A Walk Down Reading Transfer Departure Memory Lane: 2021/22
A mixed bag of quality is covered in the latest edition
It’s the international break and not a huge amount of meaningful football is happening in the UK right now, so I’ve decided to take a walk down memory lane to check in on those who have left the club since the summer of 2019 and how our alumni are now doing.
We now reach the midway point, featuring a few “boomerangs” who left and came back, in various guises. Some of these names may invoke more recent memories for both good and bad reasons, management included...
2021/22
Manager: Veljko Paunović, then we unearthed Paul Ince from the management graveyard
Club captain: Liam Moore (before releasing a statement saying he wants to leave and left on loan to Stoke City) then Michael Morrison picked up the duty
Player of the season: Andy Yiadom
Final league position: 21th in the Championship (after our first six-point deduction for breaking FFP rules)
Money made from player sales: £8 million
Total players who left: 14 (including four loan deals ending)
Departures list
Michael Olise: I’ll get right to the point here: the guy is doing BITS in the Premier League these days, after leaving for Crystal Palace at the start of their Patrick Vieira era, and accounting for all the money we made in player departures for this season. We all know what he’s been up to, namely terrifying defences as an electric winger, and we all knew he was capable of it too.
It was heartbreaking to see him go, but sometimes you just have to let them fly the nest and make it in the world on their own. However, Michael, if you’re reading this, you’re always welcome back for a season or 10.
Reportedly he’s attracting admiring glances from the established elite of the Premier League and apparently has a release clause of £60 million in his contract with Palace, which is mad when you consider that effectively you could now buy two Reading FCs for that money.
Rafael Cabral: The Brazilian goalkeeper, and player of the season winner for 2019/20, was all shades of everything for us while at Reading for two and a half seasons. When he was great, he was fantastic. Sadly, when he wasn’t, his form really dipped.
And this is how his career petered out with us, after sustaining a hand injury (allegedly from punching a wall after Reading capitulated to draw 3-3 with QPR) and saw his place in the team taken over by academy graduate, and far cheaper alternative, Luke Southwood.
In total, Cabral made 98 appearances, conceding 126 goals but keeping 30 clean sheets, and he left us in the January transfer window of 2022 after his contract was mutually agreed to be terminated, reportedly to shift his wages off our books. He went back to Brazil and joined Cruzeiro, where he is still carving out a successful career, having so far conceded 99 goals and kept 45 clean sheets in 116 appearances.
Andy Carroll: SPOILER ALERT! This will not be the only mention of Andrew Thomas Carroll during this series. However, SPOILER ALERT AGAIN!, this is the version of the Geordie striker that I much prefer and I can imagine the Royals fans will agree with that.
Having been released by hometown Newcastle United, he spent a few months looking for a new team and eventually arrived at Reading on a free transfer on a very short-term three-month deal to both bolster our ailing attack and keep us as close to financial compliance as possible.
In his eight appearances with us he scored two goals, provided one assist and generally gave us a threat that we didn’t have before, possibly owing to his height of 1.93m and general physical presence/elbows.
League rivals West Bromwich Albion smelt an opportunity and snapped him up at the end of his deal with us, where he linked up with former Newcastle manager Steve Bruce. Whether we didn’t have the money to extend his deal or he thought West Brom offered him a better opportunity to get back to the Premier League, I am not sure.
Carroll saw out the rest of the season with West Brom, scoring three times in 15 appearances and was released at the end of the season. Find out what happened next in the next part of this series…
Sam Walker: Goalkeeper Walker joined us on a free transfer from League One Colchester United, and I’m not the only one unsure why he or we bothered joining as, at the time, we had an army of goalkeepers on the books.
During his three seasons with us he played 14 times and conceded 23 goals. In his last season, he had two loan spells out of the club, at Blackpool and AFC Wimbledon. Leaving us on a free transfer, he joined Scottish side Kilmarnock for two seasons, playing 43 times and conceding 59 goals while keeping 10 clean sheets. At the end of the two-year deal, he was released in the summer of 2023.
