Marked for Derrick Williams
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.77, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Reading can pretend not to have heard.
Market4 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad4 Jan 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Reading have had the benefit of it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Reading
Lewis Wing and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Coventry City have kept their man, and Reading go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match2 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Marcus Forss’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Reading.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. George Earthy has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Sep 2026
3‑0, and Marcus Forss took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Reading tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Match26 Sep 2026
Reading cannot stop winning
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad28 Sep 2026
George Earthy is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Reading this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Daniel Kyerewaa falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match22 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Stevenage, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Lewis Wing at his very best
Marked 8.33. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Reading.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Reading, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The window shuts on the Lee Bonis deal
Reading ran out of time with Chesterfield. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad14 Sep 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Reading training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Kyerewaa is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kai Andrews was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Derrick Williams, and the manager let it.
Match12 Sep 2026
Burton Albion left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Daniel Cunningham after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Kai Andrews gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kai Andrews has just signed for Reading, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Stade de Reims is saying, and nobody at Reading is enjoying the guessing.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lewis Wing commits to Reading for another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Reading this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade de Reims have kept their man, and Reading go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
No place for Marcus Forss in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Reading are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market10 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and George Earthy’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A loan move for Dan Agyei is in the works
Reading have made the call to Kocaelispor. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Derrick Williams and Reading agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Reading are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Lewis Wing in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Reading this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Reading
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Kyerewaa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Reading, another week without a signature from Daniel Kyerewaa.
Market3 Aug 2026
24 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Birmingham have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Stade de Reims: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Ajax have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.