Leam Richardson, 33 Games In: Reflections And Approval Rating

Leam Richardon’s got some work to do, hasn’t he?

In the space of under a year, we’ve gone from a united fanbase who were behind the team, the manager and the ousting of the owner to now feeling completely disconnected with the team and the majority seemingly disillusioned with the manager.

Maybe there’s a good manager in there, somewhere, but it’s becoming more and more clear that Richardson isn’t the right manager for this team or this club. He seems somewhat overwhelmed by the expectations and size of Reading.

His comments post-match are becoming increasingly bizarre. We’ve had excuses about pitch conditions, having too many games, injuries, not enough available players, needing more time to develop the playing style of the team like other managers have had, the players not doing what he wants and his favourite line – about needing a pre-season and a few transfer windows.

However, the reality is that he’s had it as easy as Noel Hunt, and Hunt – an inexperienced manager – still delivered far more with far less. Look at this table:

This provides the number of players used each month between December and April this season and last. It also compares the number of games played and fixture congestion. This is a timely comparison because Hunt and Richardson came into their roles at similar times.

The raw data says it all, and it isn’t surprising: Richardson bemoans no pre-season and a lack of fitness, but he’s been in a similar position to his predecessor in terms of players available, the number of matches and time between games to work on things and implement his playing style.

Plus, Richardson has had a higher number of extended breaks – essentially anything above seven days – between matches. These are the particularly large gaps this season he’s had to work with the squad:

• November 6 to November 22
• November 29 to December 9
• December 18 to December 26
• January 4 to January 17

Whereas this was Hunt’s only equivalent break last season:

• March 15 to March 29

And not to mention, Richardson’s had literally double the number of first-team coaches supporting him, compared to Hunt.

If Hunt could mount a playoff challenge, why couldn’t an experienced manager with a bigger back room team? Richardson has also had the time to embed playing style and fitness but hasn’t done so.

Also, how does Richardson explain why players are still picking up injuries? The buck surely stops with the coach organising the training sessions, does it not?

And why not give the younger players more time to play, to avoid rushing players back from injury? Jack Marriott was rushed back against Cardiff City and look what happened. Similar happened to Randell Williams earlier in the season.

Richardson is pushing himself more and more into a corner with the importance he is giving to the upcoming pre-season. It seems he will get this pre-season, and I am fascinated to see what he does with it, but what if the pre-season doesn’t change the quality of performances or results? What will he blame then?

Performances

Poor. Just so damn poor. Richardson has had six months with this squad and it shows: they look completely demotivated, uninterested and uninspired.

Missing Jack Marriott won’t help any team, but relying on him to score the goals to save games is not a workable strategy. If it was as simple as that, we wouldn’t need a coaching staff and manager. Richardson’s job is to (forgive me for going all Moneyball here) find the goals in the aggregate. That means: how else can we score goals?

Long Kelvin is a work in progress, but playing the same style of football into him doesn’t enhance the attributes he has – it detracts from them. He is a very different player to Marriott. This is strikingly obvious to everyone, so why can’t Richardson adapt the system?

The raw numbers for April and May were: six games played. four goals scored, nine goals conceded (no clean sheets) and 14 shots on target – seven of which came in one game, against Cardiff City.

Let’s focus on the passing for April 2026: worryingly, we rank fourth in the league for the number of backwards/lateral passes completed per game (210 – 52% of our total passes) and 15th in the league for complete passes in the final third (58 per game). These are not good underlying numbers.

The data also shows we are not as reliant on the long ball as Richardson is often criticised for: we rank 20th for long passes attempted (47 per game), but only 18th for accurate ones (18 per game, a 39% success rate). That’s damning.

When you factor in that, during April, Reading were ninth in the league for total completed passes per game (398) and 11th for pass accuracy (77%), it tells you that we have a team who do not know how to move the ball with efficiency or directness. Basically: we have a team that do not know how to build successful attacking transitions.

For further context: let’s compare to April 2025, when Reading were in a similar position in the table and challenging for the playoffs, except with far less squad depth and experience:

What does this tell us? We play more passes and go long less often too, but we play fewer passes in the final third compared to last year and we play substantially more backwards/lateral passes.

This begs the question: what on earth is Richardson doing with this team in the training sessions to make them worse than last year?

Approval rating

What do you make of the job Richardson has done in the dugout so far?

You can grade him in our approval rating poll below, with one being the lowest and five the highest. If the poll doesn’t display on your device, try this link right here.