I had a sensation this season was going to be the kind where Reading do a Championship imitation of Arsenal. Not neccessarily in the sense of attempting 75 passes too many before scoring, or being utterly prepared to deal with scrappy ex-Championship sides featuring Irish missile platforms in midfield. I mean in the sense that, when Reading win, it’s usually of the cutting the opposition to pieces variety. Meanwhile, when Reading lose… well, I imagine it’s better to lose games by scores like 2-1 and 1-0 rather than lose 5-4.

So, Assistant Manager Kevin Dillon thinks there’s too much fixture congestion. And surely he has a point, five games in 14 days is immense. That said, it’s just as bad anywhere else in the Football League, where teams have to play 46 games to decide who goes up and who does down, not counting the FA Cup, League Cup, and the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy (for League 1 and 2). So it’s entirely reasonable that some teams may play in upwards of 60 fixtures. In essence, meh.

That’s not the best part of that little story though.

Despite having a shorter journey on Saturday, travelling down the M4 from Reading to Bristol, Dillon said even that was not a problem-free journey.

“We travelled up on the day of the game for the first time in many years and we were late.

“The coach driver got lost on the way to the stadium – we thought it was Halloween and they were winding us up.

“Liam Rosenior, who played for Bristol City for quite a long time, took us completely the wrong way and got us lost.”

I can imagine this scenario in my head, and it plays out exactly like when you go on a school trip and the busdriver gets lost. Steve Coppell is the harried teacher just trying to ignore this problem until the bus gets back on track, Stephen Hunt’s loudly singing filthy driving songs, and the exchange student (Jimmy Kebe) has no idea what fresh hell he’s been dragged into and can’t wait to get back home.

Meanwhile, Norwich, feel free to hang onto him for a while, with my blessing.

This weekend, Reading clash with Derby County, who, after a disastrous continuation of their putrid form last year, have finally remembered they are, at least theoretically, a proper football team. But noone’s managed to off the Royals at Fortress Madjeski so far this season, so a 3-1 victory should be a reasonable ask.

It’s a Saturday, late in the season. Reading are playing Tottenham. The game’s been back and forth, end-to-end stuff, with Paul Robinson and Marcus Hahnemann tested multiple times. As the game ticks past the 80 minute mark, a loose ball falls to the feet of Stephen Hunt, who confidently strides past Tom Huddlestone in midfield before chipping a beautiful pass over Ledley King’s head for Leroy Lita to run onto. Lita controls it with one touch, cutting inside his man and rifling a laser into the bottom corner to make it 2-1 and gift the team three points.

Problematically, the situation i’m describing here takes place in a game of Football Manager, and not in real life, where Mr. Lita has joined Charlton on a four-week loan. Assuming he manages to keep his cellphone (and penis) in his pants, it should give him a chance to get in some much needed match practice at a reasonable level and come back strong. Some people aren’t enthralled by the move, but given how well any of the strikers have been this season, Leroy might as well get the experience somewhere else where any profligacy in front of goal won’t cost the team points.

Until last weekend, it had all been quite frustrating for Reading. Hell, last I checked, they were even mired in the relegation zone in FIFA 08’s interactive leagues. The only place I ever saw Reading pulling off results was in said acclaimed Footy sim, albeit, in that they’d somehow managed to convince João Moutinho into a move to Berkshire. Their season had also been marked with a massive 4-1 thumping of Manchester City at the Madjeski.

Much as I do love the Royals, i’m not exactly putting my money on such a possibility tomorrow. City’s record in 2008 has been verging on schizophrenic (Win-Draw-Loss-Win-Draw-Loss-Draw-Loss-Win-Loss-Draw) and they did participate in that utter abomination of a match against Wigan last week (I’d rather have watched Sunderland-Derby, which was also, albeit marginally less abysmal).

So, with that god-awful monkey off the team’s back, Reading can actually go into this one thinking a point is realistic, three entirely possible. Luck isn’t with the team entirely quite yet, as it was recently revealed that Emerson Fae contracted malaria at the African Cup of Nations, and Graeme Murty’s knee isn’t up to snuff, while Elano should be fit for the match.

Assuming we can defend Nery Castillo without resorting to repeatedly kicking him and giving Elano multiple chances for another Goal-of-the-Season-style freekick, I think a point’s entirely realistic.

So, in the meantime, let’s hope Arsenal do us a favor and utterly obliterate Wigan, and perhaps we can clamber past Bolton, although I must admit, i’ll pay good money to see a team get relegated and yet still win the UEFA Cup. And perhaps a few kind souls will manage to tear themselves away from the big four and get Reading some needed wins in FIFA 08 as well.

