Reading Women’s 2023/24: A Season In Review
An in-depth look back at how a difficult 2023/24 season panned out for Reading Women.
The continuing off-field (and well documented) activities did nothing to alleviate our ongoing anguish, concerns and fears, meaning that the 2023/24 season, for Reading Women, turned out to be one when footballing success was always going to be difficult (if not impossible).
As the months passed and with no sign of the chaotic off-field behaviours stopping, it became clear that ‘avoiding relegation’ would represent success and give cause for celebration (albeit celebration with a small ‘c’).
Pre-season: All change please
Relegation from the Women’s Super League (WSL) meant Reading Women found themselves back in the second-tier Championship for the first time since 2015, when they won the league (then called the WSL2), finishing above Doncaster Belles on goal difference.
The club wasted no time with the news that the Women’s team would change to a part-time setup, with immediate effect. Inevitably, the squad started to dismantle quickly, with players leaving for better prospects elsewhere.
More bad news quickly followed, when Kelly Cousins (née Chambers) announced that she would also be leaving Reading after 20 years of loyal service - also finding better prospects elsewhere: moving to the United States to become Utah Royals’ sporting director in the NWSL.
The depleted squad needed new faces and, in early August, two new goalkeepers were announced: Emily Orman (on loan from Chelsea) and Rose Kite (joining from Oxford United), with Charlie Estcourt also returning (for her second spell at the club).
Injury struck before a ball had even been kicked competitively, when unlucky new signing Ava Kuyken suffered a rupture of her ACL, ruling her out for the season.
With just nine days remaining until kick-off - and after the embarrassing (and quickly withdrawn) press announcement which somehow appeared to name Carly Davies as the manager (Davies actually joined Nottingham Forest) - Reading officially named the new management team of Liam Gilbert and Dan Logue.
Nearly the perfect start
Reading came close to the dream start when Deanna Cooper scored Reading’s opening goal of the season, direct from a corner, with just two minutes of normal time remaining - against a Crystal Palace team who went on to clinch the title and with it, earn promotion to the Women’s Super League.
It, unfortunately, also coincided with the new PGMOL directives to add longer amounts of stoppage time. Crystal Palace capitalised on this to score their own late, late goal to equalise in the 103rd minute (from the available 16 minutes of time added on).
As Gilbert recalled in an interview with The Tilehurst End, “with only 12 senior players available, if we had held on, it would have been a great start to everything we did, especially considering everything that happened (or rather didn’t happen) pre season”.
Send in the cavalry!
Additions to the sparse squad were urgently needed and August’s signings included Rachel Dugdale and Georgia Wilson, who put pen to paper just two days before the Crystal Palace match (with Dugdale starting the game at left-back).
Josie Longhurst and Caitlin Smith both then followed, in September, alongside the loan signings of Halle Houssein (West Ham United), Lulu Jarvis (Brighton & Hove Albion) and Freya Gregory (Aston Villa).
The January transfer window wasn’t any kinder to Gilbert and Logue, with five players leaving RG2: Sanne Troelsgaard (AS Roma), Lily Woodham (Seattle Reign), on-loan Freya Gregory recalled by her parent club Aston Villa, and with goalkeeper Jackie Burns slowly returning from injury, Rose Kite joined Moneyfields).
Once again, the management duo had to look to their contacts and boosted the squad with more loan signings: Jesse Woolley (Bristol City) and Jessie Stapleton and Keira Flannery (both from West Ham).
An over-promising start
The opening six matches saw the Royals bag an impressive early nine points in the league - with three back-to-back draws (Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic and London City Lionesses), one defeat (at home to Southampton) and two victories (away to Durham and home to Lewes).
The early optimism was, however, quickly re-positioned when they failed to chalk up a win in their next six matches - with three consecutive league defeats (Sunderland, Sheffield United and Birmingham City) and three more draws (Watford, Crystal Palace and Lewes).
It quickly became apparent that lack of goals, and the inability to turn draws into wins, was going to be a problem. It turned out to be one that continued throughout the season: Reading finished bottom of the ‘goals for’ table, with a league total of 20 (both relegated teams - Lewes and Watford - managed to score two more).
This unfortunate statistic was another reflection of the limited budget and resources available. Gilbert reflected in our interview that, alongside injuries, he only had an out-and-out striker available for less than 50% of matches this season - with Troelsgaard, Longhurst and Tia Primmer often having to fill in and play in the central attacking position.
Things could have been different as, when the natural goalscorers played, they scored goals! Charlie Wellings netted two from just five starts (and three more off the bench), while Maddie Perry finished top of the class with four goals from nine starts (and four substitute appearances). Those were impressive stats from the teenager, who only came back into the team (following injury) from mid-November and who was still at school two days a week!
