by West Stand Man »
17 Sep 2008 09:16
John Madejski's Wallet Listening on BBC berks in the car on way back from the match and they said:
"Reading managed to win 6-0 while only playing with 10 men as Kebe was anonymous"..........forgive me if i'm wrong but both of the opening goals came about from fantastic work from Kebe. Beautiful little dink round the defender to NHunt for the first and a great mazy run setting up the defensive panic that allowed the 2nd.
WTF were the commentators on about?
Quite right. The first goal came after he was initially dispossessed, regained the ball, back heeled a delightful pass to Rosenior, who passed to Hunt to set up Doyle. It would not have happened without Kebe's persistence and excellent vision. The second goal was a direct result of an incisive run by Kebe in from the right wing and a lovely set of triangles with Doyle that pressurised the defence. That said, he was not as influential as he was v Palace, but I guess his contribution was telling enough anyway.
As for Harper, he was not as directly influential last night as he has been. He didn't need to be though, so I wouldn't criticise too harshly.
... and the halfwits who wrote off Pearce and Karacan after the Ipswich game must be crying into their soup at the moment. I repeat what I said after Xtal Palace. They are not yet great, or even brilliant, but they both look comfortable and capable at this level. And they are both young enough to get much better if they keep developing at this rate. The future looks pretty good from where I am sitting.
Oh, and Long is not useless, and neither has he 'started his last game for Reading'. He had an off day on Saturday, and deserved to be dropped. He may have to wait to get back in the starting line up, as the Doyle/ Hunt pairing looked v godd last night, but I fully expect him to rise to that challenge and pressure Coppell in to some tought decisions later this season. For me, I'd be happy to see him come on with 1/2 hr to play if he can keep making such early impact as last night (he set up the run for Convey to give Hunt goal 6, I think, within 30 seconds of coming on).