So, Saturday, Reading will visit Middlesbrough. If you asked me in October or November what I thought, I’d tell you that three points is well within our capabilities for such a match, even away. Now, given that Boro have gotten some of the most glaring kinks figured out, not so much. Boro certainly aren’t Chelsea or ManU, mind, they did need a unfortunate error from Paddy Kenny to get through to the next round of the FA Cup, but against our defense right now, the thought of Tuncay, Downing, and even Mido honestly scares me. Who knows, maybe even Boro’s big-money Brazilian (Alfonso Alves) will actually see the field for more than 15 minutes.

The load is, for us, entirely on the shoulders of our strikers. They must start finding form if Reading are to stay up. Someone who is paid to regularly score, needs to start scoring again. Regularly. Outside of Kitson though, I wonder who’s going to take the load on? To be perfectly honest, I just don’t have that much faith in Kevin Doyle anymore, and Leroy Lita certainly has the pace and the desire, but he hasn’t featured since the 2nd of this month, and hasn’t scored in the league thus far this season.

It’s times like this that one wishes life were like a video game. You could jump in, and force them to play the right pass, to get tight in defense, to run their socks off for 90 minutes. Unfortunately, all we can do is hope. The match is totally out of touch for people like me, as both FSC and Setanta Broadband aren’t putting it on (somewhat understandably, Boro-Reading isn’t exactly a byword for dashing, entertaining football).

Against Everton, and for periods, against Aston Villa, we showed the heart we need. Both teams were just better than us. The players seem to understand that this is an absolutely massive game. A point is not just needed here, it’s the minimum we can take. We don’t, and relegation goes from “serious problem” to “imminent”.

One point. Fingers crossed.

Still, I think the battling display against Everton, even in the face of a loss, will give the team a lot of hope, especially if Lita returns to the fray. Most pundits have this one as a possible slaughtering, harsh I think. If Reading have anything this year, it’s been home form, and I think that a point is a reasonable hope, and all three not out of the question, if Kitson (surprisingly, the joint English top scorer in the Premier League) can find his feet, if Convey can be effective down the wing, if the defense holds up…

…Of course, there’s the problem this year. Too many “ifs” are popping up. If we can take a lead, if we can hold a lead, etc, etc.

Lawro thinks it’ll be a 2-1 turnover for us. I certainly hope so, but if we only get 1-1, that’d be fine too. Even better if Derby annihilate Wigan (unlikely as that is).

So now both halves of our game are present and accounted for, we just can’t seem to score goals and keep goals out at the same time. That could very well change this weekend, where we can happily refresh ourselves at the oasis of the Premier League: Derby County. Given the state of Derby’s defense this season, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see last week’s record broken again, but I’m hoping they tighten up with Sonko possibly finally back in the lineup. It’s no great analysis to say that this is a game we need all three points from; Derby may be helpfully occupying one of the relegation spots we’ll be trying to avoid all season, but securing the maximum point reward from a fixture with them is essential to staying up.

(I should mention here that I actually feel sort of bad for Derby, as there’s a bit of small club kinship between them and Reading. Plus, in my shameless USA bias, it’s hard to root against a team with such a neat logo, and with Benny Feilhaber on the roster, he of the Gold Cup Wonder Goal. Never gets old.)

Some other news:

- Some good Coppell quotes this week, as you might expect. Turns out his seemingly invulnerable veneer can be cracked by giving up 7 goals in a game, as he uncharacteristically went off on reporters at a Monday press conference. Witness:

“I’ve had 17 million questions about second-season syndrome,” Coppell told reporters. “I’m fed up with the f****** thing. Shove it up where ever.”

“It’s just f****** hard whether it’s the first season, second season or third season.”

Do they have those edited coach press conference Coors Light commercials in England? Playoffs?!?

Saying “nobody died, nobody was mortally wounded,” isn’t exactly a shrug either. I kind of wish Coppell & Co. would’ve treated the Pompey game as the anomaly it clearly was rather than blushing all week long, but oh well. Things are reaching a panic state over there, and the team should probably concentrate on settling down and regaining their form.

- Glen Little had surgery for his achilles heel injury, which should keep him out for at least four months. All reports from earlier in the season had pretty much written him off for this year (if not for his career, sadly), so it wasn’t much of a shock. Still, it perpetuates our right midfield woes. Both John Oster and Bobby Convey remain questionable for tomorrow’s game.

- Nicky Shorey called up again for England, but I imagine he won’t see much play with Ashley Cole fit. Maybe vs. the powerhouse of Estonia.

- What?!? You’re telling me the 17th place team vs. the 20th place team isn’t worthy of American television? Come on! I’ll come back with some thoughts on the game cobbled together from highlights and text recaps. Hopefully sooner than 7 days after the game. Go Royals!

…so, of course, he’s hurt again. Fuck.

