It was a performance that left Jaap Stam scratching his head, after Reading were held to a goalless draw at home by a resurgent and gritty Barnsley side. Stam had spent much of the previous week pouring cold water on talk of his side gatecrashing the top two in the Championship and the Royals, while extending their unbeaten run to five matches, proved his caution was justified – and they still have work to do to cement a play-off berth.
Stam accused Barnsley of playing for a draw and, in his post-match press conference, his opening move was to ask journalists what they thought of the visitors’ tactics. “What were their intentions?” Stam said. “The opposition came here and they play in a certain way. They normally want to go forward, now they come here, they sit, they make it as tight as they can and they wait for the moment to score the goal. At the end of the game you can see they are happy.”
Reading, who drop one place to fourth in the table, were left frustrated after dominating large spells.
Barnsley were dangerous on the break, however, with Marley Watkins rattling a post and Adam Hammill blazing over from close range. “We approach every game to try and get the win,” Paul Heckingbottom, the visitors’ manager, said. “I honestly believed we’d score, and even under pressure I knew we’d get chances.”
It was Reading who settled quicker with Stam’s brand of possession-based football. But when Tyler Blackett, the Reading defender, hopelessly hoofed the ball downfield, his manager was left incensed. Jordan Obita and Chris Gunter, the two full-backs, hugged their touchlines and Liam Kelly, the definition of a pint-sized midfielder, was streetwise in the middle of the park, finding holes in the Barnsley back line and blasting over Adam Davies’ goal inside 10 minutes.
Kelly, a 21-year-old academy graduate, who spent time on loan at Bath City last season, was Reading’s brightest spark in a low-key first half. Angus MacDonald, another to progress through Reading’s ranks, excelled on his first senior appearance at the Madejski Stadium – albeit for Barnsley – since being released four years ago.
It has been a difficult few weeks for the Tykes, left depleted after a January transfer window in which they lost their captain and top-scorer, while their chief executive, Linton Brown, also walked away from the club. This was a wholehearted performance, though.
After a neat through ball by Matty James, Watkins squandered an inviting opening midway through the first half. His tame shot was comfortably smothered by Ali al-Habsi. Moments earlier, Watkins’ searching cross evaded the outstretched legs of his strike partner, Tom Bradshaw.
Stam had seen enough and at half-time replaced a fatigued Kelly with the on-loan Bournemouth striker Lewis Grabban as the hosts adopted a more attack-minded approach in front of an increasingly restless home crowd.
After watching Bradshaw’s dipping strike from distance shave Habsi’s bar four minutes into the second half, Reading upped the ante and twice went close. Garath McCleary picked out Gunter on the overlap and he whipped in a ball from the right but Yann Kermorgant’s first-time volley was kept out by Davies and eventually cleared by Marc Roberts. McCleary himself then drove narrowly wide.
But Barnsley, steely in defence and cunning in attack, survived the storm and surged forward once more, with Watkins rattling the post and forcing Reading to scramble clear.
Heckingbottom could sense a vulnerability about the hosts and threw on the striker Adam Armstrong in search of a winning goal. They should have had one too, but after clever play between Bradshaw and Armstrong, an unmarked Hammill drove his effort harmlessly over with 15 minutes left to play. Reading had another half-chance when Kermorgant won the knockdown for Grabban, his former Bournemouth team-mate, but Davies again seized the ball.
Reading threw the kitchen sink at Barnsley in a frantic finale, but Heckingbottom’s side defended stoutly to keep their own faint play-off hopes in view.
