Reading 2 Aston Villa 4:THERE WAS no need for Martin O'Neill to reveal the content of his half-time team-talk. The first 12 minutes of the second half provided all you needed to know about the speech the Aston Villa manager delivered in the visitors' dressing room. Villa struck three times during that period to remind Reading, who had raced into a deserved two-goal lead, they were up against a Premier League club.
Reading belatedly roused themselves and came close to grabbing an equaliser when Ashley Young headed Ivar Ingimarsson’s header off the line but the damage had been done during the breathless spell after the restart. John Carew was Reading’s chief tormenter, the Norwegian grabbing a hat-trick with a header, adroit flick and emphatic penalty-kick, as well as playing a part in Villa’s first goal, which Ashley Young dispatched two minutes after half-time.
The outcome seemed cruel on Reading, who had played superbly in the first half, when their high-tempo approach and swift counter-attacking stirred memories of the team Steve Coppell carried to eighth place in the Premier League four years ago. Two well-taken goals from Shane Long provided merited reward for Brian McDermott’s side but the manager’s half-time message about the importance of suffocating Villa after the restart went unheeded.
So listless were Villa in the opening 45 minutes it is difficult to believe anyone escaped O’Neill’s ire at the interval. Reading had torn into the visitors and it was no surprise when Long put the Championship club ahead. Brian Howard’s corners had already caused consternation when a cross in the 27th minute was flicked on by Matt Mills, inviting Long, standing unmarked in the six-yard box, to head home.
Still Villa failed to impose themselves and Reading grabbed a second. It arrived following a fine move that started with Gylfi Sigurdsson’s slide-rule pass inside Stephen Warnock inviting Jimmy Kebe to run clear on the right. The Reading winger had the presence of mind to look up before delivering a perfect cut-back that Long finished with the minimum of fuss after holding his run.
Reading were in dreamland but within 12 minutes of the second half starting the home supporters were silent after Carew, who would have started on the substitutes’ bench but for Gabriel Agbonlahor going down with a stomach bug on the eve of the game, came to life. His first telling contribution saw him help the ball into the six-yard box where Young, ghosting in at the far post, rammed home after a touch from Carlos Cuellar.
Four minutes later Villa were on level terms. Stewart Downing picked up the ball on the Villa right and delivered the kind of cross that is only going to end with one outcome when Carew is first to the ball, the forward sending a thumping header from close range past Adam Federici. Reading suddenly seemed paralysed and there was a sense of inevitability that a third Villa goal would soon follow.
This time it came from the Villa left, where Young played in Warnock after the full-back overlapped. His low centre picked out Carew who, despite being closely marked by Ingimarsson, flicked the ball with the outside of his right boot beyond Federici. Villa were now rampant and Emile Heskey should have put the game beyond doubt when he ran clear in the 68th minute. Instead he gave ammunition to his critics when he allowed Federici to save despite being horribly exposed.
Reading rallied and Ingimarsson’s goalbound header was cleared and the substitute Grzegorz Rasiak drew a point-blank save from Brad Friedel.
The game, however, was finally up for McDermott’s side when Ingimarsson fouled Carew and the striker converted from the spot to give O’Neill his first win in March since he took over as Villa manager in 2006.
