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Everton faces Chelsea and London City Lionesses take on Leicester in the WSL today at 12pm. Both matches will be available for free streaming.
The current football season is nearing its end, marked by disappointing performances, including a lackluster match against Rotherham United. Fans are eager for the season to conclude as the team's spirit appears depleted.
Weâre almost there, folks. Almost at the end. Not the polished, finished article we all hoped to see on the pitch â just the end of a season that looks exhausted, frayed and ready to be cast into the bin of disappointment.
All any of us want now is for this sorry campaign to be over. The latest tepid, footballâbyânumbers, lifeless corpse of a performance against alreadyârelegated Rotherham United was turgid in the extreme.
They were down, checked out, the dictionary definition of âon the beach,â and we still couldnât muster a win. Next weekend brings Blackpool, who are also on the beach â quite literally â and it promises to be just as soulless, if not worse.
But thatâs how it has felt for most of the season. Empty. Hollow. A matchday experience stripped of jeopardy, thrill, tension or even the faintest spark of expectation. I still love my club â that never changes â but the soft, fluffy sentiments have withered away. There are no flowers to hand out.
Whatâs been missing is that sense of growth, of watching something fragile turn into something beautiful. This seasonâs chrysalis never even twitched. It died before it had a breath of life.
And in my opinion â stop me if youâve heard this one before â this is down to Leam Richardson. Whatever vision he has for this football club, itâs not one Iâve felt any connection to. Not once. Not all season.
Yes, we won games. Yes, we briefly touched the playoff spots. But there was no momentum, no sense of a team galvanising, no feeling that we were becoming more than the sum of our parts. It was a numbed existence:
Win game. âDoes it feel any better?â
No.
Win game. âAre we improving?â
No.
Lose game. âDid we learn from it?â
No.
Because of that lack of progression, going to games has regressed into something else entirely: a social outing. A reason to get out of the house, breathe some air and share the shared grief with friends and family.
The side dish has become the main event. The football â the whole point of being there â has become an afterthought. Thatâs how unâfun this season has been.
Nobody wants a manager to fail initially. But fans are now at the point where failure feels academic. Six months into his tenure, it already feels like Richardson has reached the point of no return. The rot has set in, and quickly.
Nothing he does seems to land. His tactics, regardless of the oppositionâs state â even relegated opposition â are restricted, unimaginative and dull. The players have tuned out. Theyâre playing well beneath their capabilities. The switch to autoâpilot was flicked months ago and Richardson hasnât noticed the flashing red warning light.
The fans have mirrored the apathy. We donât see the effort. We donât see the spark. We donât see the intent to make wins happen, so the fans have responded in kind.
I have always believed fans react to players doing something exciting â not the other way around. Itâs their job to get us off our seats. Itâs the managerâs job to inspire them to do so. Neither has happened.
Then there are the injuries. Endless injuries. Seasonâlong knacks, repeat issues, setbacks upon setbacks. There seems to be little investigation or recovery in sight. Itâs only got worse.
Take Jack Marriottâs hamstring. Why was he risked against Cardiff City when he clearly wasnât fully fit? Hamstring injuries reoccur â we all know this â yet the dice were rolled anyway, despite the playoff maths being stacked against us. The riskâreward ratio was absurd. And yet he played. Make it make sense.
And then the academy. With all these injuries, surely there was scope to involve more than a token handful of youngsters?
Emmanuel Osho got a deserved callâup and played 12 minutes. Sean Patton, five. Luke Howard travelled, warmed up, sat down. David Hicks travelled but wasnât selected. What are they learning from that? Whatâs the point of being involved if involvement means sitting on a bus and watching a dead rubber unfold?
At this point, the manager is so afraid to lose that heâs stopped even trying to win. And thatâs the saddest part of all. When the football becomes this riskâaverse, this joyless, this devoid of intent, it drags everything else down with it â the players, the atmosphere, the matchday, the fansâ belief.
The only thing Richardson managed this weekend was to drain whatever was left of our patience. The faith has gone. The flame of belief, if there ever was one, has been extinguished. The fire has never been there.
Six months in, and it already feels like weâre watching a relationship where everyone hates each other and they want out, both sides going through the motions because nobody wants to be the one to say it out loud first.
Next weekend will come and go. The season will finally end. And maybe â hopefully â thatâs when the real work begins. Reading fans arenât asking for miracles. Weâre not even asking for playoffs. Weâre just asking to feel connected again.
The manager is the glue that unites players to the fans and vice versa. Right now, the only sticking point is Richardson himself.
The team's performance has been characterized by lifeless displays, lack of excitement, and an inability to secure wins against already-relegated teams.
The next opponent is Blackpool, who are also struggling and have been described as 'on the beach' in terms of their performance.
Fan sentiment has shifted from hopeful to disappointed, with many feeling that the matchday experience has become empty and devoid of excitement.
'On the beach' refers to teams that have nothing to play for, often resulting in lackluster performances as they are effectively checked out of the competition.

Everton faces Chelsea and London City Lionesses take on Leicester in the WSL today at 12pm. Both matches will be available for free streaming.
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