Crawley Town 1-1 Reading: Crawling Along
A late Crawley equaliser cancelled out a first-half goal from Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan.
An early Saturday afternoon kick-off against Crawley Town, sat in 23rd in League One and having conceded the most goals in the league so far in this season. Coming off of the back of a lethargic 0-0 draw against Exeter City, but having recently won 2-1 away from home, we had a real opportunity here to right the wrong of Tuesday and get a result.
We had to do this without Amadou Mbengue, whose injury seems to have caught up with him. Surprising us all, Noel Hunt found a Michael Stickland down the back of the sofa and gave him his first league start of the season. We named no centre-backs on the bench, with Louie Holzman also falling foul of injury, and Abraham Kanu must have wandered off somewhere.
In another surprise move, we started Kelvin Abrefa, a right-back, as an actual right-back, and Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan, a striker, as an actual striker. If ever there was a game to try crazy ideas like this, it was against relegation-threatened Crawley Town.
It seems Hunt sensed the opportunity here, because with left-footed Billy Bodin on the right wing and right-footed Mamadi Camara on the left wing, and Abrefa and Andre Garcia taking up the full-back spots, you’d expect both players to use their skill with dribbling and pace to get wide of Bodin and Garcia to provide overlaps and crosses into the box.
Playing in - another crazy statement alert - sun(?!) the small stadium seemed half empty, though the Reading fans certainly did their bit by selling out the away end. So how did it all unfold? Well, you probably already know, but in case you don’t, allow me to tell you the tale.
Both sides got out of the traps quite quickly, but Reading soon enough asserted their authority on the game, with their quality on the ball clear to see against a side that wasn’t blessed with as much quality.
Crawley had moments when they looked dangerous on the attack, with their passing in the build-up play fluid, causing us problems and exposing the space behind our full-backs, who were pushing up high.
However, Crawley didn’t have the final ball and didn’t have much luck – poor passing, players slipping up when shooting and resolute blocks from the Reading defence were the story of the day. Against a better side, or should I say, more clinical side, Reading could have gone into the break a goal or two down.
Ehibhatiomhan did a very classic Jayden Wareham move around the ninth minute (I think), when he stood up the Crawley goalkeeper while he was taking a drop kick. However, the goalkeeper made a mess of it and kicked the ball into the back of Ehibhatiomhan’s legs, which deflected out to a Reading counter-attack opportunity, which most likely would have led to a goal. However, the ref blew for a foul by Ehibhatiomhan in blocking the kick, pulling play back to prevent the opportunity.
This should have been a sign for us that Crawley’s keeper – having also conceded the most goals in the league – has a mistake in him. As a fan of a team that often has had goalkeepers who like to drop a few clangers in previous year, I do sympathise. But why we didn’t look to test the goalkeeper more, I’ll never know.
Reading's goal in the 29th minute was created from the left, started by a cross from Garcia that was cleared by the Crawley defender, but only to Harvey Knibbs hovering around 20 yards out, who headed it into Ehibhatiomhan, who was positioned centrally around the penalty spot.
Ehibhatiomhan demonstrated what he can do when he stands up to be more physical, using his strength to win the ball and skill to bring it down close to him and put it away with his left foot for 0-1. It was a goal very similar to those scored by the man who used to occupy that position until January; it was a goal we certainly earned from being the more dominant side in the game.
Crawley players appealed the goal, though it was not so clear why - perhaps either an offside or maybe a handball - but the ref turned away the protests - fairly, I’d say - and the goal stood. Not long after, Crawley’s striker ran into our box and put a dangerous ball in which our low block dealt with, with the help of Crawley’s profligacy.
Half time: 0-1
No changes were made at the break and Crawley started the second half well, looking to attack us. However, we had an opportunity after Crawley’s goalkeeper made another mistake in the 49th minute by giving the ball away to Bodin on the right, who stuttered with the ball and delivered an absolute hospital pass to Camara on the left, who was left to chase the ball that had gone wide and behind him, and the opportunity slipped.
