Reasons I'm worried about next season.

[Ian Royal]

I don't tend to think of myself as negative about Reading FC. Whilst I have lost patience with some managers quite drastically, I'm virtually always positive about the future of the club and I believe strongly in giving someone time to build. Not that I won't call for someone's head if I think there's a risk of a Bad Things™ happening in the short-term.

But this year, for the first time in 20 years, I think the next season is going to be bad. I'm not looking forward to it and here's why.

In virtually every significant measure I can think of Steve Clarke's performance is worse than his predecessor.

Points per game: -------------1.00 vs 1.19
Win Ratio: ------------------------23% vs 33% (32% vs 38% including cup games)
Loss Ratio: ------------------------45% vs 48%
Clean Sheets: --------------------1 every 4.4 games vs 1 every 3 games
Scoring Nil: -----------------------1 every 2.2 games vs 1 every 3 games
Goals scored per game:------0.82 vs 1.24
Goals conceded per game:--1.32 vs 1.71

Giving Clarke 5 games grace after taking over, and ignoring the table before 10 games have been played, we've averaged 17th position under him, compared to 14th under his predecessor.

So we win less, we earn fewer points, we keep fewer clean sheets, we score less, and we score nil more often. But we concede less and we lose ever so fractionally less. Forgive me for not being enthused.

Our inadequacies have been painfully obvious this season. We don't have a goalscorer. We're woefully short of both quality and options on the left flank. We can't centre the ball accurately or dangerously. And we don't get bodies in the box from midfield (even the strikers aren't in there that often!).

Clarke's answer to this and the loss of Murray, was to sign Yakubu. A player, of questionable age, that he has given the grand total of 328 league minutes to in the three months we've been paying him. For a return of zero league goals.

Since then he's brought in Appiah, who's played 97 minutes of league football and also scored zero league goals. He's loaned out Dominic Samuel who went on to get six goals for Coventry before falling foul of another nasty injury.

But "Clarke's only had the notoriously difficult January transfer window and very little money to make signings though!” I hear you cry. “He's going to rebuild the squad this summer and sort out our problems!”

Well the first part of that is definitely true. Although he was able to put together deals for promising young quality in the form of Chalobah and Ake from Chelsea whilst he's been here.

So lets have a look at Clarke's record with attackers in the transfer market previously. Is there anything to suggest he knows what he's doing when it comes to bringing in new attackers?

Well Romelu Lukaku obviously sticks out, but I think it's unlikely Chelsea are going to loan us someone of his quality, especially seeing as Clarke's had four months without managing it already. Bamford, for example, seems unlikely to be sent to us to develop further given his performance at Middlesbrough.

Other than that it's Rosenberg, Anelka, Vydra and Anichebe. From what I can find at least.

Rosenberg – didn't score in 33 appearances
Anelka – didn't score in 7 appearances
Vydra – 3 goals in 25 appearances
Anichebe – 1 goal in 11 appearances

Well, er... that doesn't bode well. I didn't actually know what I was going to find when I posed that question. I didn't think it would be that bad though.

Will Clarke actually have that much money to make the changes necessary?
Okay, so we've shifted Drenthe and Guthrie. Yes, we can lose Kelly and Andersen. And either cut the wages of Pearce, Karacan and Federici or lose them too.

But our parachute payments drop significantly next season too. And how many of you would have any of those last five high in your 'want to move on list'? I know mine features Pogrebnyak, Blackman, Akpan and Robson-Kanu far more prominently. All here for another year courtesy of Zingaravich Financial Disasters Ltd.

Assuming someone isn't crazy enough to offer them a better deal.
What are Leeds up to at the moment? QPR like over-expensive wasters don't they?

So basically, money is unlikely to be available to pay for top class Championship strikers and wingers. (Please let the changes to FFP mean I'm wrong about this!)

Finally, two of our bright lights under Adkins at the start of the season have gone back faster than a stunt man on a wire under Clarke. He's already sold Cox once (at West Brom). He doesn't seem to fancy midfielders who can (sometimes) make creative passes - Norwood. And this also bodes badly for Aaron Kuhl, one of the major talents from the Academy.

Maybe I'm suffering more than I realise from a Wembley hangover. But I just can't see any good news on the horizon. → Yay, we've survived a relegation no one really expected to happen anyway!

Oh shit, what about next season without the abject Wigan, Millwall and Blackpool.

