Where did it all go wrong for struggling Royals?
HOW does a team go from having the best defensive record in the country to the worst, in a month?
Reading have managed to go from top of the list of 92 English Football League clubs to the very bottom.
One goal conceded in their first seven games showed they were rock-solid defensively – 15 conceded in the last five games is not so clever.
Harold Macmillan’s “events, dear boy, events” fits perfectly as an explanation. Macmillan was talking about what most likely knocks governments off course. The same applies to football teams. Everything can be going swimmingly when out the blue, wham, something triggers capitulation.
At the end of October they were six points clear of second-placed Bournemouth.
November has been a tortuous month, with Reading losing four consecutive games.
How do you go from so good to so bad so quickly?
The rhythm was upset by injuries to key players Liam Moore, Yakou Meite and Ovie Ejaria and essential to the machine running smoothly.
All three were sidelined and although they returned for the defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday the damage had been done.
Other teams have got wise to Reading’s style of play and now nullify some of their options.
Bournemouth pressed high all afternoon and swarmed round the dangerous Lucas Joao at the other end of the pitch. Reading still had their attacking moments, but unlike earlier in the season they seem unable to dominate games for 90 minutes.
They have lost their psychological edge. They surprised teams, were more energised and determined, and appeared more motivated in empty stadiums than some of their lacklustre rivals.
The chaos immediately before the season started made them gritty and edgy, but now they look more calm and controlled.
Sometimes frantic, desperate and high energy is the way to go.
The game on the south coast was a bad way to start a run of nine in 29 days leading up to Christmas.
With the big guns returning, and being 2-0 up at half time, you sensed this was a big moment in the season.
Are they a team who have the mental toughness to be serious promotion contenders or was the early-season form nothing more than a bounce effect provided by the arrival of a new manager?
Based on the second-half performance it is the latter.
One of the issues now is limited time on the training ground to put things right. Up till now the workload has seemed fairly typical of any other season.
Their next Saturday off is on March 27. Between now and then it is two games per week, lots of travelling up and down the motorways, and not a lot of training and recovery time.
Teams that are winning will be bounding from one ground to another, full of energy and loving life.
For teams on the downward slide it could quickly become a draining slog. Reading need to get back to a rock-solid defence and high-energy 90-minute performances asap, otherwise it will be a winter of discontent.