Tim Dellor column: Reading prepare for Championship relegation battle as EFL ponders points deduction
Reading fans have deja vu all over again.
Now the English Football League look set to strike again, hitting Reading where it hurts most - flush in the league table.
They announced a suspended six-point deduction last year, so everyone knew a financial foot out of line would be punished.
Like a gambler holding back an ace, the EFL has patiently been biding its time, monitoring all the club's spending while keeping their cards close to their chest.
Just as Reading thought they had probably done enough to survive, wham, that will be six points chalked off and here's your neatly-wrapped relegation battle.
How damaging would a points deduction be?
Speaking to top-tier management at the club, it sounds like an announcement will be made by the EFL next week.
Providing Reading survive in the Championship and it allows them to shake off the transfer embargo, it might be worth taking the hit.
But last time this happened, Reading's form immediately dipped to nearly disastrous levels.
They avoided relegation by four points, but worryingly went from cruising along in 16th at 1.3 points per game, down to 19th and then 21st.
It was like flicking a switch.
The team went from being hungry, ambitious and happy to disjointed, rudderless and flat, almost overnight.
The fear is a similarly spectacular crash after this points deduction.
Last season, Reading recorded just six points from their subsequent 13 games following the points deduction.
If they take six points from their final 13 games this season they will finish on 44 points, which may well not be enough for survival.
Fans will be hoping the club has learned how to cope with this sort of adversity.
Who is to blame?
Over the next few days we will get a better idea of what went on, and how exactly Reading broke the rules this time round.
The EFL made a big song and dance of announcing they would be keeping an eagle eye on naughty Reading.
Clever mischievous school pupils never draw attention to their misdemeanours.
The ones who get into trouble know they will be in for years of disproportionately close scrutiny from their teachers.
Once the teacher's card is marked forget any plans to have fun for the next few terms.
It's similar to Reading with the EFL.
Once they became everyone's best example of a club spending beyond its means and generally looked a bit shambolic, the EFL were always going to make life uncomfortable.
They said they would need to approve every business transaction, and any spending, and they put a ban on Reading bringing any new players in with the implementation of a transfer embargo.
Quite how Reading managed to break EFL rules, while the club was having to seek approval from the EFL for every deal done and contract signed, is baffling.
Either the club ignored the EFL guidance, did their own thing and got caught, or the EFL led the club up the garden path, telling them they were on course to become a prefect, but then hitting them with a detention, despite no discernible change in behaviour.
Either way, neither Reading nor the EFL emerge from this chaos smelling of roses.
'All fans care about is Championship survival'
The club is adamant the wrongdoings are historic.
If that is the case the EFL is like a judge giving a crook a year's suspended sentence in court, only to call the ne'er-do-well back in after another six months of exemplary behaviour, and hitting them with a term in prison.
Surely the suspended sentence should only be invoked for failure to comply with the conditions set out.
That, or hand down a stiffer punishment in the first place.
Perhaps other clubs will receive punishments for similar misdemeanours?
Maybe it's time to overhaul sustainability and profitability rules anyway, allowing clubs like Reading with fabulously wealthy owners the chance to enjoy the same upward mobility Chelsea and Manchester City did in the past 20 years?
Have Reading really been very naughty? Was the guidance given by the EFL helpful or misleading?
These are all questions worth asking.
All fans will really care about at the moment, though, is whether the club is able to survive in the Championship, or will this news derail the season and knock the players out of their stride?