Er...Rotherham...Chesterfield if the win the play offs maybe ... er... Help!?!

Someone, anyone, please give me some genuine reasons to think something good might actually happen.

[windermere_royal]

My you`ve been a busy boy. take an holiday, enjoy the summer before you become suicidal

[Royalcop]

Reasons I'm Not worried about next season.

1. We will be more better With SC

Hard to argue with that.

In all seriousness I share IR's concerns but we have to give SC the benefit of at least one transfer window and pre-season. I'm not sure how instructive it is looking at strike rates in the Premier League and comparing it to our struggles - we seem to be creating chances at least, finishing is the issue. Also I think Adkins' figures for this season are skewed by the presence of a very good goalscorer in Murray - if he'd stayed I think we'd have won a lot more games than we have under SC.

[paultheroyal]

Ian, take a holiday mate.

[2.8 lita injection]

Totally agree we would be better with Steve Coppell

The only SC that attacks, Steve Clarke just plays percentages.

[SCIAG]

Whilst I share many of Ian's concerns, I think we should give Clarke the chance to show what he can do in the summer. Who knows, he might sign a decent striker and/or get the best out of Samuel.

His signings so far have been pretty disappointing, except Chalobah in the cup. Sure, that's partly been due to necessity...

I also don't think he fits the Reading way at all. Adkins was a near-perfect fit, but Clarke is in a big culture clash. Can't see our best young players (read: potentially our most valuable assets) getting the chances they deserve under him. Still not entirely sure he cares about the club, beyond it being a stepping stone to greater things. Hopefully he proves me wrong.

[sandman]

You do come up with some strange things SCIAG.

Adkins was about as far away from "the perfect fit" as you can get. He gave up on the young players that he had been using at the start of the season as soon as more experienced players came back from injury. His reputation for bringing through young players is based on his time at a club who have produced good young players long before he arrived.

The first thing Clarke said at the last Fans Forum was that he wanted to make people proud of Reading Football Club again and that he would be doing all he could to make that happen. That was genuine and certainly didn't sound like it was from someone who views Reading as a mere stepping stone.

[Lower West]

In virtually every significant measure I can think of Steve Clarke's performance is worse than his predecessor.

Points per game: -------------1.00 vs 1.19
Win Ratio: ------------------------23% vs 33% (32% vs 38% including cup games)
Loss Ratio: ------------------------45% vs 48%
Clean Sheets: --------------------1 every 4.4 games vs 1 every 3 games
Scoring Nil: -----------------------1 every 2.2 games vs 1 every 3 games
Goals scored per game:------0.82 vs 1.24
Goals conceded per game:--1.32 vs 1.71

So what? This is real life. Not a game of football manager.

A new manager deserves time to make a playing squad their own. SC hasn't had the benefit of Murray's goals either.

[SCIAG]

You do come up with some strange things SCIAG.

Such as?

[leon]

You do come up with some strange things SCIAG.

Such as?

all that stuff about wanting to wear Adkins arse as a skin hat, was a bit odd

[SCIAG]

Adkins was about as far away from "the perfect fit" as you can get. He gave up on the young players that he had been using at the start of the season as soon as more experienced players came back from injury.

That's only reasonable - although you're overlooking Hector and Obita, and arguably Cooper. Playing Kuhl ahead of Williams would have been dangerous and delusional, but he played Kuhl ahead of AKpan. His style of play fits with Dolan's philosophy for our development sides. Clarke has bought in players who are no more experienced on loan to play ahead of our own players, with no noticeable benefit in terms of results.

The first thing Clarke said at the last Fans Forum was that he wanted to make people proud of Reading Football Club again and that he would be doing all he could to make that happen. That was genuine and certainly didn't sound like it was from someone who views Reading as a mere stepping stone.

By now I've learned not to trust what managers say and instead judge them on what they actually do. Our recent managers have been worse than politicians in that regard, except possibly Coppell.

[winchester_royal]

Yes Ian, we get it, you don't like Clarke.

I think we can all agree on the fact that league results haven't improved under him. But performances have. Very rarely do we come away from games now having had less of the game/possession/shots...something that was regularly the case under Adkins.

We also had the best FA Cup run in the clubs history under him.

The improvement that we've seen in the likes of Cooper and Hector since he came in has been meteoric.

And all that with a squad hastily put together with little forethought by a manager who managed to demoralise 90% of the staff at the club, and very little money with which to change things in January.

