Having watched Reading in this league for over three seasons now, I regularly bemoan the lack of quality on display from teams across the division (and I absolutely include ourselves in that).<\/p>\n
However, my overriding thought after this afternoon is that Bradford City are a serious outfit at this level. And, I think if the question were posed to Leam Richardson, I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019d say that the way Bradford play isn\u2019t far away at all from the vision he has for us.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re defensively very, very solid, and transition from defensive into attack quickly and effectively. I\u2019m in no doubt they will be there or thereabouts come May next year.<\/p>\n
This piece won\u2019t be a Bradford love-in in its entirety, I promise, but it can only be a good thing that a mismatched, sketchy performance from our perspective was still enough to get a point against a machine as well-oiled as the Bantams.<\/p>\n
You could argue the visitors\u2019 showing was even more impressive, having lost manager Graham Alexander in the run-up to the game, and there was the added layer – albeit not very heavy one – of Richardson being in the frame to replace him.<\/p>\n
However, come this afternoon, all eyes were very much on the football and only that. And, even before a football was kicked, it didn\u2019t start very well, with Jack Marriott nowhere to be seen when the teams were released.<\/p>\n
Reading (4-2-3-1): Pereira; Godwin-Malife, O\u2019Connor, Ward, Roberts; Rinomhota, Wing; Lisbie, Stokes, Lane; Brown<\/p>\n
Subs: Stevens, Ahmed, Masterson, Fraser, Kyerewaa, Williams, Reid<\/p>\n
And salt was rubbed into the proverbial wounds not long after the football started. Despite a bright start from the Royals, Bradford worked a really nice opener, with a Haydon Roberts-esque cross from Pointon met by a Jack Marriott-esque header from Beesley. 0-1 to Bradford.<\/p>\n
And falling behind to Bradford early on shouldn\u2019t exactly be top of your priority list, just ask Luton Town. However, to be fair to Reading, they dug in and kept huffing and puffing, but that end quality was lacking for the rest of the first half.<\/p>\n
Once again, the bulk of the bright moments tended to come through Kyreece Lisbie, but without his mate Marriott at the top end of the pitch – coupled with a more than stubborn Bradford defence – we just couldn\u2019t find a way back into the game.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d hope a bit of a kick up the jacksie from Richardson at half-time, and a few tactical tweaks here and there, would inject a bit more life into the team. But in all truth, it was the visitors who assured themselves after the break.<\/p>\n
They controlled the game very well, and we just couldn\u2019t build any kind of meaningful momentum. It was also no coincidence that our dip in positive attacking moments correlated with Lisbie not getting involved as much in things as he was in the first half (honestly, what a joy it is to have a winger like him in your team).<\/p>\n
However, we kept ourselves in the game, and when you do that, all you need is one chance to turn your fortunes around.<\/p>\n
And when a long throw from sub Randell Williams fell loose in the box, although I don\u2019t think Dokes would\u2019ve been many fans\u2019 first choice for who they would\u2019ve wanted it to fall to, the right-back was there to grab his first goal in blue and white hoops. 1-1.<\/p>\n
With the goal came not only a great personal moment for Dokes, but also a huge opportunity to shift momentum and get a statement result against the league leaders. But – and I know I said this wouldn\u2019t be a love-in for the visitors – it was actually Bradford who took the game on after we scored. And that is really frustrating.<\/p>\n
Yes, they\u2019re a good team, but you can\u2019t let an away team manage the game the way we let them after we\u2019d just scored an equaliser with half an hour to go. Other than a counter-attack that Daniel Kyerewaa should\u2019ve done a lot better with, we didn\u2019t create anything after Dokes\u2019 goal.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at the other end of the pitch, thanks mainly to an archetypal cameo substitution performance from Nick Powell, Bradford City kept looking stronger and stronger.<\/p>\n
However, neither team could find a way through in the last few minutes and the game ended a point a piece.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tricky one to conclude, really. It was such an up-and-down performance; we looked strong in five- or 10-minute bursts but struggled to really manage the game on a bigger scale than that. And that\u2019s becoming a bit of a recurring theme at the moment.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also worth remembering we\u2019re still early in our journey to where we want to get to. As mentioned earlier, I genuinely think the way Bradford play is where Richardson wants to get us to eventually, but we\u2019re just a bit earlier in our journey at the moment.<\/p>\n
We should be targeting a win in every home game, absolutely, but today\u2019s result is by no means the end of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having watched Reading in this league for over three seasons now, I regularly bemoan the lack of quality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[123410,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-299220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-2026-27-match-reports","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}