by Sutekh »
21 Jan 2026 09:44
Clyde1998 stealthpapes I don't understand Joseph Mendes.
The one or two games I remember him in, he was absolutely electric. Just looking at transfermarkt and he's 2 starts (scored in both games, including that double vs Villa*) and 10 sub appearances for no more than about 15 minutes. Next season, appears to be 1 start, 1 assist and then an injury and that's it.
Highlights here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK1UML0qKAEWe already knew the wages were too high after Premier League relegation
This was 2016-17 and 2017-18 so relegation was a good few years previous. I don't think many of the relegated team would have still been around - Danny Williams?
Grabban and Mutch were loans in that season, both from Premier League sides.
Sorry, I meant in terms of the period between Premier League relegation to us getting relegated from the Championship (ie. post Madejski), as opposed to any specific players from the relegated side. Wages were consistently too high for a prolonged period (and probably still are tbh) and were the biggest contributory factor as to why we ran into financial problems.
Good point about Grabban and Mutch; we were (hopefully) only paying a proportion of their wages.
Thought Mendes could have really done something with Reading, sadly the succession of clueless managers started about then and it all went pear shaped for him and the team in general.