Another night, another win and a symbolic pair of symbolic statements by the players and fans. The players for sticking at the task and coming away with the much-needed W and the fans for sticking it to the man once again.
Both were triumphant in their own ways, but ultimately, they were all for the common goal. Another example of the fans and players uniting against a regime that has been reckless and complicit in our recent demise. Gone are the days when any protest would or could have been deemed as something that could go against the players on the field. They know even more than we do what this is for, why we are doing it and that it’s nothing to do with them as entities of the football club.
And that’s what made this latest win all the sweeter for it. We can protest knowing that the players and the fans are truly together in all of this. The scenes at the end when Amadou Mbengue orchestrated the songs with the fans showed this strength of feeling perfectly. It’s therefore no real surprise that Reading came away with another win. The protests have proven not to be a distraction, they’re a necessity.
On the pitch, Reading bagged the points with a dogged, tenacious performance that took a long while to bear any fruit. But when you have players like Lewis Wing to pull the strings, the law of averages would indicate that something at some point would pay off eventually.
Ruben Selles acknowledged that Port Vale were tricky opponents as the newly appointed Darren Moore has had some time to get across some different viewpoints and tactics. These changes caused us some problems in the first half especially. With good use of width on both flanks, Port Vale were, at times, fairly fluid in their approach but ultimately pretty tame up front.
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We were often just one or two touches away from breaking through and it seemed like one of those games where it was difficult to see where the goals could be unlocked. The match against Charlton Athletic was similar to this: we just had to find a way, but find it we did.
The orchestrator in chief was of course Lewis Wing, who, like a fine wine, has shown his qualities in a multitude of ways to impress any palette: his determination to close down in midfield, his range of passing and lately he’s added scoring vital goals to complete the set.
He was man of the match by quite some distance last night in most people’s eyes. But let’s just appreciate that strike, shall we? With the minutes ticking down, but with Reading most definitely in the ascendency, a goal was there, we just had to find it, and Wing delivered in devastating fashion.
From the clearing header away in the box, he took one deft touch (as he almost always does), and then, intelligently, took aim low and true. And what a hit it was. It’ll be up there as one of the goals of the season from a candidate who could be player of the season. Who’d say no?
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