the tilehurst end 
12-03-2024 23:02
12-03-2024 23:02
Derby County 2-1 Reading: A Kick In The Teeth
Look, Derby County are a better team than us. There’s a hell of a lot of reasons why we’re where we are and why they sit in second, but let’s be honest, the main one is that they’re just better than us. And if you look at the game tonight from a neutral point of view, they probably deserved to win.
However, I still sit here annoyed, deflated, frustrated and just a bit gutted really. It’s an age-old cliche but I hate having a go at referees - honestly I do. Every team will benefit from poor refereeing throughout the season, and every team will be at the wrong end of the stick of it. But that doesn't make things like this any easier to take.
Derby may well have gone on to win if Andy Yiadom had stayed on the pitch. They were, predictably, the team on the front foot for large portions of the game. But we were holding our own. Yes, we rode our luck from time to time, but we were defending well.
That second yellow for Yiadom is a disgrace. It’s as simple as that. If the referee had given it straight away, it would be a bit a tiny bit more understandable - he’d have just made an error. But he got swayed by the mob of players that surrounded him and the fans. He bottled it.
I’m not going to have a go at him so much about the penalty - on first look (which is all he got) it looked like a pen to me, or at least very clumsy by Joel Pereira. But the second yellow for Yiadom is the one - it just really stings and is a really hard pill to swallow. Anyway, enough about the referee. Like I said, Derby still deserved to win, I’m not sat here saying we lost because Yiadom got sent off.
For large parts of the game we defended really well I thought. Tyler Bindon and Amadou Mbengue were, again, really impressive and Pereira popped up with some good saves when he needed to. With the likes of Mendez-Laing, Hourihane, Sibley, Gayle and Barkhuizen, Derby have some really good players at this level - for us to thwart them as we did for so long was impressive.
Where we disappointed though was at the other end of the pitch. We were never going to have several clear-cut chances. Therefore it was vital that, when we got into Derby’s half, which we did, and found ourselves in promising positions, which we did, that we were clinical and made the most of them, which we really didn’t.
FeminAzeez had several chances to run at his defender and create something, but time and time again his first or final touch let him down. Harvey Knibbs hardly had a kick of the ball all evening. Ben Elliott didn’t affect the game anywhere near enough. And Lewis Wing was a shadow of his usual self.
We just never found a way of hurting Derby, or putting them on the back foot even a little bit. Even Sam Smith's goal, if we’re honest, was something out of nothing. But, as I said, defensively we were matching our opponents - and there’s more than a chance that we could’ve held on to a vital point.
So, even though we lost away from home, deservedly, to a team who will more than likely be in the Championship next season, there’s still a very bitter taste left in the mouth.
However, I still sit here annoyed, deflated, frustrated and just a bit gutted really. It’s an age-old cliche but I hate having a go at referees - honestly I do. Every team will benefit from poor refereeing throughout the season, and every team will be at the wrong end of the stick of it. But that doesn't make things like this any easier to take.
Derby may well have gone on to win if Andy Yiadom had stayed on the pitch. They were, predictably, the team on the front foot for large portions of the game. But we were holding our own. Yes, we rode our luck from time to time, but we were defending well.
That second yellow for Yiadom is a disgrace. It’s as simple as that. If the referee had given it straight away, it would be a bit a tiny bit more understandable - he’d have just made an error. But he got swayed by the mob of players that surrounded him and the fans. He bottled it.
I’m not going to have a go at him so much about the penalty - on first look (which is all he got) it looked like a pen to me, or at least very clumsy by Joel Pereira. But the second yellow for Yiadom is the one - it just really stings and is a really hard pill to swallow. Anyway, enough about the referee. Like I said, Derby still deserved to win, I’m not sat here saying we lost because Yiadom got sent off.
For large parts of the game we defended really well I thought. Tyler Bindon and Amadou Mbengue were, again, really impressive and Pereira popped up with some good saves when he needed to. With the likes of Mendez-Laing, Hourihane, Sibley, Gayle and Barkhuizen, Derby have some really good players at this level - for us to thwart them as we did for so long was impressive.
Where we disappointed though was at the other end of the pitch. We were never going to have several clear-cut chances. Therefore it was vital that, when we got into Derby’s half, which we did, and found ourselves in promising positions, which we did, that we were clinical and made the most of them, which we really didn’t.
FeminAzeez had several chances to run at his defender and create something, but time and time again his first or final touch let him down. Harvey Knibbs hardly had a kick of the ball all evening. Ben Elliott didn’t affect the game anywhere near enough. And Lewis Wing was a shadow of his usual self.
We just never found a way of hurting Derby, or putting them on the back foot even a little bit. Even Sam Smith's goal, if we’re honest, was something out of nothing. But, as I said, defensively we were matching our opponents - and there’s more than a chance that we could’ve held on to a vital point.
So, even though we lost away from home, deservedly, to a team who will more than likely be in the Championship next season, there’s still a very bitter taste left in the mouth.