Wrexham Fans Verdict: Reading Put To The Sword

The fans react to a tough afternoon for a stretched Reading team.

So, Fans Verdict is back, I know you’ve all missed it. Here’s to hoping these pieces will be overwhelmingly more positive than the last few seasons. But it hasn’t got off to the best start...

After a few matches where I could’ve brought you some positive sentiment from the Loyal Royals, Fans Verdict returns with a 3-0 away loss. Classic.

As ever though, there was still a lot for the fans to dig their teeth into after the game...

The referee

I don’t think the referee was that bad on Saturday, a lot of the penalty claims in the first half would've been soft to say the least. However, it seems my fellow Loyal Royals tend to disagree with that.

There were definitely some questionable calls from the officials, as there always are in this divisions. And whether or not the referee was swayed by the home crowd is a matter of personal opinion.

Whatever you think, it certainly gave the fans something to talk about after the game...

Poor defending

As much as it’s easy to point the finger at the referee, he wasn’t the reason we lost the game. All three of Wrexham’s goals were pretty poor from our point of view.

The first two we got punished down our left-hand side too easily, and the third - depending on how you look at it - was either some pretty weak play from Ben Elliott and Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan, or a foul on the latter.

The fans weren't impressed with their sides defensive efforts...

No killer touch

Although we left a lot to be desired defensively, I think it was more of a case of being punished very clinically by the hosts. If we’d have shown half of that level of finishing or ruthlessness, we’d have been 1-0 or 2-0 up ourselves.

So many times we worked good openings and got into promising areas, before fluffing our lines or just refusing to pull the trigger. For me, this was a bigger frustration than the defending, because we played well up until the final third.

Conclusion

A really difficult afternoon which laid bare all the issues we really need to address. We got punished by a clinical team, lacked any kind of ruthlessness ourselves, and didn’t have the capability to change things up when trying to chase the game.

There were however some rays of positivity. We stuck to to our guns, played our way, and worked some really nice openings. On another day we win that game 3-0, not lose it.

But we did lose it, so we can’t have any real complaints. This coming week is not just a huge one for our season, but for out future. New owners are needed, and then new signings.