My Reading mate's take on Tuesday's game.

"Barnsley played well tonight. O'Grady was the best player on the pitch. You were the best team in the first half, we were on top in second went 1-0 up and looked in control. We then made a couple of disastrous substitutions and you were on top for the rest of the game. We were really holding on at the end. From what I saw your boys will not be down at the bottom for long. You look really well organised and good going forward. Only a matter of time before you go on a run."

 

Not a bad assessment although I thought O'grady had possibly his poorest game for us. Still scored a great goal though.

 

It was actually one of O'Grady's poorer games. Not poor, just not up to his usual excellent standards. There was no lack of effort, and he scored a great goal, but the ball wasn't sticking to him the way it usually does. I thought Scotland looked the more dangerous striker while he was on the pitch.

Fair assessment of the game though. Us first half, them the start of the second half, us the latter part of the second half.

 

He had two big defenders against him in Morrison and Pearce and they were trying to batter him out of his ability to control the ball. In fairness, Morrison in particular did that pretty well and Chris will have known he was in a tough battle. However, he was up for the fight and never gave up battling. That's the sort of centre forward we want. He did win a significant amount in the air and his goal said it all. It is good to have a player who can mix it with the physical side of the game and yet can produce a quality strike to get us a point. He wasn't as dominant as sometimes, but you have got to give some credit to Morrison for that, who played him fairly well. I thought the midfield looked a bit of a mess at times. Fox is deployed in the holding role, which is exactly what we need, didn't find his range with his passing yet and his specialism at set pieces was not quite up to scratch, but he has hardly played recently, so that should come with time. It seemed to me that Mellis was deployed wide left and McCourt wide right most of the time, but neither were wingers, so we seemed to lack width at times, other than when Wiseman and Kennedy got forwards. Big plus for me was that the back four looked sound with Cranie as captain and controller. Just some questions about our vulnerability down our left side. A fair performance which promises better things to come, but probably not until after next Saturday!!! Fox to get better and start to control our midfield more and more. Pederson and O'Grady to become more and more potent up front - I thought Pederson looked pretty sharp when he came on - nearly a goal with first touch. No more tinkering. Keep the side developing his way.