It’s fair to say we’re all reaching the end of our tether: with this season, this manager and the ineptitude of this team to play any kind of attacking, entertaining football.
The worst bit is that we saw nothing new against Rotherham United. This is now our modus operandi. Bland, boring, aimless football is our default. At this point I think we’re all just a bit numb to it.
Somehow, some of the fans managed to muster enough emotion to react to another depressing afternoon watching Reading Football
Club.
Leam Richardson
Rob Couhig came out again and doubled down on his backing of Richardson on the TTE podcast in the run-up to Saturday’s game, but it’s going to take something truly, truly special for him to win back the fans now.
I agree wholeheartedly with Couhig that stability is key, absolutely it is. But stability with the wrong man isn’t, and everything we’re seeing on the pitch right now suggests that Richardson is not the right man.
And as for Richardson’s post-match interview, calling this “another positive result” and saying Daniel Kyerewaa’s equaliser was “as good a goal you’ll see”… yeah, it just leaves me a bit speechless to be honest.
No trust in the youth
An undercurrent throughout Richardson’s time at Reading has been his lack of trust in the academy.
Up until Saturday we’d had bigger fish to fry than the lack of experience being given to youth-team players. However, against Rotherham – in a complete dead rubber and a game in which Richardson himself said he’d be prioritising looking to the future – to sub on Emmanuel Osho and Sean Patton with only minutes to go was really, really naff.
In the grand scheme of things, it perhaps wasn’t that big of a deal, but for many it’s just more confirmation that Richardson isn’t the man for this club…
Conclusion
Barring a sudden u-turn from Couhig, Richardson is going to be in charge come August. A good transfer window and strong pre-season will give us all a bit of a boost, sure, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that for the fans to get behind Richardson.
Richardson likes to mention in his post-match interviews that this team is still learning and needs to learn together. I get that. But that’s something I’d expect to hear from someone who’s just got into the job – Richardson has been here since October.
He’s got out of this league before, but if this is the way he wants to try and replicate that here, it’s just not going to work.
Here’s to it being one game closer to the end of the season.
