As is traditional, the UK – and indeed much of the world – had yesterday off to celebrate the 154th birthday of Reading Football Club, which is nice of people to take the time to do that. I’ve no idea what it has to do with turkeys and brussels sprouts, but hey, each to their own.
Filled with turkey sandwiches, Quality Street and mince pies, 909 Royals fans made their way to Plymouth to complete the longest journey in the EFL calendar today (396-mile round-trip) and frankly, they deserved something
from the trek, which they duly got.
The line-up for Reading was pretty much as expected, an unchanged side from the Luton Town victory, which feels like a very long time ago now.
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Yiadom, O’Connor, Williams, Dorsett; Wing, Savage; R Williams, Doyle, Kyerewaa; Marriott
Subs: Stevens, Abrefa, Burns, Garcia, Fraser, Ehibhatiomhan, O’Mahony
Overall, if you had asked Santa for a Reading away win against a resurgent Plymouth side – whose position of 20th is very misleading given their recent form and the performance – then you would not have sniffed at 4-1.
However, this scoreline was also very misleading. Much like Scrooge with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, allow yourself to be guided through this journey of highs, lows and whatever else in between to find out why.
First half
The game started off a bit like a game of “hot potato” with the ball bouncing between both sides, with nobody really able to get much of a foothold in the early proceedings.
Plymouth seemed to be keen to use the width in their side, which I noted could free up Lewis Wing to do some bits in the middle of the park for us. This turned out to be quite prescient, but more on that later.
The first notable moment of the first half was the Plymouth left-back picking up a yellow card for taking out Randell Williams. Frustratingly, despite Williams looking dangerous and the vulnerability that this should have posed, Reading never really sought to exploit this.
Fortunately, it wouldn’t make much of a difference in the great scheme of things, but you’d like to see Reading be a bit more ruthless.
Plymouth had the first sustained attack, and put in a dangerous corner from the aforementioned yellow-carded left-back in the sixth minute that Joel Pereira punched away.
Reading’s early attacking outlet seemed to be Randell Williams – not by running at people, but by utilising his long throws. When did that become a thing?
However, he came across to the left of the pitch and caught everyone out, playing a short throw in the 11th minute, then having a quick one-two to put a great ball back into the box to Kamari Doyle, who dropped a shoulder and hit it direct at the ‘keeper to go out for a corner.
Wing took the corner from the right side of the pitch, leading to the ball bouncing around with Charlie Savage taking a miscued shot from a Paudie O’Connor header, then the ball bounced around a bit more in the Plymouth box until eventually Derrick Williams was dragged down by a Plymouth defender and won us a penalty – and Argyle a red card.
It seemed dubious at first but, on the second watch, it was preventing a clear goal-scoring opportunity. Wing belted it home to make it an early 1-0 lead.
In my original draft, I wrote that Reading had spent the preceding few minutes calming the game down to assert dominance. Which they did for, ohhhhhh I don’t know, all of three minutes, until they didn’t. It was like someone flicked on a switch and Reading simply decided to go for the jugular.
Doyle made a great run down the left to find Daniel Kyerewaa, whose shot wasn’t cleared well. Wing cut into the box to intercept and a deflected effort found the goal. 2-0 Reading.
People will remember the Luton game when Reading went 2-0 up and then managed to concede two goals to make it a very unnecessarily tight contest, so there will have been concerns from those of a Reading persuasion that it might happen again.
However, Reading bared their teeth by playing the ball long to Jack Marriott at the edge of the box, who headed it down with good awareness to find Doyle, who tucked the ball away in a tidy finish. 3-0 after 20 minutes and confusion reigned from all sides.
Reading winning? Plymouth – one of the form teams of the division – being thoroughly outdone by this Reading side?
It was around this moment that Neville Roach on co-commentary duty neatly summed up the madness being experienced by all within the stadium by stating that, during Reading’s 10-minute spell of dominance, Plymouth heads were “literally” rolling off… which, well, if it was literal then this match report would have taken a very different tone indeed. Thankfully, it was not literal.
The long throw from Randell Williams was becoming a real feature of this half, with another in the 24th minute proving dangerous for Plymouth as they looked very uncomfortable when the ball was in their box – also not helped by Dez Williams being not just pretty a pretty handy defender, but a pretty handy playmaker too.
Reading picked up a couple of yellows cards themselves during the next 10 minutes. Wing earned a yellow card in the 23rd minute for sliding in and not winning the ball and Andy Yiadom did the same in the 30th minute for bringing down a Plymouth player in the centre circle after a poor Jeriel Dorsett touch allowed the ball to go out of play, leading to breaking the Reading possession dominance and a Plymouth throw.
This was around the moment that the game turned on its head. Again.
Plymouth slowly began to acclimatise to having only 10 players and a dangerous attack came from Reading’s left, with a low ball fizzed into the box under no pressure from the visiting players. It was picked up by a roaming Plymouth attacker, who couldn’t get a shot away; a backheel didn’t come off and Pereira collected.
Reading were let off for switching off but, instead of being woken up, Reading continued to slumber through the rest of this half.
Plymouth really stamped their authority on the game after the 40th minute and were more attacking, posing questions to Reading’s defence. The Royals finished the first half fortunate to not have conceded a goal, and half-time could not have come soon enough for the away side.
We were unfortunate that six minutes were added on, really. In the 50th minute, a great ball in was met by a great Plymouth header that Pereira wasn’t able to get to, but fortunately the ball went out wide.
