Harry’s take as, after a Good Friday, the Royals endured a not-so-Good Monday.
It’s important to understand that games away to promotion-chasing teams, particularly those as good as Bolton Wanderers, aren’t the ones that will define the season of a relegation-fighting Reading.
Of course they can - you only need to go back to Easter weekend two years ago to see that - but they seldom actually do.
And let’s be honest, Bolton were better than us in pretty much every aspect today - as you would expect. But equally, it’s always frustrating to lose a game 5-2 when you’ve practically handed four of those goals to them on a silver platter.
The hosts’ first looked like, from our view up in the gods of the Toughsheet Community Stadium, an absolute pearler. But every goal from then on could’ve been avoided.
A braindead challenge from Amadou Mbengue - who had been superb up until that point - gave away the penalty. Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan gave away the ball inexcusably cheaply for their third. We decided to play pinball in our own box for their fourth. And Jon Dadi Bodvarsson hasn’t had a nicer gift than his second and Bolton’s fifth since his Lindor Easter Egg yesterday.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we would’ve won if we hadn’t given those goals away. Bolton were a lot better than us. But it still rankles a bit, doesn’t it?
Up until the penalty we were in the game, mainly due to some brilliant last-ditch defending from Tyler Bindon and Mbengue. But you never want to have to be last-ditch defending.
We were far too open in midfield all day, and made far too many mistakes defensively to not get punished by a team as good as Bolton.
Going forward we had a couple of 10-to-15-minute spells that would fall under the dictionary definition of ‘‘giving it a go", but not much else more than that.
Of course, the first of those spells saw Lewis Wing do another really good Lewis Wing Thing. His strike, having watched a replay, took a hefty deflection, but I’m going to ignore that for the sake of narrative. If we had nothing else today, at least we had another worldie from him. He really is that guy, isn’t he?
In the second of those spells, once we found ourselves 3-1 down, both Femi Azeez and Clinton Mola stung the palms of the 'keeper, and Sam Smith missed a golden chance before Jayden Wareham nodded home the rebound - but from an offside position.
So, on another day, if we’d made the most of the small chances we had and showed a degree of competency defensively, we could’ve got a result. But shoulda, woulda, couldas get you nothing in this industry unfortunately.
What I will say though, and I don’t want to be too pessimistic, but that last 10 minutes or so, when we really fell about, was a bit too reminiscent of Reading teams gone by for my liking.
This team has proven they’re made of sterner stuff than their predecessors - and even themselves mere months ago - in recent weeks. Let’s hope old habits don’t die hard, and they manage to bounce back quick from this.
It’s that time of the season when the age-old cliche ‘[insert number of games remaining] cup finals left’ gets banded about, but it’s a cliche for a reason. Luckily, the teams below us didn’t punish us this afternoon, but we need to make sure we do our job in the games remaining.
