Reading V. Man City 9/11/06 Pre-Match Chatter [r]

[T_Rock]

8 min remain and Reading must hold on against 10 men

[Americanfootballer]

Hanhman (spelled it wrong) needs to work on his goal kicks..

[Pablo Chicago]

4 min of stoppage time

[Pablo Chicago]

Doyle's dribbler cleared off the line in the final seconds. Hahnemann gets a clean sheet and the Royals get their 2nd win at home.

[T_Rock]

3 points!!

[Americanfootballer]

2:0 would of been a better victory, all he had to do is pass it to the guy to his right :)

[Native Aztexan]

Man City is having a domestic problem

That's an understatement right there. First Ben Thatcher and now crybaby Richards. Unbelieveable!

Great win by Reading. Convey & Sonko did well in the game.

And yes, Hahnemann really needs to work on his goal kicks. :)

[mschofield]

Well done, boys. Good win over City. Royals just need some more creativity out of midfield and some more attention to possession when in the middle third and they should survive this season in the top flight.
Stay up? we're challenging for a Euro spot!;)

[Springbok FC]

Originally Posted by Springbok FC
Well done, boys. Good win over City. Royals just need some more creativity out of midfield and some more attention to possession when in the middle third and they should survive this season in the top flight.
Stay up? we're challenging for a Euro spot!

I'd love to see that! Cheers.

[prvev]

Didn't get to see the game yet unfortunately, hopefully will be able to see the replay tonight. I'm obviously very happy with the result. Reading the commentary on soccernet, it seems Reading could have had a few more. But 1-0 surely is fine.

[mdale10]

Stay up? we're challenging for a Euro spot!;)
Heck yeah!! that would be awesome!:)

[peteo]

Anyone have a link to the goal? :)

[The Old Lady Hertha]

Disappointed with Seol though :o

[prvev]

Disappointed with Seol though :o

I think he was just tired from the Asia Cup qualifiers. He'll be better Saturday against Sheffield.

[Koreano]

Yeah, he's still probably jet lagged, and he played 180 minutes for Korea :(

Nevertheless, Great win for Reading.

[RichardL]

In the 18th century the Marquis de Sade’s devoted his life to seeking out nefarious sexual practices, and he would no doubt have taken illicitly exquisite pleasure from this absinthe induced vision of a match. Not one for the faint-hearted, it was the kind of game which was pleasurably painful, with the satisfaction enhanced by the agonies of what went before.

While the learning curve Reading are experiencing has a steepness that looks Himalayan at times, they be pleased to come away with three points from a very different kind of challenge than offered by Middlesbrough on the opening day. Whereas Middlesbrough demonstrated how much quicker you have to think and created an open game, City came to snuff out Reading and stamp their authority on the game. With an approach more cynical than a surly teenager, and at times producing tackles of an ugliness rarely seen outside of episodes of Prisoner Cell Block H, this game was a welcome to the “professional” side of the Premiership.

Reading started brightly enough, taking just 12 seconds to fashion the games opening chance. Had Lita connected with the same accuracy that he managed with a headbutt in a Bristol nightclub last week, then Reading would have taken a very early lead indeed. As it was that was to be almost his last meaningful contribution, as he was shackled by the city defence as effectively as he was by the Avon & Somerset constabulary.

Very soon after, the pattern of the game was established. City having a lot of the ball and moving it around nicely in the middle, but finding it nigh on impossible to get behind the Reading defence, and Reading playing almost on the break, and looking to have a few more ideas, but finding themselves shut down faster than an adult video shop in Utah. Convey and Seol, who both impressed against Middlesbrough, were finding it harder to get the ball, and also harder to do anything with it. With no Kitson to hold the ball up in the middle, it was a little too easy to frustrate Reading’s attacks. Less easy to deal with were set pieces, which provided Reading’s best chances in the first half. One resulted in a goal. After another attack down the wing had been stopped in its tracks by a foul, a fine inswinging free kick from Convey met the head of Ingimarsson who headed powerfully into the far corner. Seol should probably have made it 2-0 from another set piece, this time heading just over, while Ingimarsson, whose bang on the head when scoring seemed to make him forget he should shoot like a defender, nearly added another – only to see a fine effort tipped over.

At the other end City were having a mediocre mixed bag of chances, all of which seemed to be poorly executed, or were lured by hypnotic trance into Hahnemann’s magnetic gloves. City also started to pick up a few bookings and started to have the look of a side who wouldn’t finish with 11 men. They should have had another booked when a defender deliberately feigned serious injury after falling in the box in an effort to stop a half-cleared attack from being able to return, only to leap to his feet as if jerked by puppeteer’s strings the moment the whistle was blown. City boss Stuart Pearce may come across as the sort of competitor who’d slide tackle his own daughter to stop her scoring in a back garden kick-about, but actions like that were never his style.

This was never a game that would be won by pretty football, even if either team was allowed to play it. While Reading won many plaudits for open attacking football last season, it was the games where they really had to dig in against a strong battling side that allowed them to keep the points ticking over. Whether it was tactical or forced upon them, in the second half winning the ball almost became more of the goal that doing something with it. Sometimes it’s the unwelcome work that gets things done, and like a vet faced with a cow’s colonic obstruction, Reading rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in, getting down to the dirty business of getting the grip on the game.

Again City’s extra half second of quickness of thought gave them the edge in midfield, and although they again enjoyed more possession, an equaliser only looked likely in the way of the nagging pessimistic voice that tells you they are bound to get one right sooner or later. Their two best chances involved a move setting up a chance in the yawning whole that sits about 10 yards in front of the Reading back four, and a snap shot which torpedoed towards the far corner, before Hahnemann deflected it to safer waters.

If Hahnemann’s gloves were having a fine time, his boots seemed to be compensating by having a sense of direction that would embarrass Mark Thatcher, regularly finding the blue running track, rather than the 75 yard green area he was surely aiming for. The decision to aim for the wingers rather than the front men, no doubt prompted by the City defence having more joy in the air against Doyle and Lita than an annual meeting of the mile high club, no doubt played a part in this. For once Reading didn’t sub both wingers for their understudies. Convey slowly started to cause more problems to City’s tiring backline, whie Seol, who improved, if not quite to his opening day level, was replaced with the more combative Gunnarsson.

With Dabo sent off 10 minutes from the end, and City already stretched pushing men forward, there was an opportunity to kill the game off that Reading really ought to have exploited more than a pimp with an 18 year old runaway. For those not listening to that pessimistic voice, Reading looked the most likely scorers towards the end. The very best chance came in the fourth minute of stoppage time, with Doyle going round the keeper, but not hitting his shot strong enough to send the 2500 from Manchester home 30 seconds early, in what was Reading’s biggest ever crowd at the Madejski stadium.

The blocked shot meant a corner though, and the ecstatic crowd knew that would surely eat up any remaining seconds. The final few minutes might have been agony, but I’m sure the Marquis would have enjoyed that satisfying climax.

[Pablo Chicago]

Thanks for the recap...and the ummm...sexually frustrated analogy. :o

[T_Rock]

Wow, RichardL. Are we going to get that kind of recap after every game? Talk about insightful, and extremely...different, commentary.

[spatters53]

Richard's Post-Match Commentary = Brilliant! Best read on BS. Thanks!