He turned up at league rivals Charlton Athletic in October of 2023 on a three-month deal to provide injury cover for the side, making three appearances, conceding two goals and keeping one clean sheet. Charlton didn’t extend this deal, so in January 2024 he joined League Two side Bradford City where he has taken the number one position and played 12 times, conceding 15 goals and keeping five clean sheets.
Sam Smith: Academy graduate Sam Smith signed his first professional contract with us in 2016 but spent pretty much the entirety of his time out on loan with lower league clubs such as Oxford United, Shrewsbury Town and Cambridge United. Due to the lack of opportunities to break through to the first team, he was released by Reading in 2021, having played 14 times and scored three goals, and he returned to Cambridge United on a permanent basis, signing a two-year deal.
The regular game time really aided Smith’s development as a striker, with 109 games allowing him to register 35 goals. Smith left Cambridge in the summer of 2023 to join *checks notes* Reading FC on a free transfer. Welcome back, Sam!
See, Mr Olise? It’s great here, you’d love it. Since returning to Reading this season, Smith has played 30 times in all competitions, scored 12 goals and is crowned Berkshire’s Most Handsome Man on a weekly basis by Ben on the pod. Fair to say it’s gone pretty well for him, then.
Omar Richards: A little peak behind the curtains for you here – this chapter of the series has been the hardest to write so far, not because this season saw so many great talents depart the club but because the great departing talents are all young, academy players who cover positions we really need more depth in.
Richards as a left-back is a prime example of this. Richards broke through from the academy under Jaap Stam in 2017 and never looked back, becoming an ever-present for the side with 104 appearances and three goals during his time in Berkshire.
However, due to the ongoing financial uncertainty going on with Reading at the time, we were prime fodder for the vultures to swoop in and collect our best talents. And vultures don’t come much bigger than Bayern Munich, who smelled a bargain from all the way over in Germany, a country famed for developing young, English talent into outrageous footballers. Naturally, this was an offer that Richards couldn’t refuse, so off he went.
Richards only stayed one season in Germany, managing a respectable 17 appearances and one assist. When you consider that he was competing with Alphonso Davies, one of the top left-backs in the world, he was always going to struggle to break through.
Nottingham Forest swooped in during the summer of 2022, when they were busy signing 1,200 players, and brought him back to England and into the Premier League, where he went on to play…. zero times, with his time there disrupted by injury.
He’s now been farmed out to Olympiacos on loan, where he now presumably shares a hotel room with Nelson Abbey during away games, and has featured only seven times this season. Let’s pretend that he secretly wishes Reading would come back for him, he can make a glorious return and we’ll just pretend the last three years didn’t happen. If it helps, Omar, you and Michael can share an Uber from Heathrow.
Sone Aluko: In part two, I spoke about Mo Barrow flattering to deceive, in my opinion. This was not the case for Aluko. When he joined, TTE questioned the value in it and by the time he left, there were no more questions in the matter. He was an absolute waste of time and money for Reading.
Players like him contributed to the mess that we found ourselves in. Aside from a year-long loan at Dai’s doomed Beijing Renhe, in four years with 102 appearances, five goals and eight assists for a winger of his reported transfer fee… it’s the kind of thing that makes you want to lock yourself in a dark room for a little while and have a little shout, and use a choice of words that would make a sailor blush. And breathe, Alex.
After stealing a living from Reading After being released at the end of his four-year deal, he was picked up by Ipswich Town on a free transfer, where has turned it all around in a glorious redemption arc, becoming a hero of the modern era of football and now has a statue built in his honour where he’s continued to be a bit pants at football, really, truth be told.
62 appearances, four goals and two assists for the former Nigerian international tell one story, but Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna has praised his input and the support off the pitch that he has provided the team, which encouraged them to extend his contract, so he remains at Premier League promotion-challenging Ipswich.
Football’s a funny old game, isn’t it?
