Worst ever manager

[leon]

Burns was shocking but he bought Forster and Murty. Two of the best signings RFC has had in the last 20 years I would say.

Murty achieved great things with us, but of all the 05/06 side he represented the worst value for money IMO. Certainly not such a great signing compared to Cureton, Kitson, Shorey, Sonko, Sidwell, Harper, Ingimarsson, Little, Doyle, Long, Federici, Le Fondre...

no he was a great servant for the club. better than most on that list.

[leon]

Burns was shocking but he bought Forster and Murty. Two of the best signings RFC has had in the last 20 years I would say.

It's the Kes approach. Throw enough shit and some of it'll stick.

yes but his big signings he got absolutely right. Two excellent players for Reading. Pardew couldn't have played his 451 formation without Forster. Glen Little would not have had the freedom to do his magic to get us up without a rock solid defender like Murty.

[royalsteve]

without question Burns. With the amount of money he spend - pretty sure its more than McD has had this season and 2 divs lower he couldnt have done a worse job - spent about £7m in one season - think he brought murty to the club from york. if so that was prob his only good signing

he spend the rest on a bunch of scottish no hopers and quite possibly the worst defender and keeper ever, both dutch - van der quack and kromjeer or something like that

[royalsteve]

Conversely, I'd say our top 3 managers have been Evans, Coppell and McDermott with Copps maybe edging it as the best but I'll reserve judgement until the end of the season - if we stay up, our best (and most successful manager) ever will be McD.

mcghee wasnt bad, though probably nearer 4th or 5th, vieing for that spot with pardew

[Terminal Boardom]

I am surprised that Branfoot isn't getting a mention. Whereas he too us up 2 divisions, the football was dreadful. Once Bremner, Wood and Senior left, the team fell apart. The replacements were utterly shocking. Some of his signings were bizarre to say the least. Who, in their right mind, would play hoof ball with Steve Moran up front? Moran was a very good footballer technically yet totally unsuited to Branfoot's "style". That we were effectively 45 minutes from returning to Division 4 sums his management abilities.

Porterfield tried to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear but never had the first idea of what his best 11 was.

IMHO, McGhee was brilliant. The style of football he managed to bring was amazing and was the best I saw at Elm Park. His partnership with Colin Lee was pivotal to the success he had. I wasn't at Molyneux for the first game of the season in 1994/95 but by all accounts, we destroyed Wolves only to lose 1-0.

Apart from the season when McGhee left and Jim and Mick took over, their tenure was one of struggle. Lots of distinctly average players came in eg Bodin. As in Branfoot's time, the loss of Osborn, Hislop and Taylor did us no favours. The heart was ripped out of the side.

Bullivant was given a task of taking over a struggling side and trying to improve it. he had a few transfer successes but ultimately, the run after New Year put paid to him. Burns, with the resources at his disposal was woeful. Sure, there were one or two signings that came off but don't forget the signed Murty as a winger - not a full back.

I am convinced had Pardew stayed, we would have won promotion.

Coppell? Took him time to get the balance right but when he did... the rest is history.

Rodgers? A basic inability to understand the abilities of the squad available and total failure to be able to get them to perform at their best. Thankfully, BMcD took over. Now, if BMcD can just get the first half of a season sorted out... Where BMcD has to be considered as probably our most successful manager has to be that he has managed to improve year on year having lost key players in the summer (Long, Mills, Sigurdsson spring to mind)

[Barry the bird boggler]

Bullivant wins this for me by a neck ahead of Burns.

With Bullivant it was dreadful, truly dreadful. First 1 point from the first 7 games then things slowly looked to be turning before hitting quite possibly the worst set of "consistent" performances ever seen and winning only one game out of the last 12 or something (losing all the rest).

Things were particualrly bad v Port Vale and then a few days later at Oxford it was truly dreadful with not only bad performances but utterly no organisation on the pitch with no-one knowing what they were meant to be doing all topped of with Michael O'Neill colliding with the flag on the half way line as he was substituted.

The problem with Tommy Burns was that he got in a load of players who were not suited to division 3 and appeard to refuse to involve people who had an understanding of the game at that level and so we got a pretty pretty side who could pass the ball sideways all day long but rarely do anything with it. It was just about better than watching the utter crap we had under Bullivant though.

[Terminal Boardom]

What worked against Burns was that the level of expectation was so much higher than under Burns. New stadium, loads of new signings, Mass Sarr. Is Burns vilified because the expectation levels were so high?

