Cup restored faith, says Church

Anthony Smith • Published 1 Mar 2010 16:00 0 Comments

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SIMON Church believes Reading's amazing turnaround is all down to their incredible cup run.

Royals smashed Sheffield Wednesday 5-0 last weekend to secure their fifth win in six league matches to ease their relegation fears.

And after going 11 months without a home league win, they are now unbeaten at the Madejski Stadium in all competitions since Brian McDermott took over in mid-December.

Church believes the incredible transformation can be traced back to the day Reading held Premier League giants Liverpool to a 1-1 draw in the third round of the cup before winning the Anfield replay.

McDermott's men have also knocked out Burnley and West Brom to secure a place in the quarter finals for the first time in 83 years.

Royals are now just one more win away from a semi final spot at Wembley, if they can overcome Aston Villa at home this Sunday (1.45pm ko).

Church argued: "We've had a really good run and it was just a matter of time before a big win like Sheffield Wednesday was coming.

"Confidence has been sky high since we beat Liverpool at the start of the year. It turned things around for us and since then we've been growing as a team.

"It's coming together and everyone can see we're a great bunch of lads who want to work for the team for each other.

"It's time we tuned it around because we deserve to. We've had a hard time but we've dug deep and worked hard.

"We don't really look at the table, we just try and keep going and moving up. Now our only focus is on Aston Villa in the cup.

"The build-up couldn't have gone much better with a 5-0 win."

Royals were often booed by their own supporters during a poor start to the season.

Now they are right behind McDermott's men and Church added: "It's understandable fans aren't happy when you aren't getting results. It's obviously hard to come to the ground and give your all.

"But they've been fantastic recently. The give us a big lift against Sheffield Wednesday and with the fans behind you it feels like you can achieve anything.

"We've got to fancy our chances against Villa on the back of our recent results. We've got a lot of confidence, we put in a great performance against Sheffield Wednesday and we're scoring a lot of goals.

"We'll are looking forward to Sunday because we feel we can win the game."

Church grabbed his ninth goal of the season in the Owls' demolition with an exquisite strike form the edge of the box.

Grzegorz Rasiak and Jimmy Kebe also scored twice each as Reading moved up to 18th in the table, four points clear of the drop zone.

But Church admitted he thought his chance to score had gone: "I thought the moment had past," he stated. "I saw Jimmy Kebe in space but I thought I'd cut inside and have a go.

"Luckily I caught it sweetly and it was a nice little goal. I don't think I've ever had a shot outside the box before but I caught it well and luckily it went in.

"I've got nine for the season now, Gylfi has 10 and Grzegorz isn't far behind with eight. It's our job to score goals. At the beginning of the season it wasn't happening but luckily we're starting to turn things around in terms of our performance, the chances we are creating and goals as well.

"At the moment we're just really happy with the way things are going."

Church is likely to start for Wales in a friendly against Sweden in Swansea on Wednesday night.

He is one of several Royals to receive an international call-up this week along with Shane Long (Republic of Ireland), Brynjar Gunnarsson (Iceland), Marek Matejovsky (Czech republic), Zurab Khizanishvili (Georgia), Ryan Bertrand (England U21s) and Gylfi Sigurdsson (Iceland U21s).

Long is likely to return to the Reading squad for the Aston Villa clash having served his four-match ban.

JOBI McAnuff is serving a three game ban after Reading decided not to appeal his red card at West Brom last week.

The 28-year-old winger was shown a straight red for violent conduct after clashing with Baggies midfielder Youssouf Mulumbu during a post-match melee.

His ban started last Saturday for the 5-0 victory against Sheffield Wednesday and also includes the FA Cup quarter final against Aston Villa this weekend plus the league game against Derby County.

McAnuff was additionally charged with improper conduct, which Reading have until 6pm tonight (Monday) to appeal.

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