Five Things From Reading’s Torrid Home Defeat To Wycombe Wanderers

Bobbins analyses a second consecutive home defeat.

Torrid

After the stratospheric high of last weekend’s away victory against Carlisle United comes the dismally disappointing low of our second home defeat on the spin. It’s always a bitter pill to swallow when you lose on home soil but we made our own bed via a first half when Reading were out-Reading’d.

Wycombe came with a high-press plan and we simply couldn’t cope with it. At times they had a bank of five players patrolling the final third and we didn’t have an answer. That and Garath McCleary rolling back the years to decent effect, giving Clinton Mola a rather torrid time. More on him later, I’m sure you can you guess why?

Scruff

The first 45 was rather horrible; there’s no two ways about it. A quite naïve and sloppy affair that reminded me of games under Paul Ince where we started slowly and stayed in a low gear, unable to find any control to get ourselves out of the stodge. We struggled to find intensity and rhythm with too many players being unable to take the game by the scruff of the neck. In a game where we really needed to be on the front foot in front of our biggest crowd this season, we didn’t show our best side from the get go.

Michael Craig was ineffective, being swallowed up by that aforementioned high press and Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan being a fish out of water and not having a clue what to do when out on the left. It was no surprise that both were hooked at half-time.

There have been a few times when games seem to require Charlie Savage should start and others when Michael Craig gets the nod. For a lot of the time Ruben Selles has got this right, but on this occasion, it was very much the wrong decision. Of course, this is very easy to say in hindsight.

Savage got on the ball a lot more in the second half, but Wycombe did drop off a tad to hold onto their slender lead and allowed that to happen. And a fine finish it was, by the way. We grew into the game through Savage and Wing taking more control in the midfield area, but still we ploughed the same old furrow of giving it to Wing and then Femi Azeez instead of diversifying our attacks.

Unsurprisingly it was Azeez that eventually led to our goal via the head of Sam Smith but in an unorthodox fashion with Femi ending up on the left instead of the right. After that it looked like there was only going to be one winner until Mola decided to do the unthinkable of making a challenge in the box to concede the match-winning penalty.

It seemed such a crazy thing to do. Just stay tight, but don’t make a challenge. Throw a foot out to stop the cross by all means, but don’t lunge in. Such basic defending, right? The tackle wasn’t essential, the ball would have most likely been cleared so why take the risk?

As much as Mola has improved over recent weeks, he’s still quite erratic and seems to suffer when he’s got more to think about. This is similar to Ehibatiomhan in that regard. Give them something instinctive to do and they are a lot better. Give them too much time to think and often the wrong result applies. Simply put, Mola costs us the game.

Frustrating

As much as the substitutions worked for Charlie Savage, less so was the substitution for Ben Elliott. Once again he was deployed out on the left wing but then underutilised. Maybe it was part of the plan to let Ben drift into central midfield to congest the area but Reading seem to be in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation with Elliott.

He doesn’t play often enough for him to be trusted with the ball (as an alternative to pumping the ball out to Azeez), so he rarely gets an opportunity. Because he rarely gets the ball, we don’t see what he can do. We’re stuck in a situation where we don’t see his undoubted talents on the ball as he doesn’t get much of a chance. A very frustrating place to be for young Ben.

Limited

As a whole, the bench situation is indicative of where we are now as a squad. Beyond the changes that were made we were limited as to what we can do. The substitutions left that could have been made wouldn’t have made sense.

Selles had already altered the left wing with Ehibhatiomhan benched for Elliott, so Paul Mukairu was not likely to appear. Centrally, Craig has already been removed for Savage. Those two moves made sense. Otherwise, what was left? Kelvin Abrefa would only appear if Yiadom was flagging. Harlee Dean would only have appeared if there was an injury in central defence or the rare need to go to a back three. Ditto Jayden Wareham for Sam Smith and the latter is scoring right now and we rarely play with two up top, so that wouldn’t happen either.

The options aren’t really there, especially offensively, to make educated alterations. That’s a bit of a worry, but these are the limitations of having such a compact squad. That said, Mamadi Camara did take part in the warm-up routine, so his return could offer something.

Avenge

As a result, we are still five points clear of the relegation zone. None of the bottom four won (again), so we’re pretty much as we were before this loss. Ahead is a rather daunting trip to Pride Park where Derby will want to avenge their defeat to us back in January, which seems like a thousand years ago now.

It’s easy to think of this fixture as a free hit, but we’ll want to get some kind of result obviously. Failing that, we need to keep our very decent goal difference in check as this is vital as a virtual point at the end of the season.

With another crucial home fixture next weekend against another team in the lower third, Cambridge United, we need to stay fit, stay focussed and respond. We simply have to perform, win and be much improved than we were on this day.