Sam Baldock: Baldock came to Reading with a hefty price tag, but as a proven striker. However, it never really worked out for him during his time at the club, and as his time at the club drew to a close, he hinted at the unrest behind the scenes which we have seen play out in the public eye since then, most prominently this season, so you do wonder how much of that impacted his ability to perform at his best while at Reading. You could also argue though that - as a seasoned professional earning big money - we were entitled to expect more than 11 goals in 74 games, none of which came in his final season.
After leaving Reading, Baldock joined Derby County on a six-month deal (which seems strange, given they were deducted 21 points that season for their FFP misses, so the behind-the-scenes issues would surely have been worse?), but after 14 appearances and two goals, he didn’t have the deal extended.
In January 2022, straight after his time at Derby finished, he joined League One rivals (in every sense of the word) Oxford United to play 11 games and contribute four goals and one assist. He started this season at Oxford United but was forced to retire in September at the age of 34 due to an injury.
However, he remains at Oxford United, taking up a role as a business development analyst for the club. An interesting side note is that his younger brother, George, is playing for Sheffield United in the Premier League and also plays for the Greek international team.
Tennai Watson: Another academy alumni who got away, versatile full-back Watson only featured nine times for the Royals’ first team, and only had a couple of average loan spells away from the club. Most of his football was played in the under-21s, where he was a creative outlet with two goals and two assists in four games at that level.
Watson did not appear to have been offered a contract extension as his deal was expiring, so he was released in the summer of 2021. He immediately went on trial with MK Dons and impressed enough to earn a two-year contract. He spent two seasons at MK Dons, playing 70 times with two goal contributions and three assists.
However, in his last season with MK Dons, they were relegated to League Two and he decided to make the switch to Charlton Athletic, rather than renew his deal. He joined Charlton at the start of the season and has been an ever-present in the team, with 37 appearances, one goal and four assists. At the age of 27, he seems to have found his level in League One.
Oliver Pendlebury: Another Reading Academy graduate, though, in the nicest possible way, he made no discernible impact at the club and only featured once for Reading, in an FA Cup defeat at Luton Town.
Unsurprisingly, new terms on his contract were not offered but it was not a case of a despair for the midfielder, as he signed an immediately agreement with Wycome Wanderers on a one-year deal. He started the season in the first team, due a number of injuries in the side, but by March 2022 was allowed to join National League side Woking on a loan deal until the end of the season.
Pendlebury was released by Wycombe at the end of the season, after nine appearances and two goals. He was picked up by Farnborough Town on a six-month deal in the summer, where he made 17 appearances and scored three goals. However, at the end of the deal in January 2023, he didn’t extend the contract but instead joined Aldershot Town for the rest of the season, scoring one goal in 17 appearances.
Released once more at the end of his deal, in the summer of 2023 he signed for Ayr United in Scotland. Despite playing regularly in his first month at the club, he requested to be released from his contract for “personal reasons” and a month later rejoined Farnborough Town. He remains there and in the strongest form of his career so far, with 35 appearances and six goals so far this season.
Tom Dele-Bashiru: We enter loan signing territory now, starting with (full name) Ayotomiwa Sherif “Tom” Dele-Bashiru. Did you know that? Fun and educational this trip down memory lane!
The Nigerian midfielder joined us on loan from Watford, who had just been relegated from the Premier League, and Dele-Bashiru himself recovering from an ACL injury sustained in the previous season. Despite this, he seemed like a good loan signing and he certainly featured regularly for us during the season, registering a respectable four goals and three assists in 39 appearances.
I never felt like we saw the best of him, but he was certainly a solid performer (and in retrospect, I’d love to have had him again the following year rather than Jeff Hendrick). He seemed to enjoy his time at the club despite the challenges of points deductions and management changes.
Dele-Bashiru returned to Watford, where he struggled to break into the first team during the 2022/23 season, though likely not helped by the management revolving-door at the club. However, this season he has really kicked on at Watford with three goals and three assists across 33 appearances, playing largely as a box-to-box midfielder. A lot of threes there.
