Like Father, Like Son

[tenthreeleader]

I suppose it does, at that .... who knew?

___

“Why is Dad always so aggressive?”

Ryan sat next to his mother at the kitchen table on the night before the Watford match. The team was going to take an early matchday coach the next morning – ownership had decided against lodging the players in a hotel the night before the match.

It wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for the team’s chances, but Ryan still would have preferred a relaxed buildup to the match rather than scrambling to get everyone on a coach at 8 a.m.

But for now, Ryan sat with Patty and they talked about the person to whom they were related by marriage.

“Remember what your father went through to keep the job you have,” she said. “All the fights he had to endure. It put an edge on him and he kept it in things that had to do with football.”

“Well, yes, but there’s a lot of conflict in him.”

“Yes, but he also had the sense to understand where his position was strongest,” she answered. “He inherited a team that was on the up, and he knew it. He knew that getting over with the fans was going to be the biggest factor in his success, so he became their defender. You don’t have that luxury, but you do have the relationships he built with them. That’s how we won his battles, and you have his legacy with them to win yours.”

“At least that’s what he thinks,” Ryan answered, taking a sip from a cup of tea.

“Well, he’s always said it’s your team,” she replied patiently. She had spent many years defending her husband’s behavior which could at times be quite fiery, but she also knew that much of that fire was directed at protecting her and their family.

“It’s just funny,” Ryan said. “Just once it would be interesting if he said something like ‘you should get a gift for Dai and get on his good side.’”

“I think he’d rather scratch his eyeballs with a fork,” Patty smiled.

“He’s fought for everything he gained in the game,” she added. “It’s not in his nature to sit down and shut up when there’s a principle to fight for.”

“Or a person to fight,” Ryan smiled.

It wasn’t exactly a fair characterization, but for the time being, it would do. Rob was not a fighter by nature but if you got into his business, he could make you regret it. And everything he did was for his family, even though sometimes the added bonus of an ego stroke could make the fight sweeter to win.

He did have an ego. Most great managers do. They don’t get their jobs unless they think they can do them better than anyone else, and once Rob showed he actually could do it better than anyone else, he wasn’t shy in telling people about it.

But Ryan was different. Though he had his mother’s red hair, he didn’t have the redhead’s famed fiery temper. He was a different person, and didn’t always like to mix it up with the press, board members, media types or any of the other hangers-on that dog a professional football club.

Winning on the pitch was the most important thing for him, and he figured that once he showed he could do that, the other battles would take care of themselves.

While Rob slept in the next room, Ryan realized that he faced a decision he was eventually going to have to make; whether to fall into his father’s orbit or break away into deep, uncharted space.

Just then Annie, who had overheard the conversation, entered the kitchen and crossed behind her husband to rub his shoulders.

“You can do anything you want,” she reminded him. “You can do anything you set your mind to. Whether or not your father is a brilliant manager – which he was and probably still is – you can carve your own pathway.”

Patty smiled at her daughter-in-law and spoke with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

“Maybe one Rob Ridgway is enough,” she said playfully.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

10 September 2022
Watford v Reading, Championship Match Day #9

Ryan stepped off the coach at Vicarage Road at the head of his team and then stepped aside to watch his players pass, one by one, into Watford’s home ground.

He was watching for any signs that the ride from Berkshire had had any negative effect on anyone – limps, tight muscles, sore joints, anything that might affect his decisions on how the team should play on the day.

Seeing nothing amiss, he proceeded to the visiting manager’s office and finished filling out his team sheet. There wouldn’t be a lot of change from Stoke, but some players needed to get back into the lineup after coming back from international duty.

One of those players was Casadei, who had looked very good for Italy’s u-19s and appeared to be riding a good streak of form. So as Ryan briefed the team on the day’s tactics, he had the young midfielder in mind.

“We’re going with 4-3-3 today,” he said, in a tone of voice that would have made his father proud. “We’re flipping both attacking forwards to the middle, and we’re going to play a little tiki-taka today.”

That brought some smiles from the players, who had something new to talk about. This was a new look for Reading and for Ryan as well, having not used the tactic in a Championship match to date, so unveiling it playing away to the sixth-placed team was a real risk.

