| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Monday, 3rd January | Gillingham | Away | Drew 2-2 |
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Report by Plastic Dreamer:
Part 1 - With Caskey
A 2-2 draw with "in-form" Gillingham is a brilliant result. However after 60 minutes I had just about written my match report and it was going to be similar to last week's at Cardiff. Apart from the first ten minutes when Gurney's 30-yard pile-driver was superbly saved by Gills' keeper Bartram, and Keith Scott hit the bar with a powerful header, Gillingham had dominated the game, scoring one and missing several decent chances. The shameful thing was that Gillingham were nothing. They were a bunch of skill-less hoofers. We were worse though!
We were shapeless (every time we had the ball on one of the wings all ten outfield players would move towards that wing like a load of 6 year old school-kids playing team football for the first time) leaving Gillingham wide open spaces down our other wing to attack. I always thought that lesson number one was that a team should keep its shape at all times, but perhaps the players will get taught that in the next lesson. Also, Scott, Williams and Nicholls were all trying to play similar games - chasing the same balls, leaving the same balls etc and so each looking poor. The referee was an old-fashioned "homer". Every 50-50 challenge was penalised in Gillingham's favour, and when one of their players tried to strangle Scott in the penalty area, the ref laughed and waved play on.
Caskey was awful. I was fortunate in the second-half to be stood right next to him when he took a few corners. He might score occasionally from direct free-kicks, but why he takes our set-pieces is one of this millennium's first unsolved mysteries. From where I was stood I could see that our tall players were on the edge of the area waiting to run to the near post or penalty spot. In fact they were signalling to Caskey where they were about to run to. So where does Caskey kick the ball? Clue - ten seconds later and only a wonderful foul by Gurney stops Gillingham just as they are about to create a goalscoring chance. Watching Caskey closely it seemed that his only aim was to get the ball off the ground. Do we practice these set-plays in training? If we do, then please let someone else take the corners. (The same description above applied to free-kicks today too..)
Anyway as I was saying, the above was the match report I had written when after about 65 minutes...
Part 2 - Post Caskey
Caskey off. Forster on. Take your pick as to which of these events had the biggest effect on our performance today. As soon as Caskey went off all of our players heads immediately lifted. Nicholls (who had been invisible) and Williams, who had tried but done little, were changed players. Forster played wide on the right and for the next 20-25 minutes we were fantastic (relatively speaking of course). The Gills players panicked every time Forster got the ball. Crosses were being delivered by just about every Reading player. We had a few half chances, and then Nicholls scored a blinding goal straight from the Ginola scrapbook.
After the equaliser Reading went for the winner. Yes I said READING WENT FOR THE WINNER! No sitting back and holding on for a draw. OK, Gillingham got what we thought was the winner, but it was on the break. The Reading fans couldn't believe it. Whilst the Gills' fans started taking the piss, and their players celebrated, Reading fans began to leave. Then, straight from the kick-off another cross came in from the right, and the referee gave us a penalty. I'm not saying it was handball, but the fact that the Gillingham defender caught the ball and threw it in the air shouting "Howzat Umpire" didn't exactly go down well with the ref who gave us a penalty. Williams shuffled, scored, the ref blew his whistle and several hundred Reading fans went mental. Was that the stroke of luck we need?
I've been happy to slag the players off this season after some of the woeful displays, but the players showed what they CAN do today in the last 20 minutes. If someone wants to buy Caskey for £700,000 then let him go. If we can buy Nicholls cheaply now, then buy him. But above all if the rest of the players can keep on playing like they did after the Forster substitution today we should be able to climb the table quite quickly...
Supporters' comments:
From PJ, 15/1/2000
"Good to read your opinion on the game from afar. As usual, along with my wife, I was there. Plymouth away with work at 4.45 the next morning was my most stupid trip but I digress.
"Pardew must be given time. No manager in any form of business can turn around a shambles overnight or with a month or two! Pardew knows we are weak up front and slow in midfield but any good manager knows that you don't go moaning about your employees shortcomings in public if you need them to do a job for a while. Mr Mad doesn't want to get his fingers burnt again and has been reluctant to rush into spending. He has brought in Maurice Evans to get us some decent non-league players and they are being trialled as I write. Money is available for a class striker and when one can be persuaded to come he will. Also Mr Pardew has identified that some of the slackers need ditching hence Crawford et al on the list. Physio sessions for the lame and lazy have been extended to encourage them to return to work and lunch has become a working lunch rather than a business lunch i.e. lets get back to work lads!
"These are all positives, give the guy time and if he can, he will stop the drop, remember the cancer was caused by Burns and the therapy has only just begun."
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