Reading fan James Earnshaw gives his verdict on yesterday's draw at Barnsley.

Lucas Joao spared some of Reading‘s blushes, however it was still a disappointing and frustrating evening as the Royals could only salvage a point against bottom club Barnsley

Cauley Woodrow opened the scoring early in the second half, capitalising on a Michael Morrison error, before Joao tucked home a Charlie Adam corner with 15 minutes remaining.

READ MORE: Garath McCleary opens up about what really happened under Jose Gomes

The Royals made five changes to the side that lost 3-2 to Birmingham City on Saturday, with Chris Gunter; Ovie Ejaria; Jordan Obita; Charlie Adam and Joao coming into the side.

The addition of Ovie filled all Reading fans with joy and hope, with the King coming back.

It certainly was not his most productive game but he still produced the occasional moment of magic and made sure we always had the chance of creating something when he was on the ball.

The first half was a scrappy, low quality tie with Barnsley shading the statistics in terms of efforts on goal and Reading continued to make niggly little tackles which certainly did not help with the flow of the game.

Goalless at half-time was a fair reflection of the game and gave Reading a great chance of taking the three points going into the second half.

However they were seemingly determined to lose the game as they carried on pumping long balls from the defenders to absolutely nobody, and losing the vast majority of second balls.

The inevitable came just before the hour mark when Morrison gave the ball straight to the Tykes’ top scorer Woodrow who slotted past the helpless Rafael to give Reading a mountain to climb.

Reading huffed and puffed and eventually a goal came through an Adam corner, where Joao was able to capitalise on the poor home marking, to smash the ball into the back of the net and give Reading a foothold to go and win the game.

READ MORE: Player ratings - A defensive horror show reflected in the ratings

Positive substitutes such as Sam Baldock and Yakou Meite gave the Barnsley defence the run-around without really creating anything clear cut.

Meite had a great chance from a Baldock cross but sent his header over the bar and it was actually the basement club that looked like winning the game as it ticked into stoppage time.

Patrick Schmidt had two golden chances to win the game for Struber’s side, but it was not to be and both sides had to settle for a point which does very little for either sides league standing or confidence going into the crucial Christmas period.

A concerning performance from Mark Bowen’s side, and with crowds already dwindling at the Madejski it does little to increase the mood around the fanbase.

Ultimately nobody could argue with the point we got, we certainly did not deserve the three, but there was still one or two positives to take from the draw.

One positive to take is that Adam played the full 90 minutes, the first time he had done this for Reading, and appeared to grow into the game as the opposition tired towards the end.

With Swift most likely to be out for a couple more games at least, it is good to know we have options in the midfield.  

It also showed that even when we are not playing well, we are capable of picking something up; even if that is clutching at straws slightly.

The game is done now though and all we can do is move on to Saturday and make it a four point week with a win at strugglers Stoke City.

Cmon URZ!