Shrewsbury Town 1-3 Reading: Tactical Analysis

11/04/2025 10:36

A closer look at a big win in Shropshire on Tuesday night.

A 3-1 win at one of Reading's unhappier hunting grounds of recent times will certainly do me, although the game never really felt as secure as the scoreline might suggest. For long periods of the first half we were well under the cosh, and it wouldn't have been an unfair scoreline to go into half-time with a two-goal deficit.

Still, as we reminded the home fans, that's why Shrewsbury are going down, because they made nothing out of the barrage of chances they had, while down the other end we did.

Noel Hunt's side never seem to make it easy for themselves, especially against weaker opposition like Salop, but the fire inside them continues to be stoked and we burn on, cementing a place in sixth after positive results elsewhere.

Let's take a look at how we got over the line on Tuesday night.

First though, it's important to look at what nearly cost us, and it was generally getting beat all the time in wide areas.

Shrewsbury launched 38 crosses into Joel Pereira's box over the course of the game, which is quite the number. Unluckily for them we had Tyler Bindon at centre-back - who probably could stop a meteor with his head in the way - but it's still marginally worrying we allowed that to happen.

Below is the heatmap for Andre Garcia (Reading shooting from right to left). A considerable amount of his positioning is beyond the halfway line, which, for a full-back of his predisposition, isn't so unusual given he seems stronger going forward than defending.

However, in a first half which was far from comfortable, that didn't do us any favours. Left-sided centre-back Bindon had a challenging job to do on his return, as he was forced to come across and clear up on a number of occasions.

Against Shrewsbury's 3-5-2 we seemed to play a bit of a rotating back three: our two centre-backs and one full-back would come around into a flat line, while the opposite full-back would push onto and close down the wing-back of whichever side the ball was on. This tended to leave us with a three-vs-three match-up in midfield though, which sometimes we failed to contain.

In the example here we are pressing high, using the 'three at the back' tactic, with Lewis Wing patrolling just in front. Garcia is on the far side of the pitch, holding up right-wing-back Luca Hoole.

Central midfielder Alex Gilliead, who's just behind Charlie Savage in the picture, makes a darting inside run to work the ball forwards from here.

This opened the floodgates for Shrewsbury and the whole team steamed forward countering, with Gilliead breaking down the right, and no one able to get back to stop his ball into the centre.

Below is the state of affairs once the home side penetrated into the final third. A decent delivery could've seen John Marquis free as a bird at the back post, while George Lloyd is similarly breaking through beyond Bindon, as well as players arriving into midfield.

The cross can only find Bindon with his sliding challenge, but a lack of manpower in that area means the ball just returns back to their right-winger and the onslaught continues.

It just felt like, early on, we were a little bit hesitant to chase back. This did seem to improve later on in the game though, which was vital in containing Shrewsbury's counter-attacking style.

However, Reading had their fair share of counter-attacks too. These came from opposition set pieces, where they committed a lot of their defensive players forward to make an impact, especially corners.

Of course, the last time we visited Shropshire, those corners massively paid off for them late on in the game, but this year we were far more defensively resolute and none of Shrewsbury's six corners came to anything of note.

When we countered, their three centre-backs - Aaron Pierre, Josh Feeney and Morgan Feeney (who aren't brothers but play alongside each other) - were sent forward and equally did not want to chase back too much.

For our third goal, Chem Campbell carried it forward and picked out a brilliant curved pass into the path of Jayden Wareham, who continued the move from there. Wareham's effectiveness as a substitute is shown so well here - the desire to get up the pitch from a defensive scenario to getting in behind the defence and taking up such brilliant positions.

A similar result would be more than welcome at Northampton Town on Saturday, but I think that, if we put in the same level of performance, we concede more than one. The Cobblers are only seven points clear of the relegation zone and we beat them comprehensively at the SCL, but this is Reading Football Club and anything can happen.

With Hunt, I believe we will approach the game in the right way and come out on top.