What Caused Reading’s Collapse From 2nd To 17th?

I am sure that many of you, like me, were sat there on the final home game of the season against Preston after losing 2-1 and wondering just what went wrong after we went second in the league by beating Charlton 1-0 with a late Nick Blackman header in October. Now, obviously, this is a tough question that I personally don’t think we’ll ever get a proper answer to. However, I’m willing to take a stab at it anyway.

The first, and possibly most obvious, answer is Steve Clarke deciding to ask for permission to talk to Fulham – causing the team to lose confidence in a manager who showed that, as soon as a better offer came along, he would be more than happy to wander off into the sunset. Perhaps this might leave a player like Nick Blackman wondering how Fulham could possibly be a better proposition than a team currently in an automatic promotion slot. Maybe this would cause him to lose that essential confidence that had propelled him to rack up nine goals and two assists and lead him on a goalless streak that would last for almost two months. Maybe.

The second explanation is injuries. During the Fulham game, we lost one of our brightest sparks and most promising players in one Aaron Tshibola to an ankle injury. Around the same time we lost Quinn, Vydra and Robson-Kanu to some fairly long-term injuries. All of these players (yes, even Vydra) were big losses for Reading because of the high-paced, counterattacking style we were playing that these players suited so well – Hal Robson-Kanu’s pace and good crossing ability, Quinn’s high work ethic and seemingly endless stamina, Tshibola’s ability to break up play and regain possession and Vydra (while he wasn’t exactly banging in the goals) was contributing fairly well to build up play and provided an exuberance and abundance of pace that Reading had been missing for some time. There is also a lot to be said for chemistry and team cohesion – these players knew each other well and, at times, were able to produce some stunning passages of play (for example, scoring within 11 seconds against Boro).

My third and final explanation for Reading’s collapse is the debacle that was Fulham-gate (not the incident involving Steve Clarke). It is entirely possible that Reading were, up until that point, using their momentum to push them up as high on the table as possible and that, when it really came down to it, our players (such as Piazon, Williams and Hector) didn’t have the resilience and mental strength to grind out results, score late winners and come from behind. After getting a comfortable 2-0 lead at half-time, you would have been forgiven for assuming the match was already won but, in a matter of 7 minutes, Reading conceded 3 goals in a shocking collapse. I think that this exposed fundamental problems in the squad that, until then, had been covered up by attacking prowess. Reading were, and are, not mentally strong enough to cope with defeat. You got the feeling that once that third goal went in, Reading had no chance of coming back. It’s been the same story many times this season. Conceding early, having plenty of time to get back in the game and utterly failing.

In summary, for me it comes down to 3 things: a manager who thought the grass might be greener on the other side, an injury crisis at the worst possible moment and a lack of mental toughness.