Cup distraction
With Arsenal getting knocked out of Europe early, they joined Reading in a Continental League Cup group alongside fellow WSL teams Tottenham Hotspur and Bristol City and Championship title-chasers Southampton.
With those opponents, it was always going to be a tough task (that’s an understatement!) to progress. Reading ended the campaign bottom of the group, with no victories (in normal time) - but finishing on two points after beating Bristol City on penalties (with an impressive display from young goalkeeper Eve Annets).
The FA Cup first saw an enjoyable away performance, with a 4-0 victory against National League South team Cheltenham Town, only for the Royals to be knocked out, losing 2-1 to National League North outfit Wolverhampton Wanderers.
What followed after the Wolves match just added to the madness of the season, with both teams having to postpone their next league match because of food poisoning - after eating post-match meals from recommended caterers of Aldershot Town, where the match was played (let’s hope that’s a lesson learnt and means future matches won’t be played at the EBB Stadium).
The ‘week from hell’
Reading showed the gritty side of their nature at the start of the back half of the season with two 1-0 victories home to Sunderland (who were reduced to 10 players after 36 minutes) and in horrible weather conditions (and on an awful pitch) at Charlton Athletic. Sandwiched in between was a disappointing home defeat to London City Lionesses (disappointing because they were a team considered to be rivals in the same peer group).
And then came, as the Reading manager called it, “the week from hell” in March, with the team leaking 18 goals in four matches: 5-0 away to Southampton, 4-0 home to Birmingham City, 5-1 away to Sheffield United and 4-1 home to Blackburn Rovers.
With hindsight, it’s perhaps not a surprise when you consider that these results coincided with the announcement of the proposed Bearwood training ground sale and the real fear for the club’s survival.
Character, tenacity, spirit
On the back of these disastrous results, and with the grim reaper’s relegation scythe in touching distance, the team had just three matches remaining to save their season - and that’s exactly what they did!
The four points from a goalless draw at Blackburn Rovers and a home 1-0 victory over Durham (and only double of the season) were enough to secure safety in the Championship.
The disappointing 3-2 defeat on the last game of the season, away to Watford, no longer mattered as far as points were concerned, but it was not the way to end the season - and certainly not if you were one of the fans sitting in the stands watching in the cold, wet April weather.
However, it was a credit to the management skills of Gilbert and Logue that they were able to not only galvanise the team (to get the required points) but also to keep the squad together during the season (particularly after ‘the week from hell’) as there must have been some players that had simply stopped believing and lost the fight.
The spirit, fight and never-say-die attitude of the players who took to the pitch for those two last important matches were evident. It was clear to see that, as obvious as it may sound, the players cared as much about the club as the fans did.
For those who like numbers
10th: Reading finished 10th in the Barclays Championship (11th-placed Lewes and 12th-placed Watford were both relegated) with a total of 22 points (five wins, seven draws and 10 defeats).
11: Reading picked up 11 points from their opening 11 matches and another 11 points across the remaining 11 matches.
0: The number of penalties scored (in the league) by Reading - and I can’t remember a spot-kick being awarded for the Royals (cue someone quickly reminding me of a missed penalty…)
40: The number of league goals conceded. This placed the Royals in a similar third from bottom in the league.
8: Reading’s number of clean sheets. With the lack of goals, gritty defending was how the team picked up valuable points - with ‘keeper Orman notching up six clean sheets (from 17 matches) and Burns getting an impressive two clean sheets (from playing just the last four matches of the season). That ranked the Reading goalkeeping stats the fifth-best in the league.
5: The number of goals scored by Reading’s leading joint goal-scorers - Perry (with four in the league and one in the FA Cup) and Wellings (with two in the league, one in the Conti Cup (plus a penalty) and two in the FA Cup).
Cooper and Wade both finished on three goals - both with two in the league and one in the FA Cup.
22: The maximum number of league appearances for Wade - with Estcourt (20+1) and Dugdale (18+3) not far behind.
2: Reading were given two red cards this season - Troelsgaard, straight red vs Charlton Athletic and Primmer, with a second yellow against Lewes.
8: Primmer’s tally of yellow cards (plus the red), the highest of all the Reading players (from 13 starts and two substitute appearances). This won’t come as a surprise to many fans (nor to Primmer!) - mainly down to her battling, never-give-up style of play and, of course, Tia just being Tia!
Onto better things (fingers crossed)
With the protracted exclusivity and ownership takeover talks, this remains a source of frustration and concern. It also doesn’t help when you see other Championship teams signing contracts with players and the likes of Portsmouth making the announcement of their transition to becoming a full-time professional football club.
All we can do is hope that this is resolved quickly, with new trusted owners in place and, with it, some positivity to regroup, rebuild and strive for real footballing aims, ambitions and targets next season.
So let’s do it all again next season, but, hopefully, on more of a stable footing. See you there!