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Nathan Holmes

With the new Premier League season within touching distance the frenzied fervor is positively palpable. Fantasy football teams are being drawn up, bets are being placed and spouses are once again preparing weekend activities without their other half.

For every fan of every team (well, maybe not Rangers and Portsmouth) the new season represents a new dawn, a new hope, a new reason to wake up in the morning. Never more so is this the case for Reading FC, back in the Premier League after suffering from a fatal case of second-season syndrome back in the 2007/2008 campaign.

But this time it’s different. This time Reading has the remedy to cure any ailment it begins to suffer from. And its name is Anton Zingarevich. The Russian’s deep pockets have already proven useful in the transfer market, with top Championship performers Garath McCleary, Chris Gunter and Adrian Mariappa joining Danny Guthrie, the returning Nicky Shorey and marquee signing Pavel Pogrebnyak. But what’s perhaps more exciting for the Royals long term is that Zingarevich has intentions for a more well-rounded development of the club; the whole infrastructure will be upgraded, from the Academy right through to the stadium.

For the immediate future though, everyone is more interested about what’s going to happen on the pitch for this coming season. Only one of the last six Championship winners suffered immediate relegation from the Premier League and Reading have a team good enough to continue the trend.

Reading’s defence is strong, as 20 clean-sheets last season will attest to. Mariappa will provide a more mobile partner for Alex Pearce, as Kaspars Gorkss, for all his experience, isn’t the quickest. Gunter will provide a more well rounded presence at right-back. At left-back, and

Reading

Season Preview

with a combined age of 65, Reading may very well have the oldest pair of left-backs in the Premier League, but all that experience will help against the pace of Aaron Lennon, Theo Walcott and Antonio Valencia… right?

Reading haven’t looked so healthy up-front since the days when Kevin Doyle and Shane Long were master and apprentice. With Pogrebnyak partnering one of Jason Roberts, Noel Hunt, Simon Church or Adam Le Fondre they shouldn’t be lacking for goals, especially with Jimmy ‘He Does What He Wants’ Kebe and Jobi McAnuff supplying the service from wide.

People may point to Pogrebnyak as a risky signing given his expense and relative inconsistency throughout his career, but if he can spread the same goal-to-game ratio he attained for Fulham (six goals in 12 games) over the course of a whole season, he’ll be a coup.

With Zingarevich, Sir John Madejski and Brian McDermott at the helm, Reading have an exceptional triumvirate with all the right tools to steer the football club into a new era, one in which we don’t have to scrap in a dogfight every season just to stay in the league, but one where we prosper, have success and are feared by other clubs. There truly has never been a more exciting time to be Royals fan.