31 May 2023
By Hob Nob Anyone?
It has been a long and difficult season for fans of Reading FC, well, it has been a difficult few years in fairness and sadly as fans of the Royals know, we will be plying our trade in League One in the 2023/24 campaign having finished five points from safety and suffered from relegation from the Championship.
It is going to be a summer of huge change now as we will understandably have to reduce outgoings an attempt to rebalance our finances inline with now reduced revenue, and we already know a host of established players will be moving on when their contracts officially expire at the end of the season. There are likely to be further sales as well, as we will need to rebuild the playing staff for the League One challenge, and having heavily relied on loan signings this year as well, they too will now have to be replaced so we have greater strength and depth ahead of next year. For those fans who like to have a small wager on Reading matches, they will definitely be keeping an eye on arrivals before predictions are made on how the club will do next year.
It also seems like Reading may well have lost the opportunity to cash in on star Tom Ince. Having moved to the club in January 2022 as part of the deal that saw Liam Moore move to Stoke, the 31 year old penned permanent terms that summer having been joined by his dad, Paul Ince, who came in as first team manager in February as Veljko Paunovic's replacement.
Having originally signed a three year deal with the club, there has been plenty of reported interest shown in him by other clubs despite the season having only just finished, but it seems we have further shot ourselves in the foot as with relegation confirmed, apparently he has a release clause that now comes into play and it was only negotiated to the tune of a paltry £50,000, which is shockingly low for a player of his calibre.
With our managerial search in full flow as well, whoever comes in as Ince's proper replacement following his earlier sacking, his son's release fee being set at that level will be a blow as any new man would have hoped to rebuild the club with Tom involved on the pitch, or at least use him to generate some much needed funds - especially having suffered a consecutive two year transfer embargo.
It is going to be a busy few weeks for the board with so much to now sort out, and key to giving ourselves the best possible chance of potentially bouncing back at the first time of asking will be the person chosen to take us forward. Once they are in place, better decisions can be made about the playing squad, although as we know, some players have already been offered new deals seeing them through the 2023/24 campaign.
Fans will have to simply wait and see how much of the groundwork now comes off as August edges nearer.
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