Reading look destined for the Championship next season along with QPR, but ahead of this weekend’s wooden spoon clash between the two the question is which one is better prepared for the lower level?
There's an odd sort of rivalry between QPR and Reading based largely around just who is mimicking who. The debate about which club switched into blue and white hoops first is almost as old as the sport itself and never really goes anywhere very quickly. Reading 's very recent decision to stop referring to their traditional nickname of Royals and start shouting 'Come on you R's' instead is altogether more strange. Of all the clubs to choose to imitate…
And now the pair are trying to outdo each other again in a quest to be the best of the worst. Both will be relegated from the Premier League this season, and while the fight not to be the one to finish bottom is largely superficial a really important battle centres around which club will be best placed to bounce straight back to the Premier League from the Championship next season.
Reading have fired a first shot across the bows on that front this week with former chairman John Madejski using an interview with the London Evening Standard to compare the strategies of the Premier League's two worst sides and conclude that it's the Royals who have done things correctly. Madejski said: "We’ve built this club brick by brick and we haven’t gone for a quick fix. QPR have got all the hallmarks of quick fix or allegedly quick fix. Over the years I have come to realise that players doesn’t always work out. You’ve got a 50/50 chance of them working out when they come to a club and, when you’re paying a lot of money, it can be quite an expensive pastime."
QPR have certainly made life easy for those seeking an example of how not to do things with their strategy – if it can be called that – this season. No sooner had Cardiff City won the Championship title last weekend than their foreign owners were promising not to tread the QPR path of big name, ageing players on sizeable wage packets during this summer's transfer window.
In theory Madejski is right – Reading are much better set. They've only spent around £8m of the Premier League windfall they received upon promotion and a lot of the players they have bought – Chris Gunter, Adrian Mariappa, Hope Akpan and Stephen Kelly – look like shrewd additions to a squad that was good enough to win the Championship at a canter 12 months ago and has largely been kept together for another tilt. The one outlandish – wages wise – acquisition was Russian striker Pavel Pogrebnyak who would be a real handful in the division below, and probably not too difficult to offload this summer if that was deemed necessary.
Like QPR they've sacked a manager this season, and Madejski suggested in his interview that were he still running the club he would have left Brian McDermott exactly where he was. But Russian millionaire Anton Zingarevich bought the club for £25m last summer and dismissed McDermott after a defeat to Aston Villa in March. His replacement Nigel Adkins was much sought after due to his fine work at Scunthorpe and Southampton and the outpouring of public sympathy over the harshness of his dismissal at St Mary's.
So unlike QPR they know exactly who their manager will be next season, they know they already have the players at the club capable of winning the Championship and they haven't added to their wage bill so substantially as to create the need for a fire sale this summer. In theory Reading look the best set of any of the clubs that could potentially be relegated from the top flight over the next few weeks to hit the ground running in the lower division in August.
Football though is no kind of exact science. The impact of relegation and the departure of McDermott could have untold effects on the mood, morale and confidence of the playing staff. Having written recently that losing has become a habit at QPR that risks bleeding into next season it would be remiss not to suggest the same problem for Reading. Adkins' arrival has three defeats and a draw from four games with eight goals conceded including meek surrenders to Southampton and Norwich. Reading are not currently playing like a team that looks capable of grasping the Championship by the scruff of the neck.
And while it's true that their spending has been modest and sensible by the £12.5m Chris Samba gauntlet QPR have laid down, that hasn't been for want of trying. Twice this season Zingarevich has been fishing with plenty of bait in the waters around White Hart Lane – Jermain Defoe was heavily linked last summer and an £8m bid for Gylfi Sigurdsson fell flat in January only because Spurs failed to land Brazilian Leandro Damiao from Internacional. Given that Sigurdsson – a Reading academy graduate who excelled in the Championship – has struggled in the top flight in Germany with Hoffenheim and England with Spurs £8m for his services seems excessive even by QPR's standards. It could be that Reading's more considered spending wasn't actually that considered at all – they would happily have spunked the same cash as Rangers had they been given the chance.
Zingarevich may be a hirer and firer of managers; he may want to throw big money at big names; he may preside over a period of instability virtually unheard of since Madejski arrived at the club 20 years ago. On the face of it Reading is a club well set for next season while QPR looks like the next Blackburn/Wolves-type disaster waiting to happen. But you just don't know in football.
For the third time this season we welcome David from Royals Redezvous to LFW and thank him for kindly giving up some time to give us an insight into the latest situation at the Madejski Stadium.
David, you seemed quite optimistic when we spoke to you earlier in the season. Barring a miracle it seems Reading will be relegated along with QPR. Why has this season ended in failure?
