Is "The Reading Way" over?

[Z175]

I rarely post here these days but I wanted to put my thoughts into writing, so here goes:

Brian McDermott did an unbelievable job of getting the group of players he had to perform to such a level that we won the Championship last season. He will forever hold legendary status for coming from within the club to steady the ship after the Rodgers experiment failed, and everything he achieved will be remembered and appreciated by the genuine fans amongst us.

However, I do not believe that McDermott had the managerial-nouse to succeed in the Premier League. Not only were his tactics slightly naive and one dimensional, but his man-management skills seemed to be lacking somewhat when it came to handling the 'bigger personalities' amongst the squad. Installing passion and belief in a group of largely lower league players, adding the experience of Roberts, and installing a real sense of togetherness last season is one thing, but when it came to managing the likes of Guthrie, an unhappy Federici, and an increasingly frustrated Pavel Pogrebnyak, unltimately I think Brian failed. Knowing he has a far better track record of managing professionals from the lower leagues who have had to show determination and willingness to get to where they are and would undoubtedly be thankful for a shot at the 'big time', he turned to the likes of Akpan and Blackman in the January transfer window, and picks the likes of Leigertwood and McAnuff over Guthrie and co. Those personalities are far easier to manage for a character like Brian and I think that played a massive part in both team selection and transfer targets.

Whilst I feel for Brian and am incredibly thankful for what he achieved at the club, if the new regime are serious about making us an established top-flight side, I feel the change was necessary. It's still yet to be seen who will replace Brian, but I doubt it'll be another quiet, reserved ex-scout (no disrespect intended).

I do take the point, but surely less than a full season against teams who have spent fortunes to beat us is a poor guide to McDermotts tactics and man -management. I think we'll find now how good he was - players like McAnuff and Leigertwood were available for transfer in the Championship remember and he made them league winners. Look at Matt Mills under Brian, and then at any other time?

In fact McDermott was big enough to bring Guthrie back in the team after Sunderland- which helped get us 3 points v WBA. Its not exactly bad tactics or bad man-management that made Guthrie constantly lose possession everytime he played (and unlike Leigertwood, he doesnt tackle).Guthrie & co? Who else? I'd argue HRK and McCleary were given plenty of opportunity to seize their shirt and didn't take it.

Federici too - he was rightly dropped and came back stronger. Fantastic man-management from Brian to get us two on form keepers.

So it comes down to signings like Guthrie, Blackman and Akpan not being good enough to keep us up. McDermott hardly turned to such players in his hour of need - who else can you sign for 3 bags of peanuts. Sure Brian never moaned about lack of funds - it wouldn't have done anything. But it takes about £40m to compete with Southampton and QPR, let alone the bigger sides.

Hopefully it'll come down to Zingarevich preparing to bankroll the club in the summer and wanting his own choice in charge, perhaps a big name to attract key signings...

But I think its most likely bad man management and football naivety from our 30 year old paper millionnaire...

btw the programmes are amazing, whatever the club pay you (I suspect not a lot!) its not enough!

[ManchesterRoyals]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... -here.html

[Vision]

Posted this elsewhere but it might be more appropriate here. I'm still hopeful there can be a Reading Way which we can be proud of even with all that top flight modern football has become.

AZ is understandably getting some stick over this but we need to hold fire a little bit before totally condemning him completely as a knee jerking kid in a toyshop.

If that were the case then I think McD would have been sacked before the last transfer window. He wasn't despite things not being a whole lot bleaker then than they are now. In fact he was given the transfer window and some money in order to effect a positive change. Our subsequent burst of form in January made that decision look like the right one. I also think it's another reason why the decision to axe now was a difficult one and not a knee jerk one.

People say the timing is all wrong but there's never really a right time to sack a manager. As an owner you do it (hopefully) because you realise that the current one cannot give you what you think the club are capable of going forward. My hope is that in doing this now it signals that AZ has a long term managerial plan for Reading. If we were solely looking at giving ourselves a chance of bouncing back next season should we be relegated (and the timing now means that there is a small chance of an instant pick me up from a new face) then we'd have been as well in keeping McD who we know can challenge at the top end.

I'm an optimist at heart so it's natural for me to hope that far from being an "Abromovich Lite" this could actually be a sign that AZ has his own long term plan that just happens to be a step away from the one that's given us a club to be proud of on and off the field for the last decade or more.

