Hello everyone and welcome to the another post about my save with Reading FC. After last year promotion to the top flight we battled greatly during our first season back in the Premier League and finished seventh. Thanks to othere results in the domestic cup it means we have qualified for the next year Europa League as we’ll enter the competition at the third qualifying round.
“It was a season to remeber for Reading as thanks to results like a 3-1 triumph against Crystal Palace, they managed to finish 7th, thirteen spots above their pre-season expectations of a 20th place finish. Jordan Obita’s performances in particular were a joy to behold, while Jack Lee proved to be one of the signings of the season.”
Transfers 2019/2020
It was not too hard for Jack Lee as he was one of only two our signings during this season. I bought him from Sheffield Wednesday for a fee around 425K as a backup to our central defenders.
The second new player was right defender Joshua Emmanuel from Ipswich Town. His transfer was more expensive but I had to invest as future of Tennai Watson was uncertain. Our number one right defender wanted to leave for bigger clubs but I refused to sell him. But you never know…
Joshua Emmanuel vs. Tennai Watson comparison
And what about outgoings? Almost twenty players were released after their contracts expired. I was unable to sell some during the season as they did not accept wage conditions from other clubs.
Goalkeeper Jonathan Bond was sold to West Brom for 750K as he wanted to leave. I knew about this so youngster Luke Southwood was our number one for a couple of months during the last season as I wanted he will be prepared for Premier League.
Midfielder Dan Crowley also departed as I lost faith in him due to very bad performances everytime he played. The last transfer was departure of Tarique Fosu to Celtic for 3M. I tried to play him as striker as he is used to play in this position but same as Crowley his performances were not good and I decided it was time for him to leave…
Between many loanees was also midfielder Jack Byrne. This Ireland international player wanted triple wage increase and I refused to pay it to him. So he moved to Hamburger SV and his new club paid full wage + 115K monthly fee.
Competitions Review 2019/2020
As always, let’s start with EFL Cup. And it was funny journey this year. We beat Yeovil, Burnley, Millwall, Liverpool and Chelsea what meant we were in the Final.
We faced Arsenal in Wembley and they were 1-0 up after nine minutes thanks to Jeff Reine-Adelaide. Dominic Samuel levelled it in 28th minute but Arsenal scored two goals in two minutes after the half-time. We were able to score just only one and Arsenal lifted the league cup after a 3-2 win.
In the FA Cup we made it to 5th Round this year where we were eliminated after a 4-3 lost in reply match by Manchester United.
Our predicted finish for Premier League was the last place. 20th. The main goal was to survive. But we massively overachieved.
After the first defeats from Chelsea and West Ham and draw with Watford we won three games in a row. I wanted to concentrate mainly for matches with clubs from bottom half of the table so 4-1 defeat from Arsenal did not bothered me.
11 passes, started from Defensive Centre Back and finished by Poacher…
We did not lost in eight matches in a row after that Arsenal defeat. There were great matches including 2-0 win over Manchester United or 6-0 win over Derby County as we were 5-0 up after the 1st half.
We entertained ourselves when we beat Chelsea, Liverpool or Tottenham. We scored three goals in each of these games and we were third in the table after 11 matches and fifth after 20 matches were played.
The crisis started after the first half of the January. We beat West Ham 3-0 at home but five players got injured including Josh Barret and Dominic Samuel. Liam Kelly had also some healty issues and our performances were affected by it.
It was good for some younger players for more playing time but if we did not have too many points from the first half of the season we would be in relegation zone.
As you can see on screenshot after West Ham win we did not win ten matches in a row. There were seven draws and many goals by Danny Loader.
This youngster was fantastic in these difficult weeks and he worked very hard. I’m very glad he signed contract until 2024. It means he will stay with us for some time…⇓
After ten matches without win we finally beat Southampton 3-2 at home thanks to goal by left defender Ramarni Medford-Smith. After another victory over Sunderland we were fifth in the league but after two defeats and two draws we moved down.
Both of last two matches against Villa and Liverpool we equalised in the 91st minute. Thanks to draw with Liverpool in the last round we earned seventh place with the same number of points as eighth West Ham.
A few days after the end of the season we discovered there will be another european cup place so we’ll play Europa League third qualifying round in the summer.
Our goalkeeper Luke Southwood played most matches (46) during this season. Dominic Samuel scored 27 goals and made 7 assists in 44 apperances. Danny Loader was the second best goalscorer with 17 goals.
Liam Kelly scored from AMC position same amount of goals like Jordan Obita from the left defender – both scored six goals. Nineteen players scored at least one goal this season. And Dominic Samuel won the Goal of the Season Award with this goal against Crystal Palace…
Right defender Tennai Watson had eight assists in all competitions and Jordan Obita was our best rated player with average rating of 7.36.
But for me, the best player of the season was Danny Loader about who I wrote above.
I’ll write about some talented players in the way of development as I tracked their progress during the previous seasons.
All feedback is welcome and appreciated. If you want to know something, just let me know there in comment or on Twitter…
Until that, thanks for reading, @KeysiRensie.
Filed under: Football Manager 2017, The Keysi Way | Reading FC Tagged: Development, EFL Cup, Europa League, FA Cup, FM17, FM2017, Football, Football Manager, Football Manager 2017, Players, Premier League, Reading FC, Results