Struggling Reading have fired their manager Brian McDermott.

The Royals have lost their last 4 in the PL and play Man Utd and Arsenal next.

Was it fair to sack a coach who had taken the club up last season?

There are now only 3 English managers left in the Premier League.

Ridiculous knee jerk reaction,it was only January he collected the manager of the month award .

With only a handfull of games to go too! Give the man the respect of finishing the season and bowing out gracefully if they get relegated.

I wonder how young Floody must be feeling tonight?!

i think the owner felt that a change was necessary with the upcoming games against Man Utd and Arsenal , it appears he had little belief left that Brian McDermott could get Reading out of the relegation zone and back up the table to safety ...its sort of a catch 22 situation though ..does he keep faith with a manager who has struggled to win matches this season and end up going down ..or...get a new manager who has just 8-9 matches to try and save the club from relegation ..but could still end up going down ..

I guess time will tell if it was a good decision .

Based on Twitter, floody is not amused.

I said the same thing last season as i'm gonna say now....pathetic and i hope they get relegated...they deserve it..

I said this as Wolves sacked McCarthy,they went down,are in relegation in the Championship while McCarthy is doing well with Ipswich...

I hope Mcdermott does the same and passes Reading on his way up.

Love it. that egg headed, Heston Blumenthal mug being unemployed has absolutely made my day.

the prats defence of his small time player Jimmy Kebe last season was enough to tell me he isn't a man of honour, and now he isn't even a man of employment.

absolutely delighted.

i just hope and pray Paolo Di Canio doesn't rock up there. he deserves better than that. i also fear he could galvanise them enough to launch a survival assault.

It wasn't long ago that Southampton sacked Nigel Adkins for no good reason.

I hope that they and Reading both go down and also that Paolo Di Canio doesn't take over as manager.

Your fishing trips used to be a lot more subtle than this Hill, I'm disappointed! However, If that is truly your view then you are misguided in the extreme and not quite as switched on as I may previously have thought.

Anyway, safe to say I certainly wasn't amused by the timing of this one little bit. In fact, I was disgusted by it. Had this decision been taken during December when we were rock bottom then fine, I would still have been massively disappointed to see McDermott go, but I at least could have understood slightly better as we would still have had plenty of time to haul ourselves out of serious trouble. That would also have given the luxury of a new man a transfer window to bring in reinforcements and shape the squad to his tastes. As it is, however, we are four points adrift with nine games remaining, face daunting back-to-back trips to Old Trafford and the Emirates and are looking dead certs to return to the Championship. Unless the new boss is a miracle worker, he has next to no chance of keeping us up and we have actually just dispensed with the one man who knows what has to be done to get us back up!

The crux of this issue for me is the money. I would be extremely interested to know just what happened there. Was McDermott's reliance on clearly under par players such as Leigertwood etc born out of some sort of stubborn, misguided loyalty or was it simply out of necessity after not being given the appropriate sums of money to work with in both transfer windows following promotion? If it's the former, then it becomes a trifle harder to provide a staunch defence for McDermott. If it's the latter however, which I personally fully suspect it is, then Zingarevich has to take the flak for not providing the funds to make us competitive. Frankly, if you look at our squad man for man, it's a wonder we have stayed within touching distance for this long. It's certainly more than I expected when the summer transfer window slammed shut last September.


Part of the appeal of being a Reading supporter as a kid (as well as it being my local team) was our usual sense of going about our business in a correct, proper and thoughtful manner that often seemed at odds with football's increasingly vast moral vacuum. We've always run very prudently and avoided committing to the same sort of excesses and knee-jerk decisions that have become a staple of modern football on these shores, yet have remained competitive and largely successful to a certain degree thanks to the inspirational work of hugely knowledgeable folk such as McDermott I sense now, with new money and owners and this decision, that may all have come crashing to a halt, and I for one find that extremely difficult to take.


I'll wait and see how the next few months develop, but for me this would certainly seem to signal the end of the so-called 'Reading way', particularly when Zingarevich assumes full control in September. Only time will tell if abandoning these principles will have a wholly positive or negative effect. Is this what we need to establish ourselves at a higher level?


On potential successors, there are only one or two names being linked with the post that I would be pleased to see take over. Hopefully the only scrap of a positive we can take from this sorry mess is that we bring in a new boss with a reputation for playing good football, which we certainly haven't in recent times. McDermott's system has proven extremely successful up until this point, but the 4-4-2 kick and rush, blood and thunder just doesn't cut it at this level. With that in mind, I would welcome Roberto Di Matteo, Nigel Adkins or Gus Poyet as my top three choices. However I'm not too sure I fancy our chances of being able to entice any of them.