All that being said, I hate that people can so easily disregard the achievements of someone as genuine as McDermott . I've rarely supported a sacking at this club not even TB2 who was given more than enough time. I didn't want Rodgers sacked either and neither of those two had earned the right for loyalty by previous good deeds for us as McD has.

I hate what modern football has become at the top level but sadly modern football is what we are faced with. I can only hope that if the club can move forwards in the modern era in a way that doesn't completely lose sight of certain values that I believe are still important.

[leicsRoyal]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2291987/Brian-McDermott-sacked-Where-Reading-here.html

Sums it up for you that the daily mail reports that Katsia somehow had a bearing on the sacking of BMc?

I'm not sure where to begin!

[Sanguine]

...and finishing 8th was the worst thing that could have happened...as that was the blueprint for "The Reading Way"......and that doing things on a shoestring was the first bit of that strategy.

That's a fair point actually, not thought of it that way before. I've always seen the 8th place as an outlier, a bit of a miracle season, but it's not beyond possibility that management at the club have seen that as a sustainable strategy getting those results.

[Thomas L'Heureux]

I do take the point, but surely less than a full season against teams who have spent fortunes to beat us is a poor guide to McDermotts tactics and man -management. I think we'll find now how good he was - players like McAnuff and Leigertwood were available for transfer in the Championship remember and he made them league winners. Look at Matt Mills under Brian, and then at any other time?

In fact McDermott was big enough to bring Guthrie back in the team after Sunderland- which helped get us 3 points v WBA. Its not exactly bad tactics or bad man-management that made Guthrie constantly lose possession everytime he played (and unlike Leigertwood, he doesnt tackle).Guthrie & co? Who else? I'd argue HRK and McCleary were given plenty of opportunity to seize their shirt and didn't take it.

Federici too - he was rightly dropped and came back stronger. Fantastic man-management from Brian to get us two on form keepers.

So it comes down to signings like Guthrie, Blackman and Akpan not being good enough to keep us up. McDermott hardly turned to such players in his hour of need - who else can you sign for 3 bags of peanuts. Sure Brian never moaned about lack of funds - it wouldn't have done anything. But it takes about £40m to compete with Southampton and QPR, let alone the bigger sides.

Hopefully it'll come down to Zingarevich preparing to bankroll the club in the summer and wanting his own choice in charge, perhaps a big name to attract key signings...

But I think its most likely bad man management and football naivety from our 30 year old paper millionnaire...

btw the programmes are amazing, whatever the club pay you (I suspect not a lot!) its not enough!

Personally I feel McDermott would have been shown the door at the end of the season because we are as good as down at the moment, a lot of players will be moving on, and a change would seem sensible to freshen the club up and let somebody new have their chance to rebuild things. I don't necessarily agree that he's been given the boot when he has, but part of me can see the rational in it. I'm not saying this will happen, but there's a slim chance that whomever comes in will galvanise the squad to the degree that they do perform the great escape, and in the likelihood that that doesn't happen the new appointment will at least have been around the club for a few extra months familiarising himself with every aspect of it. As silly as this sounds, offering a new appointment a nice bonus for keeping us up will also attract a higher calibre manager than a club newly relegated into the Championship with a squad left in tatters.

McDermott did make some good signings to be fair to him. For me Mariappa is arguably our player of the season and is certainly my first choice centre-half, even though positionally I think he could improve. Both McCleary and Akpan are raw but have undoubted potential, and Stephen Kelly is streets ahead of both Cummings and Gunter (who I will come onto later). Having said that I think Guthrie was potentially misused when he came to the club which is what created these problems in the first place. At any level of football ball retention is a particularly important aspect of the game; without the ball a team cannot hurt you. With Guthrie in the side he was picking the ball up from the back four and was playing as if he was in either his Newcastle or Bolton side of old; knocking the ball around, playing short passes, and trying to dictate some sort of tempo which is simply not what Reading have done at any point under McDermott. When he was subsequently dropped for the Newcastle game he made a serious of strange tweets suggesting the manager didn't want him to play his natural game which leads me to question why we signed him in the first place. Player and manager then fell out, and when he was eventually was brought back into the side it wasn't in a fair way in my opinion. That's just one example of poor transfer activity from McDermott.