But the players loved it. Casadei liked it even more when Ryan used an Italian word to describe his role for the day.

“Play a mezzala style,” Ryan said, in a tone that would have raised his father’s eyebrows. Rob had managed in Italy before coming to Reading, and he would have no more started a mezzala player in midfield than he would have stood on the touchline without his pants.

“We want possession today and that means Cesare has a role to fill,” Ryan said. A player in the half-spaces could link midfield to forwards in a narrow attack, and that was just what Ryan had in mind.

“They are weak up the middle,” Ryan said. “Focus play through the middle, let’s move the ball among these gentlemen and when we wear them out, we’ll pip a goal and head back home. What do you say, lads?”

Loud agreement greeted the manager which was gratifying for more than one reason. Buy-in is always good to see from players, but enthusiasm was something quite different.

The team went through its warmups in high spirits and punctually at 3:00, the match kicked off.

Ryan expected a strong start from the home team, which had crashed 4-0 against Huddersfield in its prior match. Stung to the quick and challenged by their manager, Watford started out on the front foot, while Ryan’s tiki-taka was able to deny Watford what it most wanted, which was possession.

Reading picked up some unfortunate good fortune twelve minutes into the match, when Watford’s Udinese loanee, Hassane Kamara, hobbled off injured rubbing his right calf, taking a pretty good wing player right out of the equation for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, once again the Royals had a hard time producing quality attacks with the possession they had, which was the lion’s share over the first half hour. Watford had the only two good chances of that time period and it took a full 35 minutes before Ince came close with a rasping drive from eighteen yards that barely missed the crossbar, which wouldn’t have helped but which would have made a much better sound.

Still and all, they got to halftime scoreless and that was a victory of sorts for a team being asked to tinker with its engine while the motor was running. Casadei hadn’t played badly but there was a general staleness to the Royals that came with a lot of matches in a short period of time, and that would simply take time to overcome.

The need became more urgent when Ismalia Sarr opened the scoring for Watford four minutes after the restart. The Senegalese beat Lumley with some ease with some help from the Brazilian João Pedro, who at age twenty was evidently not old enough to have only one name.

Ryan decided to stick with Casadei in his role and was rewarded when he found Yiadom with a seeing-eye ball down the flank for the overlapping fullback. His cutback found Junior Hoilett right where he was supposed to be, and the ball was right where it was supposed to be soon after, which is to say in the back of the net.

It was another battling performance away from home. Three points were probably not on the cards, but the one Reading got would have to be enough.

Watford 1-1 Reading
Sarr 49; Hoilett 72
A – 19,348 (1,110 away)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Some rest was good, but Ryan, of course, never stopped working.

All he wanted was for his team to get into some sort of rhythm. They were performing above expectations, to be certain, but this business of playing twice a week for a month and then once in ten days was playing hell both with training as well as fitness.

The squad was small, yes, but they were all getting chances to play and that much was fine. But Ryan was still learning the art of how to balance a squad and the various needs of each of its players.

He managed men differently than a lot of managers did – he gave them credit for being men until they gave him a reason not to. That seemed fair to everyone.

That meant the players were on their best behavior until they messed up and drew Ryan’s ire. He had made it plain that if he ever called a player by his first and last name, that player was in trouble he didn’t want to be in.

Which was why Dean Bouzanis had been called, by name, to the manager’s office on the Monday following the Watford match.

Now the team’s third-choice keeper after the promotion of the precociously talented Coniah Boyce-Clarke to the senior squad, Bouzanis hadn’t been taking his training with a sufficient level of seriousness in recent days.

He sat across the manager’s desk from Ryan, who motioned to a television screen on the wall to his left and took a remote from his desk.

“Dean, watch this,” Ryan said, hitting the play button for an obviously pre-recorded sequence of video.

The video was from the last few training sessions and showed, in the main, Bouzanis standing around. Or sitting, a cardinal sin in most managers’ training sessions. To be fair to the player, Ryan also included some decent work done by the Australian in training, but after a minute or so, his point had been made.

“What’s up with that?” Ryan asked.

“Well, I went down the pecking order a bit, and I reckon I didn’t handle that as well as I should have,” the keeper admitted.

