Sheffield United took all three points with a 1-0 win in a physical encounter at the
Madejski Stadium yesterday. This hugely disappointing result almost certainly means the
Royals will have to gain promotion the hard way through the play-offs. Although Reading hardly deserved to lose, once again they created only a couple of real chances during the entire 90 minutes. The
Blades didn't do much more, but took the one decent chance they had.
Brian Howard followed up
Killgallon's header which came back off the bar, with our players seemingly frozen in their tracks. Ironically
Dave Kitson had seen his own header, from a
Jimmy Kebe cross, skim the bar just seconds earlier. Prior to that we had looked positive and played some tidy stuff coming out after the break, but were undone by another fairly soft goal. The first half had been notable only for the mid-air collision between former Royal
Darius Henderson and
Kalifa Cisse which forced the Reading midfielder to leave the field on a stretcher.
Jay Tabb replaced him and did a pretty good job: tenacious in the tackle and looking to go forward at all times - thank God
Jim Harper wasn't on the bench! With the Royals chasing the game after Howard's goal they lacked cohesion and looked (as
Steve Coppell put it) 'panicky'. Dave
Kitson saw his fine strike saved acrobatically by Paddy Kenny but other than that we made little impression.
Glen Little and
Noel Hunt were thrown into the fray to no avail and the game was effectively up long before the referee blew after 6 minutes of injury time.
So that's it then. We would need to win all of our remaining five matches to stand any chance of a top two finish, and even in the wild imaginings of the most optimistic Reading fan that is not achievable. Our main concern now should be securing the three or four points we most likely need to secure a play-off berth. At least we have a seven point cushion over 7th place! The harsh reality is that we are probably going to go into the play-offs on the back of a shocking run of form. Who wouldn't want to play us? We simply don't do big one-off games even when we're playing well! We live in faint hope.
This team will keep going and Coppell will do his best, but clearly we have run out of ideas and fresh impetus is overdue. Some established players have failed to deliver. But there are encouraging signs: Julian Kelly is coming on leaps and bounds; Alex Pearce has really established himself; Jay Tabb looks like a good signing; Federici looks like he'll be a solid first choice in goal before too long. These players will surely be part of a good Reading team of the future. The truth is that team needs to be managed by somebody bringing in a few new players and some fresh ideas.
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