The Weekly Bobbins: A Slow Slide Into Irrelevance
A drab showing at Doncaster Rovers was more evidence that Reading’s playoff bid is vanishing with a whimper.
Well, that’s that then. Not mathematically, but it doesn’t take a savant to see we’re out of the playoff hunt. What makes it worse is the manner of it – drifting out of the race with a jarring set of bumps and whimpers.
No drama, no fight, just a slow slide into irrelevance. For much of the season, points racked up even if the performances were giving off warning signs. Now it’s fallen apart so completely that it’s hard to picture where the next point is coming from, never mind a late, undeserved surge into the top six.
Relying on the form of Jack Marriott was one thing, but having no alternative playbook was naive. “It looks like a group that has long since switched off” We had one idea and we ran it into the ground. When Marriott wasn’t there, nothing changed.
No adjustment, no alternative, no evolution. And that lands squarely on the manager. Richardson talks a lot about being “the best version of ourselves”, yet we’ve spent months degenerating into a worse version.