The date is the 29th of September. John Swift has just put the Royals 2-1 up against Brentford and our season had seemingly turned a corner. A win at Griffin Park would have meant Paul Clement, and his side had gained three wins from their last four games. But, Yoann Barbet decided to ruin that with a 91st-minute equaliser. ‘Surely a 2-2 all draw against high-flying Brentford is a good result?’ I hear you ask.
Yes, it was a good result. However, the players’ mood after the game was as if we had lost the game and they took that mentality into their next two games and lost both. The whole mood of the Reading camp is that of a team that has already accepted it’s fate, and something needs to change. Admittedly you can’t blame this all on Paul Clement. He has not been at all helped by the farce of a job the Chief Executive Ron Gourlay is doing, but in my opinion, he needs to go.
The players aren’t trying hard enough. There is a massive lack of effort from some of the Royals players, and a manager is needed that can get a tune out of this bunch of players. But unfortunately, that manager isn’t Paul Clement. A lack of fight has been an issue throughout his relatively brief tenure with the club, and the fact that it is still an issue now shows that he is not the right man to turn this team around.
Four wins in his 23 league games as the manager isn’t a record of a team that is going to survive in the Championship. He has completed exactly half of a league season in charge and gained 12 points out of a possible 66. We need a strong-willed boss that won’t accept the issues that the Royals currently have going on. A boss that will bring more passion out of the players and make them fight for the club that pays their wages because a lot of the players currently at the club seem to be happy for the club going down, knowing full well that they won’t be with us next season.
It’s a no-risk option for the Royals as we either inevitably go down with Clement or bring someone else in, see if they can make a change and if not, we don’t end up in any worse position as we would with the former Swansea boss. We are effectively at the last resort now. We need to take a chance on somebody else to see if they can change the fortunes of the club we love.
I’ve seen people ask ‘who is there to replace him?’. Well, my top three would be Steve Bruce, Graeme Murty and Mick McCarthy. All of them seem to take no nonsense, and even though they may not make us challenge towards the top end of the table, they would help us get the results to keep us up. Bruce and McCarthy have a history of not playing the best football, but grinding out results is what they do, and that is what we need at this moment in time.
Graeme Murty knows the area and clearly isn’t afraid to put players in their place when they step out of line or don’t pull their weight. This is exactly what we need if we wish to secure our place in the second tier of English football for next season.
It’s not necessarily Clements’ fault, but a change is needed if we wish to survive this season. The longer we wait to make a change, the further and further we fall behind the teams ahead of us, and soon enough, it will be too late.