Another is Chris Gunter. Throughout the season he looked out of his depth at this level and was very frustrating. We spent over £2million on said player as I am led to believe, so whether we had a particularly large transfer budget or not, to blow it on a player that you'll inevitably have to replace in the next transfer window because he's simply not up to it is again poor activity where the manager is concerned. The reason I'm highligting these examples is because you've suggested it comes down to the fact that Guthrie, Blackman, Akpan, et al, aren't good enough to keep us up, but surely that stems from the manager in the first place as they are his players and have all been captured during his reign. Guthrie isn't good enough because he was the wrong fit for McDermott's tactics so can be considered a poor acquisition, whilst Blackman and Akpan are the lower league players who are thankful for their opportunity that McDermott knows he can manage that I spoke of before, even though they may not possess the quality that's required.

Having said the above I am also led to believe that McDermott had deals lined-up to bring in some very exciting players in the summer (one of which was Shane Long after it was announced that West Brom had successfully loaned Lakaku) but was then not given the budget to implement said signings and was then left having to look elsewhere. Whilst I've stated that Guthrie is a poor fit for the club it may not be McDermott's fault that he was brought in as he may have been one of the few players realistically available to us, meaning the manager's hands were tied. I do have sympathy with McDermott and am incredibly thankful for the job he has done in getting us to the Premier League, but for one reason or another I just couldn't see us really improving under him in the near future.

And thank you for the kind words mate, they mean a lot. Each artwork is very time consuming to create but I have enjoyed producing them.

[Divvy]

Cracking article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... -here.html

McDermott was treated disgracefully by Reading... but he isn't glamorous enough for owner Zingarevich. Just look at his wife!

Lifelong Reading fan and Sportsmail writer CHRIS CUTMORE tells of his shock at Brian McDermott's sacking, but believes fellow fans should give Anton Zingarevich's new appointment - whoever it may be - a chance to see how far this club can go.

Brian McDermott’s sacking was a disgraceful, disrespectful way to treat a fine manager, and an even finer man. That was my initial reaction, anyway. Approximately one minute later I suddenly realised something: I’d wanted him sacked, but wasn’t prepared to admit it – even to myself.

The thing is, McDermott was perfect for Reading Football Club. Absolutely perfect. A modest, likeable, quietly-determined man who has nurtured a team spirit the like of which I’ve rarely seen, either at the Madejski Stadium, Elm Park, or anywhere else in the country, for that matter.

The only problem is that McDermott was perfect for old Reading, the Reading of Sir John Madejski, the friendly, family, happy, clappy club content with being a solid Championship team that occasionally might dip its toes in the Premier League.

That is clearly not how Anton Zingarevich sees his club. Russian billionaires don’t tend to settle for slow and steady progression, short-term mediocrity for long-term gains. They want glitz, they want glamour, they want wham-bam-thankyou-ma’am.

Just take a look at his wife, Katsia. Zingarevich was educated in Berkshire but he didn’t marry a local girl-next-door – he went for a Victoria's Secret model.

And Zingarevich wants his football club to be the equivalent. He wants a leggy blonde, some eye candy, a trophy he can show off.

A bald 51-year-old with glasses doesn’t quite fit that image.

Zingarevich clearly wants to see his club established among the elite, mixing with the Premier League big boys season after season, not just once every three or four years, and managed by a household name, someone who will boost Reading’s profile.

Frankly, as a lifelong Reading fan, it is a privilege to watch my local club in the top flight. Reading had never won promotion to England’s top division until Steve Coppell created the best team the Championship has ever seen in 2005-6 (and that’s an indisputable fact – check the stats, we’ve got the record points total -106).

Having grown up standing on weed-ridden terraces along with 4,000 other hardy souls (on a good day) watching lower-league football at Elm Park, it barely seems real seeing those blue and white hoops gracing the turf at Old Trafford, Anfield and White Hart Lane.

But I am old Reading, the Reading that Zingarevich wants to leave behind.

And here’s why he was right to sack McDermott – I want to see how much further he can take this club. We’ve come so far on so little – what might be possible now there is genuine financial clout? And I challenge Reading supporters to dare to dream.

The truth is that watching Reading this season has been painful, even embarrassing at times. OK, so being pulled apart by Manchester United isn’t anything to lose sleep over, but making an average Arsenal side look like the Invincibles never left isn’t good.

And it’s not just the big teams who have made Reading look stupid either. Teams like Fulham and Wigan have almost walked the ball into the net against McDermott’s men. And when a team as bad as Aston Villa lead you on a merry dance, you know you’re in deep trouble. I’d fancy Bruce Forsyth to waltz around our defence at the moment.

Many will say McDermott would have won promotion straight back from the Championship even if he took Reading down this season – he’d done it before after all. But the team’s collective defending has degenerated to such a point that even modest second-tier teams would fancy their chances against this lot.

