Form Guide: How Stam's Reading have become 'Barca of the Championship'

“They are the closest I’ve seen to a Barcelona or Manchester City type team.” Martin Allen is renowned for providing a good line but the Barnet manager’s assessment of Reading - yes, Reading - on Football on 5 this weekend was far-fetched even by his standards.

Nevertheless, there is certainly some basis behind Allen’s clearly exaggerated claim. Indeed, the Royals have taken to the demands of their new manager extremely well, settling into a different style of play under the tutelage of former Manchester United defender Jaap Stam.

The Dutchman has transferred the ideals of the Ajax school of thinking inspired by the late, great Johan Cruyff to the Berkshire club having worked as an assistant coach with the Eredivisie giants for three years. Stamping this new, possession based approach onto a side that lacked identity beyond being a plainly ordinary Championship outfit for last two years was always likely to take time.

After all, following respective finishes of 19th and 17th in the last two seasons, Reading were a club in stasis with seemingly very little prospects of a top-flight return. Of the 15 sides to play in each of the last two Championship seasons without being promoted or relegated in either, only Rotherham (95) picked up fewer points (102). The Millers were also the only team from said group to have scored fewer goals in the same period than Reading’s 100.

It’s fair to say that while it’s not long since the club were in the Premier League, they weren’t exactly the most attractive proposition to take over. However, under Stam they’ve gone from being utterly ordinary to out of the ordinary as far as the second tier of English football is concerned.

Renowned for being a tough league to get out of, it’s fair to say a lot of Championship sides adopt a straightforward and often direct approach to getting results. That’s where this Reading side is so clearly breaking the mould this season, and reaping the benefits under a manager that will no doubt be attracting plenty of admirers of his own.

An average share of 59.3% possession in matches is comfortably the best in the league, while only Fulham - who are perhaps their closest counterparts in terms of approach - boast a better pass accuracy than Reading’s 82.2%. Not only is that possession figure up from a respectable 52.2% last season and further still from 49.7% in 2014/15, but it’s easily the highest in the Championship for some time.

Indeed, the only other side to finish any of the last three campaign’s in England’s second tier with an average in excess of 55% possession was Bournemouth (56.4%). Given that the Cherries won the title that year (2014/15), it’s arguably a blueprint that is wise to follow.

Of course, however, such a patient style of play requires a certain type of player, and Stam clearly identified targets he felt could heed his demands. New recruits Liam Moore, Joey van den Berg, Jon Swift, Roy Beerens and Callum Harriott all boast pass accuracy figures in excess of the team’s aforementioned average, and all have played a part in the club’s ever-improving start to the season.

Now on a run of four consecutive victories, Reading are third in the league and have lost just one game at the Madejski Stadium all season. They’ve done so courtesy of buying into the manager’s way of thinking that the collective is all important rather than relying on certain stars. Indeed, he said upon his appointment “As a manager, you need to have your own vision and what you want to do with the team. You need to have certain players with certain qualities in your team, to create your own style of play,” confirming that he admired Alex Ferguson for not necessarily paying too much attention to reputations or names but the qualities that he required.

That’s what Stam looked to do in the summer, and his side are performing above expectations despite not having a single player among the Championship’s top 25 in terms of WhoScored.com ratings. Former Leicester defender Moore (7.26) - promoted with the Foxes in 2014 - is top of the rankings for the Royals following his summer arrival, with five of the club’s top ten having been signed by the new manager.

In truth though, in some aspects Reading's play hasn't been a hugely significant departure to last season despite a relatively new look team taking to the field, they are just more effective with their use of the ball under the new boss. Their aforementioned possession average in the previous campaign was among the best in the league, meaning that they aren't as combative as many, ranking second to last in terms of tackles per game both this season and last. That fact is, however, perhaps less surprising for a team in third in the table rather than one firmly in the bottom half last time around.

Elsewhere their figure in terms of shots per game has actually fallen from the second highest in the Championship in 2015/16 (15.6) to tenth this season (12.9), though a closer look into those stats reveals a change in tack. Indeed, last season there was a sense of desperation to Reading's attempts at goal at times, firing off more shots from outside the box per game (8.2) than any other side. With 52.7% of their shots coming from outside of the box - a higher proportion than any other side - it's clear they weren't able to find that killer pass.

This season, despite chancing their arm considerably less often in total, the Royals are actually averaging slightly more shots from inside the box per game (7.6 from 7.4), and as a result their proportion of shots from distance has fallen substantially, to 40.9%.

All in all Reading have gone from being a team with seemingly very little direction to one with an extremely clear one, and for now it appears that the only way is up. Their biggest task may not be keeping up with Jaap Stam's demands, but keeping hold of a manager that has made an immediate impact in his first senior position.