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We welcomed MK Dons' to the Madjeski Stadium for the first time on Saturday and after their stellar season last year and impressive start to this campaign, you could almost guarantee that we would end up with another 0-0 draw.
As always, social media kept fully up to date with the game and I have picked out the best of the reaction as well as the match reports from the national and international press.
Social Media
Looking at the social aspect, and it seems that there are a few overriding points. It seems that there are question marks over Simon Church and MK Dons' forward line, David Martin in goal, whilst again some of their fans tweeting that it is a good point.
No prayer(s) for Church (couldn't resist!)
It seems that the lack of confidence in him from supporters that Church had at Reading has followed him around in his football career, and at MK Dons, the fans also seem distinctly unimpressed. Here's a selection of their tweets:
I'm so underwhelmed by church so far! reckon if tshimanga was in his place, he would've scored by now! Recall the lad #mkdons
— chrisadams. (@ChrisAdams42) August 22, 2015
A good point considering our lack of threat today; still have no confidence at all in Church/Gallagher. Is Murphy the answer? #MKDons
— Matt Bosten (@MattBosten) August 22, 2015
and finally.......
Of course Church blew the best chance of the game #MKDons
— Rob Sutton (@RobSutton22) August 22, 2015
I always wonder when you look at fans' reactions to players. It seems that there is always a scapegoat and always a player that goes around from club to club doing ok, but not setting the world on fire. Every player can't be a Shane Long or a Kevin Doyle, but we as fans make judgements based on 90 minutes per week. The managers see these guys every day, so they must see something in the way the players train or are looking for something that we don't see, to justify either signing a player or picking them as a starter. I think Church falls straight into that category as his work rate is second to none, however he doesn't have that lethal touch.
Ok, rant over, let's see what else was on the social side of the game...
You might be able to stop a shot, but can you kick it?
It seems that both Reading and MK Dons fans have concerns over their keepers, with the latter in particular looking at both the positive and negative
Dave's shot stopping is second to none but his distribution is awful got away with it in league one but dont think we will this year #mkdons
— David (@DC94__) August 22, 2015
A point, a point, my kingdom for a 3 points
But on the whole it seems that the MK Dons fans are quite happy to get a point at the Madejski Stadium.
Both Reading and #mkdons deserve to go down playing like that. Awful, awful game. Good point for us, though.
— Dan McCalla (@TheDanMcCalla) August 22, 2015
Think that might be a tad harsh of an assessment after 3 games...
Take a point at Reading any day and top stuff from Dele getting his first Premier League goal #mkdons
— Mikey (@Mikey_Hale) August 22, 2015
Not having any shots on target is concerning, but a great point and a thoroughly enjoyable away day #MKDons
— ⚽️ Dan ⚽ (@DanMKDons) August 22, 2015
It seems that football is a worldwide game these days, and given that there were Peruvian players in the teams, then it's only normal that they where picked up by the extremities of the twittersphere (even though neither player actually made the bench, let alone the starting team)
#PaoloHurtado y #CristianBenavente no fueron convocados en el #Reading vs #MKDons - http://t.co/yluj7GW5EQ pic.twitter.com/rwq8yNfMEr
— Diario El Bocón (@elbocononline) August 22, 2015
Media
You can imagine that after two draws on the bounce and a lack of a cutting edge, that Saturday's game wasn't highlighted heavily by the local and international media. Indeed, our 30 seconds on the Channel 5 highlights package is probably less than we got on the BBC last year.
The same apathy is showed by the online news outlets, and we have next to little coverage about the game. What there is however, always makes for interesting reading, given what you expect the reaction of the game to be and what it actually is.
Somehow Sky Sports managed to couple together 1.12 minutes of video coverage of the game and this can be found here. The main report from Sky Sports is here along with the stats for the game, and for those who read my summary last week - we can add another 20 shots with 7 on target and no goals. It's also fair to point out that we haven't scored at home for 626 minutes, over 10.4 hours off football or to put it another way its costs the average fan £173 in entrance fees since the last time you actually saw the home team score.
The BBC go one step further by saying that we have won one league game in the last 14, but again say that the fans, manager and team will be wondering how we didn't win after totally dominating the game.
The Milton Keynes Citizen seems more than happy with a point away from Stadium MK, however they do lead with the headline 'MK in the hunt for a new striker'. Karl Robinson does point out that they have scored 50% more goals than most other teams in the league.
GetReading summed up the game pretty nicely - dominated yet no goals, and their link to The Tilehurst End's tweet is rather humorous and does sum our season up.
Positives: more chances, clean sheet, no DJ MegaParty - Negatives: haven't scored at home since Sauron ruled Middle Earth #readingfc
— The Tilehurst End (@TheTilehurstEnd) August 22, 2015
So that pretty much rounds up a quiet media review of the Reading v MK Dons game. In keeping with the lack of goals, we have had a lack of coverage. The Royals have a Capital One Cup duel this week against a Pompey side who put out a high spending Derby side last time out, but given current form I hope the fans travelling to that game are looking forward to extra time and penalties! We then have a tricky away game at Brentford, who are flush with cash after mugging selling to Burnley their leading forward Andre Gray.
I'm back on Wednesday with a look at the Capital One Cup result, as usual looking at what Twitter and the news outlets are saying. Until then, I will keeping praying for a goal!