Espionage is not only for men in dinner jackets trying to ignore Shirley Bassey singing loudly. Football clubs have been at it for ages. They poach players, scout youngsters and analyse every move made by their opponents in their previous matches. Reading, though, are proving tricky to outwit.
“As a newly promoted team, no one has any background information on us,” Steve Coppell, the Reading manager, said. And so, by the end of the afternoon, they were level on points with Arsenal, Fulham being the third London team in succession to stumble when faced with Coppell’s quietly confident team.
It is difficult to cope with a team who are quietly confident. Reading have no obvious strengths or weaknesses. Coppell deliberately has no star names and no one who had played Premiership football before this season. He even said that it would be detrimental if he did. They are a team keen to learn. Coppell is not even sure he wants his team to play like one in the Premiership.
“The manager said we try to play too much like Premiership teams — too easy, too much passing for no good reason,” Kevin Doyle, the Reading match-winner on Saturday, said. “Now we are getting back to the effective football we were playing last season.”
Just as last season, when Coppell refused to accept the likelihood of gaining promotion, he remains downbeat about their form. “Things are going all right at the moment, but — and it’s a big but — as more and more people analyse what we are doing, I’m sure we will be blunted a little bit,” he said.
Advertisement
Against Fulham, Reading did just enough. The home team were reduced to ten men after Ian Pearce was sent off for taking Doyle and not the ball as the young Ireland striker seemed set to score. Doyle, 23, spent the summer taking notes on how German players take penalties and duly beat Antti Niemi. “I don’t even look at the ‘keeper,” he said, explaining that mental preparation and the ability to avoid distraction is crucial to a successful spot kick.
Reading more or less ignored the fact that they had a player extra. It was no-frills football from a no-frills manager. Fulham deserve credit for continuing to create chances when a man down, but a nasty gash to Franck Queudrue’s left ankle means that Chris Coleman will struggle when naming his defence for the visit of Arsenal on Wednesday.
“I thought we were awesome today,” Marcus Hahnemann, the Reading goalkeeper, said. In an extremely understated sort of way, they were.