The Royals’ long search for a new striker is finally over, with Jamie Reid joining this evening. He’s arrived on a permanent deal from fellow League One side Stevenage, signing a two-year deal.
The Royals needed a couple of new centre-forwards right from the beginning of the summer window. Jacob Brown filled one of those gaps (though he’s perhaps not an out-and-out striker, that’s where he’s been used so far) but the sale of Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan and long-term injury to Sean Patton – both in late July
– heightened the need for another signing.
As I’ll go into below, Reid’s solid record of goalscoring and availability both make him a perfectly adequate second-choice striker, behind Jack Marriott, who’ll likely miss a chunk of this season due to injury at some point.
I would however have preferred a younger player than Reid (on a permanent) in an ideal world, and it does feel as if Reading have gone for a lower-priority option at the end of the window rather than a top choice. Still, the new man is a good addition in his own right and improves the squad.
Leam Richardson said:
“Jamie is a proven goalscorer at this level and somebody who has consistently shown what he can bring to a team over a number of years.
“He works incredibly hard, he’s intelligent with his movement and he knows where the goal is. He can lead the line, play off other forwards and gives us another really good option at the top end of the pitch.
“He’s got a lot of experience and, importantly for us, he’s a really good character. He knows this division inside out, he understands what it takes to be successful and you can see he’s still got a real hunger to achieve more.
“He’s coming off the back of another strong season and we’re delighted to bring him to Reading.”
What will he bring to Reading?
The 32-year-old is an experienced, proven striker at this level from his time with Stevenage, with whom he won promotion from League Two in 2023. In the subsequent three seasons he’s scored 18 in 42 League One matches (2023/24), 8 in 42 (2024/25) and 14 in 44 (2025/26).
Reid’s goal record in the third tier looks pretty strong: 40 in 130 equates to a strike rate of roughly one every three games. If we go by minutes, 40 goals from a total of 10,109 minutes played comes to Reid finding the net every 252 minutes – a little better than one in three.
Availability has been a big theme of Reading’s summer though – Leam Richardson wanting players to spend more time on the pitch and less in the treatment room – and Reid looks good on this front also. He consistently manages 40+ appearances per season, with 38 the ‘low point’ of his five-season Stevenage stint.
That’ll be a big break from Reading’s history with centre-forwards. While Reid has managed more than 3,000 minutes (this is a rather specific 72% of the total available, but 3,000 has a nice ring to it) in each of his last three League One seasons, no Royals striker has done the same in any division since Lucas Joao in 2020/21 (3,079).
Otherwise you have to go back to Yann Kermorgant’s 3,513 in 2016/17 or Pavel Pogrebnyak’s 3,101 in 2013/14. What a damning verdict on Reading strikers’ lack of availability in post-Premier League years!
What’s his story so far?
Reid’s a product of Exeter City’s academy and played for their first team, on and off, between 2012 and 2017. Those years also included a number of loan spells down the pyramid: one at Dorchester Town, one at Truro City and three at Torquay United.
He returned to Torquay in 2017, this time on a permanent basis, and this is where his career really seemed to take off. Having scored six times in his first campaign with the club, he hit 29 National League South goals in 2018/19 and 18 National League goals in 2019/20.
That earned him a move to then-League Two outfit Mansfield Town, for whom he scored six times in 2020/21. Reid joined Stevenage in 2021, going on to score 68 times in 248 appearances across all competitions, including spells in the fourth and third tiers.
At international level he’s featured fairly regularly for Northern Ireland in recent years, playing 16 times (and scoring twice) since his full debut in March 2024. Reid played in five of Northern Ireland’s 10 fixtures (World Cup qualifiers and friendlies) in 2025 and has made appearances in three of their four games so far in 2026.
As for the remainder of this year, Northern Ireland have another six games scheduled: two in late September, two in early October (those four are part of one extended international break) and two in mid-November.
