This is one of many reasons why Reading are going down.
As neat as the opening goal was from Southampton, there’s nothing particularly complex about it. As soon as Jay Rodriguez plays the initial ball, it’s extremely obvious that he’s going to be looking for the return over the top of the defence. The through pass from Rickie Lambert is decent, and it does land in an extremely awkward position for Reading, but he’s given more margin for error than he should’ve been. Look at the defensive line from Reading – how many times have we heard analysts, managers, or pundits preach the importance of defending in straight lines? There’s very little co-ordination between the two centre-backs, and Adrian Mariappa neither closes Lambert down or provides any assistance to Sean Morrison.
Apologies, this is cliched – but Rodriguez just ‘wants this more’. When Morrison is turned around, he’s hoping that his goalkeeper is going to deal with the threat. Equally, there’s nothing in Adam Federici’s body shape which implies that he’s determined to get to this ball, and instead he’s just left hoping that Rodriguez fails to connect or misses the target. Well done to Southampton for a slick move, but this is very, very naive defending
Here’s the goal in full:
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