Leyton Orient 2-0 Reading: Down Without A Fight

Goals from Dilan Markanday and Charlie Kelman condemned the Royals to defeat in East London.

The good thing about living in South London is that getting back home from Leyton Orient’s Brisbane Road stadium really doesn’t take all that long. When Reading play at home it’s a two-hour or so commute for me, but today it took around 60 minutes.

I had a lot of time and opportunity to think about the benefits of going home quickly in the second half today - a second half that dragged tediously onwards, Reading 2-0 down for the vast majority of it, but showing little idea how to remedy the situation. My lasting memory of this match will be of the Royals desperately struggling in the second half to get the ball out of their own half, build attacks and get into the hosts’ third with any real conviction.

We’ve had that before of course - bad halves of attacking football are nothing new for Reading FC - but this one was particularly frustrating. The two sides had been pretty evenly both before the game (sitting 8th and 7th in the table respectively) and in the first half, which could have gone either way but ultimately ended with a 1-0 home advantage due to Dilan Markanday’s opener.

There was no reason for the Royals to be so passive, so limp and so uninventive in their offensive play. Reading had enough all-round quality and leadership on the pitch to put up a fight, but it was as if all the air went out of this team in the 51st minute. Cue a constant lack of ideas and tempo, a constant tendency to resort to going long, and a constant failure to land a blow on Orient or make them break a sweat defensively.

Going 2-0 down soon after the restart - Charlie Kelman profiting after some poor defending at a set-piece - shouldn’t have been such a deflating moment. And yet it was. There’s a clear difference between a team pushing hard but lacking that final piece of the puzzle and a team that looks wayward. Reading were wayward in the second half.

You could have added Ben Elliott into the team - for me the biggest miss creatively at the moment - but that one tactical alteration wouldn’t have unilaterally lifted the spirits of a team which seemed so timid. Noel Hunt did actually make the right calls with his subs in the second half, bringing Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan and Mamadi Camara on for the poor Abraham Kanu and Chem Campbell as Andre Garcia went to left-back, but those swaps barely made an impact.

I can absolutely accept Reading losing games like this in theory. Even when we have everyone back available, this is still a young group that has difficulty on the road, and the hosts were in fine form before today too. But Reading’s inability to make the opposition truly work for the points was so disappointing.

I deliberately say inability by the way - not unwillingness. It’s worth being specific and fair (you be the judge if I am being fair) about what the problems are here. This group has its flaws but a lack of commitment isn’t one of them - that’s not been the issue this season, clearly wasn’t during the first half when Reading’s commitment was excellent, and the second half doesn’t change that, despite how frustrating it was.

Hunt made a couple of changes to last Saturday’s XI, swapping Michael Craig and Jeriel Dorsett - both returning from injury - in at full-back for Tivonge Rushesha and Abraham Kanu respectively.

Reading (4-3-3): Pereira: Craig, Dean, Bindon, Dorsett; Knibbs, Wing, Savage; Campbell, Smith, Garcia

Subs: Button, Holzman, Kanu, Rushesha, Ehibhatiomhan, Camara, Wareham

It’s been an awfully frustrating season for Dorsett injury-wise and it only got more so today. Just a few minutes into the game he pulled up and went down, needed medical treatment, and was forced off for Kanu.

That prompted the hosts to focus most of their attacks down that side - Reading’s left - for much of the half. Kanu really hasn’t convinced defensively as a left-back this season - admittedly a tough ask given his lack of experience at first-team level in any position - and unfortunately that was the case again today.

Orient didn’t have a flood of quality chances before the break but did come up with some. Joel Pereira was on hand to stop one shot at his near post after the hosts had got in behind and later denied Markanday in a one-on-one, but wouldn’t do so again in the 29th minute. Markanday got in behind, checked onto his left foot, took his time and picked his spot, slamming into the net past Pereira, who’d come out of his goal to tighten the space.

Charlie Savage spoke recently about how Reading now look to play more direct in the first half on the road before playing their own game to a greater degree in the second. That summed up Reading’s approach to the first half well today, with the Royals happy to go long, play aggressively and disrupt the hosts in their own half - even if open-play creativity was thin on the ground.

What Reading were capable of though was danger from set-pieces. Savage and Lewis Wing each had numerous opportunities to whip free-kicks and corners into the box, doing so effectively. One delivery resulted in a Harlee Dean back-post header (saved), while the centre-back turned provider later on with a long throw that eventually came to Savage on the edge of the area, only for that effort to lack the power to trouble the ‘keeper.

The Royals came closest to getting on the scoresheet in open play however, putting together a quality (and rare) counter-attack through Andre Garcia and Sam Smith. The former charged forward down the left, fed the latter wide and moved into the box. Smith’s low cross found Garcia, but the youngster’s touch let him down, lacking that bit of composure to convert the chance.

All in all a fairly even first half, with the contest to that point decided by one moment; on another day Reading could well have gone into the interval ahead. They just needed to keep plugging away after the restart and, ideally, show more quality in open play.

That was all derailed six minutes after the break when Kelman doubled Orient’s advantage. A corner on Reading’s left was played short and then lofted into the box. The delivery wasn’t dealt with in the air, was allowed to drop, and Kelman had the straightforward task of converting - his shot was at Pereira, but too powerful to be held onto.

There’s nothing really to pick out from Reading’s attacking efforts after that point: the visitors had nothing in possession. The Royals weren’t overtly bad, error-prone or loose defensively in the second half, they just had no idea how to hurt the home side. Credit to Orient for stifling us, but it didn’t feel like they had to work hard to do that.

Hunt tried a few changes (Ehibhatiomhan, Camara and Rushesha all being introduced at various points), but none had a major impact. What Reading could have really done with on the bench at that point was a central attacking-midfield substitute (there I go again with another Elliott reference), and Friday night’s brace for under-21 player Tyler Sackey should now put him in the first-team mix.

Orient had their moments going forward in the second half, with one goal ruled out for offside, but in truth it was largely a flat affair. Orient seemed pretty happy with their two-goal lead, and saw it out easily.