Di Matteo can obviously now boast a Champions League victory on his CV, so I'm not too sure a return to the Championship will particularly appeal to him. Plus I understand he is still earning handsome wages after Chelsea put him on gardening leave.

Adkins is a very possible one, as far as I can see. Consecutive promotions, a reputation for playing good football and seemed well liked by the players at Southampton. I read yesterday that he has launched legal proceedings against Southampton and Nicola Cortese, which I believe now entitles him to seek employment. I did find his relentless positivity somewhat irritating during his tenure at St Mary's, but that's not a particularly big deal. The only sticking point I have with Adkins is whether he is all that superior to McDermott. After all, we pipped Southampton to the title at the last hurdle last season, with an arguably inferior playing squad. He also spent hefty sums of money in the summer and although Southampton weren't in the relegation zone when he was sacked, they weren't doing as well as you might have expected.

Poyet is a name I have seen linked heavily in the papers today. Again I'm not sure the job will massively appeal to him, given that he is in charge of a club that won't have given up on a late playoff surge this season and, if they remain in the Championship, will have an equally good chance of returning as us. Brighton do play good football, however, and he has generally been very successful on the South Coast, picked up one or two very good continental players and is popular with the fans. To me, Poyet seems to bring a similar passion to his work akin to that of Di Canio, but without all the needless and tiresome melodrama that accompanies the Italian.

Some of the names linked with the job, beyond those three, make me want to weep. Among them are Mark Hughes, Steve McClaren - hell, you can even get Graham Rix at 100-1! Obviously former captain Phil Parkinson is one who is also being heavily linked to the post due to his superb work at Bradford this season. As much as I admire and respect Parky, I'm not sure that is a good route to go down. Sure his reputation and historical association with the club down the years should see him provide plenty of passion, but he has struggled managing in the Championship before and would, in my mind, represent a serious step down from McDermott.

For the record, I do not want Di Canio anywhere near it if we can help it. The transition from the humble, likable and understated McDermott to the brash, crazed antics of Di Canio would be too difficult a transition to handle. The guy is a walking headline, yet to prove himself anywhere above League Two/League One and simply comes with too much baggage. Maybe if he was given it, it may prove a quick sharp burst that will serve to galvanise some of the complacent players in the squad, but for me it would still represent a huge risk. He was pictured in the stands at the Villa game on Saturday, but it remain to be seen whether he was there as anyone's guest or just as a spectator of the game (he admitted in a BBC article last week he has been attending several Premier League games and coaching sessions since leaving Swindon). One thing is for certain, It would certainly add even more spice to any potential Reading v Swindon derbies next season if we were to be relegated and them promoted!

I suppose the next appointment may depend on Zingarevich's thinking. If he does truly believe we are still capable of defying the considerable odds and staying up, he may be more inclined to go for a motivator such as Di Canio. However, if he's got more of a long term strategy in mind, the likes of Adkins or Poyet may feature more highly in his thinking.

Anyway, it's safe to say that Brian McDermott will go down in this club's folklore. After the disastrous six month tenure of Brendan Rodgers back in 2009, things were looking bleak and at Christmas we were embroiled in a Championship relegation scrap when McDermott, who had been at the club since 2000 in various coaching and scouting roles, was handed the gig on a caretaker basis. He initially didn't do all that well in the league in that temporary spell, but that magnificent extra time win at Anfield in the FA Cup practically assured him the job, and the rest is history. After taking temporary charge during the 09/10 season, he guided us away from the bottom three and a potentially disastrous relegation into League One and took us to an FA Cup quarter-final and phenomenal league run that saw us just narrowly miss out on the playoffs.

The following season he went one better. Having again had one hand tied behind his back with the sale of our best player Gylfi Sigurdsson, we went on another tremendous run and reached a second consecutive Cup quarter-final and also the playoff final, where we were beaten by Swansea. The following summer we again saw the club sell-off two more assets in Matt Mills and Shane Long in order to stay financially stable, and despite a dire start to the season another scarcely believable run ensued, culminating in the Championship title in May. Sadly it appears as if McDermott has largely been a victim of his own success in some ways. With such repeated success comes heightened expectation and the unwarranted criticism that can arise if you do not manage to keep producing miracles.

