Whoever first said that a football team is only as good as its forwards has new ammunition for their argument. The Sheffield Wednesday striker Lucas João had not scored in the league since February and when, six minutes into the second half, he composed himself 10 yards out only to drag a gift of a chance wide it was not difficult to see what might be coming. Sure enough, it needed only another six minutes for Roy Beerens, with the first of two goals, to score a fortunate opener and prove that if Championship promotion contenders cannot be especially good then they may as well be lucky.
Wednesday were for the most part better than a Reading side whose third place in the division appeared a trick of the light, but keenly felt the absence of their first-choice attack. Fernando Forestieri’s suspension robbed them of their regular spark and Gary Hooper’s injury of a goal-poacher. Steven Fletcher was only fit enough for a place on the bench and, while he came on to squeeze in an added-time consolation and was denied a dramatic equaliser by the Reading keeper Ali al-Habsi, the die had already been cast.
“There is a saying: ‘If you don’t kill, you can die,’ and this is what happened today,” was the stark summary of the Sheffield Wednesday manager, Carlos Carvalhal, whose team remain sixth on goal difference.
“In the second half we had a clear chance, probably the clearest of the game, and didn’t score the goal,” he added. “We felt we could have won this game because of what we did. In my opinion we had more threat to them than they did to us.”
An argument to the contrary would have little backing. Reading came into the game on the back of a 5-0 defeat at Fulham that had halted a five-match winning run in the league and looked duly tentative, failing to create anything of note in the first half and more than once playing themselves into trouble as Wednesday sought to make good a visible physical advantage.
Yet it was Beerens, receiving the ball just inside the area before drilling a left-footed shot that took a sizeable deflection off Glenn Loovens to leave Keiren Westwood in the Wednesday goal standing, whose intervention counted the most. Carvalhal queried the award of the right-sided free-kick, inadequately cleared, that led to the chance; there was less conjecture surrounding Beerens’ second goal, 14 minutes from time, which was a lesson to João in how to stay calm in front of the posts.
Beerens had found the angle after seizing on to a header by the substitute Yann Kermorgant and beating the last defender with some slick footwork; his manager, Jaap Stam, was appreciative of the Dutch midfielder’s spark in a performance where much of Reading’s possession felt sterile.
“We know he’s got that quality,” Stam said. “If he plays from a No10 position and gets the ball between the lines then he gets more time and opportunities to score that goal. He’s physically not the strongest, but he’s clever.
“You need to be patient in these games. If you’re patient and don’t rush things then space will open up and that one time you get in front of goal, you’ll score.”
Things became rather more frantic with 12 minutes to play when a wild challenge from Ross Wallace, who lunged at Garath McCleary, led to a flare-up involving most of the outfield players. Stam was not the only person to believe Wallace should have been sent off. Instead he participated in a late Wednesday charge that also involved the substitute George Hirst – the 17-year-old son of the former Owls and England striker David – who was making his league debut. With a finisher of anything like his father’s quality, the outcome would certainly have been different.
