We never seem to do well with an extra man normally, but Saturday’s cup win against Derby was a rare exception!
It is the third time under Clarke that we have faced a team with an extra man, but the two previous occasions we failed to score or win, against Watford and Millwall. However, we took advantage this time, as goals from Hal Robson-Kanu and Yakubu took us into the quarter finals.
Speaking to the Official Reading FC site, Clarke said: ‘We’ve had a jinx recently playing against ten men, so we spoke at half time about doing it properly against a Derby side we knew would still cause us problems. We had a little blip going down to 1-1 but we didn’t panic.’
‘We knew what we were getting when we signed him. The goal was exactly why I put him on! It was a great pass from Hal, who also took his goal very well. It’s not a surprise when he scores in that situation. Yak’s a goalscorer and we brought him in for games like that.’
We certainly weren’t the better team with the extra man, but we got the job done against a very good Derby side, who will probably be in the Premier League next year. Considering our league campaign is slowly fading away in its importance, a cup run is a great distraction.
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