Issue 10 - April 1999

So, what's happened since the last issue? Oh, I know, the season's ended. Not really, of course, as there's still a few games left to play but as far as the hope of any success is concerned the back-to-back defeats by promotion rivals Man. City and Gillingham has completely extinguished the admittedly weak flame of our play-off hopes. A big gap has now opened between our rivals and ourselves whilst Wigan and Stoke now look far more likely than us to overall the top six and make the play-offs.

Prior to those two fixtures, Burns went on his seemingly traditional transfer deadline day shopping spree. Another five players came in, including journeyman Keith Scott from Wycombe, leading to the suspicion that Burns has now substituted his quest for quality with the pursuit of quantity. If you compare Burns' resources with the rest of the division (with the obvious exception of free-spending Fulham), then Madejski is certainly backing his man. Indeed, some of Tommy's comments about money, or rather, the lack of it, have been rather distasteful given the success achieved at Preston, Bournemouth and Gillingham on far smaller budgets.

Whatever, it would seem that Burns' spending has placed his cock firmly on the block, to coin a phrase. Whilst Madejski might not be a "hire 'em, fire 'em" type of boss, a bad start to next season would see Burns under real pressure. Despite the expectations early this season and the usual desire for immediate success, most of those involved at the club were at least prepared to give the new regime two seasons to get it right. Disappointing not to go up straight away but, nevertheless, these things take time.

Next season, however, will be a different story. Promotion will not just be a priority - it could well be a requirement. In other words, if Reading are still in Division Two for the 2000/2001 season, it may well be with a new manager. Indeed, a bad run before Christmas and there could be a change in less than twelve months.

On the other hand, Madejski may reason that he's invested a lot of money in Burns and would be loath to throw it away. He will no doubt be well aware of the financial cost, still being felt, after ditching Bullivant inside a season. All those players signed on long (well, two years), lucrative contracts and then not wanted by the new manager, who does, however, want money to spend on bringing his own players in.

An alternative scenario is that Burns gets fed up himself. A poor season next year and there's no doubt that the fans would be on his back. He may well decide that he could still command a decent post and salary to match elsewhere and doesn't need the hassle. The cut and thrust of football at this level may not be to his more refined tastes and he may find himself not wanting to compromise his principles for the sake of short-term success.

No doubt that, at the moment at least, the management team is not thinking in these terms. Planning for next season will already be under way and with lessons from this term hopefully well and truly learnt, we should be in a much better position come August. So, what are those lessons?
Key amongst them is that football in the Second Division is as professional and committed as anywhere else in the English (or Scottish) leagues. All the teams are exceptionally fit and well organised and definitely not the push-overs that many thought they would be. We need to be as fit and committed as they are.

Secondly, we need to resolve our goal-scoring problem. This season, we have put ourselves under far too much pressure by not scoring enough goals. The Burns style has concentrated on retaining possession but, in very few games, has this possession generated an abundance of scoring chances. In the early games, this was hardly surprising - remember, we had the likes of Reilly, Houghton and Gray as our wide midfield men. We might have had more luck playing Howe, Butler and Madejski.

Alan McLaren - a winger who gives the Royals some width. So he won't be playing much longer then.

Given a bit more luck on the injury front next season, it will be goal-scoring that represents Burns' key problem. With a full choice from Casper, Primus, Polston, Bernal and Gurney plus Barras, Hunter, Kromheer and Gray in reserve, the defence should not be too much of an issue. Given the way the team has played for most of this season, however, we could still struggle to score goals.
There are a number of answers to this. The usual method at this level is put the opposition defences under pressure by flooding the box with players and getting the ball in as quickly as possible. An alternative, no doubt favoured by Burns, is to work the ball around and move the defence out of position. This method relies on the creation of space. Defenders are pulled out of place as they chase the ball and you then use the space they've left behind. Once the defenders are not where they should be, the right pass creates the chance. Obviously, you then need someone to tuck it away.

The problem this season has been that Reading have simply not been able to do this to the opposition consistently enough. We've moved the ball too slowly and, crucially, have mostly played without a single player who is capable of taking on defenders. This creates space since extra defenders are then needed to close down the attacker and this just creates more space. It seems ridiculous that Murty, in the few games he's played, has looked our best attacking option of the entire season - a player capable of taking on the opposition at pace and causing havoc. And even then, Burns has used him at full-back.

Reading have lacked any kind of spark this season. Sarr looked like he might provide it but has spent most of the season injured or unfit. The rest have looked uninspired and mostly, easy to defend against - give us the ball, protect the box and let us pass it around the outside, without a clue how to penetrate.

We can only hope that this problem is addressed over the summer, as it's a major contributory factor to the high boredom content of many games this season. Quite simply, it's not much fun watching game after game in which we know we're not going to score.

Burns must be praying for an end to the injury problems but, if that happens, he will have no hiding place. Reading now appear to have a strong, well-balance squad, although we perhaps still lack a top-quality goal scorer. The responsibility for what happens next rests fairly and squarely with Tommy Burns.