We Put Our Reading FC Player Ratings Into A Graph

As I'm sure you know by now, after each competitive match in which Reading compete, we rate the players out of ten. Thanks to our own editorial staff, and some dedicated readers who have submitted ratings from the awkward away games which we haven't been able to get to, we've put together a database for every Royals performance over the last few seasons.

Side note: you can find all of those articles here.

To visualise that data (and because I have nothing better to do on a Wednesday evening), we've shoved all the numbers into a chart, which you can see below.

To make the image slightly less chaotic, we've limited it to the top 14 players in terms of minutes on the pitch in 2016/17. Basically, as long as they've been a regular for an extended period at any point this season, and their name isn't Lewis Grabban, they're on the graph.

A quick note on what each rating means: 6/10 is an average, decent performance in which the player did their job well. If they do a little better than that it's a 7/10, a little worse is a 5/10. To bring out a 4/10 or 8/10, the player has to be noticeably bad or very good respectively.

We try to standardise all those marks in every game for consistency's sake.

What can we tell from the graph?

First up, there are no prizes for guessing where the Norwich away game is - it's rather obvious (unless you forgot about that performance, in which case: sorry to remind you).

On a serious note however, there is an interesting point to be made: the scores are overwhelmingly focused right in the middle, between 5/10 and 7/10. There's plenty of variation within that central zone, but the ratings reliably stick to that middle channel.

Indeed, there are about as many 4/10s as 8/10s - it wasn't that often that a Reading player put on a particularly bad or eye-catchingly good performance.

That's not to take away from a team that finished third in the league, certainly not, but it does highlight how restrained the football was this season. Jaap Stam's cautious style of football meant that Reading edged a lot of games, but didn't go hell-for-leather to really batter any opponent.

Because of that, we couldn't really dish out the high marks that often.

Personally, I expect this to change in 2017/18. Next season, Reading will be that bit more used to Jaap Stam's style, and the Chinese takeover should (fingers crossed) bankroll the arrival of some new, better players.

If those things happen, and everything clicks into place, we can hopefully look forward to the Royals being let off the leash.