Reading staged a sensational and unlikely late comeback to win a match that West Brom should have won at their leisure. Romelu Lukaku looked to have hammered another couple of nails into Reading's Premier League coffin but goals from Jimmy Kébé, Adam Le Fondre and Pavel Pogrebnyak in the last 10 minutes transformed the mood at the Madejski Stadium from outright hostility to bemused jubilation. It left the home side down among the dead men but with their fans still entertaining hopes of survival.
For 80 minutes, this looked to be West Brom's afternoon. Lukaku was rampant and will return to the Midlands wondering how on earth he did not score several more. Profligacy and bad luck combined to keep his tally at two and give Reading victory on a bitterly cold day.
The lunchtime point secured by QPR against Tottenham Hotspur meant that Reading began this match anchored to the bottom of the Premier League, fully seven points the wrong side of the thick black safety cordon.
Victory was crucial and in West Brom, they could scarcely have asked for easier opposition. Despite their lofty status and undeniable quality, the West Brom coach that pitched up did so minus many of its usual passengers: Youssouf Mulumbu is away on Africa Cup of Nations duty with DR Congo and Zoltan Gera has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, while the Argentinian schemer Claudio Jacob is also sidelined with a twanged hamstring. Between them, this talented trio have made 46 Premier League starts this season and their experience would almost certainly have enabled West Brom to hold on to their lead in the closing stages.
Reading's ranks, by contrast, had been bolstered … up to a point. Although the Republic of Ireland international Stephen Kelly signed too late on Friday to make his debut at full-back, the former Sporting Lisbon captain Daniel Carrico became the first Portuguese to line up for the Royals, taking his place in the heart of defence. Having been guided through the pre-match niceties by team-mates Ian Harte and Jobi McAnuff, he endured a torrid 45-minute baptism at the hands of Lukaku and was put out of his misery at the interval, when the Reading manager Brian McDermott removed his new acquisition from harm's way and replaced him with Garath McCleary.
The opening stages were cagey, with the first half-chance falling to Reading when a free-kick resulting from a Jonas Olsson lunge on Pogrebnyak on the half-way line found the Russian on the left-hand side of the penalty area, where Gareth McAuley was forced to stoop low and cut out a dangerous cross.
But with Reading looking marginally the better of two toothless sides in the opening stages, it was West Brom who opened the scoring, with Lukaku exchanging passes with James Morrison after winning an aerial battle in midfield, slotting home the midfielder's cross from the left from close range after a surging gallop through the centre to the edge of the six-yard box.
Showing the kind of rampaging form that may have terminally disgruntled Chelsea fans pining for his sooner rather than later return to Stamford Bridge, Lukaku found time to have a goal correctly disallowed and twice rattle the woodwork before scoring his second: a low drive from distance.
Reading then flicked with the switch and a deluge of goals ensued. Kébé, who had blown an excellent chance in the first half with a leaden-footed first touch, bagged what looked like a consolation, taking advantage of a clever dummy by Pogrebnyak to stoop low and head home from close range at the far post. Reading looked to have secured an all but useless point when substitute Le Fondre converted from the spot after an Olsson foul on Kébé, before Pogrebnyak warmed the rapidly thawing cockles of Reading fans' hearts. He lifted the ball deftly over Ben Foster from seven yards in stoppage time to leave his side two points clear of QPR and not entirely without hope of survival.
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