When going to Reading games recently I’ve been desperately looking for an encouraging sign about this side, any source of proper encouragement that it’s on the right track in its development. It’s less
about the Royals simply getting a result (as important as that also is) and more about the substance, style and identity of the performance.
Game after game, almost without exception, I’m left disappointed.
Today’s match against Mansfield Town, a 1-1 draw which was so poor that it may as well have been a defeat, was the most egregious example yet. Reading were tactically aimless, sloppy with the ball and too open defensively – despite now being 10 league games into the season, despite having had a fortnight on the training ground over the September international break and despite the first team mostly being given a rest in midweek.
Though Jack Marriott kept up his purple patch in front of goal by netting his fifth in as many starts, that papers over the cracks. Reading should have far more to fall back on as a team than one player’s impressive run of form.
The Royals otherwise made one quality chance all afternoon – a tap-in at the back post that Paddy Lane somehow put wide. Given that this was a home game against middling opposition (going by the table), let alone the fact that the onus for most of the match was squarely on the hosts to find an equaliser, that’s simply not good enough.
Going behind in the first half as we did was especially irritating. Reading lost the ball in midfield, Mansfield got in down our right-hand side too easily, and Tyler Roberts got to the ball first to steer it in past Joel Pereira. As much as this match report is focused on the Royals’ poor attacking play, Reading are consistently undermining themselves by conceding soft goals.
Back to that attacking play. Look, I can take annoying afternoons in the final third when things don’t quite click and we’re left frustrated mostly by a lack of cutting edge. Every team in League One is capable of sufficiently stubborn defensive performances to make that happen.
And to be fair, that was largely the case in the first half. Reading’s approach play in the first two thirds of the pitch was generally pretty good, admittedly helped by Mansfield not engaging in a particularly high press.
But in the second half, Reading were wayward and badly lacked ideas, quality, confidence or any real signs that they knew what they were doing as an attacking force. The Marriott equaliser – created by a Matty Jacob low cross and Matt Ritchie layoff – was the exception to an otherwise depressing pattern: consistent struggles to get the ball upfield with any threat incision, an inability to get playmaker Kamari Doyle in the game, a tendency to resort to long shots.
Mansfield on the other hand were limited but still managed to create more freely than we did in the second half. On a number of occasions they took initial advantage of Reading sloppiness and got into the final third dangerously, thankfully lacking quality in front of goal. The dynamic of the game was worrying enough for home-end boos to ring out (not extensively but still easily audible) a few times.
At times like that you need the players to step up. Neither in reaction to Mansfield’s threat, nor in response to the morale boost of Marriott’s equaliser, did Reading do that in the second half. And for me that hints at deeper issues among the players: anxiety and a lack of confidence. Last season Reading so often played with stubbornness and, simply put, looked like they were enjoying their football. It’s hard to say that’s the case now.
The extra element that makes everything even more worrying is that, on paper at least, Noel Hunt actually got the important calls right today. His team selection was spot on: sticking with the 4-2-3-1, making no changes from the Stockport County draw and swapping Lane and Daniel Kyerewaa to the left and right respectively (I’m a fan of this).
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Ahmed, Burns, Dorsett, Jacob; Wing, Savage; Kyerewaa, Doyle, Lane; Marriott
Subs: Stevens, Abrefa, Stickland, Elliott, Ritchie, Ehibhatiomhan, O’Mahony
Similarly, his substitutions made sense. A triple change on the hour mark saw Kelvin Abrefa, Matt Ritchie and Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan come on for Ashqar Ahmed, Kyerewaa and Lane, freshening the Royals up at right-back and out wide. Later, as a last throw of the dice, Tuesday’s goalscorer Mark O’Mahony came on for Doyle in the 10 role (and almost won a penalty).
Those calls didn’t have the desired effects though. The attacking play wasn’t good enough despite the choice of XI and formation, while the Royals’ overall performance wasn’t majorly boosted by the substitutions. So, clearly, Reading’s problems run much too deep to be solved by matchday choices – they can only be sorted by fundamental work on the training ground.
Unfortunately, that’s been apparent for a while now.
I reluctantly entered the Hunt Out camp in mid-September after the Barnsley game: a frustratingly random performance despite the prior full fortnight on the training ground. While Reading are unbeaten in the league since then (one league win, one cup win, two league draws, one cup defeat), underlying improvement simply hasn’t materialised.
So I’m still in the Hunt Out camp. If anything, I’m only getting more concerned.
I would love him to turn things around and I draw some reassurance from the fact that he’s done so before, to an extent at least. Three times last season Reading went through rough patches under him (two horrid league defeats in December, another two in January, a pair of frustrating draws in early March that had seemed to derail our playoff push).
But I just can’t see it, and I’m not sure Hunt fully recognises the problems himself. His post-match interview was remarkably devoid of criticism for what to me (and to the vast majority of other fans, I’d guess) was a performance well short of the standards we should expect. Even when offered the analysis from interviewer Phil Catchpole that Reading weren’t “stringing it together” well enough (my take too), he denied that and put the result down to an inability to finish off actions.
I’m not expecting him to throw players under the bus or self-flagellate, and perhaps he’ll be more critical of the display behind closed doors to his players. However, post-match media comments which strike the right tone and chime with fans’ frustrations help make it clear that the manager knows what he wants from his side and how to get it.
It’s difficult to see how we improve as a team, short of changing the manager. For Hunt’s sake as much as the club’s, I’d rather that happens sooner, lest the situation get toxic (besides in-game boos there were others at full-time too). Right now Reading are on a road to nowhere.
