We’ve got one final bit of TTE admin to do on former boss Noel Hunt, who was relieved of his position as first-team manager on Sunday afternoon. Having run our regular manager approval rating feature on him at the end of last season, now’s time for another one to cover the start of 2025/26.
I don’t really have much more to say on Hunt that’s not been covered elsewhere. I wrote up some lengthier thoughts on his time in charge in reaction to the sacking, which you can read here. In short: I’d been in the Hunt Out
camp since mid-September, saw some encouraging signs in his favour in the Cardiff City and Northampton Town games, but the side went worrying backwards in the Doncaster Rovers match.
It was time for a change, and Hunt had been given a fair crack of the whip.
Broadly in agreement are our podcast hosts Ben Thomas and Ross Webber, who spoke about Hunt on this week’s episode. Ben also had his say in video format, which you can find just below, or on Twitter here.
However, there were certainly other cases to be made in Hunt’s favour. Blue & White Jester examined both sides of the argument, TTE debutant Matthew Hamilton emphasised the importance of stability and patience in the dugout, and James Clyde defended Hunt by considering the broader context.
So what do you think about Hunt?
Our approval rating isn’t a straight yes/no poll on whether the decision to sack Hunt was correct, though a couple of Twitter polls a few weeks ago (one by us, another by RFC Latest) suggested around 85% of fans were in favour of a change. Rather, we’re asking you to grade the job he was doing from 1-5.
For me, it’s 2/5. Hunt’s Reading was certainly not terrible and 1/5 would be too harsh. Under him this season, the Royals have been consistently able to pick up draws since late August – just not winning enough games or putting in convincing performances on a regular basis.
The last time we ran this poll on Hunt, in May, you gave him an average of 4.1/5. While he’ll certainly come out much lower in this poll, I doubt his score will be as bad as that of some of the worst-performing managers in recent years.
Sacked Reading managers in the last few years have come out with a variety of scores in their final approval ratings. Paul Ince signed off with 1.53, Veljko Paunovic came out worst with 1.31, Mark Bowen left in very different circumstances and that was reflected in his 3.11, while Jose Gomes was a little lower on 2.92. I’d guess that Hunt will end up somewhere between 2/5 and 3/5.
You can grade Hunt in our approval rating poll below, with one being the lowest and five the highest. If the poll doesn’t display on your device, try this link right here.
