It’s the morning after the night before – the annual shuffle to the Purple Turtle where Reading fans usually gather to either celebrate or commiserate the season. This time there was nothing to celebrate, but plenty to unload. A season shared, yes, but one full of anguish, turmoil and absolutely no character to cling to.
If you’d told me back in August that we’d get through two managers, briefly flirt with the playoffs, only for her to bin us off without a second thought by Spring, I’d have said you were
talking nonsense.
And yet here we are, back in the familiar swamp of toxicity and rage – the sort we haven’t seen since the Dai Yongge era, when the villain was invisible. It hits differently when the problem is standing right in front of you.
After the night fizzled out, I went home, collapsed into bed, and couldn’t settle. The game, the month, the whole miserable season kept circling. Maybe it was the alcohol having a quiet word with my subconscious, but just before waking I dreamt of someone carrying a cardboard box – the classic “you’re done here” TV prop. A stuffed bear. A ruler. A few books. A lucky Gonk. Subtle as a brick.
Dreams can be cryptic, but this one wasn’t. I don’t need to spell out who it was about.
Because the truth is obvious now. Reading fans can’t tolerate the manager any longer. We’re being told Leam Richardson is the man for next season, that he’s been tasked with building a squad in his image, but whatever that image is, it’s nowhere near what he’s served up in his audition.
Yes, he’s had one window. Yes, the injuries have been biblical. Yes, he’s only been here seven months. All fair.
But the other side of the coin is far heavier. The squad – the one he’s supposedly moulding – looks fractured, if not completely shattered. There’s no spirit, no pride, no confidence in each other. A team in name only.
The football is, without doubt, breathtakingly bad. Nobody, bar Lewis Wing, wants responsibility. Nobody, bar Daniel Kyerewaa, moves into space. There are no triangles, no patterns, no runners, no ideas. It’s football without any of the tangible bits that make it football.
And this is the sticking point for the future. We’re told it won’t be like this next season, but on what basis? When the Blackpool game was – and I say this with no pleasure – an absolute turd of a performance, fans are well within their rights to ask how on earth Richardson expects us to trust his “it’ll get better, promise” shtick.
We can’t. The trust has gone. The leap from the most abject football many of us have ever seen to some mythical high-pressing, front-footed, pace-and-power fantasy is too big to take seriously.
It’s like an addict begging for one more chance. I’ll change. You’ll see. You’ll thank me.
Sorry, Leam. We’re not buying the platitudes, I don’t think we ever have. It’s utter bobbins.
And this is where the board come in. After speaking with Rick Catania for The Tilehurst End podcast, he sounded resigned to the idea that Richardson will still be in the hot seat next season. Honest, yes – but not exactly convincing. It felt more like he was saying the manager stays because removing him and his staff is the harder thing to do.
So we’re stuck. Supposedly. The board back him, but surely even their patience must be waning. The performances, the desire or lack of it. The so-called “style” – none of it matches what Richardson claims he wants to deliver. The gap between words and reality is now a canyon.
Trust between fans and manager isn’t strained – it’s obliterated. What we want, expect and frankly deserve bears no resemblance to what we’ve watched time and time again. Buying into this again next season will be a hard sell.
Some will have already decided to walk away, and who could blame them? Some have not even returned after the disaster of Dai. Who’s left?
After the week of the One Royal reveal, there’s only one Royal we really don’t want.
This season’s nightmare is over, but next season already feels like something out of a fever dream. And on the train home last night, one thought kept nagging at me.
Are we in relegation trouble, already?
