Young midfielder Reuben Noble-Lazarus and Dale Jennings scored wondergoals early in the second half as Barnsley stunned promotion-chasing Reading on Tuesday night to move off the bottom of the Championship table.

 

The Reds went into the match on the back of  three straight defeats without scoring but took the lead on 17 minutes when Chris O'Grady ran onto home defender Chris Gunter's awful backpass, rounded goalkeeper Alex McCarthy and found Stephen Dawson who fired into the top right corner.

 

Reading were level four minutes later after Kelvin Etuhu – playing at right-back on his first game since December 29 – was adjudged to have fouled Pavel Pobregnyak who netted from the spot. It was a very soft penalty and Barnsley's Liam Lawrence appeared to have been fouled in the build-up.

 

The Reds won the match in the first 12 minutes of the second half. Reuben Noble-Lazarus, brought on up front at the break for the injured Marcus Pedersen, fired into the left top corner from the edge of the area on 53 minutes after a superb flick from Tomasz Cywka. It was 3-1 four minutes later when Jennings smashed a stunning strike into the same corner.

 

Barnsley goalkeeper Luke Steele was only tested once in the final half an hour – when he brilliantly pushed an Alex Pearce header over the bar – as the Royals produced a poor performance after which they were booed by their own crowd.

 

The Reds moved above Millwall who are now bottom. Those two sides and Yeovil each have 32 points and are three behind Charlton who won at Nottingham Forest.