Worrisome was the backline play, who resembled blue-stripey cones as Benayoun and Torres went zooming past to score. However, I’ll take solace in the fact that it was our second-choice defense, and that the return of Ibrahima Sonko grows ever nigh.

He won’t be back by this weekend though, which find us travelling to Portsmouth for a very tough match. Pompey seem like the same under-the-radar danger as last season, and they took four points from Reading last year, so it will be tough to keep our league momentum up. Let’s hope the strong effort at midweek propels the first-team back to a goal-scoring mood.

Cup ties are a strange thing with Reading though, as Steve Coppell tends to give his backups a run out no matter who the competition. Hence, second-teamers Shane Long, Ulises De La Cruz, John Halls, Emerse Fae, and my boy Bobby Convey are all tipped to start today. Marcus Hahnemann will likely also be rested in favor of the Aussie who sounds like an Italian, Adam Federici. Of particular interest is substitute James Henry, an 18 year-old from the Reading Academy who could be the answer to our right midfield woes.

A lot will depend on how much of a scrub side Rafa Benitez throws out, and rumors that Gerrard won’t start are encouraging. ESPN also has it that they’ll be starting a teenager of their own in central defense, along with a bunch of Brazilian and Moroccan midfielders I’ve never heard of.

With so many unknowns on the field, it’s anybody’s guess what the result will be. I’ll just make the lame, vague prediction of an entertaining and open match – Reading likes to take the game to even the biggest teams at home (as seen vs. Chelsea last month) and the reserves will have something to prove. Remember the cup squad’s deep run in the FA Cup last season? Yeah, like that. Personally, I’ll be pulling at the very least for Leroy Lita to score a goal, and the topical celebration that’s sure to follow. 2-1 on using his hand as a phone, 5-1 on committing a lewd act with the corner flag.

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A strange ESPN article about the possibility of Steve Sidwell coming back to the team on loan for the second half of the season. Soccer fans with more experience, help me out; has this sort of thing happened before? A player leaving his team for a big paycheck, then being borrowed back? It would surely benefit Reading’s midfield in the short term, but would also seem like a backwards step, like hooking up with an ex-girlfriend. It’d also be interesting to see what kind of reaction he’d get from the Madejski crowd, who didn’t take kindly to his departure. But if Chelsea wants to pay a player to play for our team, it sounds like a hell of a deal to me. I’ll keep an eye on the story, to see if it’s mere fantasy.

But I’m happy to say I’ve now completed a move to a new home that comes equipped with Setanta and a DVR, so keeping up with all things Reading just became a whole lot easier (and less Bit Torrenty). So, with a renewed commitment to blogmenship, let’s try to lift Reading out of this early season funk and get them playing the spirited, gutty football they were beloved for last season.

In order to fully purge ourselves of the first month’s nasty toxins, let’s do a bit of a rundown of what is keeping Reading firmly rooted in the basement:

1) Lack of Offense

Last year, Reading were commended for coming up to the Premiership and showing an ability to hit the back of the net. This year…not so much. 3 goals in 6 games is simply brutal, and the fact that only one of those goals has been scored by a forward – and all 3 on set pieces – is scarier still. The three-headed monster of Kevin Doyle, Leroy Lita, and Dave Kitson haven’t yet hit their stride, in part due to injury, silly red cards, and lack of service. Last year it was a bit of a relay race, where Doyle carried the scoring the first half of the season, then passed it off to Lita for the second. Somebody’s got to step up as a viable threat, but quick.

2) Injury

As is often mentioned, the downfall of most small-market teams is the injury list, as they can’t afford to keep the absurd depth of a bottomless payroll side like Chelsea. Last season, Reading bucked that trend by responding to injury surprisingly well, with early losses of Kitson and Bobby Convey dealt with in nearly seamless fashion. However, this young season quickly wiped out our entire right-wing depth chart (Glen Little, John Oster, Seol Ki-Hyeon) and hasn’t been kind to our defense either, with Ibrahima Sonko still ailing from last year’s late injury, and Michael Duberry, Graeme Murty, and Nicky Shorey all missing time. All these players went down early enough to shake a replacement or two out of the transfer market, but Steve Coppell was either financially unable or tactically unwilling to do so, making only the strange move of trading Seol for Fulham defender Liam Rosenior, deepening one hole to fill another.

3) International Duty

This is Coppell’s favorite bugaboo so far this year, and there may be something to it: the wear and tear of fulfilling one’s patriotic duty surely stresses Reading’s shallow depth as much as the injury bug. With at least 10 players representing 7 different countries, international breaks have been anything but vacations for the Royals. Of course, practically every other Premier League team has to deal with the same stresses (save maybe Derby County), so it’s a little bit of a nit-pick to put the blame here. But would the Reading fans have chanted “Shorey for England” so enthusiastically last season if they knew it would keep him out of a very likely relegation-relevant match with Bolton and attract the “derisory” interest of West Ham?

