Reading continue great start to season with fastest goal in their history in high-scoring win over Blackburn

Yakou Meite scores after only eight seconds at Ewood Park - GETTY IMAGES

• Blackburn 2 Reading 4

Reading have been fast starters this season but the Championship pacesetters took that to a new level last night with the quickest goal in their 149-year history.

Ahead after eight seconds, scoring three times in the first 17 minutes, they delivered what manager Veljko Paunovic felt was their best display of the season.

“That is the most complete performance so far,” he said. “Everyone had a fantastic game.”

Reading began by scoring with just the fifth touch of the match and ended seven points clear at the top of the table and as the only unbeaten team in the Premier and Football Leagues.

If there was a stroke of fortune to Yakou Meite’s record-breaking goal, three high-class finishes followed for Reading. In contrast, this was a disastrous beginning to his Blackburn career for the debutant goalkeeper Aynsley Pears, beaten before touching the ball and conceding three times before he made a save. He was blameless for Reading’s last three goals and luckless for the first.

“We can’t defend like we did in the first 10 seconds,” said Blackburn manager Tony Mowbray, who thought it was the fastest goal he had ever seen. “I have been doing this for 40 years now. A lot of people missed the goal. I saw some of their staff coming out and thought the kick-off from the goal was the match kick-off.”

Meite replaced Jimmy Kebe, who struck after 9.5 seconds against West Bromwich Albion in 2010, as the scorer of Reading’s earliest goal. As Michael Olise’s long ball bounced off Barry Douglas’ heel, Pears had come off his line to collect and was stranded as it bounced for Meite to slot the ball into the unguarded net.

In a chaotic opening period, Olise set off from the half-way line on a solo run that culminated with him angling a shot past Pears for his second senior goal. The goalkeeper was beaten again when Josh Laurent curled in a 20-yard shot off the post for his first Championship strike, while Lucas Joao’s precise finish ensured Blackburn’s enterprising attackers could not take a point.

Reading had only conceded one league goal all season until Blackburn scored two. Adam Armstrong illustrated why he is the division’s top scorer by volleying in a cross from the on-loan Liverpool winger Harvey Elliott and then stooping to meet Joe Rankin-Costello’s centre with a precise header. Mowbray added: “Armstrong gave us encouragement but we had to perform better than we did defensively.”