Capitulation at the Cottage- Match Report

Goals from Orlando Sa and Lucas Piazon before the 50th minute put Reading in complete control at the Cottage. But, three goals in five minutes for Fulham resulted in three big points thrown away.

The 4,000 travelling Royals were were in jubilant form before the game and during the first half as they saw their team in complete control.

Steve Clarke chose an incredibly attacking side as he opted to play Blackman, Piazon, Vydra and Sa as a front four, with Norwood and Williams sitting.

Kit Symons was under a bit of pressure before this encounter and after 50 minutes, he must’ve felt his job was under scrutiny. Without Jamie O’hara or Scott Parker, Tunnicliffe started in the midfield in the only big change.

Both sides started the game pretty slowly and struggled to get the ball down and play their normal game.

However, this all changed after 13 minutes when Sa cut in from the left and used Vydra on the edge of the box who then slipped through Piazon first time to finished it off.

This sparked Reading into life and the interchangeable front four of Blackman, Piazon, Vydra and Sa caused the Fulham defence all sorts of problems. The Royals, however, struggled to create any clear cut chances to kill the game off before half time.

It took Kit’s side about half an hour to get going in this game, but like Reading, they failed to create many chances whatsoever. With half time beckoning, you’d think the away side will be able to see this out and win 1-0.

However, how wrong were we. Straight after the period, Orlando Sa scored a fantastic solo goal to send the Reading contingent into raptures. With Reading’s recent defensive qualities, no one in the ground would’ve thought Fulham would come back.

Unfortunately, the mood in the away end changed miraculously when Fulham scored three goals in five minutes to shock everyone involved.

Now, after we got through the mad five minutes, I felt the away side could go on to cause Fulham more problems. However, the mad five minutes deemed to be unrecoverable.

With 74 minutes on the clock, the next goal was so important and Fulham nicked it through the impressive Moussa Dembele. Full-Time, 4-2.

It’s tough to tell if Reading were shambolic or Fulham were fantastic.

But what I do know is that a team that wants to get promoted can not afford to collapse like that if a team comes attacking at you.

There was one positive, however. The interchangeable front four were so dangerous at their best and will cause all defenses in the league problems.