The game at Bolton Wanderers last Wednesday was a really painful watch, but Andre Garcia’s late goal gave us something to hold onto, a little shining light. We just needed to actually go and capitalise on that.
And, on the whole, the players did that at Wycombe Wanderers. It was by far our best league performance of the season. Now you may say that’s not saying much, but at this stage of the season increases in performance levels are just as important as an upturn in results, in my opinion.
A last-minute
goal from the hosts took away our first league win of the season, leading to plenty for the fans to dig their teeth into post-game…
Lewis Wing
If for some reason you needed some kind of reminder of just how integral Lewis Wing is to this team, take a look at the last five minutes of the first half from Saturday.
First, a wonderful ball in to set up Mamadi Camara (who still had a lot of work to do and did it superbly) before following it up with a goal of his own.
Where would we be without him? The fans certainly don’t want to know the answer to that…
A much better performance
Results are the be all and end all, of course, but even if you take them out of the equation, Reading have still been quite a difficult watch so far in the league.
Defensive errors and next to no coherent attacking threat has made for a tricky start. And although we saw the former on show against Wycombe, we were much, much better going forward. And it looks like the fans can appreciate that…
Still no win
I suppose there are two ways to look at a game like Saturday:
a) A better performance, annoying to concede last minute, but focus on the positives (i.e. the tweets from the previous section).
b) Conceding like that late on is inexcusable, we’re only one point better off than we were at the start of the day, and we still haven’t won (i.e. the tweets you’re about to see).
Both arguments have solid points, and you can completely understand fans who are growing evermore frustrated by the lack of league wins…
Conclusion
A really tricky one to come to a comprehensive opinion on, and you can understand why the fans’ reaction was so mixed.
After the opening four league games I was more glass half empty than full: the apparent lack of tactical nous being shown from Noel Hunt was really worrying. But Saturday has given a glimpse into what Hunt wants from this team; it just needs building on.
A better, improved performance is a big step in the right direction, but a manager’s currency is wins – and the longer Hunt goes without one in the league, the more uncomfortable his seat in the dugout is going to feel.
