Ah, 2023. A new year. A time to take stock of what you have, and look forward to the twelve months ahead. The first thing on Paul Ince's plate is to renew Andy Carroll and Amadou Mbengue's contracts - something he's been very vocal about wanting to do. Mbengue is a difficult one. Yes, he is undoubtedly an exciting prospect but this is a club with six other senior centre backs. He'd be useful cover elsewhere, namely at right back, but Kelvin Abrefa has also showed some promise in that position in his, albeit small, cameos so far. Ince has already said his preferred back three is Yiadom, Holmes, and Sarr. Mbengue could be first-choice backup on the right side of that three, but given Yiadom is captain and played more minutes than anyone outside of Ince and Hendrick, realistically he won't get much of a look in. Likewise TMc is probably ahead of him for Sarr's spot. Shifting Moore and Dann in the summer still leaves him in the same position - and that's before
A fairly low quality game, where Laurent's late goal saved Reading's season as much as a point. The one tweak to the shape Ince seems to have made is to push the wingers higher and wider. Reading, however, don't switch play quickly enough to take advantage, and when they do get the ball out wide there are no good crossers of the ball. Tom Ince and Ovie both have to check onto their strong foot, while Yiadom and McIntyre aren't particularly good at putting balls into the box full stop. That can be seen by the fact that they combined for one (or two, depending on who you trust) successful crosses all match, both relatively lucky passes by Ovie somehow finding players around the penalty spot. All exacerbated by the fact that Lucas Joao and John Swift aren't prolific from these situations either. It's also difficult for Reading to fully utilise the width that they set up to exploit. Holmes, Drinkwater, and Swift have the ability to switch play, but often the side w