Jose Gomes Takes Highest Approval Rating Since Summer 2017

You’ve given Jose Gomes a huge vote of confidence in our latest TTE manager approval rating, awarding him a mark of 4.26/5. That’s the highest score we’ve seen for a manager at the club since June 2017, when we asked for your thoughts on Jaap Stam soon after the playoff final defeat to Huddersfield Town. At the time, the Dutchman was given a mark of 4.59/5 - the highest to date.

Overall, Gomes’ mark is the fourth-highest since we started asking you to grade the managers in February 2015. Only Jaap Stam has beaten his Portuguese successor - getting clear of 4.29 in November 2016, 4.33 in April 2017, and then 4.59 a few months after that.

It’s also a notable improvement on Gomes’ last result - 3.41/5 in February 2019. Back then, you were impressed by the job he’d done at Reading, but were understandably held back from giving him a higher mark due to the Royals still being in the thick of a relegation fight.

You can see the full chart showing the highest and lowest scores at the bottom of this article.

Gomes’ current score shows both how good a job he’s done in Berkshire since his arrival and how popular he is with the fanbase. The vast majority of you scored him either 4 (54.3%) or 5 (37.2%), with just one 1 and 2 apiece. Hi Paul and Ron.

You showered Gomes with praise on our Facebook page, with Chris Johnson saying:

“I’ll give him 5. We were going down Christmas, and he pulled off the great escape, he got players and fans up for the challenge I can’t judge on what’s in the future, we are not there yet.”

While Martin Brailli added:

“Huge impact, achieved what he needed to in the short term. Would give him 4. Has a much bigger job to do now and will be very interesting to see whether he can build something long term.”

It was similarly positive reading on Twitter. Fresh from the ending of Game of Thrones, @ReadingFCOLIVER said:

“Sir Jose Manuel Gomes. Let’s start a go fund me page to raise money to start a war to get him to be king.”

And @DidcotMassive61 was so incensed by Gomes’ success being questioned in the first place that he queried:

“Vote? Are you seriously having a laugh?”

The question now is, of course, whether or not Jose Gomes can keep up his success. He’s got a tough job on his hands over the summer in attempting to rebuild the squad and create a team capable of finishing much higher than last season - all while under the restrictions of Financial Fair Play.

Away from recruitment though, some matters are very much in his hands. In the coming months, Gomes will need to bed in more youngsters, continue his positive relationship with the fans and - perhaps most importantly - build up a clear, cohesive style of football. That was badly missing last season under Paul Clement, but getting to work on that side of things over pre-season should set us up nicely for 2019/20.