View from the South – Reading v Birmingham City

Reading is one of the closest venues to me as it is but a short train trip from Blackwater, my local station. I therefore had the luxury of starting out at a civilised hour and was in The Three Guineas by 12.00 with a pint while I awaited the arrival of my youngest son, Ben who was coming in from Oxford. An old acquaintance, Andy came up and said hello while I was waiting and we had a chat about Blues recent form which has been indifferent to say the least over the last ten games. Like many, he was hoping to see one or two youngsters from our under 21s blooded into the last few games of the season now that our playoff hopes are finally extinguished. We reminisced about the game at Fulham when we ripped the Londoners apart but of course other teams have grown cute to how we play and the consistency of our players making the insertion of unknown quantities like Charlee Adams appealing to give the opposition a thing or two to think about. It remained to be seen. Two other fans that I had met before also said hello, namely Redmond Mackenzie and Rhys Whitehouse; I promised to given them a mention; hope you enjoyed the game guys.

Ben duly arrived and we enjoyed a bit of father and son bonding over a pint or two and made our way to the bus to the Madjeski stadium to meet up with Will whose ticket I was in possession of. He had come by car with a mate who was a Reading fan and had been forced to drink elsewhere! Wrung in my view; just plain wrung! 😀 There was a stall selling pulled pork baps and fortified with one we made our way into the ground. Our seats were quite high up in the stand behind the goal and the match had just kicked off as we got in. We got to our seats and just as I turned towards the pitch it was just in time to see Clayton Donaldson head powerfully past Al-Habsi at the far end. There was just about 70 seconds on the clock. I didn’t see the cross from the right from David Cotterill but it allowed Donaldson a free header and Blues were one up. The Royals looked quite subdued which surprised me given that they had run into a little patch of form with an impressive win against the Tricky Trees in midweek and the fact that Reading had not lost at home this calendar year. I confess that I was a little concerned that the hosts just might have the sort of day when they converted the numerous chances they had been creating of late and given how poor we have been defensively recently I felt we might be in danger of a real pasting. I needn’t have worried. Reading were off the pace for the whole of the first half and Adam Legzdins making his first league start in place of Tomas Kuzczak had very little to do in truth. He dealt competently with most ball that came his way but there was concern when he spilled a header from McShane that trickled towards the line until the keeper retrieved it but he would have been reprieved in any case as there was an offside flag up against the Reading defender.

Otherwise Cox and Piazon both put efforts high and wide when well-placed but it was Blues that looked the more dominant and better side. Gleeson picked up a poor pass from a Reading midfielder and bore down on goal. Sadly he hesitated and was closed down before he could get the shot off. Reading gave the ball away with regularity throughout the first half and Davis should have sent us in 3-0 to the good but his shot was charged down because of one touch too many. In between on 27 minutes, a rasping free kick from Cotterill was parried out by Al-Habsi straight into the path of Ryan Shotton who made no mistake from close in. There were a couple of desperate penalty appeals by the hosts just before half time; neither of them had any merit in my view and just before the break, Stephen Quinn headed wide of the mark from a cross but 2-0 was a fair reflection of the action and Reading can be thankful it wasn’t at least one more.

The second half was a case of game management for Blues and special mention must go to Ryan Shotton who was for me, the man of the match. Compared to the recent performances when he was playing in the right back role, the switch to centre-half alongside Michael Morrison was a transformation. I lost count of the number of times he headed or cleared the ball calmly away as Reading’s attacks became ever more frenetic. His performance added to the goal he scored, made him the stand out player on an afternoon when everybody in the ‘German’ kit played well and restricted the home side to fleeting half chances the best of which was a header by Jake Cooper from a cross from Norwood. He should have done better than bury the chance high into the stand behind the goal. The home supporters were streaming out of the ground long before the end and many will have missed the final chance for their team when Kermorgant powered his header straight at Legzdins; it summed up Reading’s day.

The Good: The performance, the result and being able to spend time with my boy.

The Bad: Reading’s defending in the first half; we caught them on a bad day fortunately for us. 😀

The Ugly: Can’t think of anything to fit this category.

Reading: Ali Al-Habsi 6, Chris Gunter 6 (Garath McCleary 63, 6) Jordan Obita 6, Paul McShane 7, Jake Cooper 6, Simon Quinn 6, Oliver Norwood 6, Lucas Piazon 6 (Matej Vydra 45, 6) Daniel Williams 6, Yann Kermorgant 6, Simon Cox 6 (Ola John 72, 6)

Subs not used: Michael Hector, Deniss Rakels, Jonathan Bond, Andrew Taylor.

Goals: None

Yellow cards: McShane, Cooper, Kermorgant.

Birmingham City: Adam Legzdins 7, Paul Caddis 7, Ryan Shotton 8, Michael Morrison 7, Jonathan Grounds 7, Mikael Kieftenbeld 7, Stephen Gleeson 7, David Cotterill 7 (Viv Soloman-Otabor 71, 6) David Davis 7, Kyle Lafferty 7 (Jacques Maghoma 71, 6) Clayton Donaldson 7.

Subs not used: Tomas Kuzczak, Jonathan Spector, Diego Fabbrini, Jon Toral, James Vaughan

Goals: Donaldson, Shotton.

Yellow cards: Morrison, Donaldson.

Referee: Nigel Miller 7: Had a good game I felt. They say that if you don’t notice the referee he’s done OK. This was such a case.

Attendance: 18,868

Bazza KRO

Bazza KRO