The final game of this mad Championship season is upon us. In some ways, it feels like the campaign has gone incredibly quickly.
It does not feel that long ago that we were approaching the opening day game against Derby County not knowing what to expect under an unknown manager who had arrived in chaotic fashion only two weeks previously.
But Veljko Paunović has now taken charge of more games than Mark Bowen, Jose Gomes or Paul Clement did, yet been in the hot seat for fewer days than all of them.
That’s a quirky statistic and almost sums up the feeling that Pauno remains somewhat unknown despite having a whole campaign behind him. It doesn’t help that aside from three games with 2,000 supporters each in December, we haven’t seen him or his team in person.
The season started over a month after it usually does, meaning more midweek games than ever before were crammed into the schedule, with 46 fixtures still needing to be completed by early May. There has barely been a chance to catch your breath.
But equally, the campaign has felt arduously long, particularly given the way that Reading have almost endured three mini-seasons in one.
They started in electric fashion, then dropped off but maintained their place as promotion and playoff contenders, and are now ending with a whimper.
It’s still a tough fact to take that the season is petering out as it is. If you had told me in October that our final game of the season would be a dead rubber, I would have thought it would be because our place in the Premier League had already been secured and we were in the Purple Turtle.
At the very least, I would have said it was because we were safe of a spot in the playoffs.
Yet here we are, with all those dreams over. We’re not even assured of our place in seventh. The mood around the club is just complete deflation.
But there is something to be said for finishing the season on a high note.
You can just about make excuses for the 4-1 defeat to Norwich City last weekend given the Canaries were going for the title, but really there are no reasons not to go out and put in a performance to be proud of against Huddersfield Town on Saturday.
Simply taking the game in isolation, the Terriers have been the worst-performing Championship side in 2021, only winning three games this calendar year.
It is a game that Reading would expect to win regardless of their own form. The result could also really dictate the mood going into the summer.
Reading haven’t won their final game of the campaign in the last three years, and that has meant that pessimism and gloom has dictated the off-season.
I only need to think back to 2014/15 when the Royals beat Derby County 3-0 on the last day.
That season had been far, far worse than the current one, but an entertaining performance featuring a promising league debut for Tariqe Fosu meant there was plenty of hope for the future.
The same again on Saturday – an encouraging display with a few youngsters thrown in – would put a silver lining on the cloud that has emerged in recent weeks.
By Olly Allen