To put it bluntly; the failure of the club management to understand the level needed for playing in the Premier in day and age. After a breath-taking promotion we thought they knew. I was actually worried from the outset by an ineffective pre-season campaign but we’re told they have no bearing on the real thing. Most members on our forum started to worry a bit later as we simply didn’t pick up the early season points, rather like yourselves. It’s easy to look back in hindsight with wisdom, but there have to be serious reservations at our team strengthening through the summer, and again – especially – in the January transfer window. Although players came in with flair – such as McCleary and Guthrie – the new signings have not really blended together into a new dangerous playing formation. Pogrebnyak should have produced better killer results too, there were many banking on him at the beginning of the season.
Yep, there have been moments of flair. We have matched many teams occasionally - it sounds almost big-headed to say that during periods of games this season we gave as good as we got against both Manchester clubs in the league, also Chelsea away, and also first half against Arsenal in the League Cup. But we’ve definitely slipped up to virtually all the bottom half teams. I think I saw the other day a league table only taking into account games against top half teams – we’d be fourteenth. But in a table of matches against lower half teams we’d be absolutely stranded, well cut off at the bottom.
Would you have sacked Brian McDermott? What is the general feeling about his departure among the support base? How will he do at Leeds in your opinion - he always struck me as a bit of a one club man?
This has been a strongly disputed topic on Royals Rendezvous since November time. Was what I said in the previous answer really McDermott’s fault? Probably not his fault by signing them, he’s had an impressive record of signings over the years, but we obviously relied on him to get the best out of the players. However, for a long time it seems that the players on match day were almost accepting that the task was too big for their boots before kicking off.
We therefore thought there was a strong chance of Brian McDermott going, one way or another, around Christmas time. But along came one of those strange quirks – from December to early January we went on an unbeaten run of half-a-dozen games; finally it looked like our season was starting to lift off, or maybe Brian would work one of his legendary second-half-of-season spurts once again. We momentarily came out of the relegation places with that improvement – and a seventeenth place finish would have been enough for any of us. Remember he even picked up the manager of the month award – but 33 days later was sacked as the new flame simply burnt out. It’s been a downward spiral ever since.
Far from the new January signings helping the club’s results we’ve probably got worse compared to all the others. Indeed many might argue that last season’s squad was collectively better equipped to grind out results and share mental strength. The money spent since promotion has been negligible, and hasn’t done very much – here it goes:
May 2012 - Garath McCleary - Forest - £0 // June 2012 - Danny Guthrie - Newcastle Utd - £0 // July 2012 - Pavel Pogrebnyak - Stuttgart - £0 // July 2012 - Pierce Sweeney - Bray Wanderers - £60,000 // July 2012 - Nicky Shorey – W.B.A. - £0 // July 2012 - Adrian Mariappa - Watford - £2,500,000 // July 2012 - Chris Gunter - Forest - £2,500,000 // August 2012 - Stuart Taylor - Man City - £0 // January 2013 - Daniel Carrico - Sporting Lisbon - £600,000 // January 2013 - Hope Akpan - Crawley - £300,000 // January 2013 - Stephen Kelly - Fulham - £1,000,000 // January 2013 - Nick Blackman - Sheffield United - £1,200,000
We supposedly had £10,000,000 ready for a bid for Sigurdsson, ex-Reading and now at Spurs of course – when this fell through why wasn’t this kitty then used on other impressive reinforcement(s)? The doom is such that most doubt that we will even pip you to nineteenth place.
So to answer your question in a nutshell – we should either have departed with Brian at the tail end of 2012, or wait till the season was over because the stats show that manager changes made at the end of the season with relegation haunted teams simply don’t work. Unfortunately, that super little run of undefeated games put the blinkers on all our eyes, and shrouded us from reality. The reality that we weren’t good enough …
And what do you make of Nigel Adkins? Seemed like a very popular, much sought after, appointment but results have not been good so far.
Yes, I think he was the number one choice by the fans – someone more akin with the ‘ Reading ’ way of doing things subtly, without pretensions, and not risking explosive events that might have followed some of the other more colourful candidates on offer arriving at that moment. I suppose that Adkins was hired with the idea of making a serious championship mount next season; this season for him might be not much more than pre-season type games where he gets to know in detail all the players and cleans out who he sees as the dead wood. All relegated teams make substantial changes the following term, and I don’t see it being any differently here. I can’t believe he was told “save us, or else”. Also, our run of opposition last few games has not been easy – Man Utds and the Liverpools of this world are no easy feats for teams in dire needs. Adkins' record is impressive, of course, so we live in hope for next season. Strange to say that the loser of our game together is automatically a second tier team, but let’s face the truth, there’s not much hope for either of us.
What changes to the side and the style of play has Adkins put in place so far? What needs to change this summer if Reading are to bounce straight back?
