What can we learn from Noel Hunt’s first game back in charge at Reading?
The Noel Hunt era has officially begun. It’s been a while since we last had a change of manager, and the game back then wasn’t all that different to Saturday’s. We also faced the league leaders - Burnley - and held out to get a commendable draw full of determination and pride for our club. You can read my analysis of that Burnley match here.
If you can’t be bothered to do that, then the essence of the matter was that Hunty moved us from Paul Ince’s backwards and ultra-defensive back five to a four, which didn’t compromise us defensively in the slightest, yet the main change was turning the tide from a team on a one-way trip to relegation town to one with a little more passion for the game. Of course, we still went down, but it was rather the impossible job anyway.
While the Burnley and Wycombe Wanderers games were similar, the circumstances certainly weren’t, and Hunt now has the mere task of continuing our upwards trajectory into the playoffs. A point away from home at the side top of the league is a great first step towards that, so let’s have a look at what changes Hunt might have made in the limited time he had with the team before the game.
Last Saturday in build-up, Reading greatly favoured going down the right-hand side. Right-sided centre-back Amadou Mbengue received 23 passes from goalkeeper Joel Pereira, compared to just six to Tyler Bindon. We also have a midfielder at right-back, who’s far more comfortable and able on the ball than Jeriel Dorsett on the opposite side.
Our effective build-up play can be demonstrated by the below pass map and average positions graphic.
Right-winger Chem Campbell can also be seen here much deeper and a little more central than his counterpart on the left, which helped us gain that numerical advantage in build-up.
In my opinion Campbell is a very effective hold-up player too in terms of receiving the ball in a tight spot and working others into the game, and he exercised this brilliantly against Wycombe.
Ben Elliott is also an amazing dribbler and good under pressure. The home side were forced into seven fouls down our right-hand side because of these two, giving us a great outlet to get set-pieces in too.
What we did countless times against Wycombe was that, when Mbengue was on the ball, we had Elliott come short and Craig push higher. An example of this from shortly after the opening goal is shown below.
Wycombe were definitely not what you’d call an ultra-high-pressing team, therefore our centre-backs were allowed some decent time on the ball. However, Craig’s movement was still very important in dragging Fred Onyedinma away from Mbengue.
In turn, Elliott drops in to offer a bounce pass to the man on the ball, while simultaneously forcing Tyreeq Bakinson to follow him, opening up more space for a long ball, which is what is eventually done.
This long ball from Mbengue into the forward line was used an awful lot. He made 18 passes into the final third on Saturday, by far and away the most of any player on the pitch. The big gaps between Wycombe’s defence and midfield were exploited again in the build-up to Reading’s equaliser.
From an almost identical position to the first example, the ball is pinged forward into the channel where Sam Smith and Harvey Knibbs eagerly await its arrival, as shown here. Apologies for the blurriness of the picture, it’s rather hard to capture a clear image when so many players are running!
The positioning of the two sides’ midfielders means there’s no one there to cut out the relatively lowly lofted ball through, and some calamitous defending helps it on its way to Smith, whose shot is parried straight to Knibbs for a tap-in. I’m also a massive fan of the goalscorer shushing the home support, as seems almost customary now with each of the many goals he bags.
It’s interesting to see how the two centre-backs were used differently too. I’d say both are equally good on the ball, but the nature of our system leaves us with two right-footed starting centre-halves, therefore Bindon can’t take the ball onto his outside foot and deliver long balls on his left foot as well as Mbengue can on the other side.
Mbengue’s pass map here shows this, with loads of diagonal balls into forward areas and down the line, with not so many sideways and backwards ones in comparison.
When on the ball, Bindon would instead look to drive forward with it at his feet to pull the team upfield, and if the Wycombe press got too much, he would then knock it back to Pereira to reset possession, or sideways to his more ball-playing partner in the centre of defence.
Like here, for example. The Kiwi has nothing on, so passes backwards to Pereira, who can find Mbengue in loads of space, and the same cycle happens where we get at Wycombe with a long diagonal ball. Time and time again it happened, and time and time again it worked.
It was especially effective against the home side’s single-striker formation with Daniel Udoh up top, who never looked much like he wanted to win the ball back, both shown through the eye test and his zero defensive actions throughout the 90 minutes, which appears poor in comparison to, say, Smith’s six.
A hard-working team that represents the unrelenting efforts of the fans is all we can ask for from Hunt’s side, and that’s what was delivered. Some really nice ideas in build-up from Reading, that press never left us, and neither did the solid-as-a-rock defence.
I’m very hopeful for our future provided players are retained in January, and should we keep playing like this, a playoff push is more than on the cards. Onto Blackpool this weekend.