[sandman]

Tbf to Burns how many of the other managers had to deal with the chairman not being at the club? For most of Burns time as manager Madejski was in Malaysia doing business deals. If Brebner hadn't flounced off with homesickness and a bit more luck with injury (Murts/Fozzy) then he might have worked out better.

[Ian Royal]

Tbf to Burns how many of the other managers had to deal with the chairman not being at the club? For most of Burns time as manager Madejski was in Malaysia doing business deals. If Brebner hadn't flounced off with homesickness and a bit more luck with injury (Murts/Fozzy) then he might have worked out better.

I think Madejski being out of the country actually gave Burns longer than he would otherwise have had. It's not like you can argue he didn't get backing... he got loads to spend and did nothing with it.

[Uke]

Burns

For Robert Fleck and the rest of the mercenaries

[jazz]

Burns and Bullivant neck and neck. Fine degrees of awfulness are not crucial.

[ankeny]

Bit unfair on Jim and Mick,they were thrown into it has a Madejski "cheap option",but they got us to Wembley

[TBM]

Close between Burns and Bullivant, but for me Burns edges as our worst. As others have said he wasted a lot of money on poor players.

Although he did give us the legend that is Grant Brebner

[Cripple Creek]

One of the other aspects of a manager that hasn't been mentioned much on here is how the manager comes across. Bullivant really had the odds stacked against him because when he spoke he was obviously quite uneducated (not being a snob but I'm afraid it's true, he had a limited vocabulary and when he used it his grammar was all over the place) and basically a bit thick. Coppell and McDermott both come across as intelligent and extremely likeable and I'm not just saying that as a Reading fan, other fans think similarly of them. I read quite a lot from other fans in the press on the comments section of online newspaper articles/match reports and it is clear that fans of other clubs really warm to McDermott. I can't honestly remember how Burns came across. McGhee, who I think coached Reading into playing the most attractive football I have ever seen in my 38 years watching Reading play was, in my view, really knowledgeable about football and, personally, I liked the guy. I still do actually. He's been asked on a number of occasions how someone who was for a time one of the hottest young managerial prospects has floundered so badly and he's very self-deprecating and honest. I like that in a person.

[Royal Biscuitman]

Wasn't pants day under Burns regime?
It's not just about win %, it's about the division we were in to attain that %.
3rd tier under Burns if i remember correctly....
Rodgers was also clueless though

Pants Day was during Pardew's reign, I think.

Yes it was - West Stand Man was one of the chief organisers IIRC, but I guess that could be another user on a former version of this board with an identical username - it happens.

[The Beardy Man]

I actually think Bullivant was far worse than Burns.

With Burns you just got the sense he didn't know English lower league football at all, thus far over-rating Scottish premier league reserve players. He didn't help his cause freezing out players who might have made a positive contribution however. You did get the sense of a definite plan though, he just didn't have players good enough to implement it. I always got the sense that had we somehow stayed up in the second tier he would have made a better fist of things. Kinda think of Burns in the same way as Rodgers to some degree.

Bullivant however.....By the end his selections screamed of pure desperation. Looked increasingly like he picked the team by drawing straws from a hat. Been watching since the early 90's (so mostly successful times) and never seen anything so clueless from a Reading side as that served up under Bullivant.

[Platypuss]

van der Kwaak, Booty, Legg, Davies, Kromheer, Crawford, Caskey, McIntyre, Gray, Lambert.

*shudder*

[The Beardy Man]

van der Kwaak, Booty, Legg, Davies, Kromheer, Crawford, Caskey, McIntyre, Gray, Lambert.

*shudder*

James Lambert was pretty much my favourite player when I was a youngster. He never got remotely close to having the career he should have.

[Hoop Blah]

Burns, with the resources at his disposal was woeful. Sure, there were one or two signings that came off but don't forget the signed Murty as a winger - not a full back.

I'd probably go with Burns, but you say he signed him as a winger but he often, when fit, played him at full back with Gurney in front of him so I'm not sure he was signed to play on the wing.

[Schards#2]

Burns every time for me. At the time, we were a big fish in a small pond with bigger crowds, a bigger ground and greater resources than most teams in the division, which was the lowest division we have been in since the early 1980's yet, not only were the results terrible, the performances were absolutely dire often going through a half without a single effort on or off target.

Probably the least enjoyable period of following Reading in my lifetime.