McDermott seemed to have learned his tactical lessons, swallowed his pride and admitted that an attacking 4-4-2 was an impossible dream in this league.

A switch to a more robust 4-5-1 brought him the January manager of the month award, and Adam Le Fondre the player’s gong. Yet McDermott has switched back to 4-4-2. Forget Pavel Pogrebnyak’s suspension and Jason Roberts’ injury, that is not the decision of a Premier League-class manager.

But here come the pangs of guilt. This was the man who turned Reading from Championship relegation fodder into play-off finalists, then champions, on a shoestring.

This was a Berkshire boy who worked his way through the ranks, from scout to manager, over 10 years at the club. He brought a feelgood factor back after the struggles of the post-Coppell era. His dry sense of humour and self-effacing nature made him perhaps the most loved Reading manager of them all.

As a human being, McDermott has been treated disgracefully and disrespectfully. He deserved the chance to see out the season, to try and build on what he had achieved so far, to try and keep Reading in the Premier League.

But that is old Reading talking. Sacking McDermott feels awful. But then leaving Elm Park felt awful – it was comfortable, it was home. Look at Reading Football Club now.

So, sorry Brian and thank you for everything you’ve done. But let’s roll with this and see where Zingarevich takes us. If it’s to Paolo Di Canio, many of us will feel underwhelmed. But at least we can console ourselves with nicking Swindon’s beloved manager.

Perhaps Zingarevich does understand old Reading after all.

[Royal Lady]

^ I'm embarrassed to read that. And even if Di Canio joins us, we haven't "nicked" him from Swindon - he left there ages ago. Rubbish. Booooo. Etc.

[soggy biscuit]

This is brand new information!!!!

[Ian Royal]

That's an excellent article.

[leon]

That's an excellent article.

why is it excellent?

[sandman]

Great article surprised it's not written by a Journalist from The Sun or in crayon given how articulate it is.

Nurgh T1ts narf.

[muddyfeet]

Gr8 username

Very apt

[Haag Royal]

ABDC - Anyone But de Canio

[P!ssed Off]

Will people stop quoting the dailymail? Surely even a football forum does not have to stoop to such depths.

[grey_squirrel]

"A switch to a more robust 4-5-1 brought him the January manager of the month award, and Adam Le Fondre the player’s gong. Yet McDermott has switched back to 4-4-2. Forget Pavel Pogrebnyak’s suspension and Jason Roberts’ injury, that is not the decision of a Premier League-class manager".

All that is worth reading.

[Ian Royal]

That's an excellent article.

why is it excellent?

Because it nails the appreciation of Brian's success at the club and the genuine affection most hold for him, whilst also accepting that this was a necessary and inevitable decision because we and he weren't performing well enough, but that that "truth" doesn't really sit well with a lot of fans. But that it was necessary for Reading to take another step forward over the next 5 years.

Because it expresses my views and feelings on the whole fairly well.

Is this some sort of job interview? I didn't realise statements of opinion were banned from HNA? without explanatory notes and examples these days.

[Victor Meldrew]

"Berkshire Boy"-isn't Brian an Irish Londoner?
"Weed-ridden terraces"?-I'm probably older than the writer and I don't recall weeds in the concrete nor even when there were railway sleepers as terracing.
"Nicking Swindon's manager"?-No,he left them weeks ago.

[leon]

That's an excellent article.

why is it excellent?

Because it nails the appreciation of Brian's success at the club and the genuine affection most hold for him, whilst also accepting that this was a necessary and inevitable decision because we and he weren't performing well enough, but that that "truth" doesn't really sit well with a lot of fans. But that it was necessary for Reading to take another step forward over the next 5 years.

Because it expresses my views and feelings on the whole fairly well.

Is this some sort of job interview? I didn't realise statements of opinion were banned from HNA? without explanatory notes and examples these days.

Good luck with the rest of your career.

[Jay o/]

Yeah very good read, thank you. Sums up the whole thing for me. BM was the perfect fit for the SJM Reading model, but AZ has big plans for Reading and a different vision for the club than what BM, NH and SJM promote. In a way it's a sad, as it feels very much like our soul has now gone, but we became a completely different club when AZ bought us and we weren't exactly moaning when he signed Jason Roberts on 20k a week last January!!! The Reading Way has to go if we are to become an established Premier League club 'in the future'.. Sadly this is a necessary step.