For Those Who Could not Attend

Visitors - Reading
Referee. Keith Stroud
Crowd. 25,982
Weather/Conditions. Dry, cool and calm. Perfect for football

Team. Carson, Wisdom, Keogh, Davis, Forsyth
Johnson, Huddlestone, Lawrence
Nugent, Russell. Winnall

Subs. Mitchell, Olsson, Thorne, Pearce, Baird, Weimann etc.


The banana skin that I had feared was well and truly there. And it was a big one though it should have been foreseen and prepared for. Derby started with almost complete lack of interest, energy and effort whilst Reading knew exactly how to perform and looked as if they knew they could win. After 7 minutes Keogh was injured and was taken off. Reading then went in front from a completely careless free kick from the RB position. It was taken straight onto a Reading near post head, then into the middle and from an instant reaction - a goal which not even Carson could stop. Reading were always first to the ball, passed quickly and accurately, controlled it quickly and the next pass executed just as perfectly. Jaap Stam was ecstatic. Let us hope it is not a serious injury to Keogh. It looked like a thigh strain. Pearce played well enough but Keogh's presence was certainly missed. The next goal came from a shot by Moore and Stam was even more animated whilst in the meantime Derby were looking not quite there. There was nothing any of our players did that was good or clever or that threatened the Reading goal. Our first attempt on target was during the 4 minutes of half-time injury added play.

From the start of the second half Derby responded to the GR hairdryer treatment and they came out much more positively. With the sort of luck they have recently enjoyed they could easily have equalised but nothing went right. Rather something else went terribly wrong. Curtis Davis made a pass-back to Carson without looking and straight into the path of Beerens Carson had no chance with this one either.

But Derby were still playing with definite intent. Working harder and showing some good skills but still things refused to go right even to the point where Johnny Russell scored a well worked goal to give a moment of faint hope that we might capitalise on the 7 minutes of added time. Alas! it was not to be. Reading wasted much time and also defended well. We were well and truly beaten and could have no complaints. It was good to see Martin get on the score sheet. GR needs to think again.

I have tried to refrain from naming names but Forsyth had a bad one and none of his crosses was anywhere near dangerous. Lawrence went close a few times but I always felt it was his own fault of they didn’t cross the goal line. Russell put in a hell of an effort but it was simply one of those games where nothing came off, The anthesis of the Hull City game.

My MOTM was Wisdom but it was hard to find one and he was behind quite a few Reading players.