The Wild Lower West: Who’s To Blame For Reading’s Disappointing Season?

Here we are again, the end of another season that will ultimately end in League One consolidation rather than celebration, and we are all left pondering what might have been. It was only four weeks ago that Reading sat firmly in the playoff picture, looking to extend a 46-game season to 48 or even 49 matches, but now the players are on the beach (which is ironic given Saturday’s opponents) and we look set to finish anywhere between ninth and 12th. That’s respectable in many people’s eyes, until you look at the teams which will/could finish above us and you suddenly realise that respectable becomes disappointing.

So who is responsible? The manager Let’s start with the obvious in Leam Richardson, a man who finds it impossible to admit his own shortcomings and is seemingly unable to take accountability for anything that goes wrong. I’m convinced that, if Richardson broke wind in an empty lift, he would look round to see who did it.

When Richardson arrived, we were promised (yes, he did promise) open, expansive, front-foot football, so there was every reason to feel somewhat excited about his arrival, and let’s not forget that he was apparently top of everyone’s most wanted list. Apart from Blackpool away (again ironic, given Saturday’s opponents) early in Richardson’s tenure, I cannot think of one other game that has seen us play open, expansive, front-foot football. Over the last few weeks I have taken the opportunity to look at some of Wigan Athletic’s match reports and supporter comments from their title-winning season in 2021/22, and bizarrely I am unable to find any that refer to Wigan playing open, expansive, front-foot football.

In fact, most of the comments are quite the opposite. “I will be brutally honest and say that I think Saturday should be Richardson’s last in charge of this club” As an example, we have “well we won but it wasn’t pretty”, “I guess that’s what they mean by winning ugly” and my personal favourite, “Wigan’s long-ball approach became a battle with the conditions rather than the opposition”. All of which begs the question: where did the idea of playing of playing open, expansive, front-foot football even come from?