What Can Reading Expect To Achieve Next Season?

Marc looks ahead to what the future may hold for the Royals.

Since November 25, 2023, Reading have been the seventh-best team in League One - with only one team (Peterborough United) scoring more goals.

So, with new owners on the way, Ruben Selles’ feet under the table, young players progressing nicely and a solid playing style now firmly embedded… get the champagne ready, right?

Well, actually… yes, quite possibly. Momentum is a funny word in football. You can spot it pretty much anywhere if you believe hard enough, but ultimately it is a very real thing and it definitely does play a role in the success of a team. Teams are simply made up of people, after all, and the increasingly settled, motivated, confident and ambitious they are, the more likely they are to succeed.

Reading have pretty much all of that right now. The SCL is more or less at the levels of ‘fortress’ that one might expect of an upwardly mobile club and there is great camaraderie among a young, hungry and talented squad.

I can’t help but have a sense of this lot akin to the 2009/10 Reading team that finished so strongly under Brian McDermott, that a successful end to a season which ultimately left them well away from the promotion picture has geared them up for the real thing next time around.

Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

But it’s far from done and dusted, with a little bit more than a few finishing touches required as we head into the summer. First and foremost, the takeover must happen and I’ll assume it’s done sometime in May for the purposes of this piece. But the new owners will make missteps. We can’t rule out the chances of them throwing Mark Bowen, Ruben Selles and/or plenty more overboard to get their own people in - which I think would stunt a fair bit of progress.

The picture of their readiness to take the reins, and the club’s readiness to act under a proper owner, will become clear pretty quickly given the transfer embargo. Being unable to pay fees for any players means the best free agents must have been identified months ago and then must be snapped up promptly when they become available. Loan signings will take more time, as clubs ponder which of their youngsters they are willing to send out during pre-season.

By my reckoning, Reading need two or three wingers (Femi Azeez contract pending), a striker with pace, a new centre-back or left-back (depending on where Jeriel Dorsett will play long-term), a defensive midfielder and a goalkeeper (Joel Pereira contract pending). Academy players such as Michael Stickland and John Clarke should be considered to fill some holes, or found good loan moves, but guaranteed quality is certainly needed.

Importantly, and if allowed, Selles will need to bolster his coaching staff - still depleted by Andrew Sparkes and Eddie Niedzwiecki’s exits during Dai Yongge’s penny-pinching, with several new staff members required at the club more generally too.

Fans can therefore expect a busy summer, but if things are done quickly and are largely in place for pre-season, that should minimise disruption.

But there will likely be more hurdles by the way of player sales. Tyler Bindon and Amadou Mbengue enter the final years of their contracts with Lewis Wing, Sam Smith and Harvey Knibbs not far behind. If a Championship club offers a few million quid for Wing, the club can’t be blamed for taking it. We all know that new long-term contracts are essential for the likes of Bindon but Reading’s finances mean that somebody, somehow is quite likely to leave.

On the pitch, Reading won’t get anywhere unless the defence is tightened up after conceding the most away goals in the league in 2023/24, and results versus the bottom teams were also lacklustre. The Royals picked up just 18 points from a possible 42 against those below them, with 12 from 36 if you remove Carlisle from the mix.

I also fear that League One looks tougher next year than last. There are absolutely no signs that Wrexham will slow their spending down while League Two winners Stockport are riding the crest of a wave. Rotherham United, under Steve Evans, will be crap but annoyingly good and you can expect the other relegated sides to waste no time in seeking an instant return. Any of the current League One play-off crop which fail to go up will also probably be ready to compete once again.

So Reading are in for a tough one, but as things stand after a horrendous year, they are probably in as good a position as they possibly could be. It would be astoundingly naive to describe 2024/25 as ‘promotion or bust’ and, for me, playoffs should be the target but we can’t really turn our noses up at a steady upper-mid-table season with more academy players coming through, a transfer embargo ending and new owners getting set.