Reading FC crisis: Paunovic stays in charge despite fan fury
Fans have been flooding social media calling for the Reading manager to be fired after the club's worst result in thirty years
Last updated 10th Jan 2022
Reading football club fans have continued to call for the club to axe manager Veljko Paunovic after Saturday's FA Cup defeat to a side four divisions below the Royals.
Reading's defeat at Kidderminster Harriers has been described as 'shameful' and 'embarrassing'.
Fans were made even angrier when manager Veljko Paunovic failed to apologise for the result and instead attempted to defend his team selection and the manner of the defeat.
Simeon Pickup from The Tilehurst End supporters group said "the manager's post match comments seemingly didn't take any responsibility in his own right, it's a shameful day for the club to lose a game like that and he just didn't grasp the enormity of it"
Paul Mann who runs Elm Park Royals says even fans who'd been patient with him have now lost faith: "he's lost the vast majority of support from Reading FC fans, he's in a dire position now because even the people who did support him up have decided 'that's too much' losing to Kidderminster is shocking."
Simeon believes Paunovic will survive for now despite the anger of fans "The owner needs to make a call and is he going to do that on the back of an FA Cup result, probably not, were he to act in accordance with accepted football wisdom and certainly what a lot of fans are feeling he would get rid of Paunovic and while I feel sorry for him in some ways it really should be the end of the road."
As the club attempted to focus on the next game with a twitter post calling on supporters to 'stick together' they were met with more than a hundred mainly negative replies.
It's not only fans that have been having their say former players have weighed in as well.
Ian Harte shared his sadness at the situation with his 54k followers saying "Hopefully they can sort things out and get some consistency otherwise they are in big trouble".
Gareth McCleary tweeted in response to a fan "It may not be lack of commitment which was something I was accused of and the easiest thing to say (experience speaking).
"It starts at the top for me. The Club has been a mess for years and filters down.
"How can each year so many players be out of contract?"
As the atmosphere turns ever more toxic Veljko Paunovic is preparing the team for Tuesday night's home game against Fulham and all eyes and ears will be on how fans react and how many even bother to turn up.