Three games to go, come on Boro and Villa!

I predicted a 4-0 defeat and am pleased to say I was wrong, even though Arsenal should have scored 5 or more in a game which the Royals really didn’t stand a chance.

The manager made six changes to the side that lost to Fulham. In came Kitson, Convey, Murty, Sonko, Cisse and Kebe, replacing Long, Doyle, Matejovsky, Shorey, Oster and finally Stephen Hunt at last. We also saw the side switch to a 3-4-3 formation or a 5-4-1 however you wanted to look at it with Murty and Rosenior the wing backs.

The game appeared to be nicely poised for the first half hour, though Arsenal controlled the play and looked far more likely to score. Eventually they found the breakthrough as Koka-Kolo Toure picked out Adebayor, who was helped by some predictably useless defending from Sonko, and he found himself one on one with Hahnemann and slotted neatly past the American.

From that point on it looked like the floodgates where going to open and Arsenal waltz the game by 5 or 6 goals and I was starting to worry that I didn’t predict enough goals. Not before long it was 2-0 when Gilberto’s shot took a deflection off Bikey’s head to go past an outstretched Hahnemann hand.

The Royals were lucky to cling on to a 2-0 scoreline at half time as they faced wave after wave of Gunner attacks, with the home side squandering chances almost left, right and centre.

Things didn’t get much better in the second half either as the Gunners again outclassed the Royals and should have taken their chances. I had to keep checking that I wasn’t watching an FA Cup game as Arsenal looked in an entirely different league to Reading.

It wasn’t until the last 15 minutes that Reading finally started to create chances as you sensed Arsenal had taken their foot off the gas somewhat after hitting the bar twice in quick succession. First Van Persie struck the woodwork with a beautiful free kick and then Walcott hit the bar.

Bobby Convey, one of only 3 players that caught my eye for the Royals, finally created a chance for the away side all by himself as he danced between the Arsenal defence, but his shot was tipped over by Lehmann. On the subject of Convey, wasn’t it rather nice to finally see a left winger with some sort of footballing ability? While he did make some shocking passes (as did most of the Reading team) it was nice to see a left winger beat his man on occasion and being able to control the ball first time. I hope that Convey can stay in the side and we won’t have to put up with the crap that is churned out for 90 minutes when Stephen Hunt plays.

The other two players that stood out for me were Dave Kitson, who did as well as he could playing in the lone striker role but suffered from a lack of support. The other player was, as usual, Andre Bikey who looked a completely different player when he was asked to play in the central midfield role midway during the second half.

Michael Duberry went close after Convey’s chance and then he had to be alert at that back as Fabregas’ goal bound shot was hacked off the line by the defender, making his first appearance since January (probably would have been easier if we’d had started with him instead of Sonko). Arsenal would also have a goal ruled out for offside and it would finally end, in front of a rather sparse crowd as they’d all seem to have left with around 10 minutes to go.

2-0 is probably the best we could have hoped for in that game and the scoreline indeed flattered us. We were very poor after we had our early five minute spell. I thought Jimmy Kebe, who was making his first start, looks like an absolutely terrible player. His passing was particularly awful as was his touch (kind of like a tall, lanky version of Stephen Hunt) and he didn’t show any of this pace and skill that we were lead to believe he had. Suddenly it made John Oster not look like such a bad player after all. Hopefully Glen Little will be fit to start next weekend as I really hope we don’t see any of this French 2nd division guy again. Luckily he came off injured later on in the game to be replaced by Matejovsky.

I’ll be interested to know why Shorey was dropped. Was it just because Coppell wanted Rosenior’s pace against Walcott’s? Or was it because the “England international” has withdrawn from contract negotiations, I would suspect it was the latter. But we shall soon see. I hope we haven’t seen the last of Shorey, despite the fact he has not been at his best this year, I still feel he offers more than Rosenior on the left. Rosenior was poor in the first half as he made some curious passes out of play and struggled to deal with Walcott, but let’s face it, Walcott was superb today.

It’ll be time to watch Soccer Saturday and hope that Middlesbrough will be able to do us a favour against Bolton, otherwise survival will be starting to look like a tough ask for Reading.