Grade Mark Bowen’s Performance For The Last Time As Reading Boss

It’s not been that long since we last asked you to grade Mark Bowen’s performance as Reading manager, but with his time in charge now officially over, we need a final score.

At the beginning of this month, between the end of last season and the start of pre-season, you gave him a mark of 2.91/5. That’s not terrible by any means, but it’s some way short of the 3.89 he got in February.

He’s not had too much to do since then, but it had looked like Reading were making some interesting progress. Bowen unveiled a new-look system for the friendly win over Gillingham at the Madejski Stadium on August 22: a back three with wing-backs, four central central midfielders and a lone striker.

It looked like Bowen would get the chance to take that system forward in 2020/21, but after the removal of Nigel Howe as CEO two days later, rumours soon came out about the Welshman being replaced. His successor eventually turned out to be Veljko Paunovic, after initial reports that it would be Aleksandar Stanojevic.

However, first came a weird friendly at Tottenham Hotspur on Friday afternoon. Going into that match it wasn’t clear who would be taking charge of Reading, but Bowen led the Royals to a 4-1 defeat - although the performance and style were encouraging. Bowen then spoke to the media, albeit off the record, reportedly being so angry he was worried he would say something silly.

Paunovic was then announced as Reading’s new boss on Saturday morning - although without any mention of Bowen’s future in the statement.

So, how good or bad a job was the gaffer doing before he got the chop? As usual we’d like you to rate him from 1-5 in the poll below. If it doesn’t show up, please go through this link right here.