Coppell's a winner with a Long shot

Sometimes, a last roll of the dice can look like mercurial management and yesterday fortune smiled on Steve Coppell in the shape of 20-year-old Irishman Shane Long. Within seconds of being introduced as a late substitute, he produced Reading's winning goal. Long needed just two touches to shape the destiny of Coppell's afternoon at the Madejski Stadium.

"The timing was exquisite," said Coppell. His voice had just the note of irony to be expected from a man who knows that this game can just as swiftly make a manager cry, as make him laugh.

Coppell's Reading are built in his image; hard-working, diligent, honest and without a hint of flashiness. This is a team that play for one another, run for one another and have no truck with the star system. "Our performance was more like the way we played last year," said Coppell. "From my point of view it was like seeing an old friend."

After catching the Premier League cold last season, Coppell was warned this time about a footballing disease called "Second Season Syndrome". He debunked the notion as an urban football myth, believing rather that preparation, homework, industry and players willing to exhaust themselves for the club can be immunised against falling ill of such conjecture.

At the end of 90 minutes spent in Berkshire, Sam Allardyce's Newcastle appreciated that Reading, after an unsteady start, are dealing with the challenge in a steadfast manner.

"Reading make life difficult for a team that want to play because they don't let you," said Allardyce. "All credit to them, they have incredible energy levels."

In truth, Newcastle, with Joey Barton making his full debut in midfield, presented little threat to Reading. On this afternoon, Michael Owen had but one fleeting chance. In the 15th minute, he positioned himself between Reading's central defenders, Michael Duberry and Ibrahima Sonko, to take a high ball out of the air on his chest.As the ball ran a fraction outside his control, Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann appeared to fling his body into the path of Owen.

Owen crumpled to the ground. "I've seen the video and the keeper cleaned Michael out," said Allardyce. "A clear penalty." Yet there was no anger or real conviction in his complaint.He had lost his two most consistent players, Nicky Butt to double vision, and Abdoulaye Faye to nausea, to compound another loss on the road. "Our away form is a concern," he said.

His team had relied on an own goal from Duberry in the 76th minute to bring them level. Allardyce would have settled for that — but Coppell still had a play to make. With seven minutes remaining, he told Long to vacate the bench. His family, over from Ireland, will be still pinching themselves this morning at the memory of what happened next.

Nicky Shorey's free kick was won in a duel by Sonko and the first to respond to the knock-down was Long, seeking a piece of the action. His first touch with his chest took the ball to his right, and for a moment he looked to have outmanoeuvred himself. But Long stretched out his right foot, and wrapped it round the ball to thunder a shot that entered the Newcastle net off the inside of a post.

The man most relieved by this opportunism from the Irishman was Reading striker Leroy Lita. He had scorned two first-half chances that will have made depressing viewing on Match of the Day last night.

In the 12th minute, freed by a beautiful run and pass by Kevin Doyle, Lita clumsily tripped over his own feet in front of goal.

Moments before the interval, he took possession after a pass from Stephen Hunt only to blaze his shot into the crowd. On the touchline, Coppell wore the look of a man unable to believe his misfortune.

He has an acute sense of the struggles ahead at the dog-fight end of the Premier League. "Realistically, we are on a knife edge," said Coppell, whose team have managed to ship seven goals in one game this season, at Portsmouth just a month ago. "There is very little daylight between teams at the bottom end of the table and we realise the importance of every point."

The points had looked won yesterday when Dave Kitson fired Reading ahead with a wicked shot in the 53rd minute. But after Duberry's own goal, Reading had to find another route to victory.

And Coppell's introduction of Long worked the oracle.

And at the end of this afternoon when the manager's hunch brought a dividend, Coppell stood on the touchline to shake the hand of all his players, a team in the hands of a team player.