FAN’S VIEW 23/24 – NO.23: READING AWAY

It’s been many years since we’ve played the Royals / the Biscuitmen / the Tennis Ball Throwers, call them what you will. 23 years to be precise.

They went one way and ended up in the Premier League. We went the other and ended up in the Conference. And now here we are. Football clubs need good owners. Good owners who have the nous, understanding and wherewithal to bring success in the climate that surrounds the game at the time. There’s obviously a fair bit more to it than that but a club tends to roughly end up where an owner / owners takes them. Managers, coaches, back room staff on the footballing and non-footballing side of things, etc. all have to be recruited and appropriately remunerated. And then obviously there’s the players.

They’re just down the road from us but we’ve never had the rivalry with them that we’ve had with the team in red. In fact ever since Robert Maxwell we’ve had the common Thames Valley Royals that’s never going to happen bond.

As they soared and we plummeted they looked down on us, probably with a tiny bit of disdain but mostly with a couldn’t care less attitude. I’m just guessing at this to be honest. Oxford fans called those who flocked to the Madejski to watch top flight football “plastics”.

To state the bleedin obvious, Reading are in trouble now. They have been ever since Dai Yongge took over. Winding up orders. Unpaid taxes. Financial breaches. They’re now second bottom of the table. Even if they were to get back the four points they’ve been deducted, which they won’t, they would still be fifth from bottom.

So much for the “plastic” thing in 2023. Their average home attendance of 11,975 is the fifth highest in L1. We’re ninth on 8.984. Those fans will be as loyal to their club as we are to ours.

On the pitch I’m taking nothing for granted particularly given our form and shocking list of injuries. Marcus Browne and Kyle Edwards out until the New Year with hamstring problems. Something must be amiss here or is it that we’re one of the unluckiest clubs on the planet? Browne out since August gets 12 minutes of action and is then gone again. Edwards played in September then was out. Twenty five minutes at Cheltenham, then half a game against Bolton. Now gone again. Stephan Negru has now joined them on the lengthy hamstring hampering of progression of the football club. And Greg Leigh comes back from international duty crocked. He’s a huge loss. But hey, it’s not his hamstring. Nor is Sam Long’s ailment. And Ruben Rodrigues is a doubt. Bare bones? Strength in depth? New heroes? Time will tell.

None of this helps Des Buckingham. Injuries alone of course do not explain our nightmare defending at Peterborough on Saturday.

READING 1 OXFORD UNITED 1

I’d precisely planned the time I needed to leave to walk to the bus stop to catch the S5 into Oxford city centre. A minute or two after setting off I don’t know what made me think have I put my ticket for the match in my wallet? Wallet checked. No ticket. Shit. I rushed back home. My understanding wife kindly drove me and the ticket to the bus stop.

With a mate I caught the 15:31 to Reading. Obviously we were far from being the only Oxford fans on the train. After alighting at our destination it was clear many groups had got there before us. Clearly their presence had been planned for as witnessed by the number of police positioned at various points all over the centre.

My immediate objective was a decent pint away from any hassle. I worked in Reading for a few years but, other than a few yards walk to the Three Guineas whilst waiting for a train a few years back, hadn’t set foot around the place for 13 years. I’d been meaning to have a poke around, well the pubs in particular, for some time but had not got round to it. The Good Beer Guide list of Reading pubs is much as it was back then. My absolute favourite of those, the Nag’s Head, is as it was. Once you’ve crossed over the busy Oxford Road the environment is very different to the town centre. The NH is hidden away down Russell Street.  It’s not just the fire that welcomes you in, the long row of hand pumps beckons. It was only 4:45 but there were plenty of locals supping.  3.8% IPA, mild and coffee stout all hit the mark as did a quick half of cider. It’s another pub I would thoroughly recommend if you like that sort of thing.

We’d arranged to meet a few other Oxford fans in there, one of whom has been a local resident since the 80s. It’s only two and a half miles to the ground he said, adding I’m walking it, anyone else?

We left the pub at ten to seven, a brisk pace was set and we were in the Select Car Leasing Stadium in good time for kick off. Such a name wipes away the romance and history of long established football clubs. The Madejski, like the Kassam, is bad enough. Give me the Manor and Elm Park. Those names evoke something much more special and rooted deep into the fabric of the community. Okay, John Madejski is probably seen as one of their own to some extent but I think you’ll get my point. Location has something to do with it too. Elm Park was only about a mile away from the Nags Head.

Times change and we have to move on. Move on out to the outskirts. And there’s no denying Reading FC’s home since 1998 isn’t a bad ground at all. The sight lines are decent and there’s no gaps through which atmosphere can leak. Or is it just that we had the biggest away following for a while with everyone really being up for it? It felt like we were very much part of something.

Knowing that I’m very verbose (I first wrote “Knowing full well that I’m very verbose” but took out the “full well”. That should keep the word count down) immediately after each game I often try and sum up proceedings in a sentence or two. Here it was – better than against Peterborough but nowhere near good enough to be contenders for the top six.

However, having further reflected I’m not convinced that we were much better at all than on Saturday. It’s more like that the Posh are a vastly superior side to Reading. If we played as we did here and it had been the team from Cambridgeshire we’d been facing I could easily envisage the outcome being as it had been three days earlier anyway.

If we can’t beat sides like Reading we don’t deserve success. This wasn’t a one off.

