I had a sensation this season was going to be the kind where Reading do a Championship imitation of Arsenal. Not neccessarily in the sense of attempting 75 passes too many before scoring, or being utterly prepared to deal with scrappy ex-Championship sides featuring Irish missile platforms in midfield. I mean in the sense that, when Reading win, it’s usually of the cutting the opposition to pieces variety. Meanwhile, when Reading lose… well, I imagine it’s better to lose games by scores like 2-1 and 1-0 rather than lose 5-4.

So, Assistant Manager Kevin Dillon thinks there’s too much fixture congestion. And surely he has a point, five games in 14 days is immense. That said, it’s just as bad anywhere else in the Football League, where teams have to play 46 games to decide who goes up and who does down, not counting the FA Cup, League Cup, and the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy (for League 1 and 2). So it’s entirely reasonable that some teams may play in upwards of 60 fixtures. In essence, meh.

That’s not the best part of that little story though.

Despite having a shorter journey on Saturday, travelling down the M4 from Reading to Bristol, Dillon said even that was not a problem-free journey.

“We travelled up on the day of the game for the first time in many years and we were late.

“The coach driver got lost on the way to the stadium – we thought it was Halloween and they were winding us up.

“Liam Rosenior, who played for Bristol City for quite a long time, took us completely the wrong way and got us lost.”

I can imagine this scenario in my head, and it plays out exactly like when you go on a school trip and the busdriver gets lost. Steve Coppell is the harried teacher just trying to ignore this problem until the bus gets back on track, Stephen Hunt’s loudly singing filthy driving songs, and the exchange student (Jimmy Kebe) has no idea what fresh hell he’s been dragged into and can’t wait to get back home.

Meanwhile, Norwich, feel free to hang onto him for a while, with my blessing.

This weekend, Reading clash with Derby County, who, after a disastrous continuation of their putrid form last year, have finally remembered they are, at least theoretically, a proper football team. But noone’s managed to off the Royals at Fortress Madjeski so far this season, so a 3-1 victory should be a reasonable ask.

So, for those of you interested, the new season’s schedule is out. Reading will begin the year on the road, taking on just-promoted Nottingham Forest on the 10th of August. The home opener will be on the 16th against Plymouth, with matches at Charlton and home against Crystal Palace rounding out the month (along with a League Cup fixture against the mighty Dagenham & Redbridge. Yes i’m being facetious).

Hey! Now people on this side of the ocean can join the STAR Supporter’s Trust so if you’re a Ex-Pat or just a stateside fan, there’s no excuse not to (excluding having no money).

In other news, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Glen Little left the club in June to move to Portsmouth. I don’t fault him for it, Portsmouth will be playing European football next year, and seem to be poised to push their way into the top six of the Premier League. Most players will take that over a year in the Championship that may prove very tough, given the size of the target that’ll be on Reading’s backs.

Call it overconfidence, but I think Reading have every reason to believe that they are one of the best teams in the Championship, and that Promotion should be the goal this year. Anything less would be a almighty waste of time.

Plus, new home kit…

Now, I swear to god, that’s the picture of the new home kit from the website. The major difference is that the team is sponsored by Waitrose rather than Kyocera. So, erm… yay?

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.

So, some familiar names are being shown the door. Of them, the only one i’ll miss is John Oster, who wasn’t all bad I think, and was coming on as the season went along. Of course, as he was coming on, the team was getting relegated, so you can look at that another way as well.

I hope (and believe) Little will sign. Were we in the Premiership still, I’d say that he might be deadweight, as much of a favorite as he is at the club, but in the Championship, there’s another year left in those legs.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hahnemann isn’t pleased about relegation, and, while not naming any names, did blast his teammates a bit. I think it’s mostly frustration, I have no doubt that players like Shane Long, Stephen Hunt and James Harper wanted to do everything in their power to stay up. But it takes a team to stay up and a team to go down. Probably most problematic for Reading, it takes strikers to score, and, while it may sound harsh, I just don’t think anyone outside of Kitson is very quality. At least, not on recent form.

What do I think the team need this summer? Well obviously a striker, and a true, creative midfielder would be wonderful. A right back wouldn’t go amiss either, nor would a more dynamic presence on the wing…

…well, let’s just say “quite a bit” and stick with that then, shall we? In the meantime, I suggest we all drown our sorrows in whatever Footy game lights your fire and imagine a world where Reading are up their in the top tier of the table. It looks like that’ll be the closest we’ll be for a while.

Ladies, you know you can’t resist a man in a suit looking that dapper.

