Harry’s take as Reading fall to a bruising defeat in Wales.
I spent most of the second half trying think of an intriguing and catchy title for this report, before my dad turned to me a few minutes before full-time, huffed and said: ‘‘It’s just one of those days."
It summed up this afternoon pretty well in my opinion, so here comes my stab at Break Stuff (Reading FC Remix).
It was one of those days when nothing went for us, the final touch of quality just wasn’t there, and we got punished for every mistake we made defensively.
As much as a 3-0 defeat looks poor on paper, and the players still gave the fans enough ammunition to get some deserved stick throughout the game, I don’t think it was that bad.
All that was missing from the first-half performance from an attacking point of view was a goal or two. Even though we didn’t register a shot on target in the game, that doesn’t mean we didn’t look dangerous going forward.
We worked some really nice openings in the first 45, where all we needed was that clinical touch to finish the move off. Numerous times we found ourselves in goal-scoring or chance-creating areas, only to take one too many touches - the seeming refusal, or lack of confidence, to pull the trigger and have a go was the biggest frustration for me.
Defensively, both of Wrexham’s first-half goals came from their right-hand side. The first was far too easy for Ollie Palmer to climb above Amadou Mbengue and nod home, the second, in fairness, a really well worked move by the hosts.
If we’d have gone into the break 2-0 up rather than down we’d have deserved it. However, if you don’t take your chances, and then give up chances like we did, then you also deserve to get punished.
It was enough of an uphill task as it was at half-time, but the game was well and truly done and dusted a matter of minutes into the second.
Wrexham’s Cannon found the bottom corner with aplomb to put the game to bed. The midfielder found a loose ball after Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan seemed to have been fouled (more on the ref in a little bit) but despatched it really nicely. I have to say all of Wrexham's midfield three were really good today.
From then on it was really difficult to get back into it, and as we all know we don’t have the firepower, options or even depth off the bench that can help turn a game around.
Tivonge Rushesha hitting the bar from just inside the box was both the closest we came to grabbing a consolation and a moment that completely summed up our performance.
Now, the referee. I have to mention it as, I haven’t looked, but I’m sure there’ll be a lot of criticism doing the rounds for the officials from the Loyal Royals.
I’ve just put in my tin foil hat on, but I don’t think he got as many things wrong as my fellow 1,,300 or so Reading fans. Apart from Tyler Bindon being mistaken for an All Black from an Mbengue throw and being rugby tackled the floor, I don’t think any of the other penalty appeals were that strong at all.
The proverbial last straw for the fans was the aforementioned collision Ehibhatiomhan had before Wrexham’s third. What I'll say is that it was telling Lewis Wing decided to vent his clear anger towards his team mate rather than the man in the middle.
That's not to say the ref was good - we all know the officiating in this division is poor. And while the home crowd seemed to enjoy it this afternoon, if there are any Red Dragons fans reading, trust me when I say you’ll have more than your fair share of god-awful decisions this season. What goes around comes around and all that.
But the referee isn’t the reason we lost today. There are a lot of reasons why we did. No ruthlessness in the final third, one too many mistakes defensively and a lack of squad depth which was brutally exposed when we needed to get back into a game like we did today - all key factors.
But we’ll play worse than we did today and win games this season - I have no doubt about that. It wasn’t a god-awful performance where 3-0 flattered us. Not taking our chances and Wrexham taking theirs is pretty much the long and short of it.
With a week to go of the transfer window, we need to seriously strengthen if we’re to be looking towards the top end of the table. The foundations and potential is there, we just need to be able to recruit to fulfil it.
