Geum-Min Lee scored twice, including a spectacular long-range effort, but Albion’s final away game of the Barclays Women’s Super League campaign ended in a narrow 3-2 defeat at the Madejski Stadium.
Albion were 2-0 down when Lee headed home her first before scoring a spectacular second after winning the ball back from the re-start and finding the top corner from 35 yards.
Reading regained the lead early in the second half and, despite creating some good chances, Albion could not find an equaliser. Reading moved above Albion into sixth place on goal difference, but Hope Powell’s team could still finish in the top half if they get a better result in their final match than the Royals. Albion host Bristol City next Sunday and Reading are away to Chelsea.
Head Coach Powell had made three changes to the side which lost 2-0 to Arsenal with Fliss Gibbons, who captained the side, Lee and Nora Heroum coming in for Victoria Williams, Libby Bance and Ellie Brazil, who were all on the bench. Megan Connolly missed out because of a foot injury.
Neither side seriously threatened in the first 35 minutes but then the game came to life with four goals in the space of nine minutes.
Reading took the lead from a penalty awarded when Emma Koivisto was penalised for a foul on Emma Harries and Fara Williams, who had walked out to a guard of honour from both teams before kick-off, celebrated her final appearance at the Madejski Stadium by sending a Panenka penalty down the middle.
Reading doubled their lead in the 43rd minute when Danielle Carter produced a lovely finish from Natasha Harding’s left-wing cross. A two-goal deficit was harsh on Albion but incredibly they had drawn level by the break.
Lee got her first in the 44th minute, heading past Grace Moloney after Kayleigh Green did well to head a long ball from Maya Le Tissier into her path. Lee won the ball back from the re-start and, spotting Moloney off her line, took a few paces forward and slammed a right-foot shot from 35 yards into the top left-hand corner. In the space of a minute the South Korean had scored her first goals for the club, the second surely the Goal of the Season.
Fliss Gibbons needed to make a goal-line clearance to deny Harding at the start of the second half before Aileen Whelan’s long pass freed Kayleigh Green, who got past Moloney but ran out of space trying to slide the ball into the empty net.
It was end-to-end stuff, and Reading were back in front in the 55th minute when Harding cut in from the left, holding off Maya Le Tissier’s challenge and firing low past Walsh to make it 3-2.
Lee had a great chance for her hat-trick on the hour but miscued 15 yards out after Green picked her out but Albion were pressing strongly for an equaliser and Inessa Kaagman tested Moloney in the 67th minute with a first-time volley from another good cross by Green.
As the visitors pushed they inevitably left gaps at the back and Reading should have profited when top scorer Rachel Rowe broke down the right but her angled drive went inches past the far post. In the closing stages Walsh made a great save with her legs to deny Rowe.
Top scorer Inessa Kaagman fired just wide of the right-hand post after good work by substitute Ellie Brazil but the third goal Albion deserved eluded them.
Albion: Walsh, Koivisto (Williams 45), Kerkdijk, Le Tissier, Gibbons, Whelan, Simpkins (Bance 60), Kaagman, Heroum (Brazil 60), Green, Lee. Subs not used: Fiskerstrand, Jarrett, Roe, Olding, Symonds, Robinson.