Full report by Royal Web...
Wrexham Wreck Royals
Wrexham's game plan:
- kick anything that moved (except Caskey who kept jumping out of the way)
- put at least 3 players round any Reading player who got the ball
- break quickly from defence
- score goals

Reading's game plan:
- none of the above
- pass the ball sideways

Ref and Linesmen's game plan:
- help Wrexham achieve theirs

Reading's new goalie Peter van der Kwaak looked great in the warm-up, quite good in the first 20 minutes of play, Ok for the rest of the first half unless expected to catch the ball and seriously bad in the second half. Playing 4-5-1, is Ok if you have wide players who can move up to support the lone striker and full backs who fill in the gaps and a striker who can hold up the ball and run into space behind the defence. As Reading's wide players showed little intention of getting past the defenders, McIntyre with almost total lack of ability and pace never really touched the ball. I do remember some flicked headers in the second-half to non-existant team mates.

Despite losing 3 - 0 Reading actually had more possession playing the ball around to feet, mostly along the back four and eventually to Caskey who seemed to be incapable of leaving the centre circle. From there he directed the game, with a series of one touch flicks, almost always to opponents, and passes to Lambert on the left wing, who always seemed to have at least 20 yards of space around him. Unfortunately the ball was delivered too late, too far away or too high.

Davies and Kromheer looked the best players on the team (until Mass Sarr came on) but with this midfield they need a third central defender or sweeper to fill the gap when they have to make the challenges near the halfway line that the midfielders don't want to make.

In the first half most moves started from the back - van der Kwaak to Kromheer to Booty, Booty moved forward a bit but seemed to run into Crawford, who didn't look like he wanted to get forward.

Lambert was Reading's most lively player in the first half and was duly kicked out of the game just after half time by a late tackle from behind which only earned a yellow card (one of four for Wrexham).

Brebner had a good shot from distance just wide and looked promising without really doing much. After passing the ball around for about 35 minutes Reading conceded a dubious free-kick for which Lambert was booked for rightly saying something to the ref. The ball was played into the box, van der Kwaak jumped with a defender and punched the ball out and Connelly poked it back past everybody into the net, with Booty too short to clear off the line. If the goalie is going to punch the ball out shouldn't there be someone on the edge of the box to clear. A similar situation occurred not long after from a corner which nearly led to a second goal.

Although one-down at half-time we still thought the Royals would come out and get back into the game. Unfortunately not long after the break, Legg played a solid back pass to the goalie who under no pressure at all seemed to sway out of its way and let Reading's number 3 be the first goalscorer of the season again (Swales at least managed to do it at the right end last year).

Now we were certain to get stuck in and show some determination - WRONG! Nothing changed - same slow build-up, same lack of urgency, same passes. With Crawford and Lambert struggling from fouls, Tommy Burns sent on Williams and Sarr. Still nothing changed which was disappointing because I had been expecting something special from Sarr.

Suddenly things did change; after falling over a couple of times, looking for free kicks which this ref was never going to give, Sarr decided to play. He doesn't look fast but his control is fantastic and he showed some real skill and started making things happen. He may be wasted out on the left wing - he's no Gilksey - and looked better when he moved inside, creating chances with some neat touches. Gray was ineffective and unable to take the best of these. Oh, Wrexham scored a third but that didn't really matter at least we had something to cheer about - the team trudged off at the end to chants of "Mass Sarr , Mass Sarr".

Some curious refereeing: