Dai Yongge’s Reading Ownership By Numbers
It’s worth one last look at Dai Yongge’s awful reign if we’re to ever appraise Rob Couhig with some form of benchmark. But just to warn you, these figures are quite something…
I’ve written enough long articles about Dai Yongge over the years, so I’ll spare you my ramblings on his departure, but it’s amazing to finally put him into the past tense! However, I can’t help myself and to really grasp just how bad Dai was, we need to look at numbers.
Strap yourself in, because there’s a lot to take in here.
By all accounts, Dai spent a quarter of a billion quid (or more, if you believe Nigel Howe’s slip of the tongue) to essentially get us into League One. That’s so incredibly bad there’s nothing more to say.
Then there were the senior appointments. The infamous Ron Gourlay lasted 16 months only to be replaced by… former CEO Nigel Howe. Howe left again in the summer of 2020 to work on the club’s property portfolio (whatever that meant) and was succeeded by ‘fan favourite’ Dayong Pang - or was that Dayong Pany?
Similarly, Reading’s director of football Brian Tevreden left in 2018, later citing poor relations with Gourlay. In came Gianluca Nani, whose only notable action was leaving with Gourlay in late 2018. Mark Bowen went from football consultant to sporting director to manager across 2019 and 2020… only to return upstairs two years later, as head of football operations. Following his somewhat silent departure in late 2024, head of recruitment Brian Carey has led on footballing matters.
Over the course of almost exactly eight years, Dai hired eight managers, with each getting an average of 50 matches. However, it must be added Veljko Paunovic and Ruben Selles being left to rot in their posts by the absent Dai stretches that figure.
While the Serb served the longest stint of 80 games, Selles’ 44% win rate makes him Dai’s best manager. Paul Clement’s reign lasted only 30 matches and has the dishonour of being the worst. Based on UEFA’s study in 2023, it’s safe to say RG2 was a poisoned chalice on managerial CVs.
Now the interesting part: signings.
It’s no surprise Dai massively failed here and ultimately this area will be the source of our new owner’s success. Thus, looking at just how badly Dai performed shows Rob Couhig where to improve. I’m not even going to discuss wages…
It wasn’t until around 2019/20 that the EFL began clamping down on Reading’s transfer activity. However, over the course of Dai’s era, the Royals made at least 91 first-team signings via fees, frees and loans - not including youth signings. That’s effectively a new starting XI every season.
That makes sense in recent campaigns, but for the preceding years it emphasises how chaotic the club’s recruitment strategy was, or there not being one. Especially given Jaap Stam retained most of the squad from 2017’s playoff final.
Looking the other way, Reading either sold or let go around 93 first-team players. This is the small end of things as it doesn’t include departing loanees or youth players, nor the retirements of John O’Shea and Shane Long.
To have more players leave than come in demonstrates an astronomical churn, even more so considering the appearance stats of players during these years. A club clearly generating more professionals into the number it sheds really emphasises the importance of Reading’s academy. This hopefully isn’t lost on Couhig and Todd Trosclair.
That’s especially the case, considering around 70% of the very few players the club did sell under Dai were from the academy or even here before he bought the club.
A starting XI based on players who joined before Dai and eventually left the SCL for free would look like this: Anssi Jaakkola; Chris Gunter, Liam Moore, Paul McShane, Tyler Blackett; Garath McCleary, John Swift, Stephen Quinn, Callum Harriott; Yann Kermorgant, Yakou Meite.
To not receive a penny for half these players is poor business at best. I’ve not even listed the players he did sign who left for free!
As for demonstrating just how the academy created important players for Reading, a squad would include: Luke Southwood, Tom Holmes, Jake Cooper, Tyler Bindon, Omar Richards, Femi Azeez, Michael Olise, Andy Rinomhota, Jordan Obita, Danny Loader and Sam Smith.
Smith is also a complete outlier in that he’s the only player brought in (albeit back) on a free and sold for money. I think I’ll leave transfers there, but even this summer’s churn can be attributed to Dai.
Finally, I’ve come to an area Couhig himself has already listed as a priority - the matchday experience.
While efforts to “fill the SCL” in recent weeks might have skewed this number, average attendances from 2024/25 vs 2017/18 are short by over 4,000. That’s a completely full Dolan Stand and then some!
That’s also not to mention the friends and family those “missing” 4,000 could bring with them. To paraphrase one of Couhig’s recent many interviews, that’s a lot of cold beers and warm hotdogs - so fingers crossed those fans return.
But in his own words, “it’s all about looking forward”. Just to have a spoken quote from our owner is refreshing!
We can only understand how far forward we move by seeing what’s behind us and, my word, what a horrendous set of statistics to leave behind and be benchmarked from.