Reading FC Loan Round-up: December 18th

George Legg – Dunstable Town/Reading FC (Evo-Stik League Southern Premier Division/ SkyBet Championship) Appearances: 2

This week, we begin with George Legg, who confirmed via Twitter yesterday his return to his parent club, Reading FC.

Go karting with the lads was sick pic.twitter.com/LXxNnZmTgq

— 'LEGGY' (@georgelegg1) December 17, 2014

It’s a shame that George only managed two appearances for Dunstable Town, but, as it happens so often with players his age, the assumption is that this was a pre-planned short-term deal so there can’t really be any complaints from either party.

Stuart Moore – Basingstoke Town (Vanarama Conference South) Appearances: 22

Unlike George though, Stuart Moore is at Basingstoke until the end of the season and this week, his side hosted Gosport Borough in the FA Trophy, hoping to kick-start their faltering league campaign which has seen them slip to 8th. Stuart started the match as Louie Soares put Town ahead after 13 minutes, before being pegged back in the 25th minute from the spot. That was how it stayed up until the 77th minute, when Lloyd Macklin thought he’d scored the winner, only for Gosport to force a replay just three minutes later.

The replay itself, played on Tuesday night, was another tight affair but it couldn't have gotten off to a worse start from a Town perspective. Gosport went ahead just three minutes in before Chris Flood equalised in the 65th minute to force extra time. Borough then went ahead for just the second time in the tie two minutes into extra time, but it was enough to see off a plucky and perhaps unfortunate Basingstoke side who had more than matched last year’s finalists all the way through the 210 minutes of football. Little consolation though.

Royston Drenthe – Sheffield Wednesday (SkyBet Championship) Appearances: 13

We end again this week with a round-up of all the action from Drenthe’s Wednesday’s game against Wolves. Despite Lewis McGugan and Jose Semedo being back in contention, Royston kept his place in the side and his manager Stuart Gray had this to say on his potential permanent move to Yorkshire in January:

"Players want to play and that is what McGugan and Drenthe are doing. The players want to stay and we want them to stay."

Drenthe completed the full 90 minutes and was a constant threat throughout as he hit a sweet volley over the bar, almost assisted Glenn Loovens from a corner and nearly slipped Stevie May through, all in the first half. In the second period Drenthe and May combined to feed Lee in, only for the midfielder’s neat flick to drift wide. Then, the Dutch winger drifted into the centre before blazing a left-footed shot just wide of the target, a moment that may have changed the outcome of the match because – a minute later – Leon Clarke, only on as a substitute a matter of minutes, scored the goal for Wolves that turned out to be the winner with seven minutes left on the clock.

Drenthe came out after the match to give his verdict on the game:

"I'm a professional, I'm a football player and I want to win every game. Even if we’re playing against the best team in the world, I want to win that game. I don’t like losing matches. I want to win for my family, for my club, for my team mates and I am only happy when we win games. I am down now but believe me, that feeling will motivate me for the next match. Credit to Wolves because if we don’t score our chances, then we run the risk of what happened. Our defenders can’t always stop everything, we have to score goals it’s that simple. Without any disrespect to Wolves, I think we should have won this match but we didn't and now we have to put it behind us."