Around the 75-minute mark this afternoon I was mentally brainstorming headlines for this match report. Mainly as a mental exercise to try and take my mind away from the frostbite developing on my toes,
but it was also a symptom of the game we were all watching.
Simply put, the first three quarters of this afternoon’s game was two teams huffing and puffing, trying their hardest, but without any real conviction or end quality. Therefore, it wasn’t really a great spectacle.
In fact, as we were walking out of the SCL I turned to my girlfriend and said (spoiler alert incoming): “I know it was a bit cold but at least we won,” to which she replied: “Yeah, true, still a shame the first 80 minutes were so boring.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.
That being said, if it had ended 0-0 in the manner it looked like it was destined to, I would have been OK with it – I think. Stockport County are a very good team (I tipped them to go up automatically in the TTE roundtable at the beginning of the season), and an outfit way ahead of us in terms of development, cohesion and familiarity.
It would have been an off-day, a disappointing performance. But if our off-days can become nitty, gritty clean sheets against teams as solid as Stockport then that’s a good sign.
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Yiadom, Burns, O’Connor, Dorsett; Wing, Savage; Ritchie, Doyle, Kyerewaa; Marriott
Subs: Stevens, Ahmed, Stickland, Fraser, R Williams, Camara, Ehibhatiomhan
That doesn’t mean there were no frustrations, of course. We know we are becoming a better team off the ball and organisationally, but for the vast majority of today’s game we again lacked any real cutting edge in possession.
There were bright moments, sure, but as the game went on, if either team was going to go and nab a winner it looked like it would be the visitors. That looked even more the case when Leam Richardson decided to substitute off first Kamari Doyle and then Jack Marriott: two decisions which made me a) pull a more-than-puzzled face and b) conclude the gaffer was more than happy with the point.
I thought Doyle in particular was our best player until he was dragged, and looked like the one attacker who was going to make something happen. And then taking Marriott off was the final nail in the ‘we’re shutting up shop and taking a point’ coffin.
Then came a bizarre final 10 minutes or so when, out of nowhere, the players seemed to decide we were going to try and get all three points. Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan had come off the bench for Marriott and made a real impact, as did Randell Williams (for Matt Ritchie) – and the two combined to feed Lewis Wing, who, to everybody’s surprise, saw his one-on-one effort blocked, before Andy Yiadom’s follow-up was thwarted.
The age-old cliché is that you always get one big chance, one moment to win a tight game, and I think everyone in the SCL felt we’d just squandered it.
But the skipper had other ideas. He had redemption on his mind. A long throw caused chaos, before the ball fell to Wingy in his more natural habitat – i.e. outside of the penalty area – and he… and there’s only one way of putting this… thwacked it into the goal.
Cue bedlam in RG2. Did we deserve it? Probably not. Do we care? Definitely not.
This may be the heat of the moment and adrenaline talking, but that goal feels like a significant moment in our season. A moment that, if we continue this upwards trajectory and play our cards right, we could look back on in May as a pivotal one in our season.
Because if we can become a team whose baseline, or perhaps even below-average, performance is the first 80 minutes, then we know we have the players and stardust in the team who can turn those into wins – as so happened this afternoon. And that’s a very promising situation to be in.
I don’t need to sit here and wax lyrical about Wing. We learnt nothing new about him today. However, Finley Burns was immense and deserves highlighting. He had a rough start to his Reading career, as did so many of his teammates who joined in the summer, but in the last few games – no doubt helped by being alongside Paudie O’Connor – he’s been a completely different player.
Kyle Wootton is a tough striker to face for most defenders in this division, but Burns more than held his own and looked 10 times the centre-back he did earlier this season. If we hammer in when he looks out of his depth, which he has done on a few occasions, we need to praise him when he puts in performances like he did today, and has done in the last few games.
There’s not much more to say other than, although the eventual importance of this win will be dictated by future results and how we build on it, today feels like a real moment. We have an opportunity now to turn what was looking like a disappointing season into something exciting. Let’s see if we can do it.
