Reading Fans Happy With The Club’s Owners

Last week, we asked you to have your say on the job Reading’s owners are doing. It’d been a little while since we last put the question to you, during which time plenty of action had gone on behind-the-scenes at the club.

Ron Gourlay departed in mid-November before being replaced by Nigel Howe, Paul Clement was sacked, Gianluca Nani stepped down, Jose Gomes was appointed at Christmas, and Reading went to town on loan signings in January.

The results are in, and it’s safe to say that you’re satisfied with the direction the club’s going in under the ownership of siblings Dai Yonnge and Xiu Li Dai. The biggest vote was for the 4/5 rating - 42.7% of you. After that came 3/5 (27.1%), 2/5 (13.8%), 5/5 (8.6%) and 1/5 (7.8%).

All in all, that comes to an average of 3.3/5.

To me, that shows two main things: that the fanbase likes the key decisions that the owners have made, and that the Dais aren’t being blamed for the club’s woes on the pitch.

Those key decisions, which I’ve mentioned above, have made the club feel a very different place to even the Reading FC of Autumn 2018. Jose Gomes and Nigel Howe are two appointments that have resonated with fans, especially considering how distant some senior staff had seemed from the supporters.

January’s business, which saw both a series of high-profile loan signings, and a mass clear-out, has similarly gone down well. Fair play to the owners for their part in making that happen.

Of course, we can’t forget that the club’s in a bad way with regards to the position in the league table. With that in mind, it’s interesting that the owners’ approval rating isn’t lower than it is - evidently our problems aren’t being blamed on Dai Yonnge and Dai Xiu Li that much. It something that their ranking only went down to 2.5/5 at its lowest point (last Autumn), despite the dramatic drop we’ve seen since they arrived in May 2017.