The Easter schedule was probably the biggest weekend of football for Reading this calendar season, coming up against playoff-battling Huddersfield Town and a Lincoln City side romping its way to the title.
Tough games, but ones where our playoff credentials could be tested. Picking up four points would have been the confidence-booster to show we can compete at this level of the table.
Well… one point gained, two goals conceded in the 96th minute, zero open-play goals scored (both being Lewis Wing set-pieces),
three shots on target, less than 20% of our crosses being accurate and many more poor metrics all round have left us in eighth place, two games and two points behind Stevenage in sixth.
Both of these games were difficult watches for Reading fans, made even more difficult by the fact that the reaction we wanted to see wasn’t there. We didn’t bring the game to our opposition; we often looked happy to sit in and wait for something to happen. The most difficult part being that this was entirely predictable.
The playoff bid is not officially over, at least on a technical level. It would take a lot of very strange things to happen, but they could. I don’t think they will, but who knows? My belief is that the playoff bid is over now.
Which then poses the question: what now?
Well, eventually, I suppose we will see what a famous Leam Richardson pre-season will look like, for starters. I would also imagine we’ll get to see what a Leam Richardson squad looks like, with players being moved on and brought in.
For starters, we have a number of first-team regulars such as Ryan Nyambe, Kamari Doyle, Finley Burns and…sigh…Will Keane as loan signings, and Kadan Young also occasionally gets found down the back of the sofa. If all of these players leave, we will have gaps in the squad to cover.
But that’s the summer. What comes before then? Well, we need to give these games some more meaning because, eventually, the technicality of not being able to achieve a playoff-place finish will be confirmed.
At that ties in with my suggestion for what to do now: why not play the kids?
The composition of the squad will be under serious review going into the summer, and it’s time to make the most of having a Category 1 academy available to us. We are the only team in League One with this luxury, and if teams such as Arsenal can use their Category 1 squads to bring through talent to their first team, why not us?
It’s pretty well documented that Richardson seems to have an allergy to playing younger players – I still haven’t forgotten when he referred to a nearly-28-year-old Liam Fraser as “young” – but now is exactly the time to do that: to help us find talent to build out the squad, reestablish that pathway from the academy to the first team and also help the club financially, by developing talent we can sell on.
There’s only one place to start with this: Keane. It’s been said by many at TTE Towers that he’s not had the desired impact, and there will be a riot if he joins permanently in the summer. He should be moved on with a thank you and a good luck.
Why are we wasting time giving him minutes – a player who should be leaving in the summer – when we could be giving them to a bright-looking Sean Patton, who made a positive impact on the rare occasions he’s been brought into the fold? After all, we literally called him back from a loan spell to do… what? Sit on the bench?
Nyambe has been fine since joining, and Andy Yiadom is only a bit-part player for us these days. We literally have Kelvin Abrefa scratching around, waiting for game time. Why not play him? He’s good enough to play at this level, has done so before and has the energy and athleticism to get the ball – and himself – further up the pitch to offer an attacking outlet down as a right-wing-back.
In a back-three system, Jeriel Dorsett is a natural for the left of the trio of centre-backs. This means our only first-team left-wing-back – as Randell Williams is injured – is Haydon Roberts, who’s still finding his way back from injury.
And no: Daniel Kyerewaa is not a wing-back. That’s ‘square peg, round hole’ territory right there. Do you know who is a wing-back? Emmanuel Osho. Give him some minutes!
With Ben Elliott being injured for what seems like forever, and now Kamari Doyle possibly out too, we are light in central midfield. And, frankly, would it be the worst thing in the world to give Lewis Wing a bit of a rest? Or even move him further up the pitch?
We have Tivonge Rushesha, experienced at this level from last season, ready and waiting.
Side note: why not just give Andy Rinhomhota a few minutes? If nothing else, it will help us to confirm we didn’t just imagine him joining. What’s the worst that could happen?
Want more names? Tyler Sackey. He’s more of an attacking midfielder, who could be perfect in the right-sided number 10 role behind the striker. Ditto that and Mamadi Camara – another forgotten man from the 2024/25 season.
If we wanted to dig even deeper, if Richardson wanted to change the shape back to a 4-2-3-1, then we have wingers such as Kiyan Miles-Coke-Smith, Jerae Jones and Jeremiah Okine-Peters, all of whom offer direct running and pace to a team that is crying out for such attributes.
You even look at the players we have out on loan right now: Ashqar Ahmed (at one point our first-choice right-back this season), Basil Tuma (the quickest man in Reading, in a side screaming out for pace), Michael Stickland and Abraham Kanu (right-footed and left-footed centre-back depth for an injury-prone Dorsett and due-to-depart Burns, both with League One experience), Tom Norcott (goalkeeper, sure, but why not?) and the one that excites me the most: Shay Spencer, a classy, deep-lying midfielder. He must surely be an option to challenge Fraser right now?
We are rightly proud of our academy at Reading, and why wouldn’t we be? Michael Olise is the leading assist-provider in the Champions League and just gave the left-hand side of Real Madrid’s team a nightmare.
Jamie Bynoe-Gittens moved to the Premier League for around £50 million in the summer. Femi Azeez has just been nominated for Championship player of the year for promotion-challenging Millwall.
Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan has just been nominated for League One player of the month. Jayden Wareham is one of the top scorers in League One too, for a struggling Exeter City side. That’s to just name but a few.
Richardson has a lot of work to do to win the fans back onside, but a quick win would be to see our academy players given the chance to stake claims for the first team. And meaningful chances: not eight minutes at the end of the game a la Young.
Who knows what may happen? You’d hope at least they’d help inject some much-needed energy and mobility into a stagnant side.
I look back at Ruben Selles’ reign, and the two turning points of his time with us were the formation change and the overhaul of the older playing staff to blood the youngsters. Noel Hunt regularly played academy players, mostly due to having no other available options, but kept that pathway alive.
Richardson has more resources, more coaches and more players than either of his two predecessors and what’s he doing with them? Crushing their motivation with dull, sterile, ineffective football, by the looks of it.
It’s time for something different: let’s bow out on a high, backing our boys for the now and those primed for the future. It’s the right thing to do for now and next season.