“That’s an understatement,” Ryan said, trying not to sound severe but knowing he needed to say what had to be said next.

“It isn’t professional,” Ryan said, and Bouzanis looked up at him with a wounded expression.

“I’ve played two hundred senior matches, gaffer,” he replied. “I think that deserves a bit of consideration.”

“Which is why I’m talking with you here, behind a closed door, instead of out on the ground in front of your teammates,” Ryan said, with just enough of a knife edge in his voice to cut the skin but not cause bleeding. “That’s out of respect for you. Can I see better in training, please?”

Bouzanis nodded. There was really nothing he could say, and both men knew it.

It was once said of the American baseball manager Frank Robinson that he could “step on your shoes but not mess up your shine.” It was precisely this effect Ryan was trying to have on Bouzanis, who as a new arrival at the club prior to Ryan’s taking charge, should have known better than to challenge the manager in the first place.

“Look, Dean,” Ryan finally said in an effort to break the silence, “anyone can make a mistake. Let’s consider this one yours and move on from it. You want to play, I’d like to have you available for selection, but I can’t pick you when you behave like that in training.”

“Understood,” Bouzanis said. Showing he had learned, he waited for Ryan to end the meeting.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

He really hadn’t wanted to discipline Bouzanis, who was immensely likeable and a player popular with his teammates. But Ryan hadn’t felt he had a choice.

At this level, the game wasn’t for mollycoddles. Everyone knew that. The fact that some people had it easier than others simply reinforced the idea that sometimes life was just unfair.

Ryan made it a point to hand out praise as well – not to the point of being obsequious, but to let the players, especially Bouzanis, know that he could notice the good as well as the bad, as the team continued its strong start to the season.

Things had even cooled down with the front office and the board room, to an extent. Dai still hadn’t put in an appearance at the stadium and wasn’t likely to as long as he was less popular than scurvy among the Royals faithful.

All this gave Ryan time and space. And that was what he needed most – the time to get the players to come together as a true team, the kind that everyone wants their team to be but which for some reason never quite figures out how to get there.

Yet, Ryan had achieved very strong results with a very simple tactic, and that had raised a few eyebrows around the Championship.

In his pre-match media briefing prior to hosting Sunderland, Ryan tried to explain it. Unfortunately for him, Anderson was the questioner, who wanted to know why he couldn’t seem to find anything more complex to give his charges than a simple 4-2-3-1.

Ryan chose to be discreet in his answer this time, though, deciding to see how it might work out for him.

“Because the Championship is a real grind, Colin, as you are well aware,” he began. “There are very few leagues in the world, perhaps probably none outside England, who expect 46 regular season matches out of their players. I feel that if you’re going to succeed in a league like this one, you have to keep it simple, especially since we have a small squad and not a lot of room for error. I want this team to learn together, work together and above all play together regardless of who is out there from one match to the next. The time will probably come when I’ll want to throw in a wrinkle at a key moment or for a key opponent, but none of that matters if we can’t beat the drop after starting so well. I hope that answers your question.”

Anderson looked at Ryan like he had just been hit by lightning. Finally, he spoke. “Yes, yes it does, Ryan,” he said. “Thank you.”

He then got a chance to talk about the Black Cats, one of England’s recent hard-luck clubs. Netflix miniseries notwithstanding, it hadn’t been very pleasant to be a Sunderland fan in recent years. Despite resources thrown into the club by a parade of owners, there wasn’t a lot in the way of results to be seen for it all.

Sunderland had won only one of its first seven matches, placing them four points behind Reading even with the points deduction added in. The fact that they had three draws was the only thing keeping them out of the drop zone.

They were probably looking for an away day in any event, having played their last two matches at home and winning neither. First they had crashed 3-nil to Norwich, which was galling enough for a Sunderland fan, and then they had failed to protect leads of 2-nil and 3-2 in a 4-4 draw with Millwall that, rather surprisingly, saw both teams score own goals.

Ryan had snickered when he saw the analytics from that match. The XG was Millwall 1.1, Sunderland 0.5. So naturally it had wound up 4-4.

