WHILE things might not be going right on the pitch, there is some reason for cheer for Reading FC fans as we present our brand new weekly column, exclusive to The Wokingham Paper.
Each week, Simeon Pickup, journalist, lifelong Royals fan and editor of leading Reading fansite The Tilehurst End will delve into what has gone on at the club over the past seven days to give a view from the supporter base.
PODCAST: Tilehurst End Podcast Extra with Tom Crocker and Olly Allen
Reading’s shrewd defence should give The Royals hope
By Simeon Pickup –
Reading may be doing particularly poorly at the moment in the league, but in some ways they’re not behaving how a standard poor side should.
Of course, they’re nowhere near as creative as they should be, and regularly fail to properly trouble opposition goalkeepers. The Royals haven’t scored more than one goal in a league game since December 11 – and have drawn a blank on five of the subsequent seven occasions.
That is nowhere near good enough, and accounts for why we’ve plummeted from 14th to 18th in the last five weeks.
However, the defence tells a very different story.
In that same period quoted above (December 11 to present), Reading have only conceded 10 league goals – that may not be a prudent ‘goals against’ column, but equally it’s hardly the sign of a team in crisis.
Saturday’s game against Brentford was a good example of that – although Jaap Stam’s men conceded plenty of chances against the second highest scorers outside the top six, in the end only one goal went in.
Because of that, what was on the whole a poor performance could still have turned out as a win, especially if substitute Yann Kermorgant’s late effort hadn’t been cleared off the line by reported transfer target Yoann Barbet.
It was a similar story at Hull City recently where Reading kept a clean sheet against the highest scorers in the bottom half of the division by some way. That display was, like that against Brentford, an underwhelming performance, but could so easily have been a morale-boosting 1-0 win had Liam Moore’s far post shot snuck in.
All of this may seem like clutching at straws at a time when not much is going right for the Royals, but competent defending gives the team a way out of trouble. They’re not being blown away by any opposition – in fact, they’re yet to concede more than two goals in any match this season – which means they’re staying in games and are giving themselves a chance of picking up points.
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Simeon can be found on Twitter @BucksRoyal and his website’s account is @TheTilehurstEnd.
