Reading squandered the chance to pull further away from the foot of the table with disappointing second half performance against mid table Cardiff City. Lucas Joao gave Reading an early lead taking full advantage of a teasing deep cross from Yiadom. Joao timed his leap to perfection to get above the defender and beat ‘Keeper Phillips with a powerful header at the far post. It was just the start Reading needed in front of a good crowd in perfect conditions. Reading continued to dominate the game spurned a golden opportunity to extend their lead when a careless error at the back by City gifted John Swift with possession in front of goal. Swift’s indecision let City off the hook, and as so often happens the missed opportunity cost them dearly.

Reading were slow out of the blocks after half time and City took full advantage aided and abetted by some extremely poor refereeing from Michael Salisbury. Colwill issued a warning with a snap shot which produced a smart save from Nyland. In brief spell, as Reading tried to play out of their own half to relive the pressure, they were subjected to unpunished foul play which undoubtedly helped City to gain momentum. The leveller was a well taken goal but Reading should have been awarded a free kick in the build-up and there was a hint of offside when Ralls played the ball through to Doughty.

Reading were now all over the place and the substitutions on this occasion did not help. Azeez and Dele-Bashiru replaced Hoilett and the woeful Swift, but the balance didn’t look right and City easily repelled Reading’s attacks. The final nail in Reading’s coffin came five minutes from time when City played straight through a midfield and defence. It must been alarming for Nyland to be confronted by two City player bearing down on him without a Reading defender in sight!

Barker came on for Ince for the last three minutes plus what should have been at least seven minutes stoppage time. It looked desperate measure and the only chance produced fell to Joao who, attempt can only be described as pathetic. In spite of another substitution referee Salisbury only allowed six of the seven minutes of the additional time. It has to be said Reading did not look likely to score anyway. Basically Cardiff improved in the second half and for some reason Reading simply did not respond as they had recently against Stoke, Barnsley and Bournemouth when they fell behind.

With Derby and Barnsley losing, and Peterborough only manging a draw, Reading are still eight points clear of the bottom three with only five games to play. Survival is very much in their own hands, but Barnsley do have a game in hand. With Rinomhota, Meite and Swift crocked, and some tricky games ahead, nothing should be taken for granted. I hope we will not be looking back at Swift’s miss and the refereeing error in the build-up to Cardiff’s equaliser at the end of the season as a turning point.

Finally, an aspect of the match day experience which has deteriorated this season, in my opinion, (apart from not being able to hold on to a lead!) is the lack of information about line-ups, substitutions etc., especially as there is no longer a match day programme available. During the match the huge stadium screen displays an array of information which hopefully nobody is interested in reading while play is in progress. It would be useful to display the line-ups and substitutions as the game progresses. Not having seen Barker before, this, combined with the absence of announcements when substitutions are made (which was a pretty chaotic process anyway) I was not sure who had been introduced. But there again it is virtually impossible to read those silly gold numbers on the player’s shirts anyway! Probably not many fans are bothered apart from nerds like me!

All will be forgiven if we stay up!!

John Wells