Excuse me, at least this once, for being somewhat indulgent with my choice of topic today. I have had a day and half for the euphoria to settle down and the reality to sink in, and now I wish to pen some words of appreciation to Brian McDermott and his admirable Reading side. It is always one of the big challenges of football writing, to try and remain neutral, and is ultimately one of the main reasons why I chose not to follow through with pursuing it as a career after my work with adifferentleague.co.uk. I have teams I like, teams I don't like. Players I like, players I don't like. Etc. Etc. You get the idea. At the same time, I still like to think I do a reasonable job of being as unbiased as I can, even if I would hate to have to sit there being overly congratulatory of Chelsea for beating Barcelona (saying that, I found myself punching the air when they scored - who knew I wanted them to win?!). Back to the main issue - I am a Reading season ticket holder, born in the town and bred nearby, although I currently live elsewhere. Promotion to the Premier League six years ago was awesome, but due to personal circumstances I missed all but two games in that "106" season. This time, I have missed just one home game and made a couple of away trips - to be honest, every home game is like an away trip, and one of those away games was round the corner from where I live! - so it has been that much more special. Having said that, I did not miss a single home game in the two years that Reading were in the top flight and went on numerous away trips, so the actual being in the Premier League might not be quite so special this time around. What is magical about being promoted this time is how unlikely it seemed even a couple of months ago. It has been an unbelievable run with a wonderful end result.
Hopefully I have the most up-to-date figure in my mind of 46 points from a possible 51 - just keep adding 3 to each tally has been the rule in recent weeks - a run of 15 wins and a draw from the last 17 games since a home defeat to Hull, funnily enough the one home game I have missed this season. On a personal note, the last 12 home games I have turned up to have all resulted in wins, which is phenomenal when you consider I have only missed one in that run. After a defeat at home to Cardiff in mid-November, Reading sat 18 points from the top; now, they are 3 points clear. That is quite a swing. The run has not been a fluke, not been lucky. This has been an extremely well organised team playing for each other, and in particular playing for the manager. McDermott is an absolute hero, and the only man who can challenge Steve Coppell for a place in my heart. I will admit to being totally underwhelmed at his appointment in December 2009, when he was chosen as an interim replacement for the sacked Brendan Rodgers (see my previous post From Swans to Spurs? for more on Rodgers). With Rodgers having started to show signs of turning a poor start to the season around, it made little sense from the outside to bring in our former Chief Scout and Reserve Team manager who had no professional first team managerial experience. How wrong could I be? What those of us on the outside did not know was just how ingrained in the club McDermott was, how well he knew the players and the set up and just how adept he was tactically. A heroic FA Cup performance knocking Liverpool out at Anfield helped earn the Heston Blumenthal lookalike the job on a permanent basis and he has made excellent progress ever since.
McDermott himself has said that a year ago he saw few positives to take from a Wembley defeat in the Play-off Final to Swansea, and I'm sure I speak for the thousands of Loyal Royals who were there that day that we were just as distraught as the boss. Not making promotion a year ago meant a need to continue selling our best players each summer to balance the books. Having had to lose Gylfi Sigurdsson the summer before, now Shane Long was gone, the last of our crown jewels. Even Matt Mills moved, someone who was not exactly universally popular with fans despite being captain but who had obviously impressed visiting scouts if not his own support. His multi-million pound move to moneybags Leicester was seen as further indication that we would struggle to live with the big boys in the division this time around, with little prospect of the likes of Long being replaced adequately. Our goalscorer charts suggests that indeed Long was not replaced, although Adam "Alfie" Le Fondre who was the nearest thing to a direct replacement, number 9 shirt and all, has come up trumps when it has really mattered of late after a season of intermittent impressions on the first team. Mills, though, has been replaced with someone far more popular, giant Latvian Kaspars Gorkss earning his second successive promotion having been a stalwart of the QPR side that won the Championship a year ago. Having been denied a place in the Premier League by one of Neil Warnock's less understandable bits of transfer business, he will surely get the chance to play in the big league with the Royals. Even if the squad is strengthened and his place is taken in the starting eleven, Reading surely are too sensible to sell Gorkss and not have him at the very least in the squad. His influence on Alex Pearce alongside him has turned the academy graduate in to a real leader and key player.
January brought with it news of the investment that Sir John Madejski had long talked about looking for, with young Berkshire-educated Russian Anton Zingarevich bringing his family fortune to the table. Whilst the deal has still not formally gone through, Zingarevich injected some funds in to the club to help add a couple of players to the squad as a show of faith, and those signings have helped boost the team in to the stunning run. Of the January signings, only Jason Roberts has had significant time on the pitch, but by all accounts his phenomenal impact has been felt just as much off the pitch as on. Tomasz Cywka and Matthew Connolly, the latter on loan from QPR, have been useful players when called upon, as have more recent loan signings Hayden Mullins and Benik Afobe. It is Roberts that has rightfully had the headlines, but Reading have been a fine example of the importance of being united as a team and as a squad and the newcomers have all contributed to the promotion push. The other advantage of the new ownership-to-be has been that it convinced Jimmy Kebe to sign a new contract when it looked like he may have been off in January, and if not in the summer. Kebe is a strange prospect, someone who can be either devastating or anonymous in equal measures, but he is the one bit of "X Factor" that Reading have, a player who seems to unnerve the opposition just by being there. Keeping him at the club was a moral boost as much as it has proved to be key on the pitch. Now there is no need for Reading to sell the likes of Kebe, or a Long or Sigurdsson, if they don't want to.
Whilst this has been a huge effort from the whole team, a few players deserve special mentions. Adam Federici is my choice for player of the season, the Aussie goalkeeper being an absolute rock and having produced some stunning saves that have been worth numerous points. Previously, he had always seemed to have a few whopping errors in him, often in the same match, but I can hardly think of any this time around. His penalty save against Brighton and his stops against Southampton in successive away games three days apart recently are examples of where he has made a real difference. The central midfield partnership of Jem Karacan and Mikele Leigertwood have been a huge part of the way the team play, and would be unsung heroes to the casual observer. Fortunately, those of us that watch regularly appreciate fully the selfless work they do. It was fitting that Leigertwood scored the goal that clinched promotion, and it was wonderful to see Karacan discharge himself from hospital after an ankle operation to come join in the celebrations with his teammates. Pearce, who I mentioned earlier, has been a rock alongside Gorkss and a much better player than I thought he was capable of. Then there is the skipper, Jobi McAnuff. He can be frustrating on occasions to watch, but he is clearly influential around the team and has lead a brilliant team to some outstanding performances and promotion. The key to Reading, though, is that they are a team. Plenty of times people have looked at the names on the team sheet, even among our own fans, and written them off as individuals. I am sure the same mistake will be made by Premier League fans next season. They would be wise to be cautious, because under Brian McDermott, and with the added boost of some funds from Zingarevich, this is a team that is far superior to the sum of its parts - and those parts just might get even better too.
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