clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Reading FC 0-1 Bristol City: The Alternative View

Frustrating, wasteful and wanting. The story of a Saturday afternoon in Berkshire.

By davemc_exile
Harry Hubbard/Getty Images

After a good win at Birmingham, a decent transfer window and the international break, Reading returned to "fortress Madjeski" (yeah, nice kiss of death guys) to welcome Bristol to Berkshire.

In reality Reading should have been out of sight before the 84min winner. At this level you have to take your chances, and missing arguably 3 gilt edge chances is not good enough. A lot has been made this window of the lack of a proven goalscorer, and this isn’t the column to analyse the reasons to why we didn’t.

Saying that, credit must go to Bristol, they came with a game plan that they executed and got the result. A lot of fans prior to the game may have looked on this as one of our easier fixtures, but as we all know the Championship is probably one of the hardest leagues to play in.

So how buoyant were the Bristol City fans? As you may have guessed: very.

Twittersphere

Yeah, still can't believe we lost...

Pretty sure not many people in Berkshire did.

Did they really pay a media company to come up with this?

I really can't argue with this, unfortunately.

We hope so as well!

Isn't it a tad early to be talking Playoffs?

Kiss of death, nice one guys.

Probably the most sensible tweet of the weekend.

Well I never realised this!

Media

Yeah well really should have a picture of a tumbleweed rolling down the road given the distinct lack of coverage this game got, but what little there I have cobbled together. Starting with SkySports, they lead with our 15 game undefeated home run coming to an abject stop. They reckon we dominated the game (fair) with Frank Fielding in the goal making some good stops (also fair) and Bodvarsson "astonishingly miscuing (there are other phrases). They also have 2.06 min of lessons in how not to finish and defend.

Gonna give the Bristol Post some plaudits, probably one of the most concise and fair reports of a game that I have read from an away side since doing this feature. Yes they say it was a good win, but also they are honest enough to point out the deficiencies in the Bristol side, so well done guys.

Comparing that to the report at GetReading, and it is a bit light. You do get Jonathan's video thoughts as well as the written commentary, and he does make a good point about our cutting edge. I do, however, think that match reports could be - and should be - a little more detailed.

Down at the BBC and I'm not sure that their comment of this was exactly accurate, 'a narrow victory' - I think a better phrase may be 'smash and grab'! However, they do have the most strange fact to report in that the last goalless result between these sides was 1929!

Summary

To quote a phrase from Annie, "it’s a hard knock life", the difference between most teams in this league is a straw thin, and the transfer fees being commanded in the Championship these days is eye watering. Whether you agree with the money floating around or not, it’s now a fact of life and when Reading are going out and spending £15-20m in a transfer window, it’s scary.

The positive is the news boys look handy, for me one of the decent cameos we saw was Edwards who I do believe will add tremendous value to this team. What is in desperate need is for Reading to find that clinical edge. The last few years we have failed to put teams away and finish games off. With a clinical striker we should have been 3-0 up before the goal and this may haunt us again.

Kermorgant is probably 2-3 weeks away from a place on the bench, but really should we heavily reliant on a 35 year old striker? With options limited, goals from midfield are going to become increasingly important, and with the signing of Edwards this could be a step in the right direction.

We visit Brentford on Saturday, whose season hasn’t started great. This now is more important than ever to secure 3 points, as we all know that you can’t win a league in the early stages of a season, what you can do is make it damn difficult in playing catch up to the teams above you.

In This Stream

Reading FC 0-1 Bristol City: Full Coverage

View all 8 stories

More From The Tilehurst End

Reading FC News 24/7