Well that was disappointing. It’s not a Reading game without a 96th-minute goal, is it?
The Royals played alright against Luton Town: a first-half hat-trick from Jack Marriott had the fans bouncing, thinking we could do anything with him in the squad, but goals from Kasey Palmer inspired a comeback before Gideon Kodua scored a scrappy winner for the Hatters.
Wycombe Wanderers entered the league with a 1-1 draw against Blackpool. It was the Chairboys who took an early lead, through Fred Onyedinma in the seventh minute, and Finley Munroe scored the equaliser in the 77th minute.
A local derby in the cup is always going to be a good watch, it’s just annoying that it’s in the competition nobody really cares about. It will be a young squad that is played in this one, so let’s see how they do.
This Tuesday, August 18, the first game of the group stage of the Vertu Trophy will be played at the Select Car Leasing Stadium. It is once again on Sky Sports+ and the referee for this one will be Isaac Searle.
In this preview I will mention key performers and underwhelming players from that game against Luton, and I will give my predictions.
Luton
In what was an entertaining game for outsiders to watch, Reading players will feel a little hard done by with the result. In my opinion the game deserved to be a draw, with both teams playing well, but that is football at the end of the day.
There were more players that had bad games than there were good ones in this one, but let’s start with the positives.
Jack Marriott has to be the starting point. Three goals in 27 minutes helped the Royals gain a first-half lead and he was really hammering at Luton’s defence. He was everywhere across the opponent’s backline and caused real problems. It is going to be exciting to see what he can do this season if he stays fit.
I think I am one of the few who thought Andy Rinhomota had a good game. He was doing a lot more work than he bargained for, due to another player having a stinker, which I will get onto later. Rinomhota tidied up well and, given he had to do two people’s jobs, I thought he played pretty well.
Finally, Daniel Kyerewaa, who I thought was our second-best attacker, not afraid to take on his man. He created a lot of chances that some others should have put away.
They were my three stand-out performers. Now for the criticism.
Jeriel Dorsett was at fault for one, maybe two of the goals we conceded. He is one of those players that is either our best defender or our worst player, and on Saturday he was the latter.
His positioning was awful and he really was off the pace. How he didn’t get taken off I don’t know, considering possible left-backs were brought on to replace other players.
For me, Joel Pereira is getting a little too big for his boots. He is making mistakes that, two years ago, we wouldn’t even have nightmares of him doing. He needs to stop trying things he clearly can’t do and work on making simple saves.
Paudie O’Connor has been a liability recently, at fault for the goal in the game against Bromley and then he had a poor game in this one.
He needs to watch his temper – he made far too many fouls and was lucky he didn’t accumulate more than one yellow card. We were warned about his knack for a booking and didn’t really see it last season, but now the Lincoln City O’Connor seems to be appearing.
Finally, and it feels weird to say this, but Lewis Wing was poor. There was a stint in the first half when he missed the ball three times before just kicking the ball out of play. He wasn’t up to scratch and was arguably our worst player for most of the game.
If that is the type of performance were going to see from Wing this season then I hope we have a back-up for the captain.
My predictions
In goal will be Jack Stevens.
Ashqar Ahmed, Boyd Beacroft, Benn Ward and Haydon Roberts will be the back four.
Liam Fraser and Tyler Sackey will be sitting in front of the backline.
A midfield three of Paddy Lane, Charlie Savage and Randell Williams will play just behind Jacob Brown, who will be our one striker.
Score prediction: 2-1 Royals!
This will be tougher than we think but I see the younger Royals doing well in this one. Sackey to get a goal or assist and Emmanuel Osho coming off the bench to grab a goal.
Good luck to those going to the game.
Come on you Royals!