A Little Here, A Little There
By: Prederick | June 10th, 2008Sorry if i’ve left you out there in readerland in the lurch, but, there hasn’t been too much to harp about. Of course, yes, there is the fact that Mr. Coppell is staying, which i’m pleased with. After trawling through some YouTube highlights of the 07/08 season, and watching the jubilation following Barnsley’s victories over Liverpool and Chelsea, I do wonder about Reading’s decision to tank the FA Cup in favor of the Premiership, given how well that obviously turned out. I wonder, would relegation have gone down better if the club had made the Quarter/Semi-Finals of the FA Cup?
No. No it wouldn’t have.
So, club Director of Football Nick Hammond says the club won’t have to sell their best players to keep the wage bill steady. He’s right, I think. We won’t have to, but I can’t imagine the whole team staying, unless Coppell has some truly astonishing powers of persuasion.
One small upside to all of this is that Reading fans aren’t without anyone to support this summer, as Marek Matejovsky is off with his countrymen from the Czech Republic at Euro 2008. Admittedly, he went unused and may not see much time this summer, but it’s something to root for (not to mention rooting against the hated team of your choice. For me it’s Spain, not because I really hate them, but because serial failure is always hilarious).
Hey, and Bikey scored for Cameroon! In African World Cup qualifiers! Erm…
Well, in the meantime, i’ve been watching a lot of my recent subscription to Setanta Broadband, which has allowed me to see more Aussie Rules Football than I have ever seen before in my life (that’d be any, obviously). And watching one game, got me thinking about Reading, relegation, and the Premiership.
The game I was watching featured a team called Essendon, who certainly had the work ethic, but apparently had nowhere near the talent to beat their opposition. They could be workmanlike, but frequently were bereft of attacking ideas, and spent a fair amount of time focusing on increasingly desperate defending. Sound familiar?
As great as Reading were in 06/07, looking at the three teams going up in our stead (West Brom, Stoke and Hull) I’m beginning to wonder if the gulf between the top, say, 15 teams in the Premiership and everyone else in English football is becoming too vast to cross. Nice as it is to see Hull City finally go up, I don’t think there’s a person alive who’ll say that any of those three look certain to avoid relegation (Fulham’s continual flirting with the bottom three aside). And even if Reading manage promotion at the first attempt, will that team be good enough to stay up again?
Reading are probably in one of the best positions of the relegated clubs, but I hope that the club will look hard at the cautionary tales of teams like Leeds and Leicester, clubs arguably “bigger” than Reading who’ll be playing in League One next year. A year of post-Premiership “consolidation” can lead to another age of mid-table mediocrity, although this time in the Championship.
All of this is to say that, once you fall out of the top flight, there’s really not that much going on. Enjoy tooling around in FIFA 08/Football Manager 2008 while you can, it’s the last time we’re going to see Reading in the Premiership for a bit of time.
Category: Odds n' Ends
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