Veteran of the EFL Neil Warnock thinks Reading’s current off-field problems will make them a stronger club in the long run.
The Royals have seen three seasons of point deductions, five years of transfer embargoes, and months where employee payments were delayed. As a result, the team finished the previous season with their lowest finish in 35 years after dropping out of the Premier League in 2013.
In spite of this, fans have united behind manager Ruben Selles and his team to forge an unbreakable relationship, supporting the team and its employees to Having managed Huddersfield Town on the day that Reading were relegated, Warnock—who has seven promotions to his name and has spent the last 20 years playing the part of comic villain against the Royals—admits he has a soft spot for the team.
“I felt that day your fans were excellent. Despite being demoted, they remained kind to both the Huddersfield team and their own players. I’m hoping they receive their just desserts and recover. Being a Reading supporter hasn’t been easy these days.
You truly have no idea what you have been doing. You can’t operate in this manner if you’re expecting something to show up every week. I hope things improve and you get some clarification. The manager seems like a good lad, so I’ll let him handle it from there. He should have a chance where everything is clear-cut and all he has to do is win games.
The thing about football is that you always manage to go beyond challenges and things hurled at you, and as a result, your team gets stronger. When you can resolve ownership issues in the next years, Reading will once more develop into a respectable team.
Even though Warnock’s team had suffered more losses than any other throughout his tenure and he was frequently involved in heated arguments with fans, he acknowledged that he was eager to take over as manager of RG2 prior to his retirement this year.
- “I have developed a soft spot for them over the past few years. I had several ideas to handle them, but the owners had different plans, thus it never happened. I return to John Madejski, who was fantastic for the group. They didn’t spend as much as other clubs did at the time, but their spending was constant and there were never any problems. Oh, to have a reliable John Madejski again.I occasionally chatted with John, and Nick Hammond was your director of football. Since I signed him as a goalie at Plymouth Argyle and we lost the first six games, I didn’t think he wanted me to become manager. I had to let him go. Through the play-offs that year, we were able to secure promotion with the help of my coach. I felt like I would struggle while he was Director of Football.