I think there has been a better attempt to try to play the ball and not hoof it upfield, and that is what the fans have been calling out for this season. What worked for us in the Championship didn’t work in the Premier, especially in midfield where the opposition read things so quickly. In general, that same frailty afflicts us – we can play decently during a large part of a game, but the other part where we don’t lets us down, and the opposition score. It’s as simple as that. In an ideal world we would need to recover the collective team mental strength of the McDermott Championship years, coupled with the flair of Adkins Southampton sides. Can we do it? I’ve no idea yet.
What is the general feeling towards your Russian owner? Was he impatient with McDermott? Is there a worry he will be a hirer and firer?
If one thing positive I can say, it’s definitely that Anton Zingarevich has been extremely patient with Brian McDermott. As I previously hinted, many of us half thought he’d make his move on ousting McDermott before the half-way point of the season, but fair play to him, he stuck in there and pledged support to a Reading manager in an increasingly difficult situation. It must have been a very tough decision for him even at this late stage of the season. On one hand Zingarevich had a five-year plan; team consolidation, new reserve/academy training and match centre, ground extension from just over 24,000 to maybe even up to 38,000, and on the pitch by being on the fringes of European places by 2017. Obviously relegation didn’t enter his plans. But on the other hand, although he’s Russian he’s also almost a ‘Readingensian’ – went to secondary school here, and used to frequent the old Elm Park terraces long before anyone knew anything about him. He is actually a ‘fan’ himself, so I believe it was very difficult to weigh up both sides here.
I see no signs that he will be a hirer and firer on manager level, though I believe he will now know that he will need to put substantial money into player signings, and if they don’t produce what they promise – move them on coldly. QPR bought Samba for £12,500,000, Reading 's entire squad was bought for £13,320,000. I can foresee us spending far more of our Premier parachute money than Madejski did in 2008 - the last time it happened.
Who are the leading contenders for your Player of the Year award? Who have been the weak links?
This was the Royals Rendezvous vote for the end of 2012 - 1st - Le Fondre, Adam - 41.2%, 2nd - Pearce, Alex - 17.6%, 3rd - Karacan, Jem - 11.8%. And fair enough, ‘Alfie’ Le Fondre has done a very good job on little service to him all season, so he’d get my vote. The worry seems to be that perhaps he is not Adkins type of player. Time will tell. Hal Robson-Kanu has had an impressive season, but I fear he’ll be off to Cardiff very soon now. Alex McCarthy seems a fantastic goalkeeping prospect – how unlucky for him he had a freak accident which kept him out for a long stretch. Young defender Sean Morrison has been improving all the while too.
In my book Jimmy Kebe and Mikele Leigertwood have been disappointments this season, Nicky Shorey was a good signing, but also to be a bit player in an even better team; it has not happened. Jason Roberts has hardly figured, more injured than fit – again a big disappointment. But the list of disappointments goes on and on, so I don’t want to depress myself further.
The most noticeable thing about Reading’s team now, compared to the one that started the season, is the change in personnel at the back. The Royals started the season with Adam Federici in goal and a back four of (right to left) Chris Gunter, Alex Pearce, Kaspars Gorkss and Ian Harte. In recent games it’s been Alex McCarthy in goal behind Gunter, Adrian Mariappa, Sean Morrison and Stephen Kelly. That’s four out of five regulars dropped and replaced from the area of the team where consistency of selection is seen as vitally important – our old charge Gorkss has even been loaned out to Wolves, such is the extent of his fall from favour at the Madejski Stadium.
There has been another more subtle change since Nigel Adkins replaced Brian McDermott and it’s one that three defeats and a draw from four fixtures suggest will take a while to bed down. Reading under McDermott were quite a traditional English team, and very well set up for the Championship. They played with Jobi McAnuff on one wing, Jimmy Kebe on the other and a combination of strikers selected from the likes of Noel Hunt, Simon Church, Shane Long and others who worked well as partnerships and thrived on crosses. They were reasonably direct, looking to get the ball forward early and access wide areas for crosses whenever possible – without ever coming close to a Stoke City level of route one play. They also tried to intimidate referees wherever possible with Matthew Mills often seen screaming in the faces of officials and Jem Karacan always there by the side of Mills and two or three other team mates questioning every decision.
None of this is really the Nigel Adkins way of doing things. He took over a Scunthorpe side that was very successful under Brian Laws and moved it on another level further, promoting it into the Championship playing very attractive football. At Southampton the situation was slightly different – Laws had been poached from Scunthorpe by a bigger club, Alan Pardew had been harshly fired by Southampton after doing what was widely seen as a very good job in trying circumstances. Again, the football was attractive and attacking, the ethos pure and neutral friendly. Switching a struggling team to a more difficult possession-based style in the middle of a season when confidence is low and results are poor is a big ask.
The thing Adkins has in his favour is that Reading were almost certainly down by the time he arrived, and he can effectively use the remaining games as almost an extended pre-season to implement his change of style in the hope of hitting the ground running when the Championship season starts in August.
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