COLUMNIST KEN BUCKLEY

From My Seat: Reading (H)

By Ken Buckley :  09/02/2008 :  Comments (4) :

Three important points gained in a game that did little to enthuse the fans on a balmy afternoon that was as much out of keeping with the time of year as was the Blues attempt to look like a top four side.

Still at this stage of the season the points take preference to the performance and fans will be delighted with the points and at the same time bemoan the performance which in reality was bordering on poor.

In a dire first half Reading started the brighter and within a minute a Hunt free kick that was creeping inside the post was well saved by Howard. Shortly after Kitson headed narrowly over from a free header.

The half then decended into boredom mode until on twenty mins AJ had a unconvincing shot saved by the Reading keeper which preceded the incident that allowed us to realise there was a crowd in Goodison after all, Hunt was caught by a Carsley challenge which caused him to go into kamikaze mode and hunt down his percieved assassin and had to be held back by a possee of his own team-mates and a delegation of Blue shirted peacemakers. All good fun but just a pity that the incident was responsible for the only worthwhile crowd reaction of the half.

Reading had the better of the first half until two chances fell to Cahill,who looked to be still on the plane from Oz, spurned with both head and foot.
H/T and I think that was the poorest 45mins I have seen us play to date.

The start of the second half saw Fernandes replaced by Vaughan and a loose 4-4-2 formation. The shear enthusiasm of the lad made a difference after the hooked Fernandes's more than languid performance. Within minutes of the restart he produced a cross that the jet lagged Cahill missed and AJ was not alert enough to read the possibllity.

Reading continued to cause problems and Doyle put one wide. Reading were having the better of it until the 'Goalden goal' time of 62mins when a corner to the Blues was cleared to the edge of the box which found Osman in his customary position and he lobbed the ball back in toward the far post and the head of Jags looped the ball over the stranded keeper and into the net.

The crowd celebration if not muted was certainly one of relief.

With renewed vigour the Blues pressed again and Osman who was looking brighter and better for his games since injury produced a cross come shot that struck the bar.

The next bit of excitement was when the effervescent Vaughan produced a superb and acrobatic overhead kick that brought the best out of the keeper.

Reading now threw on the subs and went for an equalizer, one of these subs Kebe eluded everyone and looked odds on to score when the very impressive Jags got in a last ditch slide tackle to deny the sub. Reading kept coming, Lescott pulled up holding his knee but soldiered on, Reading had a shout for a penalty for handball by Carsley and then Harper scraped the outside of the post.

In a frenetic finish we couldn't wait for the whistle and claim all three points and any neutral watching would have been hard pressed to know which team had just cemented their place in the top four and which had just dropped into the bottom three.

Overall I thought that this game was the poorest I have wittnessed all season from the Blues, most players played and looked like they all had just flown around the world yet those points gained from such a poor performance just shows the vagaries of this league as we have dropped points playing ten times better tha this.

My man of the match was without doubt Jags and if there was such a thing as man of half a match I would have given it to Vaughan.

Today I thought that if Hibbert had played anywhere near to Neville's standard he would have been slaughtered and AJ left me pondering on his finishing abilities,and when Cahill looks better in a central second half midfield role rather than his supposed better position of just behind the lone striker then you get some idea of the sort of day we had.

Still we won it, collected the points and can now concentrate on Europe for a couple of weeks until the must win game v City.

Hopefully by then players will be fit,fresh and forgiven.

Isn't it just great to be so involved even after such a dire afternoon.

UP THE BLUES

Reader Comments

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer