A lifeline for the Royals!

After a run of really good away form it all comes down to the last day of the season.

It would be ironic if after last seasons relegation via goal difference, we were to be promoted the same way!!

You never know...

April form

A Coventry City D 0-0
H Sheffield Utd L 0-1
A Blackpool D 2-2
H Barnsley D 0-0
A Derby County W 2-0
A Norwich City W 2-0

Two smart headers and a very professional performance saw us beat Norwich at Carrow Rd.

This sets us up with a glimmer of hope of automatic promotion on Sunday.

Any chance of a decent player surface?

Championship Table

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Wolverhampton	36	11	4	3	37	20	9	3	6	30	26	21	67
2	Reading	34	12	3	3	37	11	6	5	5	23	19	30	62
3	Birmingham	35	11	3	3	23	13	6	7	5	18	18	10	61
4	Cardiff	33	10	4	2	26	12	4	10	3	20	18	16	56
5	Preston	36	13	2	3	28	16	3	6	9	21	30	3	56
6	Sheff Utd	34	8	4	5	24	17	7	6	4	23	15	15	55
7	Burnley	36	9	5	4	27	21	6	5	7	23	29	0	55
8	Bristol City	35	6	9	3	24	19	8	3	6	20	18	7	54

Food for thought

"If the bank called in our overdraft we would be in severe difficulties."

Sir John Madejski

Reading draw at Southampton but still in second place

Reading played out a tired draw at Southampton today, but showed great character in coming from behind late in the game to draw 1-1 with a goal from Shane Long.

Other results went our way with Birmingham drawing and Burnley losing.

A haul of 17 points out of a possible 21 over the Christmas period and retaining second place is not at all bad.

Manager Steve Coppell was disapointed with the first half performance, but pleased with the resolve that Reading showed in coming to earn the draw.

Team P Pts
Wolves 25 57
Reading 26 51
Birmingham 26 51
Cardiff 26 44
Burnley 26 43

Reading v Cardiff and Andy Hall!

Adam Federici comes to Reading's rescue!

Was going to be the title of this post as the Reading goalkeeper scored an equaliser deep in extra time to earn Reading a draw against a well organised and very physical Cardiff City side.

However due to some questionable refereeing by Mr Andy Hall the game took on a very sinister undercurrent from the earliest few minutes.

I believe Mr Hall used to be on the Premier list :-)???

A clash beween Reading's Noel Hunt and the Cardiff right back resulted in the afore mentioned Mr Hall pushing players and sprinting into the situation as if there was a full scale brawl in place!
Cardiff sensing the referees weakness of course took full advantage for the rest of the game (who could blame them).

Mr Hall of course was not really interested in this as he had to be sure that the throw ins were taken from the right place(far more important!!)

The worst challenge of the game (please check the video Mr Hall) was the horrendous challenge by Chopra on Adam Federeci the Reading goalkeeper, makes you think a little about what Stephen Hunt was vilified for a couple pf seasons ago, as this was far worse !

Guess who score Cardiff's goal in the 89th minute?????

However a draw was probably the right result as Carfdiff had Reading pretty much worked out from the start. Perhaps Steve Coppell might have introduced Jimmy Kebe a little earlier as he caused Cardiff problems from the moment he came on.

Ah well, a draw is better than nothing and it might not look as bad later in the season, as I think Cardiff will be there or thereabouts.

There appeared to be some nasty scenes at the end between some Reading player and the Cardiff fans, but not too sure what went on..

Reading remain in second place behind Wolves and above Birmingham.

1	Wolves	25	24	57
2	Reading	25	29	50
3	Birmingham	25	11	50
4	Burnley	25	6	43
5	Cardiff City	25	10	41
6	Palace	25	11	40

Reading Now Within One Point!

Stephen Hunt after scoring Reading's first from the spot, making up for his miss on Tuesday :-)

A fine headed second goal came from Shane Long after a cross from James Henry.

After a 2-0 win over Norwich on a really poor playing surface, Reading are now one point behind Birmingham and play them at St Andrews next week!

After also scrapping a 1-0 win over Blackpool on Tuesday it has been a pretty good week.

The quality of the last few games however shows that the number of games in the Championship ensures that the quality is not great.

Table

Table - December 13 2008

Pos	Team	P	Pts
1	Wolverhampton Wanderers	23	53
2	Birmingham City	23	47
3	Reading	23	46
4	Burnley	23	40
5	Cardiff City	23	37

Looking a lot better...

Well, it's looking a lot better for Reading (at least at home:-)

Lots of goals and the football's not too bad, however we are not great away from home still.

The games at Notts Forest, Ipswich, and freak goal Watford were painful to watch!

Off we go then !!

Off we went to see Reading v Notts Forest in the Championship yesterday.

As expected we were terrible!

Forest were by far the better team, thankfully they had no clue where the goal was:-)

As you would assume we have leaked several of the quality players that we had from last season and it appears that several of those left behind don't want to stay based on this performance.

Considering the complete absence of a midfield during the game, the fact that we almost snatched a result speaks volumes for the division we find ourselves in

If we don't deal with the physical nature of the championship and quickly forget the premiership we will be here a long time, added to the fact we need players and now Messers Coppell and Hammond!

Please unload players such as Cisse and Matějovský as they appear to be little use at this level, stop wasting Hunt and get a left back! You knew Shorey was going as you did with Sidwell, please don't repeat the same misplaced loyalty that cost us last season.

BTW are we ever going to see any payback from our much vaunted youth system?

You hear tell of Henry's, Karacans etc etc and and never see them in the first team, next you read that they are either out on loan or gone....

In fact if you don't want to change before it's too late why don't you both consider your positions and let someone else have a go who is not scared to fail?

A little strong maybe, but you had to be there and see how bad it was, it looked like they picked the team in the car park and had never met before!

Onto the Plymouth game and hopefully a turning point:-)