The media meeting was more lighthearted than he could remember it being. He didn’t mind that a bit.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

14 September 2022
Reading v Sunderland – Championship Match Day #10
Referee: Chris Kavanagh
Match Theme: Workin’ Day and Night – Michael Jackson

 

Ryan got some good news from Hirons upon arrival at the ground. He was informed that Carroll, Abrefa and Nesta Guinness-Walker were all available for selection, reducing the load in the training room by half.

Guinness-Walker was the farthest away of the three from full match activity so after speaking with the player, Ryan made him available for u-21 play until his match sharpness and fitness returned to their normal levels.

Carroll, on the other hand, went straight into the team. Scouting reports showed that Sunderland could be victimized through the air and there was nobody on the team better to take advantage of that fact than he was.

Abrefa made the substitutes’ bench, held back by Yiadom’s recent good form, but he said he was ready for anything the manager might decide, and he was training better since recovering from his twisted knee as well.  

They were prepared to face a Sunderland team that was replete with its usual drama, having sagged all the way to 22^nd place in the early going and increasing the pressure on their latest manager, Tony Mowbray.

They had only played seven matches, the fewest in the Championship, but had only collected six points from them and that had their intensely loyal fan base already in five-alarm-fire mode.

Still, they traveled in their thousands, which boosted Reading’s gate, made Dai more money and delayed the fans’ wish for him to sell up. You couldn’t win for losing sometimes.

While the teams warmed up, Ryan watched second-placed Bristol City hold leaders Norwich to a 0-0 draw in Norwich, an impressive result with the hosts already three points clear of the field after only nine games played. They entered to the King of Pop, with the music selectors hoping some of his magic would rub off on the team.

As the match kicked off, Ryan decided to listen to Rae and pull the team back from its favored positive approach to a more balanced one. He then watched as Sunderland started on the front foot and won two corners within the first five minutes.

Ryan gave the arrangement a few more minutes before switching back and was immediately rewarded. A long ball to the center of the field shook Yakou Meite loose down the right. He reached the area and cut back for Ince, who calmly slotted home fifteen minutes into the match to give Reading the early advantage.

Yet, despite everything they had done to gain the early advantage, there was no “boots on necks” from the team for the remainder of the first half. Mowbray had his team in the perfect response mode to the goal, with Manchester United loanee Amad Diallo spearheading the attack and nearly finding the range 35 minutes into the match.

Then Carroll took a high ball over the top of the Sunderland defense and lashed home, only for the goal to be rightly chalked off for offside. Despite Sunderland’s known deficiencies in the air, Reading’s crossing was awful in the first half and as such there was no service to Carroll, who didn’t play well as a pressing forward by nature.

Still, Reading got to the break ahead 1-0 and these things could be forgotten, or at least worked on, to prepare for the second half.

Worrying to Ryan was Naby Sarr’s complete switching off in the first half right after the goal. He had also been carded early in the match and was a prime candidate for early replacement, but Ryan decided to personally talk with his central defender during the halftime break.

“Naby, I need to know if you want to be out there,” Ryan said, and the defender reacted with shock.

“Of course I do,” he said indignantly.

“Then you need to prove it to me,” Ryan said levelly, turning away from his defender. “Because you don’t look to me like you do.”

Thus fortified, with the rest of the team in better spirits, the second half began and again Reading looked sluggish in the early moments of play.

But then it was Ince making another play – sadly, for the wrong team. His woeful ball forward just after the hour was intercepted by Joe Gelhardt and just like that, it was 1-1 in 62 minutes.

“We look like we’ve never tried to pass or cross a football before,” Ryan moaned. Rae shrugged, while further down the bench, Rob was waiting for his turn to speak.

“Take the focus off the right wing,” he finally said, when Ryan had nodded for his father’s advice.

He had a point. With Meite first shifted to the striker position when Carroll came off four minutes after the Sunderland goal, and  then to left wing, he could be paired against the yellow-carded American international Lynden Gooch. With Ince striking well but not passing well, it seemed the logical thing to do.

But nothing helped. Sunderland had the majority of attempts in the match despite 61 percent Reading possession, but was spectacularly wasteful with them. The result was a draw that neither team liked, but which got Sunderland out of the drop zone and which made the Royals unbeaten in four – though they had only managed to win one.

Reading 1-1 Sunderland
Ince 15; Gelhardt 62

# # #