17th August 2013-Championship, Reading 3 Watford 3

Diego Fabbrini scored a late goal to rescue a draw for Watford at Reading. The home side took the lead through Adam Le Fondre’s powerful left-footed strike and Jem Karacan bundled in from a set-piece to add a second. Watford’s Marco Faraoni scored a header but Karacan slotted in a Le Fondre knock down to restore a two-goal lead. Troy Deeney converted a penalty for the visitors after Danny Guthrie’s foul on substitute Fabbrini, who prodded home in the 89th minute.

Reading-3-3-Watford-BBC-Sport Download

It’s easy to paint the game as being of two halves. Actually, for the first fifteen minutes or so of the second period we looked perhaps even less likely to get back into the game… possession was suddenly being ceded cheaply as we struggled to up the pace and looked for ambitious passes. A recurring theme under Gianfranco Zola however has been that of continuous improvement; we saw it through much of last season, and within a game he’s proven himself capable of changing the lie of the land to our benefit. It helps to have such quality on the bench of course, and we’ll get to that. But no small credit is due to the manager here for a bold substitution that changed our shape subtly and gave Reading something else to think about. Reading fans will naturally focus on the contrast in their own team’s performance vs earlier in the game, but the R’s didn’t just “lose it”. Much of the game is psychological of course and as things started to run for us belief grew in our camp whilst doubts entered Reading minds on and off the pitch. Everyone who’s watched a football match has seen that before. But something had to start that ball rolling, something had to change the game and give us an edge. Sometimes it’s a lucky break, or a piece of individual skill…

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