By Reading fan James ChristmasAn injury time penalty given to the home side in the dying embers of a six-pointer may seem to some like a sheepish decision from a referee under pressure. But on Tuesday night it was merely the reward for those 936 hardy souls that completed the "long ol' poke" down to Home Park back in December, and for the 15,000 (minus my rather cynical grandfather) that stayed till the end at the Madejski on this freezing cold evening.
There's a small contingent of the Green Army faithful with links to the Blue Army - my best mate Anthony, his brother Luke and dad Phil are up in the corner of the South Stand and hoping for a draw at least, although they feel a defeat could consign them to League One next year. But being the lowest scorers in the league will always come with the danger of sitting back and attempting the counter-attack. This is something I can't help but point out as we enjoy a pre-match Guinness, and their lack of confidence after defeat against West Brom on Saturday only serves to increase mine.
This one was always going to be a cagey encounter, for obvious reasons, and true to form cautious passes turned to head tennis and hopeful long balls to half-chances throughout the freezing first half. Even a flutter of snow with ten minutes till half time couldn't quite get going as Plymouth doggedly repelled every attack we could muster without really threatening - Adam Federici must've been the coldest man in the ground as the half time whistle blew. We're just about on top but there's certainly a need to up the tempo because Argyle have got back into it.
Early in the second half we look slightly slow out of the traps, and Plymouth are starting to put some pressure on us. Federici has to be sharp to deny Jamie Mackie, and debutant Zurab Khizanishvili sharper to scramble the ball away for a corner. We've passed our first real test at the back and almost immediately Shane Long is put through beautifully, duly obliging and stroking the ball low past David Stockdale's arm into the bottom corner. I'm already on the phone to Anthony; "Quality" is the best I can come up with in all the emotion. Funnily enough, no reply. He must have a dodgy signal or something.
Now we've got the momentum it looks like we can go on and get another, and Plymouth are far from dead and buried. Four minutes later Long is fouled as he puts Simon Church through, only for the Welshman to be given offside in an 'eccentric' decision by Mr Langford and his assistant. The atmosphere is starting to hot up now and you can see the spring in the Royals' step as we go hunting for another.
Just before the hour mark we have two great chances, first Brian Howard's well-struck free-kick doesn't trouble David Stockdale before Long smashes one just wide. Just as we're looking like we going to kill Argyle off a real sucker punch bobbles and scrapes its way past Federici, via Carl Fletcher's studs. Suddenly Anthony's phone's working, with the inevitable "Green Army!'' text. "Doesn't matter how you play, it matters if you score''. Wise words indeed, and the introduction of Hal Robson-Kanu adds some more physicality to our front line, with the pressure mounting and Argyle looking shaky at the back we could still nick it.
Towards the end Brian Howard's free kick somehow ends up on the post, and our pressure doesn't look like counting. With the long balls starting to rain in, Robson-Kanu does brilliantly to trap the ball before bursting through the Argyle back line and being hauled down by a combination of Chris Clark and Reda Johnson. Penalty given as the clock ticks down, and there's no shortage of potential takers - eventually Shane Long grabs the ball hoping to add to his impressive tally in 2010. With the pressure at its most intense only Long looks relaxed, and with the whistle he steps up to absolutely leather the ball into the back of the net, sending the home faithful into raptures.
What we deserved, for a night's hard work- three wins in a row and we can now look forward to the FA Cup visit of West Brom on Saturday. A final text from Anthony as we file out of the Mad Stad - "That's us down" and the Argyle fans are dejected. Hopefully now we can put a run together and guide ourselves to safety.