Still only 24, Dele-Bashiru continues to improve and looks to have a future as a solid Championship-level performer ahead of him.
Abdul Rahman Baba: A £14 million international defender joining Reading on loan? You better believe it! How is this possible? Because Chelsea, that’s how. They spent a mad amount of money on a left-back that they never really needed, but ended up staying with them for eight seasons and playing 23 games, the last of which came in 2016. Despite the fact “Baba”, as he was known, officially left the club in 2023. Madness.
Anyway, time for another SPOILER ALERT! Because this is not the last time that we will see Baba mentioned in this series. And much like Carroll, the first version was by far the one we all preferred. Baba arrived in the summer of 2021 to plug a gap on the left side of the pitch, since we seemed to have given away all of our left-backs, and featured 29 times all season, contributing one assist.
However, he’s most fondly remembered for this tweet.
Any Royal still awake? Just wanted to say you guys are special and you give me so much love and support. I appreciate it all.
— baba abdul-rahman (@babarahmangh) October 17, 2021
Come back next time for part two of the “Baba Story”. The Netflix movie is presumably in the making.
Danny Drinkwater: A £35 million Premier League-winning, international midfielder joining Reading on loan? You better believe it! How is this possible? Because Chelsea, that’s how. God bless that club and their transfer nonsense.
After Drinkwater joined Chelsea, they quickly realised that the player they had signed wasn’t the vintage Leicester City title-winner, even despite being able to play alongside N’Golo Kante once again during his first two years there.
After being shipped out of Chelsea on a few disastrous loan spells for the next two years, notably head-butting an Aston Villa teammate during training and having the loan spell cancelled, he eventually found his way to Reading because I guess beggars can’t be choosers? You can apply that moniker to whomever you deem appropriate in this context!
He arrived very unfit, which is to be expected for someone who had barely kicked a ball, or teammate for that matter, in anger for two years, but he eventually got into his groove for Reading and was a steady presence in the side, but nothing more, notching one goal and one assist in his 33 appearances.
Paul Ince apparently tried to bring him back after his loan spell had finished, and his Chelsea contract had expired, but for whatever reason this never came to fruition. In October 2023, after not getting any other offers, Drinkwater eventually decided to call it a day and officially retired from football. He doesn’t seem to be up to much these days, but with a surname like his, creating his own Carabao-rivalling energy drink is surely only a matter of time?
Karl Hein: Similar to the left-back issue, we eventually realised that shipping out players to reduce the wage bill is all well and good until you run out of players available in certain positions. In this case, goalkeepers.
To remedy this, after Rafael Cabral left (mentioned earlier in this article), Hein came in from Arsenal on a January loan to provide back-up to Luke Southwood. As a side note, when Reading announced his arrival on the website, Dayong Pang made a statement. I didn’t realise he ever did that. It remains to be seen how much he actually knew about who he was announcing.
Another side note: Hein might be the first Estonian to have played for Reading – I’ll need to look into that. Anyway, Hein’s time was cut short with us after a freak accident at home left him with ligament damage in his finger and requiring surgery. Hein made five league appearances after replacing Southwood, conceding eight goals and keeping one clean sheet, and generally left us wondering: why not just promote Boyce-Clarke from the academy?
After this loan spell, Hein returned to Arsenal and largely now features in their under-21s side and in their EFL Trophy games. He can also be found warming the bench occasionally for Arsenal, most notably when they are playing Brentford and David Raya isn’t allowed to feature against his parent club. He could be promoted to second choice if Aaron Ramsdale leaves, but that doesn’t seem likely.
NOTE: I nearly added Tom Ince here, given that he was a loan arrival and then departure, but we’ve already had two ‘spoiler alert’ types of players and the gap between leaving and rejoining permanently is so minimal that I’m pretty certain he never really left, and just ambled around the training ground until the paperwork was signed.