Probably the biggest downside for blogging a team that’s engaged in a relegation dogfight, is that, unless one of your players manages to get caught in some sort of scandal, there’s not really all that much news to report on. Even if Reading were scouting some wonderkid at Grimsby, it’s not going to make the dailies, while if Sir Alex as much as farts loudly, The Mirror will have a special on it. So you end up going to the same few sources, like Reading’s club website, which, while nice (although I loathe the PremiumTV.co.uk hosting service that most EPL clubs seem to use), isn’t exactly giving you a nuanced view of the club.

Still though, there were a few snippets that caught my eye today, such as James Harper winning the club’s Table Tennis championship, and some news from Community Trust Manager Lee Herron detailing a recent trip to the good ol’ U.S. of A. to promote the beautiful game. I’ll let the man speak for himself.

“Earlier this year, myself and Community Coach Chris Sweetman attended the National Soccer Coaches Association Of America’s convention over in Baltimore. It is the biggest gathering of football coaches in the world.

The UK was represented by the likes of Manchester United, West Ham United, Bolton Wanderers and ourselves, and there were speakers such as Gerard Houllier and Steve McClaren, who gave tips on sessions to US coaches.

Events like this have a big benefit to our Community Trust. The convention was a chance for us to really network and spread the good word of Reading FC. The US is a growing market for football, or soccer as they know it, and it was good to get an idea of the work that could be done there in the future.

…Football in the US is currently undergoing a period of exciting growth. And we want to help with the expansion of football over there, it’s a massive market to be involved in. And we also want to have a presence there for any talented players who come through the system that the club might want to recruit in the future.

Lots of the clubs we’ve spoken to are already feeder clubs for the MLS, and the talent levels are certainly on the up out there. If we can get our hands on any budding youngster who the Reading coaching staff think can make the grade, that would be a huge bonus.”

As a total and utter homer for U.S. Soccer (I confess to repeatedly crushing Mexico with the Men’s National Team in Pro Evo more than once), i’m happy about the news, although you can’t get too excited. I’m still most concerned about the development of the game in this country, and hope to see it continue, albeit slowly as it’s going. Still, knowing that Philly will be getting a MLS team and giving me something else to hate is just more good news.

This weekend Reading’s taking on Liverpool at Anfield, which doesn’t sound like a good thing, especially given that the Reds are coming off a 1-0 win over a largely lackluster (but still better than us) Internazionale. That said, two wins on the trot will have done wonders for the team, and has been evidenced so many times before, while Rafa may have the Champions League down to a science, the man has no idea what he’s doing domestically.

Keep an eye out on Sunday for Wigan v. Bolton though, the very definition of a relegation six-pointer. If Bolton win, things at the bottom get even more insane than they already are, with, following Wednesday’s result (thank god Pompey trounced Birmingham) no less than six teams within five points of Bolton, and absolutely noone looking like they’re simply “too good” to avoid relegation (we’re looking at you Newcastle).

Meanwhile, if you have a XBox360, and feel like a friendly pickup game of PES 2008 or FIFA 08 (much, much, much to my surprise, the latter pretty much blows the former out of the water), drop the Gamertag “Prederick” a line. I’m always up to get housed.

It’s a Saturday, late in the season. Reading are playing Tottenham. The game’s been back and forth, end-to-end stuff, with Paul Robinson and Marcus Hahnemann tested multiple times. As the game ticks past the 80 minute mark, a loose ball falls to the feet of Stephen Hunt, who confidently strides past Tom Huddlestone in midfield before chipping a beautiful pass over Ledley King’s head for Leroy Lita to run onto. Lita controls it with one touch, cutting inside his man and rifling a laser into the bottom corner to make it 2-1 and gift the team three points.

Problematically, the situation i’m describing here takes place in a game of Football Manager, and not in real life, where Mr. Lita has joined Charlton on a four-week loan. Assuming he manages to keep his cellphone (and penis) in his pants, it should give him a chance to get in some much needed match practice at a reasonable level and come back strong. Some people aren’t enthralled by the move, but given how well any of the strikers have been this season, Leroy might as well get the experience somewhere else where any profligacy in front of goal won’t cost the team points.

Until last weekend, it had all been quite frustrating for Reading. Hell, last I checked, they were even mired in the relegation zone in FIFA 08’s interactive leagues. The only place I ever saw Reading pulling off results was in said acclaimed Footy sim, albeit, in that they’d somehow managed to convince João Moutinho into a move to Berkshire. Their season had also been marked with a massive 4-1 thumping of Manchester City at the Madjeski.

Much as I do love the Royals, i’m not exactly putting my money on such a possibility tomorrow. City’s record in 2008 has been verging on schizophrenic (Win-Draw-Loss-Win-Draw-Loss-Draw-Loss-Win-Loss-Draw) and they did participate in that utter abomination of a match against Wigan last week (I’d rather have watched Sunderland-Derby, which was also, albeit marginally less abysmal).

