| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Saturday, 12th August (3pm) | Millwall | Away | Lost 0-2 |
Reading goals: None
Gamebreaker: Second Millwall goal
Attendance: Officially 11,043 (officially 1,026 Reading) - both
numbers are clearly fiction.
Reading line-up: Whitehead,
Newman, Robinson, Parkinson, Viveash, Hunter, McIntyre (Smith),
Caskey, Scott (Henderson), Rougier, Hodges (Igoe)
Subs not used: Howie, Polston
Well, not exactly as planned. Given the injury situation, the result was not such a big surprise, but the quality of the performance was well below what I expect to see for the remaining 45 games.
It's easy to second-guess the manager, but as soon as I heard Keith Scott was starting the game, I was worried. Pardew obviously decided he wanted an experienced player up-front and it failed in a bad way. The most obvious illustration of this was that when Henderson replaced Scott near the end of the game, he made more positive contributions in his first two minutes than Scott had managed in the whole of the rest of the match. To be fair, Scott was given no help at all from Hodges or McIntyre, both of whom had a golden opportunity to stake a real claim for a place in the side, and both of whom decided that they couldn't give a toss (or both of whom were injured, I don't know which).
To add to that, Robinson (clearly not properly fit) and Caskey put in well below-par performances. Parkinson was the only midfielder with any sort of ball-winning ability, and the fact that he got booked in his first serious challenge lessened his effect on the game.
With no help at all from the midfield or other forward players Rougier was left ploughing a lonely furrow up front. He did pretty well, all things considered, but never actually threatened the Millwall goal. That leaves the defence, which saw some relatively bright spots. Newman had one of his best games for us, but still wasn't really good enough. Hunter, Viveash and Whitehead had a few dodgy moments, but still looked reasonably secure.
The game started badly, with Millwall clearly looking to go forward right from the start, whilst Reading were content to amble around. It was extremely hot, but obviously that was the same for both sides. In the first few minutes, Millwall had already come close twice (and managed to slip in a really bad foul on Rougier that was punished only by a free-kick) before taking the lead after five minutes. We cleared an attack of theirs out to the right wing - our players assumed it was going out but the Millwall winger chased it and got to the ball first. He put a cross over that was going nowhere, but clipped Robinson who had tried to close it down. That touch meant that the ball went straight to an unmarked Millwall player at the near post who easily headed it home. It was a fortunate goal but it was on the cards.
A little later our entire defence stood on the half-way line and allowed the Millwall centre-forward to head staight for goal on his own. If it had been Nicky Forster it would have been in, but fortunately the Millwall player had only the ability level of Paul Brayson in such situations and played it straight to Whitehead.
Millwall now slowed the game down enormously - you might have thought that being behind we would have tried to do something about this, but instead we just played into their hands. Parkinson was booked for a challenge and then the referee tried to make amends by booking a Millwall player for hacking down Hodges. He was still perfectly happy to let the Millwall players foul Rougier every time that he got the ball, so given that Rougier was our only effective player at this stage, we obviously created absolutely nothing.
In fact the only decent chance we had in the entire first half was a Caskey free-kick just outside the area. He didn't really get hold of it and the keeper made an easy save. At the other end Whitehead had to dive full length to touch a miscued Millwall cross past the post.
Just before half-time there was a brawl involving most of the players. We had the ball and were trying to play it out to the right, but the Millwall player kept kicking Lee Hodges. After about the third kick Hodges went down and then another player kicked him on the floor. By this time, the referee had actually blown for a free-kick to Reading but most of our players had arrived looking for revenge. They didn't get it and the ref's response to all the Millwall kicking was to talk to one Reading player and absolutely no-one else. Pathetic, but entirely consistent with his game so far.
In the second half, Reading launched straight into an attack at the end where the Royals fans were gathered. Right in front of me Rougier collected the ball, worked his way into the area and was caught from behind by a defender. Only a little clip of his heel, but enough for a penalty. As he fell, Rougier hit the ball with his hand, so the referee obviously had to award a free-kick to Millwall for hand-ball.
That was probably our last chance to get back into the match because three minutes later it was 2-0. Millwall worked the ball down the right, put a cross over which wasn't cleared and fell to one of their players who easily swept it home. I thought we might get one back, but there was no way we were going to get two.
Pardew tried to shake things up by bringing Henderson and Smith on for Scott and Parkinson, and this certainly improved matters. For the rest of the game, we had some play in the opposition half and looked as if we might make some chances. We also lost Martin Allen, after he was sent from the bench. Every time during the game that he had come to the touchline to shout instructions (something he's perfectly entitled to do, which is why there's a box marked out in front of the dug-out) the Millwall fans in that stand would get at him. The fourth official would then make him sit down, although allowing the Millwall bench to do exactly the same. Eventually on one occasion, Mad Dog shouted something at the linesman who immediately flagged and the referee took the easy way out. Our coach then joined the Reading fans in the stand and was later seen setting a bad example by smoking.
Millwall got the ball in the net, but it was obviously offside - well, obvious to everyone except the thick Londoners who were still cheering one minute later, and to Rougier who wasn't ready for the quick ball out of defence that we played to him from the free-kick. Rougier also tried a blatant dive in the area, which was so bad the fans didn't even bother appealing. He was lucky not to get booked again, given that the ref had already shown him one yellow card when the ball accidentally hit his hand.
We made our third substitution, and then almost immediately after went down to ten men as Smith limped off with what I guess was a recurrence of his groin injury. We played better with ten men, actually. The home team had other shots that were either saved or wide, whilst Reading did actually manage one shot on target in the last five minutes. It was another Caskey free-kick - it looked like it was too wide for him to shoot, but he got this one just right, and only a good save kept it out.
That was the last significant action and Millwall played out time for the victory. Bear in mind that we won the first game last season, so it's clearly no indication of how the first weeks are going to go.
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