He certainly had his faults this season. As I've already said, he remained perhaps a little too loyal to one or two players who were clearly not up to scratch, struggled to manage one or two sizable egos within the squad and it's true to say his tactical naivety has cost us points on a few occasions. His unwavering commitment to 4-4-2 earlier in the season saw us leak far, far too many goals and the 4-5-1 that replaced it made us tough to beat but ultimately too weak offensively. As I said before though, I do believe many of these issues could have been offset by greater investment in the playing squad, and I do not know for sure whose decision it was not to spend at greater levels.

But regardless of what mistakes he has made, McDermott, in my opinion, is tied with Steve Coppell as the best manager this football club has ever seen. I wish him all the very best for the future, and I certainly wouldn't bet against him returning to the Premier League before we do.

We will be mate, don't you worry about that!

I think the Wolves comparisons knocking around are a little premature. I'm upset by this decision at this time in the decision and more specifically what it represents (as I stated above) but sacking McCarthy wasn't the root cause of the problem at Molineux.

It was the fact they seemed to have no idea whatsoever who to get in, and when they did finally make up their mind, they failed to secure any of their preferred targets.

Let's wait and see who comes in before making silly, premature comparisons.

Great post Floody.

the timing will most likely be due to the losses you have been incurring. 4 league defeats on the bounce isn't a good sign going into the final furlong - especially when those sides are your relegation rivals. it's most likely the post Xmas form that ensured he wasn't sacked in order to get a man in for the January window however the current slump has forced the issue.

you still have games against Southampton, QPR, Norwich, FUlham, West Ham and QPR - all of which must be viewed as winnable - and that is discounting any bonus points against the write off games. that gives you 18 points to play for so your defeatist attitude obviously isn't shared by the foreigner in charge - although it probably was shared by Heston. it should also be noted that the good run in form was as a result of frantic finishes to games rather than controlling a game or being deserving of points over the 90 minutes. obviously this isn't sustainable and questions had to be asked about why you were consistently behind and chasing games.




based on the sacking, i would say it is more likely that Heston was happy with his squad and either chose not to or failed to enhance the squad with adequate signings. he certainly bought in a fair number of players and it looks like quantity over quality was the order of the day. the reasons can be speculated, for sure.




Reading's longest serving manager since WW2 is 7 years. McDermott's reign was about average for a Reading manager. the claim that this was knee-jerk is something i find hard to believe. lke i said above - i would say Heston was on his way out for January but the turn in form made that difficult and so he kept his job. however, since the transfer window slammed shut you've had loss after loss and so the sacking plan was reactivated. i'm also fairly sure they will have somebody lined up and that appointment will speak volumes for the direction the foreigner wants Reading to be headed.




with a bit of luck the foreigner will end the 'Reading Way'. a brave new era devoid of song sheets, pop music when a goal is scored and squad numbers for the fans.




Heston was immediately filed in my 'twat' folder after his comments last season with the Kebe incident. everything else is an irrelevance in my mind and that is what i judge him on as a human being. he embarrassed himself with his comments.

it's a good gig to take for any prospective new manager. you simply can't lose as relegation is expected and you already have a well equipped squad for next season if relegation occurs. however, Adkins is an even bigger prat than Heston. he's another mug in the David Brent mould and i had hoped i'd seen the last of him in this division so would be disappointed if he rocked up again so soon.

somebody should get on the phone to Curbishley a bit sharpish.

If you're not capable of discussing it without the cheap digs mate, then don't bother because it's not really worth my time replying.

I can't make any promises.

Tiresome and one of the reasons I don't frequent this forum that much anymore.

I personally feel sorry for McDermot ,nice bloke he seemed. But it was inevitable with the team he thought was good enough for premiership survival ,i told you that at the start of the season Floody. he had good intentions but he was delusional in regards of the necessary qualities it takes. I hope he learns from this though.

I was fully aware we would do well to keep ourselves competitive with the squad we have, which is comfortably the weakest in the division on paper.

As I said before, the crux of the issue is the finances and just whether or not the money was there to be spent and McDermott refused, or whether he wasn't backed sufficiently enough to strengthen properly. We did sign a few players back in the summer, but none for any real money.

F*cking hell mate, i'd better send out a search party for your sense of humour.

Sorry, just get a bit frustrated when I'm trying to have a talk about my own team (which has always unfortunately been a bit of a rarity around here as I'm the only one) and I just get met with the same old jibes.