So, with that god-awful monkey off the team’s back, Reading can actually go into this one thinking a point is realistic, three entirely possible. Luck isn’t with the team entirely quite yet, as it was recently revealed that Emerson Fae contracted malaria at the African Cup of Nations, and Graeme Murty’s knee isn’t up to snuff, while Elano should be fit for the match.

Assuming we can defend Nery Castillo without resorting to repeatedly kicking him and giving Elano multiple chances for another Goal-of-the-Season-style freekick, I think a point’s entirely realistic.

So, in the meantime, let’s hope Arsenal do us a favor and utterly obliterate Wigan, and perhaps we can clamber past Bolton, although I must admit, i’ll pay good money to see a team get relegated and yet still win the UEFA Cup. And perhaps a few kind souls will manage to tear themselves away from the big four and get Reading some needed wins in FIFA 08 as well.

So, Saturday, Reading will visit Middlesbrough. If you asked me in October or November what I thought, I’d tell you that three points is well within our capabilities for such a match, even away. Now, given that Boro have gotten some of the most glaring kinks figured out, not so much. Boro certainly aren’t Chelsea or ManU, mind, they did need a unfortunate error from Paddy Kenny to get through to the next round of the FA Cup, but against our defense right now, the thought of Tuncay, Downing, and even Mido honestly scares me. Who knows, maybe even Boro’s big-money Brazilian (Alfonso Alves) will actually see the field for more than 15 minutes.

The load is, for us, entirely on the shoulders of our strikers. They must start finding form if Reading are to stay up. Someone who is paid to regularly score, needs to start scoring again. Regularly. Outside of Kitson though, I wonder who’s going to take the load on? To be perfectly honest, I just don’t have that much faith in Kevin Doyle anymore, and Leroy Lita certainly has the pace and the desire, but he hasn’t featured since the 2nd of this month, and hasn’t scored in the league thus far this season.

It’s times like this that one wishes life were like a video game. You could jump in, and force them to play the right pass, to get tight in defense, to run their socks off for 90 minutes. Unfortunately, all we can do is hope. The match is totally out of touch for people like me, as both FSC and Setanta Broadband aren’t putting it on (somewhat understandably, Boro-Reading isn’t exactly a byword for dashing, entertaining football).

Against Everton, and for periods, against Aston Villa, we showed the heart we need. Both teams were just better than us. The players seem to understand that this is an absolutely massive game. A point is not just needed here, it’s the minimum we can take. We don’t, and relegation goes from “serious problem” to “imminent”.

One point. Fingers crossed.

…in 1983.

The sheer, crushing power of the economics of the game today make it more important for teams in the bottom half to keep their coffers filled with Premiership money than the glory of the FA Cup. Sure, I’d like it to be more equal, but it’s not, and if you’re offering me Premiership survival or just a chance at a FA Cup… I’ll take Premiership survival. Even if the long-term hope (prayer, really) of breaking up the “Big Four” is turning into more and more of a pipe dream as the years pass.

So what news of Reading then? Well, trawling the ever-reliable tabloids provides one interesting snippet.

Reading to make move for Jozy Altidore

Reading manager Steve Coppell will move for Red Bulls New York striker Jozy Altidore, 18, but Real Madrid are also keen on him.

I’d really like to extrapolate further on this for you all, but these being transfer rumors (Lies), there’s every chance that this is, at best, a pipe dream. It does seem a little odd to see Reading being mentioned in the same breath as Real Madrid in any transfer news. Both teams may have heard of Jozy, I very much doubt either will be making a move.

However, since i’m a colossal homer for pretty much all things U.S. Soccer/Football/what-have-you, let’s pretend that Reading is chasing Jozy. And let’s assume they manage to get him, that the move won’t happen until this summer, and that Reading stay up. While I’d really, really like to see Jozy succeed, I think we can all agree that the MLS isn’t anywhere near the level of the Premiership. Outside of the net, Americans have had a hard go of it in top-level leagues around the world, with a few exceptions like Steve Cherundolo, Brian McBride and Claudio Reyna. Clint Dempsey’s been here and there for Fulham (he’s always looked a step off the pace, to me) and Benny Feilhaber and Eddie Lewis are essentially screwed.

Strikers from around the world have a hard time adjusting to the pace and power of the Premiership. I think Jozy has the physical tools to do it, but technically, I don’t know yet. It seems, to me, like a year in the Championship, playing for a side challenging for promotion would be best for him (and Eddie Johnson) to learn, then to come up and try to make the cut in the Premiership. Problematically, for him to do that and go to Reading, Reading have to get relegated.

Would he be a better option than Lita, Kitson or Doyle? Hard to say, Lita’s been injured most of the year, while Doyle and Kitson have done as well as you’d expect for a team that are staring relegation in the face. But considering how futile looking to the lower leagues for talent has been for English clubs, an American might as well get his crack at it.