Being a Reading fan recently has felt an awful lot like trekking through a desert. It’s been an interminable, exhausting and frustrating wait for a takeover, barren of any real proper progress in what feels like forever, with the whole process slowly driving us all mad.
But the opportunity to watch this team play is an oasis in that desert. It’s the delightful, refreshing experience that puts all that suffering to the back of your mind, that provides solace just when you need it the most. The experience which reassures you that, for all you’ve been through, everything’s probably going to turn out OK in the end.
Despite the infuriating delays to this takeover, which has been due to happen “any day now” seemingly since the band Oasis was first formed, this team can put all that to one side and play some damn-good football. We’ve seen the mental resilience and quality of this team plenty of times before of course, but seeing them shine through - as they did today against Charlton Athletic - never gets old.
This Addicks side was supposed to be the biggest test so far. The visitors came into this fixture on the back of not only three wins, but three clean sheets too, having seen off Wigan Athletic 1-0, Leyton Orient 1-0 and Bolton Wanderers 2-0. They had good reason to be confident.
But if Reading ran into a brick wall last weekend at Wrexham, Charlton did the same today. The Royals didn’t get everything their way today, having to show more patience in the final third and solidity in defence than we’d have liked, but they were still more than deserving of all three points.
Ruben Selles made no changes to the team that lost 3-0 at Wrexham, unable to include new signing Chem Campbell who didn’t join in time, signing from Wolverhampton Wanderers on loan late yesterday. That meant Reading set up like this:
Reading (4-3-3): Pereira; Craig, Mbengue, Bindon, Dorsett; Elliott, Wing, Savage; Akande, Smith, Ehibhatiomhan
Subs: Boyce-Clarke, Dean, Abrefa, Garcia, Rushesha, Tuma, Wareham
Reading started the game the stronger of the two sides, dominating proceedings for the first quarter of the match, bossing possession and moving the ball around intelligently. As seen at Wrexham last weekend, the Royals looked convincing with the ball, clearly well drilled into patterns of play, but showing plenty of positivity and quality individually too.
Just like at Wrexham though, Reading were struggling to convert that dominance into testing the ‘keeper. The Addicks were organised and stubborn in their third, denying space for both openings in behind and also shooting opportunities around the edge of the box, and you could see how they’d racked up three clean sheets on the bounce before today.
Reading were just as adept defensively however, dealing with whatever the Addicks offered on their few forays into our third in the early stages of the game. Tyler Bindon in particular showed his quality when an Addicks forward looked set to charge through clear on goal, only for the young centre-back to recover and snuff out the danger.
Charlton built their way into the game as the half progressed however and began to quell our early momentum. Although Reading still ended the first 45 as the stronger of the two teams overall, it was actually the visitors who went into the break having created the best chances. The best of them all fell to Luke Berry just before the interval, who drew a top-class save out of Joel Pereira - and not his last of the afternoon.
Perhaps buoyed by that opportunity, the Addicks came out the stronger of the two sides, enjoying the better of the play for the first 15-20 minutes or so of the second 45. Greg Doherty should have put them 1-0 up just before the hour mark, found in space inside the area, only to clear the bar with his effort.
Selles turned to his bench five minutes later, swapping Jeriel Dorsett out for Kelvin Abrefa at left-back. Although Dorsett had gone down before being subbed off, he’d started to struggle defensively anyway, with the visitors getting too much joy down his side. The introduction of Abrefa did fortunately help to plug that gap for the rest of the game.
Reading had struggled to test the ‘keeper in the first half due to a lack of space. Just as at Wrexham, when it came to breaking down a stubborn defence and convincingly opening it up, the Royals didn’t manage it. But when space started to emerge in the second half today, Reading capitalised.
First, Charlie Savage let rip with a thunderous strike into the bottom corner to put Reading 1-0 up. A terrific finish from range, but no surprise from a player who’s done that numerous times before. And then, shortly after, Adrian Akande took full advantage of room on the right wing, bursting forward with the afterburners on and picking Sam Smith out with a perfect cross. Smith supplied the finish to open his account for the season, but that goal was all Akande.
A quick-fire double and, all of a sudden, Reading were in control and had Charlton at arm’s length. With a rocking SCL home crowd behind them, the Royals showed all the composure and game management required to see the match out from there, not convincingly troubled by Charlton. That was with the exception of one late excellent stop from Pereira, who, again, reacted quickly to tip a close-range header over the bar and safeguard Reading’s clean sheet.
The Royals did that with another change at the back. It was an enforced one, at 1-0, with Bindon landing heavily on the touchline and needing to be withdrawn due to concussion. On came Harlee Dean, and he had a solid enough outing at the back to repel Charlton in the closing stages, even forcing a save out of the ‘keeper when he nodded a Lewis Wing free-kick goalwards.
Dean was joined from the bench by Basil Tuma, who got the last three minutes of normal time. The youngster had an opportunity of his own in the dying moments, leading a counter-attack in which seemingly most of the team charged downfield while the visitors scrambled to get back, only for Tuma to get his final ball wrong.
The other big Reading chance of the half to not be converted fell to Akande, at 1-0. The winger did really well to steal the ball off the ‘keeper and almost get through, only to be denied by an excellent last-ditch challenge - which looked in real time to have been a penalty.
Still, a 2-0 win, an excellent result which we’d all have been delighted with before the game. It means Reading go into the international break in eighth, following two wins, one draw and one loss, and given the standard of opposition we’ve faced, that’s absolutely a good return.