We didn’t start well. We couldn’t keep hold of the ball, our players easily being robbed, on a couple of occasions the home side ran free and our defending was again not convincing.

The final stats say that we did manage to keep the ball more than Reading. We had 61% possession and made 543 passes to their 354. Our passing accuracy was 81% and in their half 66%. Their figures were 68% and 53% respectively.  The opposition though have sussed us out. They know we do nothing much with the ball. They know we create very little so will have little concern when the ball is at the feet of one of our players. Oxford shots 9, one on target. Reading shots 7, four on target.

It’s gone from a few games in me thinking that at last we were the real deal this season to now thinking this is quite like the last few months of Karl Robinson’s regime which were dire.

The first time we went at Reading with pace we nearly got somewhere. Marcus McGuane was the player who broke through the middle. The move ended with Stan Mills claiming a penalty but in real time it didn’t look much. Where was the defender supposed to go?

This though appeared to have got us going. In the 39^th minute following some very good play we scored our first league goal under Des. Elliott Moore anticipated well, cutting out a forward Reading ball and playing it first time to Josh McEachran. To McGuane next then to Mark Harris and back again. This was so much better. It was quicker. Under pressure from two players Harris used his body to protect the ball before getting it wide to Mills. This was good no.9 play. If only we saw more of it. Mills had plenty of time to bring the ball back on to his left foot then whip in a wicked cross which Ciaron Brown, coming just across his marker, headed home giving keeper David Button no hope.

Surely this was the platform for a team that is lacking in form and seemingly self-belief to go on and win the game. It wasn’t as if we were playing at Pompey or Bolton.

But no, four minutes later it was all square again. Oh well, it felt good while it lasted.

Harris, having brought a long ball down very well, then lost it quite easily. Reading didn’t hang about much. From where I was sat there was no way I could tell whether Sam Smith was off side or not. The replay on iFollow is inconclusive but I’d say from the evidence available there was as much chance of him being onside as off. Of course I was mightily pissed off that they’d scored but I was just as angry at how easily we were breached straight down the middle – and at our captain sticking his hand up and jogging instead of busting a gut. Play to the bloody whistle. There’s also the risk of giving a penalty away and being sent off but this was sub-standard from us, again.

It had to be Smith. He didn’t look the business for us when he made five starts and nine appearances as a sub in the first half of the 18/19 season. He’s played nine times for Reading this season and scored four. He took this one well.

Compare and contrast. After three league matches Harris was a goal a game. He’s clocked up another 14 starts and hasn’t scored since.

In the few minutes before the break it could have got worse. Reading were winning the battles and when Femi Azeez ran strongly forward with the ball our defending was about as bad as it gets. Jordan Thorniley actually stepped back and waved Azeez on his way. I don’t want any “after you Claude” types in a team I support. What was just as appalling was that six yellow shirts went towards the ball leaving Harvey Knibbs free. The ball to Knibbs wasn’t quite good enough. If it had been we’d likely have gone behind. Knibbs did though cut it back dangerously and Azeez put it inches wide. Moore was slow. We can’t do with him being out of form.

This is school boy stuff it really is. The players, the manager and coaches are letting us down. Had they learned nothing after Saturday? Had they not had a training session to work on this?

Seriously, sort it out Des. It’s embarrassing. This is nothing to do with give the new manager time.

Perhaps they did get the rollicking at half time they deserved because after the turnaround we were getting stuck in more.

Fin Stevens put in a cruncher to win the ball which fell to Josh McEachran. With his third touch he played the ball over the top for Harris to run in behind. No question about offside for this one. Harris headed it tamely into the arms of the alert Button who had come out to the edge of his area. Could any centre forward have done more? I was hoping for better but perhaps I’ve become blinkered.

Good ball that it was from McEachran I still thought it was the wrong ball. In most games now I observe that we don’t get our heads up to see what’s on and move the ball forward quickly enough when the opportunity is there. We’re blinded to such openings by our obsession with keeping possession. Those opportunities are created by clever and willing players making the runs that scream out for the pass to be played early. Otherwise they end up offside.

McEachran had the option of feeding Josh Murphy, our best and most potent attacking force, first time. He would have been away and the angle of his run meant he could have got on to the ball with his feet not his head. McEachran is more than capable of playing such a pass.

Overall though it is just not good enough.

We did at least look like we really wanted it. Cameron Brannagan ran at the Reading defence and was stopped illegally just on the edge of the box but it was Murphy who so very nearly won it for us at the death. He had the right hand side of the blue and white hooped defence all over the place with his pace. Brannagan had found him with a cross field pass and he came into the penalty area and put his shot a fraction wide.

If that had gone in it would have been ecstasy. It didn’t and it was harsh reality.

We’re 5^th but Derby and Barnsley have a game in hand on us. We’ve scored one goal in four games since our new manager arrived. At times we’re not even doing the basics correctly.

On Saturday we play Burton who on paper are worse than Reading. In the last five games they’ve picked up one point and scored one goal whilst letting in 10.  The teams that have beaten them in this run though are all teams on form; teams near the top: Stevenage, Pompey and Peterborough. The other side who beat them are Northampton who have won four of their last five. We’re not currently accumulating points at anywhere near the rate of these outfits.

That has to change IMMEDIATELY. That’s pressure. Pressure that needn’t have been there.