Crawley remained the more dominant side and certainly had more opportunities to exploit Reading’s lack of urgency, but they couldn’t quite seem to find a way past the edge of the Reading box. On the odd occasion when they did, they couldn’t find a final ball and often Reading were given a reprieve.
Perhaps noting that our attacking play had fizzled out a bit, in the 61st minute Hunt took action to bring on some fresh legs by substituting Camara for Chem Campbell and Ehibhatiomhan (thank God I no longer need to write that name continually for this match report) for Wareham.
These moves could have also been with one eye on Tuesday and trying to give some players a rest, though if anyone needs a break, it's the midfield three of Wing, Savage and Knibbs.
The substitutions didn’t seem to make much of a difference, with Crawley still being the side with more of the ball and asking the questions. In the 72nd minute, Bodin came off, so now all of the starting front three had been subbed, and Tom Carroll came on to make his debut for Reading. The plan was now clear: settle in, drag out a 1-0 win and go home. In terms of the shape, it seemed that Knibbs moved up to the right wing, with Carroll dropping into central midfield.
My first thought was that, while it was nice to see Carroll coming on, it was a strange one with Adrian Akande on the bench. However, a couple of minutes later, a big free-kick from deep in the Reading half by Joel Pereira (who had a pretty quiet game to that point) reached Wareham, which was flicked on for Knibbs to cut inside and chase, but the Crawley goalkeeper got there first. Knibbs carried a goal threat, and while he may be disappointed that he didn’t cause Crawley more problems, the logic fell into place.
Garcia won Reading a free-kick outside of the Crawley box in the 78th minute - Campbell did well in the build-up play not to pass to a very offside Savage - but the Wing free-kick led to nothing, going well over the bar.
In the 81st minute, Andy Yiadom made his now customary appearance from off the bench to replace Garcia at left-back and, somewhat surprisingly, though again possibly with Tuesday in mind, Abrefa came off with Tivonge Rushesha coming on at right-back, and that was all the Reading substitutions completed. At this stage, you did have to wonder what Knibbs, Wing and Savage had to do in order to have any kind of a breather.
In the 84th minute, Crawley continued to be dangerous and put a rare shot at goal that Pereira needed to be alert to dive across the goal to palm away. The following clearance fell to a Crawley player outside of the box, but his shot sailed over the bar.
Shortly after, there was a bit of a heart-in-mouth moment when a Crawley player slid in on Yiadom, who appeared to go down heavily. However, he was fine to continue and his gamesmanship helped to tick the clock down. The resulting free-kick led to getting the ball up the pitch, followed by a Campbell run and a clear dive, which earned Campbell a yellow card for his troubles.
Then the inevitable happened. Just before the clock ticked over to 90 minutes, we were unable to prevent Crawley from playing the ball through from the edge of the box and an awful, scrappy toe-poke of a shot scuffed its way into the net, bringing Crawley level and making it 1-1.
After which, four minutes were added on and for the first time in… well, pretty much the entirety of the game, Reading had some urgency about their play.
However, Crawley didn’t get the memo and continued to attack themselves. In the 92nd minute, a very dangerous-looking ball was put into our box, with Yiadom stretching to make a clearance something like a bicycle kick.
At this point, we were looking the most likely to concede. But the game fizzled out, and Reading very much can consider this two points dropped given the respective league positions of each side.
Full time: 1-1
What went well, then? Well, it’s always good to see Yiadom get minutes on the pitch. Ehibhatiomhan scoring is always nice to see. Stickland wasn’t really troubled during the course of the game.
However, there were a lot of disappointing elements of this performance: Wing continued his poor form, Reading looked lethargic and at times disinterested - if we had applied 10 minutes of high pressure, another goal would have come - and Bodin continues to struggle, with his poor pass earlier in the game costing us the opportunity to kill the game off and make it 2-0.
We didn’t really deserve to win the game, but the draw also feels harsh. I think the difference between the two sides was that Crawley couldn’t take their chances, and Reading didn’t look like they wanted to make any. We made our bed, and now we need to lie in it. Reading will need to dust themselves off and prepare for a real battle on Tuesday, for which - based on the last two games - we seem ill prepared.