Issue 15 - December 1999
We're Getting Worse...

Given the relatively small number of games since the last issue, this column is not that easy to write. It was tempting to crank up the font size and scrawl "We're Getting Worse" across the two pages but that could be seen as a bit of a cop out. It would, however, have been entirely accurate.

In fact, a quote from Issue 14 now seems rather apposite: "The Oxford result was a blow because, whilst the result was bad enough, the performance was worse and very worrying. Much more of that and we'll have a real relegation battle on our hands."

Can anyone now doubt that the major task for this season is merely to stay up? No-one surely believes that we're too good to go down but it is rather difficult to get your head round the idea that a club that's invested over four million pounds in players in the last couple of years and pays First Division wages, is in very real danger of dropping into the lowest division of the Football League.

There has to be something seriously wrong at this club because the facts just don't make any sense. Over the last five years, there has been unprecedented investment, not only in the new stadium but also in training facilities, transfer fees and players' wages. Quinn and Gooding may not

have seen too much of that money initially but they did get more to spend than McGhee.

From there, the spending became unprecedented for Reading Football Club. Anyone with an appreciation of the history of the club is astonished by the turn around: little old Reading, always content to hang around in the lower two divisions, always one of the most nondescript teams in the whole League, suddenly being classed as a "big club" (relatively speaking, of course) because of our spending power.

Yet, in every one of those five seasons the performance of the team has got worse. Two years struggling under Mick and Jim, Bullivant's Annus Horribilus, last season, which promised so much and delivered so little and now another relegation battle, this time to avoid the drop into the Third Division.

To use that well-worn Fanzine phrase, "What the hell is going on?" What business do you know of that increases investment year-on-year only to see performance get dramatically worse? That increases it's costs by a huge amount and watches the revenue fall every week?

The answer to that question is a very poorly managed one. Football may be a different type of business but the principles are still the same: you expect and need to get a return on your investment. If you don't, either you sell up and get out or you eventually go bankrupt.

Madejski must be starting to think along these lines. It's easy to say that it was his fault for taking on Bullivant and then Burns but how many fans fully supported the latter appointment? No doubt the usual "Hindsight Heroes" will tell that they knew all along that Burns wasn't the right man for the job but just try to remember the ridiculous optimism that existed amongst the supporters at the start of last season.

Madejski has now apparently frozen the transfer funds but he's beginning to learn the hard lessons of getting it wrong as a chairman. If the man you appoint (who, after all, goes out and spends your money) gets it wrong, then you pay the price and heavy one it is at that.

The chairman now finds himself in an awkward situation: his business instincts will tell him not to continue to invest if he gets no return and yet the man he appointed to sort out the problem cannot do so without funding.

Quite simply, the squad is a mess. It's almost impossible to put out a solid team because there are no players capable of playing out wide. Last issue, I wrote that Pardew had ditched the 3-5-2 because it wasn't working but he's now reverted to it because the 4-4-2 wasn't working either.

Some players should be on their way out. Casper has been a huge disappointment; he must be on a substantial wage and yet he really looks like one of those who no longer cares (assuming, of course, he ever did). Competition for places is hardly fierce anywhere but in some places it is non-existent. Just to get my usual dig in, would Gurney really be on the pitch if we had someone, anyone, else to play in that position?

Consequently, this squad is going nowhere but down. We desperately need an injection of pace on both flanks and a couple of even half-decent full backs would be a Godsend. And yet, unless we off-load some of the hangers-on, the chairman will probably not fund anything more than loan players.

If Pardew does manage to convince Madejski to splash out once more, he will be under enormous pressure to get it right. Another crock, another wash-out or another "I'm only here for the money" could tip the chairman over the edge. Pardew's first loan signing (Lisbie) has already fallen foul of "Royals disease" and got himself crocked for at least the rest of month's loan period. Madejski, who's now committed to paying his wages, must have been a little unhappy at this news, he wrote, as a late entrant into the "Understatement of the Year" contest.

Pardew seems to have the full backing of the playing staff but there's yet no evidence of this on the pitch. If they really do support him to the hilt, they should consider pulling their fingers out of their backsides and trying to get some points on the board. Worryingly, the same messages kept coming out at the end of Bullivant's tenure: match after match, the players would say "we're fully behind Terry, it's not his fault" and then go out to produce another appalling display in the very next game.

A measure of how bad we now are came after the win at Halifax when it was pointed out that we hadn't lost for four games, as though this was some sign of improvement. Those games included three home draws, one nil-nil and in the other two we had to come from behind. Hardly the sign of an upward turn.

Further analysis of the squad only leads to the same conclusion. Our ability to leak goals is only matched for ineptitude but our inability to score them at the other end. Forster's injured yet again and so we're relying on the return of the Mighty Keith Scott to frighten the opposition - I bet they're quaking in their boots this very second.

The return of Mass Sarr is interesting but don't get your hopes up. Here's one player who could act as a catalyst as he's at least able to create space by taking defenders on but, at the moment, he's so fat and slow they can easily catch him up again. With the reserve team gone, he can't even get match fit.

I'm not looking forward to the next few months. Nothing amuses the opposition more than a team with delusions of grandeur and we now face the very real prospect of having the best stadium in the Third Division. I'd like to say that it's not all doom and gloom but that would be dishonest. Hold on to your hats - we're in for a very bumpy ride.