First the good stuff. Dave Jones made 5 changes to the side that lost at Plymouth. In came Enckleman for Heaton, Comminges for McNaughton, Gyepes for Purse, McCormack for Parry and Bothroyd for Eddie Johnson.
With an attack that spread across the field with McCormack wide left, Routledge wide right and Bothroyd and Chopra in the middle City went for Reading and at times ripped them apart.
Routledge's pace for the opening goal was breathtaking. He accepted the challenge of a through ball and beat the defender for pace before cooly slotting past Hanneman.
It could have been two but the keeper blocked Chopra when through on goal. The play was excellent.
On 16 mins though City were done by a breakaway goal. A poor Steve McPhail corner was cleared by Reading and Jimmy Kebe outpaced Comminges. Kebe crossed invitingly for Kevin Doyle to score.
The game took another twist on 30 mins when Andre Bikey was given a straight red for raised arms against Michael Chopra.
Straight after and Jay Bothroyd was booked for impeding Marcus Hanneman when he was trying to kck the ball out. The Reading keeper didn't take kindly to it and pulled and tugged at Bothroyd. But only the City player saw yellow.
Chopra was being a pain in an around the box and when a sliced clearance went up into the air Chopra was scampering around the feet of the big American keeper who fumbled and in his effort to regain the ball took Chopra down and City won the penalty thanks to the linesman's flag.
Ross McCormack took responsibility and fired the ball low to Hanneman's right with the keeper getting fingertips to it but not able to keep it out. 2 - 1 Cardiff. Half time.
The second half started with Reading on the up and the 10 men pased the ball at pace and within minutes were level. Gunnarsson finishing a neat passing move to make it 2 - 2.
Even in the first half Reading looked to be running the clock down to avoid losing and now they were level they weren't going to give much away. So the onus was on Cardiff to break them down but the free flowing pacey attack from the first half evaporated and the game went into long ball mode with City lumping it forward and losing possession through slack passing with Reading staying organised and threatening on the break.
City made changes, on came Eddie Johnson and Darcy Blake but the chances dried up and City ended the match frustrated.
There were a couple of decent 2nd half efforts, a Chopra chip was palmed away for a corner and another Chopra shot went inches over as the 90 mins came up but ultimately it was a disappointing end.
Maybe if Reading had kept 11 men on the pitch they would have come out more and City could have played more football rather tan try and break down a 9 man defence.
Because of the way other results went the teams remain in the same place they did before kick off. City 6th, Reading 3rd.
Next up for Cardiff is the small matter of a local derby at Swansea. 11:15am this Sunday morning. Live on Sky.
City go into the game with just 4 points from the last 15 on offer. It's not been the best of Novembers. Maybe it'll end on a high.