Reading fan Oli Bryant gives his verdict on Reading's dour 0-0 draw with Stoke City at the bet365 Stadium.

One of the worst performances of the season, as we draw 0-0 in an incredibly uneventful and uninspiring game up in a cold and windy Stoke.

An interesting choice of lineup, as we started with a 4-4-2 diamond shape. The quality of the game was summed up by there being no shots on target at all from either side and it was a very frustrating match to watch as we clearly lacked creativity throughout the entire game.

We started very slowly and the players looked fairly lethargic in the first 10 minutes.

Moore had the poorest half, constantly misplacing passes and putting Rafael under unnecessary pressure in goal.

The hosts posed the greatest threat during the first half, as they had a tap-in disallowed for offside and then Ince’s volley narrowly missed the top corner 5 minutes before half time.

Our best chance of the half came in the 15th minute, following a Charlie Adam corner. Unfortunately, Morrison’s volley was well blocked.

I also noticed that the midfielders seemed to be a fair distance away from the defenders at times, which made it hard for us to play out and this also appeared to force us to play risky balls round the back.

Overall in the first half, we struggled to string passes together quickly in order to get an meaningful attack going.

There was also no desire to press from the strikers and it was frustrating that we were constantly resorting to launching hopeful balls up from defence to Baldock, who was dwarfed by the defender marking him, and Joao, who doesn’t really challenge to win headers.

As a result of the narrow formation, we definitely lacked width and we failed to exploit the spaces out-wide, with Blackett and Gunter not really receiving the ball enough.

The highlight of the half was an awesome bit of skill from Ejaria out on the left and a lovely through ball also played through by him to Gunter.

The second half was no better unfortunately as we continued to look pretty clueless when in possession, lacking attacking threat and ideas.

I feel Bowen made the inevitable change of replacing Joao with Boye too late in the game, as Boye always provides the team with pace on the break, which is exactly what we required.

We can be reasonably pleased with a draw and a clean sheet away from home, but against a team 22nd in the league, is it really impressive to come away with a 0-0 draw, especially as Bowen was looking to win.

We were fortunate in my opinion that we weren’t playing better opponents, as our messing about at the back would have most likely been costly and better sides would have taken advantage and scored.