First Steps: Rebooted Reading Begin A New Era In 2025/26
Finally free of the Dai Yongge era, the Royals now embark on a reset and rebuild that will require long-term solutions to long-term problems.
It’s been a great summer for movie reboots. A new Superman film was released to kickstart a second DC cinematic universe (very good by the way), The Fantastic Four: First Steps is Marvel’s third attempt at bringing that franchise onto the big screen, and we’re even getting another Naked Gun outing.
Fittingly, if there’s one word I’d use to sum up Reading’s summer so far and the season ahead, it would be ‘reboot’. A new cast has been brought in, the setting is being revamped and there’s now an entirely original story to be told, starting on Saturday, away to Lincoln City.
Fundamentally, this period is about a clean restart under the new ownership - much more so than merely tweaking or building on what’s already here. After all, there’s an awful lot of damage to be undone, so a reboot is necessary.
Dai Yongge’s degrading of Reading Football Club started well before the birth of Sell Before We Dai in July 2023. Attendances falling, fans becoming increasingly apathetic, club prestige being chipped away at and the finances looking more and more unsustainable were clearly visible in the pre-relegation days.
Then again, fan apathy hasn't been a problem in the last two years. Far from it. Not because of anything the owner did to solve the problem himself, but because Loyal Royals showed a level of defiance, stubbornness and sheer resolve to get rid of him - and to roar on a side making an unlikely playoff push.
The way supporters rallied to oust Dai and back the team - a group I'm proud to have seen represent this club - was one of the proudest episodes in this club's history. I really hope we can channel that passion in the sunny days as much as we have in the rainy ones.
Still, the rest of those Dai-era problems are long-term ones. The man tasked with enacting long-term solutions in his attempt at a Reading FC reboot - our answer to James Gunn or Kevin Feige - is of course Rob Couhig.
On paper, someone with his experience as a lower-league football club owner is well qualified for the role and his analysis of the Royals’ problems (prominently including the needs to engage supporters and be financially prudent) is sound. Though opinions on him in the fanbase diverged drastically before the takeover, we're now all in the same boat of wanting - no, needing - him to succeed.
A slow start to a new era
Successful reboots are easier said than done though, as we’ve seen in recent weeks. The new era started with jubilation in mid-May - fans ecstatic about the ousting of Dai Yongge and excited by what the summer may have in store - but that initial fanfare has gradually faded. It’s been a slower, more frustrating summer than we were expecting.
For a start, Reading’s contracts situation was slow to be resolved. Although 22 offers to players with expiring deals were sent out soon after the conclusion of May’s takeover, it took until mid-June for the first of those - Joel Pereira - to be sorted (though Lewis Wing added a couple of years to his stay in late May.
The bulk of those 22 contract offers were resolved (often one-year extensions) between late June and early July. However, just to really underline the protracted nature of this summer’s squad building, it wasn’t until late July that the out-of-contract Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan brought an end to a seemingly endless back-and-forth by penning a two-year deal, bringing a belated resolution to the work on Reading’s retained list.
On top of that, Reading took their time appointing a new assistant manager. Nigel Gibbs moved up to the Championship at the beginning of June, joining West Bromwich Albion, and the Royals seemed to have a replacement a few weeks later when Richard Beale - also of the Baggies - was on the verge of coming in.
Beale though ultimately ended up at Aston Villa as their under-18 boss. Reading eventually settled on former caretaker manager Scott Marshall however, formerly of Queens Park Rangers, as the new man.
As for player departures, while Reading did retain the bulk of those out of contract, a few left for pastures new. Jayden Wareham, Amadou Mbengue and Michael Craig turned down new deals to join Exeter City, QPR and Leyton Orient respectively, with Reading at least able to get some compensation money for each player due to their age.
As things stand, Harvey Knibbs could well become the big sale of this transfer window. Reading cashed in on Femi Azeez last summer (reportedly getting around £1m from Millwall) and Sam Smith in January (roughly double Azeez’ fee from Wrexham) and look set to do the same with Knibbs - although a move to Charlton Athletic has at time of writing initially stalled.
Given that Knibbs was linked with being sold in January, an exit wouldn’t be a huge surprise, but it’d be a big blow nonetheless. Reading can find players who are tactically better fits for an attacking-midfield role (Knibbs struggled to make an impact fairly often last season), but replacing his leadership, pressing intensity and supply of goals would be a daunting task.
Add Knibbs’ possible departure to that of Mbengue and Reading are losing two big characters: players that lift others around them and set standards (both in games and on the training ground). Such qualities are always difficult to replace.
So the Royals have been left with a big rebuild job on their hands in the way of bringing in new players, and that’s gone slowly. The business Reading have actually done to this point is good - a nice mix of experience and youth - but it’s the amount and speed of recruitment that fans have taken issue with.
Paudie O’Connor and Jack Stevens were first to arrive, in mid- and late June, but there was nothing else until early July when a trio of loans came in: Matty Jacob, Finley Burns and Mark O’Mahony. Daniel Kyerewaa and Liam Fraser joined on free transfers in late July.
Going into the new season, Reading pretty much have the defence and midfield done (barring sorting a replacement for Knibbs). The Very Obvious Gap though has been in the forward areas, where the Royals remain light, even after adding O’Mahony and Kyerewaa. Both are talented and should at least be useful options over the course of the season, but neither are the proven League One players Reading need in order to take the attack up a few gears.
