Liverpool legend inspires ‘strange’ Reading FC wall set up.

Reading manager Noel Hunt claimed that his side was inspired by Liverpool and England icon Michael Owen to not build a wall when Will Wright’s free-kick won Swindon Town the M4 Derby.

The Royals rallied from two goals behind to tie the game at halftime at the County Ground, but Wright fired past Jack Stevens from range two minutes later. The Royals decided not to build a wall, surprising supporters and opposition leader Ian Holloway.

This comes after Owen described the wall as ‘a barrier’ to any free-kick beyond 30 yards when evaluating Dominik Szoboszlai’s winner for the reigning Premier League champions against Arsenal.

“The wall in that situation is a hindrance,” the former Ballon D’or winner told Stan Sports. “They don’t get to see it; it offers someone a target to hit over, and the custodian is always forced to shift one side of the goal or the other.

“If he just stands in the middle, with nothing in front of him, the opponents will build their own wall.”

“The free-kick taker prefers a wall there because it provides a point of reference. You will need a wall 20 yards out. More than 32 yards out? “I believe the wall is a hindrance.”

Reading put Owen’s hypothesis into action, and it didn’t go as expected. “It was strange that they didn’t have a wall,” Robins manager Holloway stated after the match. “It might have made it more difficult, but Will had a clear shot.

The goaltender had gone over as if he had a wall, so Will thought ‘he’d given me that’ and pressed the button. I don’t believe he could have struck it any better. He said it rivals Liverpool the other day, but I’m not sure.”

Meanwhile, Hunt came to a similar conclusion: “Jack’s put his hands up–the boy from Liverpool hit one from 25 yards and they discussed not needing a wall.”

He hoped that would benefit him tonight, but it’s a decent strike–a should-have, would-have, could-have situation.

Jack has to learn, and we have to learn how to prevent this from happening again.”

All three of the hosts’ goals were scored with sloppy defending, with the young back line made up of Academy graduates being breached early on by fellow former Academy star Princewill Ehibatiomhan, and a corner not handled with for Ollie Palmer’s rushed effort.”Exactly that [frustrated about conceding careless goals].

The second one involves little Johnny blocking and marking, and we must become used to using our bodies. For the first team, we’ve been much better, cleaner, more aggressive in the air, and more muscular in our defence.

We told them tonight, ‘Don’t give them an excuse to put the ball in the box,’ because they have big lads. I believe we addressed that in the second half.

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