Vote For Your 2024/25 Reading Rookie Of The Season
Seven players are up for our version of Reading’s young player of the season award.
Reading are much, much better at developing youth nowadays. Go back to the final Championship campaign and only three players (Amadou Mbengue, Kelvin Abrefa and Nesta Guinness-Walker) were eligible for our ‘rookie of the season’ award. Last season that number spiked to 13, and although it’s dipped a bit for 2024/25, a very respectable tally of seven make our list.
So what are our criteria? We’ve stuck to the same four each season (changing the year in the first one obviously - we’re daft but not THAT daft). To be eligible, a player must...
- Have been 22 years old or younger on August 1, 2024
- Have made fewer than five Reading starts before the start of the season
- Have made five Reading starts this season or a combined 10 sub appearances + starts
- Not be on loan at the club
So for example, while some young players are still 22 or younger, aren’t on loan at the club and have been playing regularly, they were already too established in the first team coming into 2024/25.
Sorry Tyler Bindon, Charlie Savage, Ben Elliott, Michael Craig, Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan, Jeriel Dorsett and Tivonge Rushesha, you made last year’s vote but aren’t in contention this time because you’ve done too well! However, one player has made the shortlist for both last season and this one, which we will of course be coming back to later...
This year’s winner will join a list currently featuring Jake Cooper, Aaron Tshibola, Liam Kelly, Omar Richards, Andy Rinomhota, Tom McIntyre, Tom Holmes, Femi Azeez, Guinness-Walker and most recently Bindon, who went onto win the club’s player of the season award for 2024/25 on Saturday.
Without further ado, in alphabetical order, here are your candidates...
Ashqar Ahmed
Appearances: 12
Average rating: 5.7/10
17-year-old right-back Ahmed spent more time playing for the under-18s and under-21s this season, but did have a decent amount of exposure to first-team football. While that was naturally predominantly in cup competitions, he did play in the league too, impressing in a sub appearance at Stevenage before also coming off the bench away to Barnsley, at home to Blackpool and Northampton Town, then away to Charlton Athletic.
Adrian Akande
Appearances: 21
Average rating: 5.4/10
Unfortunately an injury-hit season for Akande, who looked bright in the opening weeks of the season in the league before the arrival of Chem Campbell on loan. He managed to return to the first team in the spring for a few appearances off the bench, and ended the campaign with a goal (against Harborough Town) and assist (against Charlton) to his name.
Andre Garcia
Appearances: 43
Average rating: 5.5/10
An incredibly mature breakthrough season for a player who only turned 17 in late November. Garcia was given a tall order to step in as Reading’s first-choice left-back for much of the campaign, but looked remarkably assured for someone of his age. His technical ability is clearly very good and 2,892 minutes of first-team football across four competitions was quite the haul, so it’s unsurprising to have seen him linked with a move higher up the pyramid both in January and ahead of the summer.
Louie Holzman
Appearances: 15
Average rating: 5.3/10
The first of two young centre-backs to have had to bide their time at under-21 level before being given a decent chance at senior level, Holzman had a decent run of games in all competitions in the middle of the season. Holzman was thrown in at the deep end away to Barnsley in the league and featured a few more times at centre-back and right-back in the coming months.
Abraham Kanu
Appearances: 16
Average rating: 5.2/10
The 19-year-old centre-back was given a tough adjustment this season, playing a fair amount of football at left-back in the middle of the campaign. He did that fairly well on the whole and will have learned a lot from his first exposure to League One football.
Michael Stickland
Appearances: 6
Average rating: 5.8/10
Stickland juuuust about sneaks onto this by virtue of the fact that five of his six appearances were starts, and actually just one of those came in a cup competition. Stickland got another four league starts later on in the campaign, stepping up adeptly in the absence of Amadou Mbengue. I’m still not over that red card he was given in the Wrexham game though...
Jayden Wareham
Appearances: 44
Average rating: 5.8/10
The only player to make our rookie shortlist both this season and last, Wareham shot to prominence in 2024/25, ending it as Reading’s first-choice centre-forward. While that was essentially due to Sam Smith’s departure in the middle of the campaign, Wareham did well in his own right, kicking on excellently from the more raw striker we saw in his debut campaign. He ended the campaign with eight goals and two assists in 44 matches across all competitions.
Vote
As with last year, we won’t ask you to rank every player from 1-7. Instead, we’d like you to grade each of them from 1-5, based on how well you think they did this season. For complete avoidance of doubt, one is the lowest and five is the highest. We’ll then add up the scores from that voting (1/5 gets them one point, 5/5 gets them five points, and so on).
You can vote in the poll below or, if it doesn’t display on your device, please use this link here.