Another away day, another afternoon when Reading didn’t do anything particularly well, didn’t look psychologically prepared, and duly lost a valuable six-pointer. A familiar place to start because, frankly, it’s a familiar place to end up.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to witness it. I was in IKEA, scoffing meatballs and buying boxes destined to be filled with who knows what. Much like Reading’s second-half performance, as it turns out. Empty boxes everywhere.
Nobody will be really clutching their
pearls at such a result or performance on the road. I’d already made my mind up before kick-off that it was going to be horrible, attritional, demanding – and that we probably didn’t have the mental fortitude to come back to Berkshire with three points. In that sense, I wasn’t disappointed or surprised.
But part of that is my natural cynicism about away days – it’s in my ‘Ding DNA. But even with the handful of away victories we’ve scraped this season, I’ve felt oddly empty afterwards. And that’s the theme of this campaign: when we win, it feels like we’ve sh*thoused our way through it; when we lose, it feels like a semi-organised group doing their best not to win and trudging home with nothing, regardless.
There’s such a narrow band between our highs and lows. We don’t blow teams away, and we don’t get absolutely slaughtered. We just… exist. And in far too many games, we simply don’t turn up.
That’s where my doubts about the overall unit creep in. I don’t question their character – they seem like good eggs. I don’t question their professionalism or desire either. But is the glue that binds all these elements together there? I’m not at all convinced.
For years we’ve relied on a siege mentality to get us through off-field chaos. Now that we don’t need it, this group seems unable to generate any traction in confidence. The narrow band of performances has created a narrow band of belief. It’s as if there’s a tacit acceptance that we’re not actually that good, so our performances can’t be that good either. Not for lack of effort, but for lack of conviction.
As fans, we’re stuck in the loop of “if we get into the playoffs it’ll be amazing”, while knowing deep down – or not even that deep down – that this squad is massively flawed and liable to crumble the moment it’s pushed away from the SCL. The vibe is off. We were in the top six, somehow, but we weren’t a top-six side.
Naturally, Leam Richardson comes into focus. It’s his job to instil belief, to coax more out of them. But maybe he can’t – not yet.
He’s already said the players weren’t fit enough when he arrived, and perhaps what’s required to fix this goes beyond one season and one transfer window. Injuries haven’t helped. Circumstances haven’t helped. But even with all that context, what was served up against Stevenage wasn’t acceptable. It was a big game. A chance to allay some of the psychological fragility.
Again, they didn’t turn up. They doubled-down on the notion that, when push comes to shove, they can’t become greater than the sum of their parts. Not even close.
