I’ve found myself using the word ‘mixed bag’ a fair bit when talking about Reading’s performances this season. We’re typically not starkly brilliant (obviously) or particularly awful throughout games, and it’s not even really that we’re consistently bang in the middle – rather, most weeks we see a concoction of good, bad, encouraging and frustrating.
It’s just so… random.
Today’s trip to Barnsley, a frustrating 3-2 defeat, was the best example yet of the Royals’ erratic nature. I can’t bring myself
to come down too positive or too negative about the performance itself in my post-match assessment. Really, it’s easier to just list things I saw:
• A terrible start (a lot like the horror show at Bolton Wanderers a few weeks back). Reading were all over the place, their press cut through, and the hosts could have added a few to the one goal they managed in that spell, Josh Earl nodding home a corner
• An equaliser out of nothing, albeit very well taken by Jack Marriott. Lewis Wing’s long ball into the channel drew out the ‘keeper, Marriott seized the ball and lofted it into the net from a fairly narrow angle, way out on the left wing
• A re-energised Reading later in the first half and at the start of the second
• Five minutes of defensive collapse to go 3-1 down: a header from close range (David Keilor-Dunn) and an Adam Phillips penalty
• Another really nicely taken goal by Daniel Kyerewaa that should have been the start of a convincing fightback
• That fightback fizzling out
Reading were bad going forwards apart from when they weren’t, bad defensively apart from when they weren’t, spirited in how they responded to conceding apart from when they weren’t… yeah, this match was too contradictory to be simply defined.
Reading (4-3-3): Pereira; Ahmed, Burns, Williams, Jacob; Elliott, Wing, Savage; Lane, Marriott, Kyerewaa
Subs: Stevens, Dorsett, Fraser, Garcia, Doyle, Camara, Ehibhatiomhan
I’m struggling to properly, coherently process how I feel about this game, and to be honest I’m working my thoughts out in real time as I write this match report. Sometimes it’s helpful to just vent a bit and see if anything intelligible comes forth.
Such a smorgasbord nature of performance says so much in itself. Even if inconsistency means you’re not thoroughly bad, it’s still inconsistency when the onus is on you to be, well, as consistently good as you can be. It’s still not good enough.
And at the end of the day, Reading weren’t good enough. There can be no complaints about the result when the Royals start as slowly as they did today, are this easy to score against (header from a corner x1, header from open play x1, penalty x1), and commit what is for me the cardinal sin of football: not making the opposition work hard enough for the points.
I can take losing, I can take problematic performances, but letting the game fizzle out late on when you’re only a goal behind – and you have good players on the pitch – isn’t good enough.
That would have felt more forgivable before the international break. In the opening nine games of the season (all competitions), Noel Hunt had the excuse of a lack of time with these players together, a dearth of pre-season preparation due to how long the Royals’ summer transfer activity had taken.
However, a fortnight on the training ground hasn’t yielded the substantial improvements in performance that were badly needed. The same defensive and attacking deficiencies from earlier in the season were still apparent.
And when Reading did get things right today – improving to a degree in both halves – I couldn’t help but feel the driver for those spurts tends to be based on an injection of morale (for example an equaliser out of nothing) rather than anything tactical. The Royals can up their game by adding urgency and intensity, but there’s still little that’s identifiable or repeatable about how we’re trying to hurt the opposition.
I really don’t want to be in the Hunt Out camp this early on in the season, but:
- While the whole set of performances have been far from universally terrible, overall it’s not been good enough
- I’m struggling to find specific things about Hunt’s management to give myself encouragement that he’s the man for the job
- I can’t get away from the feeling that a tactically adept manager would have a lot of fun with this group of players. It’s not
So while I really hope I look back on this take as being too harsh, after Hunt’s turned things around (and he did pleasantly surprise me last season), it’s time for a change.
