The Championship game between Reading and Leicester City at the Madejski Stadium on Monday Oct 26 2009.
Brendan Rodgers has a gun to his head, but one cannot help but feel that the Reading manager doesn’t quite deserve it. His side remain in the relegation zone thanks to this defeat to Leicester, but had they taken just one of their myriad chances, their plight might not seem so bleak. But they didn’t, Leicester did, and bleak it remains.
Rodgers had been frank about the situation facing his side in his programme notes. “Confidence can’t be bought or bottled nor instantly manufactured on demand,” he wrote of his team, which has been so worryingly shorn of self-belief after three consecutive losses. “It has to be sourced, fed and nurtured if it is to thrive.”
The problem is, time is not a commodity bestowed upon many managers. His plaintive insistence that “I wholeheartedly believe in my methods…and I believe I can make it right” was plain painful to read, and does nothing to dispel the sense that this incarnation of Rodgers’ managerial existence is fast approaching its demise.
That didn’t stop his Reading players performing as though it was their manager’s actual life on the line. It just made the whole thing worse. Marek Matejovsky was irrepressible in midfield, and Grzegorz Rasiak, Reading's 30-year-old Polish striker, always a step ahead of his markers. They just couldn’t score.
They should have, when Matejovsky sent a clinical ball through the middle in the 11th minute. Rasiak took too long with his shot, though, and Ryan McGivern cleared. Four minutes later, Rasiak again received the ball from his Czech team-mate, spinning Jack Hobbs and sending left-footed shot across goal and a foot wide.
By this time the alarm bells were ringing but the Leicester back-four must be hard of hearing, so worryingly disconnected did they remain in spite of all the danger signs. If there was any justice, they would have been punished when Matejovsky bisected Leicester once again with a perfectly weighted pass and Rasiak appeared, flirting with the off-side position but through on goal. Chris Weale charged down the shot.
The next ten minutes contained too many Reading chances to relate. Jobi McAnuff beat Weale, but his shot ricocheted off the post. As luck would have it, the ball came straight back to him, but there was McGivern, a blur of peroxide blonde, back in the nick of time once again, diverting the second shot behind goal.
It was inevitable that Leicester would strike through a moment’s opportunism. That they did it on the cusp of half-time was just cruel. Matt Oakley swung in a corner, and Martyn Waghorn rose, sending a glancing header over Adam Federici and into the far corner. Talk about a sucker punch.
Cue the second half, cue more missed chances. Leicester advance into the play-off places, but the big question is: just how itchy is Madjeski’s trigger finger?
Match details
Reading (4-4-2): Federici; Tabb, Mills, Pearce, Bertrand; Sigurdsson (Kebe 65), McAnuff, Matejovsky, Howard; Rasiak, Church (Long 65).
Subs: Hamer, Cisse, Gunnarsson, Karacan, Cummings.
Booked: Matejovsky, Mills.
Leicester City (4-4-2): Weale; Nellson, Hobbs, Brown, McGivern; Oakley, King, Gallagher, Wellens; Fryatt (Howard 59), Waghorn (Campbell, 59).
Subs: Logan, Morrison, Berner, N’Guessan, Kermorgant.
Booked: Howard.
Referee: K. D. Hill (Hertfordshire).
Attendance: 16,192.
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