Reading 3-2 Millwall: The Royals go marching on

Article by Christian Frank

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Nigel Adkins leads his team to a scrappy win reminiscent of his promotion-winning Southampton side.

When a team throws away a 2 goal advantage and still manages to grab a win with a late goal from a set piece the fans are right to leave the stadium jubilant at the 3 points in the bag. Reading fans will know exactly what I mean after Tuesday night, when the Royals saw their team take all 3 point after a Jordan Obita corner was flicked on by Jake Taylor and firmly driven home by the head of Simon Cox in the 84th minute.

The Royals were impressive in the opening half an hour, although could have fallen behind early after Ricardo Fuller stretched Adam Federici with a powerful header effort. Minutes later it was instead Reading who took the lead, breaking from a Millwall corner; the ball dropped to Simon Cox, whose strength broke him free of the Lions defenders, and the Irish international side-footed home from distance. Reading were on the up, growing into the game, and Nick Blackman put them further ahead after another moment of magic. I have my doubts about Blackman, but he is delivering regularly for the club this season and earned his starting spot on the left against Millwall, taking his chance as he burst into the box to earn a penalty. There have been few moments when a player has so assertively asked for the ball to take a spot-kick at the Madejski Stadium – Blackman is tired of being the fans’ whipping boy, and has been tireless and impressive in his efforts this season to earn some respect. His penalty made it 2-0 15 minutes in, and Reading looked poised to put Millwall to the sword. Memories of the Adkins commitment to score 100 goals last season came rushing back; the attacking threat posed by the current Reading squad is much, much greater than that of last year, and that was a team that managed to hit 7 passed Bolton!

The big scoreline was not to be in this match though. Ian Holloway’s men are an outfit who naturally look to play a high pressing game, which made Reading look less comfortable on the ball than they had in the 3-0 thrashing of Fulham. Holloway’s clowning on the touchline is something you either love or hate, but tactically he was spot on as he bravely brought on Martyn Woolford before the 30 minute mark, replacing the lumbering centre-back Byron Webster. Webster’s substitution was met by cheers from the Millwall fans, but they could not have seen what was to come. The substitution hit right at the core of Reading’s gameplan, Woolford playing on the right of midfield when the Lions did not have the ball, but drifting inside to allow Carlos Edwards to return to his starting position on the wing when Millwall had possession. Reading’s midfield were overwhelmed when the Lions attacked, Millwall feeling little need to use a back four when Glenn Murray was cutting an increasingly isolated figure as the match progressed.

Ricardo Fuller’s strike in the 39th minute was hardly against the run of play, in fact since the substitution the game had turned strongly in Millwall’s favour. After the scoreline was made 2-1 there was only one way the game was going, with Millwall bombing forwards in search of an equaliser, making 14 shots in the first half. Reading were playing with a very deep back line, almost certainly in an attempt to create space for Oliver Norwood to pick up possession and dictate the game as he did against Fulham, but the change of system in the 26th minute had seen Millwall all but completely nullify the Irishman, pressing so high that Reading seemed to be simply sitting back and inviting pressure. Frustratingly this did not change after half time.

Reading did have the first attack of the second half, Jamie Mackie’s cross-shot dragging to the left of the goal, with a stretching Murray unable to make contact. Murray did not have an impressive match, suffering from the same issues that the much maligned Pavel Pogrebnyak has in his recent Reading career; Murray missed 3 glorious chances in the first half, and struggled as an isolated figure when the distance between him and the deep-lying Reading back four was obviously too great, increasingly straying offside.

The game returned to the pattern it had been in just before half time, with Millwall looking threatening in their hunt for an equaliser. Experience played its part in the goal to make it 2-2, Ricardo Fuller earning a soft free kick from the usually level-headed Michael Hector. Adam Federici lost the flight of the Woolford free kick, much to the ire of Jordan Obita, and the ball dropped to the back post where the 6 foot 4 centre-back Mark Beevers was waiting to head home.

Reading looked rattled as their gameplan was being undone and the 2 goal lead had been chased down by a hungry Holloway outfit, and tension was palpable after Scott McDonald easily found space to fire high and wide a minute after the equaliser. The Royals were not down and out however, and still looked dangerous on the counter, with Murray wasting a glorious opportunity as his shot from outside the box was blocked after he had broken free of the Millwall defence.

Clearly the next goal would decide the game, and as the minutes passed and both teams made changes in personnel the match settled down into a tense battle for the deciding 5th goal. Jake Taylor came on for the exhausted Jamie Mackie, and Hope Akpan was replaced by Ryan Edwards, and both of the young midfielders who came on played their part in securing the 3 points for the Royals.

The winning goal came about from a Reading corner, Jordan Obita whipping in a different delivery than the standard (and often frustrating) looped ball to Alex Pearce on the back post. Instead the ball was fizzed in at the chest height of many of the Millwall players, finding the head of Taylor at the near post, and the Welshman’s flick-on was delectable, taking the defence out of the game and falling to Cox for his second goal of the night.

Holding onto that goal never seemed like an issue for the Royals, who calmly defended their lead despite the frantic attempts of the Millwall team to snatch another equaliser. The towering Jake Cooper was again introduced as a third centre-back in order to defend the lead, and his young head did its job again, making a few important defensive headers. Edwards and Taylor were also impressive in their play to waste time, the two youngsters bursting away from the opposition to head straight for the corner flag, working some neat passes to break free from Millwall attempts at crowding them out.

This wasn’t the swashbuckling side performance that Reading gave against Fulham last time out, but the 3 points were all that matters at the end of the day. Reading are a much more pragmatic club than Southampton, and if Adkins can lead us to Premier League glory it does not matter how the results come, although the ease with which Holloway undid the Reading strategy was worrying. But, in all honesty, the fact that the manager has ditched his bullish commitments to dominate games, score countless goals, and is instead delivering on the pitch is what matters. Consistency will come, and hopefully in the form of 3 more points next time out please.

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