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Things may be bad at Reading, but they're not quite 'Chelsea bad'. Whereas the Royals sit just outside the Championship Playoff places in 7th, the West London team have endured a truly torrid campaign so far - currently in a shockingly bad 15th. One big point of concern for manager Jose Mourinho has been the rapid deterioration at the back - Chelsea's 23 goals conceded in 2015/16 is better than only five teams in the Premier League.
Well, it looks like the 'Special One' is trying to remedy that by adding another option to Chelsea's defence. Today, it's been reported that he wants to recall Michael Hector, who Reading sold to Chelsea in the summer before getting him back in on loan. This is another piece of bad news for the board, who recently had the whole 'will he, won't he?' saga with Steve Clarke a few days ago - for a full re-cap, you can find our complete coverage here.
But, to his credit, Reading's executive Samrit Thanakanchanasut (his surname scores an incredible 28 in Scrabble) has held his ground by, well, telling Chelsea to shove it.
"Chelsea want him back early but I think we'll retain him as we agreed until the end of the season."
I'd hardly say that 'Big Hec' has had the best of seasons - the reported ~£4m fee was said to be too low when the deal was struck, but now looks better for Reading by the week. That said, he's a solid enough option at the back and has probably had as many noticeably good games as noticeably bad ones. What's more, with doubts over Jake Cooper (who's inexperienced) and Anton Ferdinand (who's never fit), we need to keep hold of Hector for numerical reasons if nothing else.
Plus, with regards to the Thais, this shows us that they won't be bullied by bigger clubs. True, Chelsea may end up eventually getting their man in January by recalling him, but this is still pretty bold talk by Thanakanchanasut (I'm having to copy and paste his name, otherwise this article wouldn't go up until the Forest match). Considering that there have been suspicions amongst some that the Thais simply see Reading as a commercial venture, it's reassuring to see them putting their weight behind the squad.