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2002/03 Reports

Match facts:

Reading goal: Andy Hughes (58 minutes)
Assist: Kevin Watson
Opposition goals: None
Half-time: Wolverhampton Wanderers 0 Reading 0
Gamebreaker: Final whistle
Attendance: 25,560
Weather: Dry, sunny, warm
Referee: Mike Ryan (Preston)

Reading line-up: 31 Marcus Hahnemann; 2 Graeme Murty, 6 John Mackie, 8 Adie Williams, 29 Matthew Upson, 17 John Salako; 25 Ricky Newman, 4 Kevin Watson, 11 Andy Hughes; 12 Jamie Cureton (10 Nicky Forster, 66 minutes), 7 Anthony Rougier (24 Darius Henderson, 92 minutes, in second-half injury-time)
Subs not used: 1 Phil Whitehead, 3 Nicky Shorey, 14 Sammy Igoe
Starting formation:

Reading yellow cards: Andy Hughes (foul, 22 minutes), Anthony Rougier (foul, 29 minutes)
Reading red cards: None

Match report:

I had thought that defeat at Molineux near the start of the disastrous Tommy Burns era might have spelled the end of our indian sign over Wolves. Not a bit of it! This was back to the good old days of turning over a club who think they are so much better than they are. The truth is that we were comfortable winners, easily better than the home side's big names.

A stunning long-range Andy Hughes strike in the second half was enough to secure the victory.

Match notes:

Compared to the Norwich City game, the only change in the starting line-up was that Ricky Newman replaced Sammy Igoe, with Igoe taking Newman's place on the bench. Other changes to substitutes were that Phil Whitehead, Nicky Shorey and Darius Henderson were named instead of Jamie Young, Phil Parkinson and Nathan Tyson.

More to follow.

Match preview:

After three consecutive defeats (two against teams who are worse than us), it's not too difficult to see how many points we're going to have when we leave Molineux on Saturday night. There are however several different ways in which we could achieve another loss:
(a) Alan Pardew could reintroduce the disastrous and negative 4-5-1 formation that served Derby County so well on the opening day of the season. If so, I reckon a 0-5 defeat.
(b) We could stick with his 3-5-2 formation from Wednesday night and see if the players have yet learnt who is supposed to mark who. This might mean a 0-4 loss.
(c) We could move to 5-4-1 and try to completely shut up shop for a 0-0 draw, which would mean defending for about ten (or perhaps less than five?) minutes until we needed to reshuffle and look to get back on level terms. My prediction under this scenario would be 1-3.

And this is my assessment for a game against a Wolves side who are not yet firing on all cylinders this season. I think our best chance of a result in this game is to go back to 4-4-2, not to play any players out of position, and to take a mostly positive approach. I would still expect that to lead to a reverse but it would provide more hope than the other scenarios.

As far as particular players go, the centre-back pecking order is probably now Adie Williams, then John Mackie, then Matthew Upson. I don't know if Upson is suffering from lack of match fitness or still recovering from injury, but he has not provided the level of performance we expected. Williams will be returning to his old club, so should be on top form.

John Salako is still well worth his place in the team on the left side, but not if he is going to be saddled with significant defensive duties as well as going forward. It didn't work against Kidderminster Harriers or Cambridge United, so it was no shock to anyone other than Pardew that it didn't work against Norwich City. I doubt if there was any chance of that happening again for this game anyway - if Nicky Shorey was indeed only rested for Wednesday's game, then he should be back in on Saturday.

The centre of midfield needs some bite, which for me, as for most people, can only be properly solved at this stage by bringing in Joe Gamble. If that is not to be the case, then Phil Parkinson should get back into the line-up as our other players in this area are beaten too easily. I think that a Kevin Watson and Gamble central midfield is worth a try, although Watson and Andy Hughes does have merit. The problem is that Hughes did not look fit on Wednesday and there must be some doubt about whether he will be OK yet. His engine is an important part of his game, and something we can't afford to have missing if he's on the pitch.

Up front I would play Jamie Cureton and Nicky Forster. Although I think he has yet to regain his full pace following the pre-season illness, Forster is probably the best player at the club, and should be in the starting eleven. When he doesn't play we miss him. His lack of passing does not help Cureton's goal chances but if you check the record for last season, Forster created more goals than any of our other players. Only Salako and Sammy Igoe came close, in fact.

It seems likely that Jamie Ashdown will be on the subs bench, and also possible that Darius Henderson will be fit, in which case I'd like to see him get some action. Henderson provides us with an option missing at the moment, and needs to get experience at this level.

Overall, I think we are looking at mid-table this season. That means that defeats against teams like Wolverhampton and Norwich have to be expected, with the occasional pleasant surprise. However, there are certain games that we need to win, games like Wimbledon at home.

One final point - by being nice to Norwich and moving the midweek game from Tuesday to Wednesday (something that we did not have to do, incidentally), we now face Wolves having had one day's less break since the last game than we could have had (and in a correction to what it originally said here, our opponents had no midweek game at all). It will be impossible to judge whether this has an effect, but fitness in the last quarter of a game has proved important so far this season, and if the shorter gap does bite that period of the game is when we'll see a difference. This might of course offer some support for Pardew's resting of a couple of players on Wednesday night.

Ticket information:

The number of seats for away fans at Molineux depends on the game - normally we would expect about 1,500 seats in the Jack Harris Stand behind the goal but the ground can be arranged to have up to 3,200 away fans by using the lower tier of the John Ireland Stand along the side.

For this game, we have 2,789 seats. They go on sale to season ticket holders from Wednesday, 11th September (a maximum of two per season ticket), to Supporters Trust members from Monday, 16th September (one per member) and on general sale from Tuesday 17th September. Prices are as follows:
Adults - £17.50
Seniors and Under-17s - £9.50

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