Issue 6 - November 1998

After the poor start to the season, with the Royals looking more like relegation candidates than promotion hopefuls, Tommy Burns appears to have steadied the ship. Our first away win since the Ice Age came at Walsall and was followed by the superb 2-1 win over Stoke, a couple of rather disappointing draws and then another victory on the our travels, this time in the midst of a hurricane at Maine Road. Another win at Wycombe reversed the unpleasant trend of defeats against struggling teams. (Print deadlines mean that this piece was written before the York game so I'll just have to assume that we didn't lose 6-0!)

Have Reading turned the corner? The team at least appears to be going through the first phase of rehabilitation in that they've now become difficult to beat. They no longer appear to be intimidated by the physical approach of the opposition and the switch to three centre-halves seems to have plugged some of the leaks.

Two major reasons for the change are simply personnel: Parkinson and Casper. Burns has now realised that this division demands a physical presence - he may not like it as it probably conflicts with his footballing philosophy but he has been realistic enough to adapt his tactics.

His turnaround with regard to Parky has been extraordinary. After months of playing him at centre-half (or not at all) and then nearly selling him to Wycombe, Parky has been re-instated in the centre of midfield and made captain ahead of Burns' first choice, Caskey. Burns has publicly admitted that he was wrong about Parkinson and now praises him to the hilt so hopefully any further offers from other clubs will be firmly rebuffed.

Parky has always been the sort of player that you need in a scrap. It was no surprise that he was Player of the Year for last season's piss-poor campaign because, when you need someone to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in, he's your man.

The midfield now has a competitive edge and so the defence is better protected. Burns may have wanted a team of ball-players but they're not much use without the ball to play with so Parkinson is back playing in his best position: the fetcher and carrier for the more creative players.

The second reason that the Royals have become a more solid unit is, unfortunately, down to Chris Casper. I say unfortunately because it would be a real surprise if he stays at Reading once his loan period is up. He has undoubted class and surely a Premiership side, such as Blackburn or Southampton, can, and will, find room for him. For a young, ambitious professional, this would preferable to dropping two divisions.

This is where our position in the League really counts against us. Quality players may be prepared to play in the First Division if the wages are good and the team looks ambitious (á la Merson and Middlesbrough, last season) but a drop into the Second may be hard to stomach, even if the wages are comparable.

The departure of Casper would be a real loss. He reads the game superbly, is confident on the ball and organises the defence well. None of the other 'lost legion' of central defenders - Kromheer, Polsten, Hunter, Davies - is in remotely the same class.

At the other end of the pitch, the situation has not improved a great deal. The deadly dull draws against Gillingham and Blackpool demonstrated just how difficult we find it to break down massed defences. These teams come to the Madejski Stadium looking for a point and go away with it all too easily - was anybody else as certain as me that Williams' great strike against Blackpool would not be the winner?

The patient, neat passing football is not yet incisive enough and merely points to, yet again, our fundamental lack of attacking options out wide.

In a 3-5-2 system, the onus is on the wing-backs to provide width. This they've been able to do but unfortunately not in the crucial area of the pitch, namely behind the opposition defence. Again, this is a personnel issue: Glasgow, Crawford and Bernal are whole-hearted players but none of them exactly inspires terror in the opposition defence. A wing-back must be able to consistently get to the by-line and deliver good crosses, although, to be fair to Glasgow, as a naturally right-footed player, he would pose more of a threat if he was played on the right rather than the left, as he was against Blackpool and Gillingham.

The other option is to buy a big target man and sling long balls in from the half-way line or, in other words, play exactly like every other team in the division. With Burns in charge this is only a remote possibility and I sincerely hope it stays that way - if Reading aspire to be anything other than a lower division team, then we must create a style of football that will be successful at a higher level.

The improvement in form has given the management some breathing space. Before Walsall, the knives were not exactly out but one or two had been sharpened, just in case. Burns is still looking to strengthen his squad although the obsession with Scottish-based players is becoming rather tiresome, especially given the less-than-stunning success of most of the rest of the contingent.

The next phase for the Royals is to turn those home draws into wins by causing a few more problems for opposition defences. This shouldn't be too difficult given that our only tactic recently has been to make them fall about laughing at Williams' hairstyle. A novel approach but hardly likely to get us to the play-offs.

Asaba Watch

Last season, at the height of his unpopularity with certain sections of the crowd, this columnist wrote that Royals' record-signing, Carl Asaba, was a good young player who had potential, despite struggling to make an impact.

As we all know, earlier this season, Asaba was deemed surplus to requirements in the current squad and sold to Third Division rivals Gillingham. He has since scored eight goals and been a major factor in their move up the table.

Up the Rs will keep an eye on him as the season unfolds to see if he does become the "one that got away".