So yes, a slow and frustrating summer, but I’d emphasise two points.
Firstly, as I’ve written before, the bigger picture for this summer window is the squad Reading end up with at the end of it - not the one we have in June or July. Yes it’s annoying to have to look at things this way, but it’s better (and fairer) to judge the Royals’ summer business in its entirety come the beginning of September. Patience may well prove to be a virtue.
Secondly, the through line for much of this frustration is this club’s place in the food chain. We are no longer either a Championship or very top-end League One side: the last two seasons have (even excluding all the chaos off the field) resulted in mid-table and upper-mid-table finishes. Reading will also get outspent in the transfer market by other sides in this division with deeper pockets.
Accordingly, we’re in a position where prospective assistant managers will opt for jobs further up the pyramid, key players will entirely reasonably regard moving to a Championship team as a step up, and possible transfer targets will head elsewhere. It’s a bitter twist of the knife every time we realise where we are, but nonetheless, this is our reality.
Over to you, Noel Hunt
So then: quite the challenge for manager Noel Hunt to go about building a side capable of competing for promotion.
The fact that he's still here at all is a pleasant aberration from the overarching theme of a wider reboot. Though Reading are going through plenty of changes on and off the pitch this summer, retaining a manager who showed promise last season - and in very trying circumstances too - makes for welcome continuity.
After all, someone who was merely given the task of keeping Reading in the division when he was appointed Ruben Selles’ successor in December certainly exceeded expectations by keeping the Royals in the playoff race until the last day of the season. That was built on the back of defensive solidity at the expense of attacking quality, yes, but it proved Hunt’s potential.
And therein lies the question: can Hunt retain the defensive solidity that he instilled so well last season while making Reading stronger going forwards? Much of this inevitably comes back to recruitment - and, somewhat aptly for how the second half of last season went, Reading have thus far done a much stronger job on defensive than offensive recruitment.
Indications from pre-season though are mixed at best, worrying at worst. The Royals easily saw off Hungerford Town 5-1 in the first friendly, drew 0-0 in a solid but fairly drab game at Gillingham and beat Swindon Town 2-1 behind closed doors to get off to a decent start.
Form subsequently faded in the next three matches however. Reading were defensively stubborn but limited going forwards in a respectable 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur before a much-changed side managed a 1-1 against Slough Town (also behind closed doors).
And then... well, let’s not sugar-coat it, Portsmouth dealt Reading a pretty shocking end to pre-season. After a fairly even first 20 minutes or so, Pompey increasingly overran and outplayed the Royals, picking holes in the defence and coasting to a 4-0 win. At least it was only four goals.
Pre-season results and performances aren’t the end of the story, but they can at least partially set the tone for how the new campaign starts. In contrast, Reading won four of six first-team pre-season friendlies 12 months ago, capped off by beating Championship side Hull City in the last fixture, leading to an encouraging 1-1 draw at Birmingham City on the opening day. Then again, the Royals won twice and lost three times in their subsequent five league games.
Expectations
Setting expectations and making predictions for the season ahead is never an easy or straightforward task - but especially so for 2025/26 when Reading are still in such a state of flux and there are so many variables. This is a new-look side even now, and will be even more so as new faces hopefully arrive in the coming weeks.
Given the nature of Reading’s pre-season, it feels a fairly safe bet that the Royals will start off slower and then kick on. It’ll take time for summer arrivals to gel, for patterns to form and the team overall to click into gear.
That might mean a poor start, results- and performance-wise, it might not. But either way, let’s be patient with this team and give it a chance rather than writing it off in the first month or so of the season.
In the short term though, Reading will do well to focus on being hard to beat. Keep things tight at the back, prove that the Portsmouth game was an aberration and we’ll be capable of getting points on the board in the early stages of the season. With Pereira and O’Connor at the heart of the defence, and the goal threat from long range (Wing) and set-pieces (Wing and O’Connor), the Royals have the personnel to get results.
Zooming out a bit, the significance of this season more broadly boils down to two things for me.
Firstly, 2025/26 shouldn’t be judged in a binary fashion, going simply by whether Reading get promoted. Rather, these are the first steps in a long-term rebuild on and off the pitch to improve this club in its entirety. We should judge the success of this season by how far it moves us forward in the bigger picture - though the exact criteria are better left vague than trying to define them too specifically right now.
Secondly, the stakes are so much lower this season, which we shouldn’t lose sight of. This is now a normal club that will tread more lightly on our lives - not a perfect organisation at all, but still one we don’t need to get wracked with existential anxiety about.
That of course isn’t to say we shouldn’t criticise the club when things go wrong, but let’s not overly catastrophise - for the sake of our own mental health as much as anything else. Just look to Reading’s situation last season, or that of Morecambe and Sheffield Wednesday right now, for some perspective.
We shouldn’t take the opportunity of a reboot - however well it pans out - for granted. There was every chance that we wouldn’t be here right now, enjoying a Dai-less club. There was no guarantee of a 2025/26 season in Reading's history book. Let's hope it's a successful one though.
Onwards, upwards and up the ‘Ding.