Reading v Swansea – live! | Jacob Steinberg

• Click F5 or turn on our auto-refresh tool for updates • Email jacob.steinberg.casual@guardian.co.uk for a chat • Follow Jacob on Twitter, if that’s your thing 9 min: Reading win the first corner of the afternoon, but McAnuff’s delivery from the left is dreadful, cleared by the man at the near post. This is being played at breakneck speed. 8 min: Both Reading wingers are looking to attack their full-backs whenever they get the ball. Now Kebe whips it in from the right but with Long lurking, Monk gets in the way. 7 min: Swansea’s players crowd around Phil Dowd after Andy Griffin steams into the back of Scott Sinclair. Who do they think they are, Barcelona? Pepe Griffin is booked. 6 min: Swansea are now settling, pinging the ball about confidently, using their 4-1-1-2-3-3-2-1-2-1-1-4-1 formation to good effect. 4 min: This is an absolutely brilliant start. Now Swansea, having weathered the storm, pelt forward, Sinclair driving in from the left ominously, forcing Mills into a desperate foul just outside the D. Borini stands over the free-kick and tries to Ronaldo it into the top corner, only to waft it harmlessly over the top. 2 min: This is a fantastic start from Reading, who are playing with a ferocious tempo. A loose ball breaks to Long on the edge of the area. He appears to control it with his hand but play is allowed to continue, and Long knocks it to the right of the area for Kebe, whose ball into the six-yard box is spilled by De Vries. Long tries to hook it home, but can only scuff his shot and eventually Swansea hack it clear. More please! 1 min: And we’re off. Not before both teams indulge themselves in a huddle. Obviously separate huddles, otherwise it would all be very pointless. The huddle should be banned actually. All that machismo actually has the opposite effect and only makes a side look thoroughly insecure. Anyway if they both do huddles, don’t they get cancelled out? Reading get us going, kicking from left to right. It’s rocking inside Wembley. An early scare for Swansea as De Vries dawdles with a backpass and only just gets it clear as Long closes in. The teams are out and lined up in the typical Wembley formation. We’re going through the presentations now. Firm handshakes. Eye contact. Dignity. It can only go downhill from here. John Madejski is dancing. John Madejski is dancing . I’m going to play in the road. It’s not worth it any more. An email from Nu Wembley! “It’s a 4-2-3-1,” confirms Nath Jones. “How can Swansea be the Barcelona of the Championship if we don’t play the same formation? (At Wembley – fifteen mins before kick-off and it’s already better than Old Wembley.)” Sky are now linking the ROYALS to the ROYAL Wedding. Oh Pippa . Sky assure me that Swansea play a 4-2-1-2-1 formation. Which sounds suspiciously like a 4-2-3-1 formation, or even a 4-3-3 or even more outrageously a 4-5-1. Then again, who am I to argue with Peter Beagrie ? Hello and welcome to what we are now obliged to call the richest game in the history of all football. Actually, let’s not call it that at all. When it’s put like that, it’s enough to turn you off the sport for life and we’ve already got Sepp Blatter and friends to do that all on their own. Let’s take our cue from Barcelona’s masterclass on Saturday evening and make this about the glory, not the money. Let’s make this all about earning the right to be spanked by Manchester United and Manchester City next season. Sure, should the camera pan to this afternoon’s winning chairman it will of course show that his eyes have indeed been replaced by pound signs, but that’s not what the fans of Reading and Swansea are here for. For them, not only is it a rare day out at Wembley, it’s the chance to see their relatively humble clubs mixing it with the big boys. Unlike a lot of big occasions at Wembley, the play-off final actually tends to be a terrifically entertaining affair. This has been discussed at length recently, but there hasn’t actually been a truly great FA Cup final in this stadium since, say, Crystal Palace v Manchester United in 1990. The play-offs rarely disappoint however: in 1998, Charlton beat Sunderland on penalties after a barely believable 4-4 draw , in 2000 Ipswich beat Barnsley 4-2 and last season Ian Holloway’s Blackpool beat Cardiff 3-2, all the goals coming in an astonshing first half. So Reading and Swansea have plenty to live up to then. It’s a strange quirk, this, actually: given the prize on offer, it’s surely only logical that play-off finals shouldn’t be this disordered, that they should be as joyless as a Roberto Mancini 9-0-1 formation. Reading do not have fond memories of these matches though – they’ve only been in the final once, in 1995, but despite going 2-0 up inside 12 minutes against Bolton Wanderers, they eventually contrived to cock it up, drawing 2-2 in normal time, before going on to lose 4-3 in extra time . Maybe it’s the FA Cup final approach for them then. Certainly Swansea will find it difficult to break them down, considering Reading did not concede a single goal over two legs in their semi-final against Cardiff. Indeed having drawn 0-0 at home in the first leg, they were firm underdogs going into the second leg but a thoughtful, mature performance ensured they left Wales with a surprisingly serene 3-0 victory. They’ve also won 1-0 at Everton in the FA Cup this season, and were close to taking Manchester City to a replay in the next round. Players like Shane Long and Jobi McAnuff catch the eye, but do not underestimate the experience of Ian Harte and Zurab Khiza … Khizanish … the big Georgian at the back, or the sturdiness of Matthew Mills. Brian McDermott, too, has done a remarkable job since initially taking over as caretaker in January 2010. He’s no Tony Parkes, that’s for sure. McDermott, of course, took over from Brendan Rodgers the former-new-Mourinho, who is now Swansea’s manager. It’s difficult to say precisely how much of an impact Rodgers has had at Swansea seeing as the foundations were already in place when he arrived and the club had been making quiet progress year after year, but only the deliberately obtuse would argue with finishing third and reaching the play-off final in his first full season. Swansea are probably marginal favourites this afternoon, given the wealth of talent at their disposal, with the likes of Scott Sinclair, Angel Rangel and Fabio Borini all destined to succeed at a higher level. Reading (4-4-2): Federici; Griffin, Mills, Khizanishvili, Harte; Kebe, Karacan, Leigertwood, McAnuff; Long, Hunt. Subs: McCarthy, Tabb, Church, Robson-Kanu, Howard, Cummings, Pearce. Swansea (4-2-1-2-1): De Vries; Rangel, Monk, Williams, Tate; Britton, Allen; Dobbie; Dyer, Sinclair; Borini. Subs: Ma-Kalambay, Pratley, Beattie, Serran, Moore, Gower, Richards. Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) Championship Reading Swansea City Jacob Steinberg guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 30, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.