Reading and Swansea will have to do it all again at the Vetch Field after Icelander Ivar Ingimarsson spared the Royals’ blushes with a late leveller in the FA Cup third round tie which finished 1-1.<\/p>\n
The League Two Swans, who reached the fifth round last season, were within three minutes of springing a shock against the Championship promotion-chasers after Paul Connor had put them ahead.<\/p>\n
The former Rochdale striker kept up his record of scoring in every round so far as he turned home a deflected Lee Trundle shot after 32 minutes.<\/p>\n
But Reading launched an all-out onslaught after the interval and with time running out they finally gained their reward as Ingimarsson lashed home from a tight angle.<\/p>\n
The Royals named new signing Les Ferdinand in the starting line-up after the former England striker joined until the end of the season on Thursday. Lloyd Owusu made way in attack, while captain Graeme Murty missed out through injury.<\/p>\n
Swansea recalled midfielder Leon Britton at the expense of Roberto Martinez after the Spaniard failed to shake off a hamstring strain.<\/p>\n
Kenny Jackett’s side made a purposeful start and wasted little time in signalling their intentions as Connor blasted wide with barely a minute gone.<\/p>\n
But gradually the Royals got hold of the game, with Bobby Convey causing all sorts of problems.<\/p>\n
The American midfielder fired in a shot from distance after nine minutes which had goalkeeper Willy Gueret scrambling across his line.<\/p>\n
Then, a minute later, the same player curled in a vicious inswinging corner which Nicky Forster just failed to direct at goal.<\/p>\n
Ferdinand was already displaying his renowned aerial presence and was just off target with a close-range header from another Convey cross.<\/p>\n
But Swansea’s adventurous three-pronged attack always looked capable of springing a counter-attack, and midway through the half Adrian Forbes and Andy Gurney forced goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann into quickfire saves.<\/p>\n
Andy Robinson was next to try his luck with a header from Britton’s cross.<\/p>\n
And with 13 minutes to the interval the Swans got their reward as Trundle’s shot was deflected into the path of Connor, who turned home from close range.<\/p>\n
Reading were no doubt given a half-time rocket by boss Steve Coppell and they came out with slightly more direction to their play at the start of the second half.<\/p>\n
Convey almost slipped in Nicky Shorey after 50 minutes, before an Andy Hughes effort just evaded the lunge of Ferdinand at the back post.<\/p>\n
The Royals fans thought they had grabbed a leveller six minutes later when Convey’s corner was missed by goalkeeper Gueret, but Ibrahima Sonko’s header was hacked off the line by defender Izzy Iriekpen.<\/p>\n
As Reading turned the screw, Owusu came off the bench for Ferdinand after 58 minutes.<\/p>\n
It was Sonko, though, who was proving the biggest threat as he got free again at the back post just past the hour mark only to glance wide.<\/p>\n
Swansea were clinging on for dear life and after 74 minutes Steve Sidwell’s right-footed effort forced Gueret into another save.<\/p>\n
And Glen Little also smashed an effort past the post with the visitors’ defence backing off.<\/p>\n
Then, just as it looked like the Royals’ profligacy was set to cost them dear, Ingimarsson picked up the ball in the right channel and unleashed a stunning 25-yard effort which flew into the corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reading and Swansea will have to do it all again at the Vetch Field after Icelander Ivar Ingimarsson spared the Royals’ blushes with a late leveller in the FA Cup third round tie which finished 1-1. The League Two Swans, who reached the fifth round last season, were within three minutes of springing a shock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}