I think most people's position is that we're a club that (for the most part) give the manager some time and breathing room to build their team and philosophy before judging him.

Give him a summer without negativity, without ridiculous emo threads such as this one, lets pull in the same direction like we did on Saturday - and then who knows what might be achieved?

And if this time next year we've not moved on and Clarke ultimately gets the boot you can come back to this and say you told us so.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

This thread is really quite unbelievable.......especially after last weekend. People have very short memories that's all I can say.

Performance against Brum last night v performance against Brum earlier in the season anyone?

Reading have been consistently a top 25-28 club for a decade now. We are used to success and perhaps the whole club & I include players, fans, management & owners in that just expect us to be up there without doing the dirty work.

The league campaign was truly dreadful under Adkins this season - we were conceding the most pathetic, spineless goals week in, week out. In addition, the players looked miserable, they didn't know what to do, and the post match interviews got more insane / erratic by the week. I'd also add his backroom team were dreadful - Crosby does not inspire any confidence whatsoever.

You then have a situation where an entire squad has nothing to fight for and for the most part they expect to leave the club in the summer.

Clarke has had to come in & deal with a club that's on its knees. He's had very little to work with with transfers but managed to get 2 quite exceptional loanees from Chelsea - both of which I'd love to see back here next season. The rest was just cheap padding in case of injuries & anyone who seriously thinks Clarke wanted to sign Yakubu & Knight needs to lay off the crack.

Despite inheriting a steaming pile of turd, he has managed to go a long way to galvanise the club. He has shored up the defence and the team look fitter, organised, the amount of chances created has increased, the passing has improved and it actually looks like they are enjoying their football again, which given a fair few are probably off is no mean feat. There are also significantly less injuries now.

The likes of GMac & Mackie have sung his praises tactically & you can tell those players are playing for him and listening to him.

Picking holes in meaningless league games is just completely pointless and is undoing a lot of the good work that was achieved with the cup run. We were on a high last weekend - why ruin it? Especially given we've actually been playing pretty well for a good couple of months. The atmosphere at home is most definitely improving as well.

Some people just fcuking moan for the sake of it. I supported Adkins & was really excited about him becoming manager but it completely fell apart and he had to go. Clarke is much more of a fit with the way we do things here. If we're sh1t, he'll say we're sh1t. If they need a rollocking, he'll dish it out. If they need an arm round them, he'll give it. You can tell he's an excellent man manager that people respect.

I for one am behind him 100% and really cannot wait for next season. Lets stop moaning and see what happens - everyone can see the obvious holes in the squad & I'm sure Clarke will address it as best he can. The fact the Thais got to see us at Wembley hopefully gives them an appetite to throw a bit more cash at it & that wouldn't have happened with Adkins.

Cheer up everyone!

[Jagermesiter1871]

I seem to remember similar comments after Steve Coppells first season in charge. We all know how the following season went!

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Yeah we lost the last three games and missed out on the play offs.

[Maguire]

Pure madness trying to judge the new manager in the way the o/p has. Coppell's team wasn't built in a day, was it?

[Platypuss]

Yeah we lost the last three games and missed out on the play offs.

Indeed. 2004-05 was a horribly inconsistent season.
There were plenty on here wanting Coppell to go after it, saying he had no passion and couldn't inspire the team..

[Maguire]

Yeah we lost the last three games and missed out on the play offs.

Indeed. 2004-05 was a horribly inconsistent season.
There were plenty on here wanting Coppell to go after it, saying he had no passion and couldn't inspire the team..

Yep, all the lads I had STs with at the time sacked them off at the end of that season as they'd moved away from Reading and reasoned that "the club is going nowhere".

I moved to a better seat and got a ST by myself. They crawled back with half STs, lol.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I think scrutinising the manager in response to misplaced praise or relentless defence is fair enough. That's just a conversation. But I think running him down and over analysing him for the sake of it, at this stage, is pretty worthless.

Like anyone he needs time and investment to put a team together, to plug the holes and get a clean start. I may not be agreeing with the Steve Clarke revolution on here or agree that we have seen any significant improvement but I still want him to succeed (like any of our managers) and feel we can only truly analyse him when this fog of uncertainty surrounding the club made up of many factors we understand little about has lifted.

New season, (hopefully) new team, fresh start - and good luck to him.

[Rollerbob]

Give him a summer without negativity, without ridiculous emo threads such as this one