COLUMNIST KEN BUCKLEY

From My Seat: Reading (FAC5)

Blues bomb ? Fans Boo

What a night as almost 30,000 pack the old lady ready to be the twelfth man and virtually no players turn up especially Beckford who on a match-day is held up due to a traffic accident yet about 3,000 Reading fans make it well in time for kick off.

As I entered the ground a conversation with a fan re- team selection led him to inform me that Beckford had indeed been selected but could not make the ground in time to be included in the starting line-up due to being held up on the motorway. I thanked him for the information and dismissed it thinking he was suffering from an injury picked up on Saturday. As the nightmare wore on and the game reached a most unsatisfactory conclusion I had a call from a mate who had watched on TV and the story had been confirmed.

Now was that in any way the reason for the display we endured I don?t know but considering we had played Saturday and conceding that the players may have been given Sunday off surely the least we could have expected was the for the players to be in Monday for warm downs and briefings and Tuesday, the day of the game, players being on site and going through some pre-match rituals rather than travelling from wherever and encountering what many of us put up with on a daily basis. If this is the level of professionalism which is prevalent at our club then no wonder we have blown hot and cold all season.

Match report? Oh yes we dominated for some 25 mins without creating a worthwhile effort on goal except for the woeful Coleman to head into the ground and over the bar from a delicious cross from the industrious Osman. On the 26th min the veteran Harte delivered a corner which was headed goalwards by the impressive centre-back Mills toward goal only for Osman to clear right back to him and he made no mistake.

Reading one up and something to hold onto left me wondering if we could recover the Wembley dream considering our lack of cutting edge. Just a few moments later Reading could and maybe should have sealed it when Distin joined the out of form group and let in Kebe by way of a miss-control but our keeper Howard denied him by rushing out to make the angle impossible.

H/T and a few boos for the team as it left the field and the faithful left in the doldrums.

The second half saw two changes from the off with Anichebe and the late arrival Beckford replace the totally woeful Coleman and Bilyaletdinov. They were to prove equally woeful. I suppose you could say that we upped it but with little or no craft we fell victim to little more than a well organised Reading team who mopped up anything we produced which was not a lot.

The half went on in that vein and although our players put in effort it left Reading believing that the Championship is a far harder league than the Premiership as they swatted us aside.

With just over 10 to go their keeper was really tested for the first time when Baines at last got a quick cross in that was headed out to Osman who caught it sweetly only for the England U21 keeper to make a stunning save. A little later it proved that it was indeed not our night when from a corner Saha hooked a shot at goal that was going in until blocked on the line would you believe by the late man Beckford.

We had 5 mins of extra time and the lethargic way we used that time was not well appreciated by the faithful. Arteta who seemed more desperate than assured as the game went on had a foray blocked by the outstanding centre back Mills at the death.

Final whistle and the nearest I have seen to a protest all season was the boo-ing that greeted it. You could say it was just the total frustration of fans but the fact that it came from all sides of the ground ruled out just the ever-present disgruntled few but more of a wakeup call to the club from root and branch.

My night got worse when what I regard as well informed people, although I admit they have been wrong before, told me Fellaini is out for the season and Cahill is 4 to 6 weeks away. I fervently hope that is ?duff gen? but if true and considering what a massive miss they were to our team tonight we are in for a roller-coaster run in.
M.O.tM - Yer ?avin a laugh.

Some blame Chairman and board, some blame the manager and some the players but tonight I think we may blame them all and with some justification considering the fiasco. Just think we beat Chelsea on their patch and tonight Championship Reading beat us on our patch whilst Chelsea were beating Man U. What a crazy world it is in today?s mega rich cathedral of gun toting, car crashing fore-arm smashing players who are idolised by their own faithful and yes we will digest all this and then turn up at Newcastle Saturday and Goodison a week Wednesday and feed them with our undying support. How about at least a bit of payback before they, the players themselves, kill the golden goose that lets them think they live in a parallel universe where it is all them. No fans=No TV=No money and a welcome back to the real world. Is that what they want?

A defeat I can take and move on but tonight?s display and the most unprofessional shenanigans of players not even required to be together pre-match is hard to take at this time. The balance sheet may not be great but that is no excuse for what takes place on the pitch. I can understand the club not being too concerned with rants on phone-ins and web-sites but hell I hope they took note of the criticism from all sides of their own ground.

Still ever hopeful

UP THE BLUES

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