Overall, by the time the half ended, the 3-0 lead wasn’t looking comfortable for Reading. If someone had asked a new-coming viewer to name which side was playing one man short, it wouldn’t have been Plymouth given as the answer.
Half-time: 0-3
Reading made a change at half-time: Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan on for Randell Williams, with Doyle coming over to the right and Long Kelvin going into the number 10 role. This appeared to be an injury-induced change as Williams hadn’t done anything outwardly wrong during the first half, but may have been feeling the effects of the challenge right at the start of the game that earned Plymouth a yellow card.
For the second half, Plymouth came out as strongly as they finished the first, which was a worry for Reading given how passive many of our second-half performances have been under Leam Richardson so far.
Around 52 minutes in, after some sustained Plymouth pressure, Wing had a shocker, giving the ball away to the Plymouth attacker in the Reading half. However, with three Royals players tracking back, including Wing, he was able to slide in and block the charging Argyle attacker’s shot and make amends for the error.
The only notable Reading highlight from the first half of the second half (if that makes sense – surely there is an official term for that somewhere? I’ll ask Ross. He’ll know!) was in the 59th minute: a Wing free-kick, which led to a Dez Williams header, which went only just wide.
Dez was looking looking very dangerous in the air from set pieces and, with Plymouth being a man short, he was able to make more forays forward than usual.
In the 68th minute, Plymouth’s pressure finally paid off with some incisive, direct passing cutting through the Reading defence immediately from a Royals corner, and a shot from just outside the area went in to make the afternoon more uncomfortable for Reading than it needed to be. 3-1.
Shortly after, Kelvin Abrefa came on for Yiadom in a direct swap. Not long after this, Dez went down injured and was replaced by Finley Burns. That was worrying for Reading as Dez was the strongest-performing defender by some margin and proving to be quite useful further up the pitch in attacks too.
Reading, doing what they do best, continued to make life more difficult for themselves as needed. The Plymouth winger cut into the box against a back-tracking Abrefa, who conceded a soft penalty in the 72nd minute. However, Pereira didn’t get the memo and a poor Plymouth penalty was batted away by the Reading goalkeeper.
This proceeded to see some tempers boiling over from the Plymouth team further up the pitch, with one of their lot receiving a yellow card. It was a real let-off for Reading. Again. You felt that, if they conceded a second, they may not have any answers.
Pereira’s save proved to be quite important for Reading as it seemed to wake something up in them. Not long after, Long Kelvin took the ball in the Plymouth half, carried it forward and took a weak shot, which was saved by the ‘keeper. However, the rebound looped up high and landed to Kyerewaa on his left foot, with an open goal in front of him… which led to Kyerewaa scuffing it wide. Sigh. He’d be quite some player if he had a little bit more end product.
In the 78th minute, Reading had another break as they started to grow into the game, exposing some of the gaps left by Plymouth as they pushed higher up.
Abrefa received the ball on the right in a good shooting position just outside the box, but his touch was too heavy and it took him a bit too wide, and the shot went harmlessly into the side-netting. Although it was promising to see Reading continue to push high, you want to see them be a bit more clinical.
In the 82nd minute, Doyle went down under pressure from a Plymouth player instead of playing a ball out to a waiting Abrefa. Clearly looking for the penalty, it felt like a wasted opportunity but it at least led to a corner, then another corner, then another corner.
Considering the height we have in the team (Burns, O’Connor, Long Kelvin), we weren’t really taking advantage of this in the set pieces since Williams left the pitch injured, proving just how important he was for us as a late summer signing.
Speaking of late summer signings: in the 86th minute, Reading’s new-found pressure finally paid off. Wing took the ball from the right side of the pitch, just on the edge of Plymouth’s final third, finding Marriott in between two defenders. Marriott did brilliantly to bring the ball down with his chest and fire away a first-time effort to make it 4-1.
Immediately after this, Savage and Marriott came off, making Marriott’s goal his last action on the pitch, to be replaced by Liam Fraser and Mark O’Mahony in direct substitutions. Reading continued to attack and showed the intent to add a fifth, though the end product was somewhat lacking.
Another six minutes of extra time were added on for the second half, but Reading’s earlier dominance to get the lead in the first half effectively made this a non-contest, and the game slowly wound down without much of note happening.
Full-time: 1-4
The reality of this game is that it’s great we won, with four goals scored, but the match was very much defined by that 10-minute period directly after the Plymouth red card and penalty when Reading suddenly became clinical and Plymouth were just awful.
We owe much more to Plymouth being really that bad than anything we ourselves did, though credit where it’s due: we made our own luck and carved out the result that way.
A good day at the office for Wing (two goals, one assist) and a second goal in two games for Marriott are good news stories. However, this game may be overshadowed by injuries picked up by the Williams duo, who have become mainstays in this side. Certainly, we didn’t look the same without Dez leading from the back.
It was great to see Wing be more clinical, but worries remain about Kyerewaa’s end product, Long Kelvin’s ability to turn his obvious talent into goals and Savage’s passing being progressively more and more passive. If you watch him play, he’s either squaring it to Wing or a centre-back and, if he deviates from this, it’s to play a ball to Kyerewaa.
My last concern is on Richardson: what on earth is he saying to our players at half-time? Each game, we see them all running off to get back into the changing room but seem to be completely devoid of any energy or intent when returning for the second half, game after game.
However, these are problems for another day. This win takes us to the lofty heights of 11th in the table and, with a game coming up on Monday against a similarly resurgent Peterborough United (to whom we owe a cold-served plate of revenge from the start of the month), this away win should provide a confidence boost to close out the year.
