Royals are off the mark in a hectic start to the campaign
WE’RE only in the second week of August and already Reading have three points to their name in The Championship, they’ve lost a league game, they’ve been knocked out the League Cup, they have an injury crisis and they’re still busy recruiting and offloading players.
Spare a thought for the poor journalists following the club, having to keep up with so much breaking news.
The headline act was the performance against Cardiff.
Like in both the other couple of games this season, Reading conceded in the first 10 minutes, but a superb second-half display, crowned by a Tom Ince wonder-strike, gave Reading a morale boosting win.
Having lost at Blackpool in the
season opener, this was important.
Against Cardiff the sublimely talented Ovie Ejaria pulled his hamstring.
Even incapacitated, he managed to roll past a couple of defenders and play the ball into Ince for the goal.
His skills will be much missed while he is on the sidelines.
Unfortunately he is one of 10 players missing, for one reason or another.
That led to the outfield players having an average age of exactly 20 years old for the EFL Cup first round game on Tuesday night against Stevenage.
When a League 2 side knocks a Championship side out a cup competition you would be forgiven for assuming it was a giant-killing act.
Based on the experience on the pitch, Reading were the minnows and Stevenage were the giants.
It would have been an upset if Reading had won.
Usually there is an outpouring of frustration when managers leave their big players out the team for cup competitions, but no Reading fans were seriously complaining on Tuesday night.
With the squad so thin because of the transfer embargo and injuries it was absolutely the right thing to do.
Survival in the Championship is the only thing that matters this season.
The EFL Cup is fun to compete in, but only if you have a squad big enough.
The players head north to Rotherham this weekend, fresh and fully charged-up to take on one of the Championship’s weaker teams.
There is a good chance come next May we will look back on this game as a six-pointer.
Not many players from Tuesday’s cup exit will be on the pitch at the boldly named New York Stadium.
Two that will be are Nesta Guinness-Walker and Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan.
I only mention these two, so in a rather big-headed way, I can demonstrate an ability to spell their names.
“Kelvin E” gave me a full pronunciation lesson after the game on Tuesday, during which he scored his first senior goal.
Guinness-Walker is the great grandson of Sir Alec Guinness, so I’m hoping for commentary purposes he “picks a pocket or two” in the lead up to a goal.
As luck would have it Sir Alec was in a lot of films commentators can reference, in a desperate attempt to sound cultured and bring colour to otherwise dreary games.
Both Guinness-Walker and Ehibhatiomhan are exciting young players, but they must be giving the person responsible for printing names on the back of shirts a few sleepless nights.