In Defence Of Reading’s Use Of The Long Ball

In his debut piece, Will argues that ‘going long’ has its uses for this Reading side.

Watching Reading at points of both this season and in the recent past has often come to be quite a slog at times. The football has been slow, boring, predictable, and downright unwatchable at points, especially last season under the guidance (if you can call it that) of Paul Ince.

Often, especially on our travels, he would deploy a park-the-bus type of system where Reading would set up very deep, allow the opposition to have the ball, and then attempt to counter attack by playing long to usually a strike partnership of Andy Carroll and one of either Femi Azeez or Shane Long.

It must be said: this style of long ball did not work at all. In two away games against Sunderland and Cardiff City, Reading mustered a disgraceful one shot on target in two away games playing this way, and lost both games 1-0.

Although this Ince-ball was one style of long-ball football, Reading have shown further back in the past that it can work if played the correct way against certain opposition. In an away game at Norwich City under Jose Gomes back in 2019, while Reading were battling to stave off relegation to League One and Norwich were flying at the other end of the table, we opened the scoring directly from a long ball – one over the top of the Norwich midfield and defence to a speedy Mo Barrow on the left hand side, where his cross to Yakou Meite was tucked home to give us the lead.

Even though we didn’t win the game in Norfolk that night, it earned us a valuable point against high-flying opposition in our relegation battle. It must be said, if Reading had tried to play through Norwich that night, or attempted to keep the ball and play like Barcelona, it would have gone horribly wrong and chances are we would’ve come away with no points and possibly a much worse off goal difference. So there are times when the long ball does work – it just has to be set up correctly and against the right opposition, rather than every week.

Now to this season. I don’t claim to be an expert on tactics, and have certainly not got the wealth of knowledge that coaches and managers have, but one thing that hasn’t frustrated me this season is Reading’s use of the long ball.

At the recent home game with Wycombe Wanderers, as well as the previous ties with Charlton Athletic and Exeter City, I would hear lots of calls from those sat around me for Reading to ‘stop playing long’ and ‘play it short and forward’, along with the usual grumblings when it is played long and comes to nothing. However, the long ball – defined as an attempt to move the ball downfield via a long kick, often surpassing the midfielders – has worked for Reading this season.

Often, Reading play patient passes between the back four and the defensive midfielders of either Michael Craig or Charlie Savage, waiting for an opportunity to play the ball towards Sam Smith or wide along the opposition backline for one of the wingers, or Harvey Knibbs, to pick up and take on the defence or win the second loose ball. The defensive players would often wait until the opposition had begun to get frustrated and push forward to play these passes as there would be more space in behind, which is why the back four would often seem to be holding the ball for a long period of time.

Although this tactic did not work as well as it could have done against Wycombe, where they pressed high and won the ball off of Reading in their own half or forced Reading to go long quicker than they would have wanted, meaning the tall Wycombe centre-backs could win the ball every time against Smith, there have been numerous examples of it working throughout the season.

It worked against Fleetwood Town away, where Lewis Wing, who had picked up the full-back spot and can ping beautiful passes, played a long ball out to a running Azeez before taking up a position centrally, receiving the return ball, and curling it home top corner. Fleetwood had defended very well against Reading and breaking them down had proven difficult, so the long ball was a key way to allow Reading to push up the field, and it led to a goal.

In the home game against Cambridge United, with Reading slightly on the back foot going into half-time, a long ball towards the halfway like by Jeriel Dorsett caused issues for the slow Cambridge backline. Azeez pounced, flicking it forward before racing away at pace to score a crucial second goal. Without the ball forward, this opportunity would not have arose.

And this has been a common theme of this season. Not always leading to goals, however they often advance play and allow our wingers to win corners or throw ins high up the pitch which do lead to goals more often than in previous seasons.

Yes, they have their place and in some games just do not work, and need to be either tweaked or stop being used sooner – such as against Wycombe – but they are a good outlet for Reading to use and do lead to goals more often than some people realise. So, give those long balls a chance!