vale and was saved by an O’Connor block. Unexpectedly, this led to a break from Doyle to pass to Young, which led to a good save from the Port Vale keeper.
Out of nowhere in the 37th minute, a ball over the top from Ward found Young galloping into the box, and he was taken out by the goalkeeper, earning Reading a penalty.
In a nice change to proceedings, someone not called Marriott scored. And it was a cracking penalty from Wing – the keeper guessing the right side but the power and aim directly into the bottom corner was too good to be kept out. 0-1 Reading.
Shortly after, Port Vale – possibly aggrieved, thinking Young was offside for the penalty call (he wasn’t but the noises from the crowd “1-0 to the referee” certainly suggested they thought differently) – ventured forward.
They found far too much space in the Reading area to play the ball after they won a header from a long ball, and the ball in from the pass was met by running Port Vale attacker to put away a great shot, which Pereira was thankfully equal to.
Two minutes were added onto the first half, but nothing happened.
Half time: 0-1
Overall summary for the first half: Reading had moments of dominance but were unable to find a way through. Perhaps Marriott wasn’t quite as sharp as he usually is – I certainly put no blame on him – or perhaps the three-man back line completely stifled him.
Ward played really well at left back, and O’Connor won some headers. That’s about it in terms of positives.
The concerns were (and remained) that we were too open at the back, and Port Vale kept finding openings to threaten us. With the greatest of respect to them, a better team would have found a way to score earlier in the game, and we were only in the position we were in by pure, dumb luck that Port Vale were profligate and we were awarded a penalty.
There were no changes at half-time for either side, and the game carried on with Port Vale continuing to show some intent.
The first notable Reading moment was from a Wing free-kick in the 49th minute from near the halfway line after a Marriott foul: swung in and almost finding O’Connor.
Ward picked up a yellow card in the 53rd minute after coming under pressure around the centre circle from the Port Vale attacker. After being able to turn the first player, he lost the ball and ran into the second attacker, conceding the free-kick and collecting the yellow card.
Doyle turned well in the 58th minute in the Reading half to then progress the ball – fancy talk for ‘run with the ball’ – into the Port Vale half and play the pass through. However, this led to nothing. But at this point, it was simply just nice to see Reading attack.
Play paused for a while in the 58th minute owing to a Port Vale player taking one in the face from another teammate’s clearance. This led to Port Vale making four – yep, FOUR changes.
For a while after the subs, despite Port Vale having a lot of the ball, nothing really happened in the game.
In the 67th minute, Ward was subbed off – mostly likely owing to a combination of the yellow and poor surface begging for trouble – with Dorsett coming on in his place, for a direct swap. Then came a Port Vale corner in the 69th minute, which led to a scramble in the box and a shot was blocked.
I made a note at this point that it seemed to be a theme for the game and surely it would come back to bite Reading, eventually? Sigh.
My mood was slightly improved to see Dez Williams covered in mud. There is something so English lower-league football about your centre-backs giving the kitmen a headache. Love it.
There was a long throw from Port Vale in the 70th minute, which again (note the italics, add your own frustration level in at your discretion), caused problems and a scramble in the box, but Fraser got it out for a corner. That corner led to nothing other than Doyle winning a tactical foul.
In the 73rd minute, Doyle was subbed off for the returning Randell “Monsters Inc” Williams (I dunno, ask Ben), and Paddy Lane came on for Young – surprisingly, as Young looked the most threatening for us in the front line.
Straight after the substitutions, Port Vale kept on attacking and nearly forged another chance, which Dez Williams blocked for a corner. The corner was dangerous and found its way to the back post, where the Port Vale attacker – recently subbed on – made an absolute hash of it and scuffed it out of play.
Reading were let off again. By my count, I think this was about the third time we had gotten away with it.
The substitutions didn’t seem to help Reading – both in terms of the ones Reading made and the ones Port Vale made – and Reading remained under the pressure they continued to invite upon themselves, making mistakes and struggling to get the ball out of their own half.
The epitome of this was Dorsett receiving a yellow card for taking too long to take a throw in: needless and stupid for so many reasons, given the pitch conditions and the vulnerability it would cause for Reading’s back line.
In the 85th minute, Marriott was subbed off for Kelvin “Long Kelvin” Ehibhatiomhan and Dez Williams was replaced by Finley Burns, both of which changes made sense, given they were each injury concerns prior to this game. Port Vale made their final sub in the 89th minute: a centre-back for a centre-back.
Despite the earlier stoppage, six minutes were added on for extra time.
Then, miracle of miracles, somehow Reading mysteriously found themselves in the Port Vale half. Wing played in Lane, who then reverted to type and – instead of slotting it in – just skied it. It was a really poor effort to not have even gotten it on target and he appeared to hurt his back in the process.
Port Vale shortly after got back at Reading and had a good shot, which Pereira did well to get across the goal mouth to put out for a corner.
Now, you know already what happens when Port Vale have a corner, and the playbook played out: there was a scramble, a shot and a blocked shot, and a more clinical or better side would have scored, either from the initial effort or by exploiting the space.
In the 94th minute, Port Vale put in a dangerous ball which bobbled its way to the back post (Reading’s right). It was almost like the Port Vale attacker couldn’t believe his luck and seemed to just not know what to do with it, being literally a metre away from the goal.
He teed himself up, then hesitated, then stepped in again and put a ball across the face of goal, which led to a shot, which Reading blocked. I honestly do not know how Port Vale didn’t score from that.
Savage conceded a free-kick out on Reading’s left, there was another free-kick, and somehow either Reading were able to repel Port Vale or – more likely – they weren’t good enough to finish. At least, until they were.
A long ball from the Port Vale goalkeeper in the 96th minute (sound familiar?) found its way past the Reading back line and midfield to a Port Vale attacker who, going against the grain of the previous 95 minutes, slammed it in to make it 1-1.
Reading had less than a minute to make amends and had a chance in the final throws of the game. Quite literally, with a Randell Williams throw which, surprise surprise, led to nothing.
Full time: 1-1
This is a difficult game to summarise because, if I am being honest, the emotions are still raw and bubbling to the surface. But I’ll try.
The only way I can frame this is from the viewpoint of those Reading fans who travelled up there to watch this game. I’m angry, and I only paid £10 to watch this on my laptop in the clear blue skies of Spain.
Those who had to watch that *insert expletive of choice here*, pay the money to be there (and fair play to Port Vale for offering discounted tickets – they truly are our friends in the footballing community) and the travel expenses for that distance… they must be livid. And rightly so.
Port Vale are not a good footballing side in this division. They try, but they clearly didn’t have the quality to make their efforts count. Yet we invited the pressure upon ourselves and looked devoid of any ideas about how to counter the pressure, or make inroads towards breaching their defensive line.
Reading have quality in abundance, and depth of it on the bench. Injuries or not, how on earth we had to hold on for dear life against a side fighting for relegation while we were (and remain) eighth in the table – and rely on a correctly awarded penalty to keep the balance in our favour for almost all of the game – is the responsibility of one individual, who is now going to face a lot more questions about his capability to lead this side.
