After a 10-day break since our last game, and with Noel Hunt choosing to rest the majority of the first team against Swindon Town, the fans travelled to Barnsley expecting – not just hoping for – a better performance.
However, we were served yet another slice of an all-too-familiar cake. Glimpses of attacking threat, sprinkles of defensive errors and, again, little sign of any tactical identity.
Here’s how the fans reacted to the result after the game. Little spoiler alert: perhaps close your eyes
if you’re a fan of the manager…
Noel Hunt
Usually, I try and pick three talking points from the post-game fans’ reaction, but I’ve scrolled through the Reading FC Twitter hashtag for a good five to 10 minutes now and almost every single tweet is about Hunt.
With every passing game, it looks increasingly as if Hunt doesn’t have the answers or – and I hate saying something like this about someone we all love as much as him – the tactical ability to get more out of these players. And it seems I’m not alone in thinking that…
Jack Marriott
The glass seems to be half empty for the majority of the fanbase at the moment, understandably so, but for those among us who dare look for glimmers of positivity, there are some to be seen. And Jack Marriott is definitely one of them.
It’s early days for him in his Reading career for sure, but two goals in two, plus an assist for Daniel Kyerewaa, is not a bad start at all…
Conclusion
There’s this tendency in football for owners to wait until it’s really, really bad before making a managerial change. We’re not in that position yet, but the road we’ve started walking down has some very familiar signs.
I want Hunt to turn it around, I think, or would hope, we all do. But we’re just not seeing any signs that he can at the moment.
And now the owners have a choice: give Hunt time or make a change before it gets any worse? Seldom do we see the latter, but I think that option would be the best for all parties.