4) Second Season Syndrome

Whereby the mystical gods of English football cast curses upon any lower-league upstart that dares stick around the top flight for more than a brief sniff. Or something, I’m still learning the mythology. The brave draw against United and the respectable match with Chelsea chased away the SSS advocates for a little while, but the struggles since have gotten every writer back on the “told you so” bandwagon.

5) Sidwell

It’s painful to admit, but the Steve Sidwell shaped hole in midfield has apparently caused more damaged than predicted. While it was hard to quantify exactly what Sidwell provided for Reading, and I admittedly thought he didn’t do much as far as the attack was concerned, the team continues to look a shell of its former self, especially going forward. James Harper has come along well, but new signings Kalifa Cisse and Emerse Fae haven’t yet settled into the system, and aren’t filling Sidwell’s shoes. Furthermore, it was correct to guess that the redhead wouldn’t get much time at Chelsea (though maybe he’s been cozying up to Avram Grant and it’s about to pay off), so both sides of the summer’s biggest spat in Reading-land have come out for worse.

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But looking forward, this weekend holds a very winnable home tie against Wigan. Hopefully, the team will be refreshed after their first full week off between games (probably for the best we just missed out on that UEFA Cup slot, eh?), and Wigan without Emile Heskey looks slightly more beatable. It’s still early enough in the season that one win can completely change the weather, moving us out of the danger zone and into a solid mid-table position.

Of course, now that I have every soccer channel available in the US and the ability to DVR at will, the game is not being broadcast. But I’ll be back with a post-game as soon as I can see some highlights.

Some slightly more serious analysis:

- Much has been made about Reading’s dreadful opening week: @ManU, Chelsea, Everton. But now’s probably the best time to have at the first two, given that they’re still winded/banged-up from their global preseason tours and still working on integrating all the big signings of the preseason. Tevez won’t take the field tomorrow, Hargreaves is still working on his fitness and is doubtful, even C. Ronaldo’s got a bit of ankle thingie (though he’s expected to play). On the other hand, United won’t be in the awkward “getting to know you” phase – like their Community Shield lineup, it’ll likely be pretty close to last year’s top XI.

- Last year, Reading got a face full of Fergie’s fellows, and met the challenge strikingly well:

9/23 Reading 1, Manchester United 1
12/30 Manchester United 3, Reading 2
2/17 Manchester United 1, Reading 1
2/27 Reading 2, Manchester United 3

Two 1-1 draws, two 3-2 losses. Not bad, to say the least. Some chalk it up to Steve Coppell’s tenure as a player at United, but that seems a bit superstitious. Like Reading’s success against Chelsea, I think it’s just a matter of playing positive football, rather than the bunker down mentality most smaller teams employ against the big bad four.

- Which is why I’m a bit concerned about rumors that Coppell will use a 4-5-1 tomorrow, now that Leroy Lita has suffered his mysterious bed-related ailment (he’s supposed to be out for about a month). Part of Reading success last year was due to their depth at the forward position, rare for a newly-promoted team. When Dave Kitson went down in the opening match, Lita stepped up. When Kevin Doyle went down later in the season, young Shane Long was able to step in. In some ways, I even like a Kitson-Doyle or Kitson-Lita pairing up front…Doyle and Lita are a little too similar to my liking. Dropping Doyle back to a midfield position takes away a bit of Reading’s spark though, and their best bet tomorrow may be to come out guns blazing and try to catch United still taking their victory lap.

- Speaking of injuries, Ibrahima Sonko and Glen Little are also out. I’ve always disliked Little for some reason, though I suspect he’s a much better player than he looks. His achilles injury is expected to keep him out for quite a while, which means the wingers will be some combo of Seol Ki-Hyeon, John Oster, Stephen Hunt, and Bobby Convey. Convey’s still getting fit from a bad knee injury last year, but here’s hoping for a triumphant return.

Sonko’s absence is a little more worrisome. Reading’s open style requires some solid central defense play, lest things get out of hand, and Sonko was a rock back there for the first half of the season. After going down in late January, Reading’s defense seemed a little less tight, though looking back at the scores, there’s not a noticeable difference post-Sonko. Still, I feel a lot better when he’s back there in place of Michael Duberry, who gives me nightmares.

- Finally, the nice thing about opening at Old Trafford is that the expectations are about as low as possible — if Reading scrapes out a point, they’ll party like it’s 1999. At the very least, we might see some of the new signings run out against top competition, maybe in the fly new Oakland Raiders colors away kit (modeled above), and hope nobody gets hurt. 3 points from these first 3 games, and the Royals should be pleased.

You’ll likely see all this before I do; I’ll be on a plane during the game, but will be torrenting fiercely as soon as I arrive at my hotel. So, look for a recap late tomorrow, American time.