Well, this season isn’t going quite as well as we thought it would, is it? Or is it?
Reading are seventh in the table and in the fight for a playoff push, have invested heavily in the squad and brought in a lot of good, new players and have security from engaged owners. It doesn’t sound so bad on paper, right?
I guess we didn’t predict the start that Reading made. Perhaps we didn’t see Noel Hunt not being able to build on the previous season’s battling effort to consolidate a finish in seventh place.
Hunt was one of our own, a man who knew the club and connected with and to the fans.
However, this wasn’t enough to keep him in a job, after leaving Reading hovering in 20th place, just above the relegation places and without a clear tactical identity, a clear structure on the pitch and players seemingly unsure of what to do – other than produce moments of individual brilliance.
All changed now though, hasn’t it? Leam Richardson has come in and, since his time in charge of Reading, he has got us from 20th to seventh with nine wins, six draws and four losses and 33 goals scored in that time: a big uplift on the 15 netted in 14 games under Hunt’s stewardship.
In a league table compiled of results since Richardson’s appointment, Reading would be sixth. That’s alright…right?
January saw us bring in a mixture of experienced and younger players, all of whom have made an immediate impact in the first team.
Benn Ward looks fantastic at either centre-back or left-back and surely will be pinched from us soon enough. Haydon Roberts is a real attacking force from left-back – probably the first proper leftback we’ve had in years. Ryan Nyambe has immediately become first-choice right-back and offers us what we’ve missed from Andy Yiadom in his more advanced years.
Kadan Young has come in at left-wing and looks like a lively attacker, clearly blessed from quality, as a player from Aston Villa should be. Will Keane… well, OK, but hey – he’s scored two goals despite being rubbish. Mark O’Mahony was never able to manage that with a similar handicap.
All these players fit in with Richardson’s tactical identity: three at the back in possession, with one full-back bombing forward to support the attack and the three behind the striker being willing runners to create space and passing options to feed into Jack Marriott, the man allergic to not scoring goals.
We all know this is how we are going to play, a marked difference from before, when all we knew was that we’d be rubbish. Again: it should be “hooray!” but… it all just feels so… meh.
Why though?
It’s hard to say, to be honest. It all seems to point back to one man though: Richardson.
If I had to describe him, he’s a bit of a mood hoover. When you listen to his post-match comments, they wouldn’t inspire me to run through walls for him. Not that the players aren’t trying, but they seem to have the handbrake on, reliant on long balls and Marriott to keep springing tricks, despite being more hunted than Lemsip in the winter.
It’s nice to know what to expect but… dare I say it, it feels too predictable – and not sustainable in the long run. Teams surely have us figured out by now, and we don’t seem to have any other ideas for how to change the play.
Well, I say that – we do see a change when we are protecting a one-goal lead, switching to a back five with an extra centre-back. Which is fine, except for in the last two games, we’ve conceded equalisers in the last minute of the game to throw away points. And we can’t have any complaints about the fairness of those results.
Listening to Richardson post-match, his comments are hauntingly like Hunt’s after each game: “deserved more from the game”, “great from the lads”, “played really well”, “great effort from all the boys” are all paraphrased comments that crop up regularly.
The only difference between these comments and Hunt’s are the fact that Richardson has received some media training. But the worry here is that the theme from Hunt’s decline was that he just seemed to repeat himself because he had run out of ideas. Has the same thing happened again?
It’s worth remembering at this point that Richardson’s been extraordinarily well backed by the board: the transfers in the winter (three of whom are players he has worked with before), complemented by two signed on frees in November (both of whom, again, are ex-Richardson players). He’s also been afforded more coaches than his predecessor had. What are they all doing?
The board
It is prescient to mention the board at this moment in time. It was announced that they (“they” being Rob Couhig and Todd Trossclair) will host a pre-game Q&A with fans on Saturday. The last time one of these was held was not long before Hunt was relieved of his duties.
I attended the last one and it felt like Couhig wasn’t aware of the fan discontent with the start to the season, and some of the comments were unusual, though understandable as he clearly wanted to publicly back the manager. But I’ll tell you what: he damn well listened and took everything – negative or not – in his stride, and with all due care and attention.
Why is this relevant? If we as a fanbase want the team to succeed, we have to back the boys. It’s as simple as that.
There’s lots that we don’t like, and I’ve touched on some of those things earlier in the article, but these are not through the fault of the players. They are instructed to play a certain way, to do certain things. It’s really not their fault if the manager is failing to get the most out of them, or inspire them. Or both.
Nor is it the fault of the owners. They picked their man, and while there were people out there called Luke Williams who were ready and available, there was a logic to the choice and they’ve given their choice everything he needs to succeed.
However, they have proven they are willing to be held accountable for their decisions. We have a real opportunity on Saturday to challenge them on this train ever so slowly coming off the tracks, and make our voices heard about the discontent and disconnect.
Direct the frustration at the owners and let’s save the good stuff for the players right now. Frankly, they don’t seem to getting all the support they need from Richardson, so let’s help them out until Richardson begins reading the room.
