Reading on the rise: How Jaap Stam has been inspired by Ajax and Johan Cruyff to keep the Royals well in the Championship promotion mix

• Reading currently sit in third place in the Championship after 17 games
• New boss Jaap Stam has guided the club to four straight league wins
• The former Manchester United defender has instilled a possession-based playing style at the Madejski Stadium
• The 44-year-old cut his coaching teeth back at former club Ajax 

‘It’s just like watching Barcelona.’ Not a phrase often heard down at the Madejski Stadium, it’s true. But Jaap Stam is changing that.

The former Manchester United defender is creating quite a stir at Reading. Now aged 44, it’s his debut season in management but the team are flying, having won the last four games in succession while not conceding a single goal. They are a most unexpected third in the Championship table after 17 games.

The numbers are impressive but Stam’s greatest achievement so far might just be in drawing comparisons between the greatest club side ever seen and one whose highest achievement remains winning the Simod Cup in 1988.

‘I’ve been down to see them play a few times and they are the closest I’ve seen to a Barcelona or Manchester City type team,’ said Martin Allen on Football on 5 last Saturday after Reading had beaten Burton Albion 3-0.

‘They keep possession right from the back with the goalkeeper, pass it around and wait for openings - they’ve been very brave with how they’ve asked them to play.’

The comparisons with Barca and City might seem outlandish but there is some truth behind it. Like Pep Guardiola, Stam is insistent that Reading play out from the back, use their goalkeeper as a sweeper and value the ball as preciously as Kim Kardashian does publicity. They top the Championship’s possession statistics with a 59.3 per cent average – and it was even higher earlier in the season.

Not that all the locals were impressed. Reading’s first televised game under Stam, against Ipswich in September, was almost painful to watch. The team were clearly struggling to follow Stam’s orders to play out from defence, particularly goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi. The result was slow, contrived, telegraphed ball possession with little threat and zero entertainment. The Sky Sports cameras have not been back since. Heavy defeats followed, against Wolves, Newcastle and Brentford.

‘There were boo-boys - Reading had more possession than any other team but, dare I say it, it was tedious at times,’ says former Royals captain Ady Williams, now a presenter with BBC Radio Berkshire and still well-connected with the club. 

‘It’s all fair having a philosophy but the attacking threat wasn’t there. Now we’re playing possession football but threatening. The penny is finally dropping with the players. There must have been times when Stam thought “let’s just go to 4-4-2 and lump it forward and score some goals” but he was adamant. Top-class managers all have their philosophies, they’re brave and stick to it and that’s what wins them trophies. Will there be bad times? 100 per cent. But they stick with it.’ 

Stam’s philosophy is not hard to trace and it originates from the same school as Guardiola’s. After finishing his player at Ajax in 2007, Stam returned to the club as a coach six years later, where he worked with the youth team. Amsterdam was also where Johan Cruyff learned about Total Football before exporting it to Barcelona, the La Masia school and Guardiola.

Despite his grounding at one of Europe’s great clubs, Stam’s appointment at Reading still came out of leftfield. Yes, he was a Champions League winning defender at Manchester United and also played for Lazio, AC Milan and Holland, but what did he know about management?

‘Stam was a world-class player who has won everything but as a manager, he was a gamble,’ says Williams. ‘But he’s ambitious, has an aura, a presence - I felt it when I first met him. You have to applaud the owners for taking a chance. It was a brave statement.’

Stam’s arrival was another step towards the Dutch revolution taking hold in this corner of Berkshire.

‘Brian Tevreden deserves a huge amount of credit,’ says Charles Watts, the Reading FC reporter for Getreading.co.uk. ‘He’s reshaped the club despite a lack of experience, doing very decent business in the transfer market and hiring Stam.’

It would be fair to say that no-one in the whole of Reading outside the club had heard of Tevreden when he landed the job of Head of International Football and Development in February. He had a modest career in Dutch football before going on to work with the youth teams at Ajax, where he met Stam.

After moving to the Madejski Stadium, he proved to be the right man in the right place at the right time when director of football Nicky Hammond left for West Brom in April, and he took the reins aged just 34. When Brian McDermott’s second spell as manager came to a premature end in May, Tevreden called his old mate and offered him his first break in management.

Stam, who spoke to Sportsmail earlier this year, has also brought in a trio of Dutch players: a defender, Danzell Gravenberch, a midfielder in Joey van den Berg, and winger Roy Beerens. But his key signings have been English: Liam Moore from Leicester, a ball-playing defender who can implement Stam’s plan for driving the ball forward from the back, and John Swift from Chelsea, an England Under 21 international with an eye for goal who makes the team tick at No 10. Tyler Blackett was the headline-grabbing buy from Old Trafford.

Despite the transfer merry-go-round, Stam has actually spent very little money. And more than anything he has made the most of what he’s got. Garath McCleary says he is playing the best football of his career thanks to his new manager and United States midfielder Danny Williams is thriving again.

‘Stam is making players better individually and also as a team,’ says Williams. ‘I thought Al-Habsi would struggle to play out from the back – distribution was not a strong part of his game. But it just proves Stam has spoken with him and shown belief in him because Al-Habsi has been unbelievable.’

Stam’s famous scowl earned him a reputation as the hardest of defenders and, after three years of the hairdryer treatment from Sir Alex Ferguson, it might be expected that a few teacups fly around the home dressing room at the Madejski.

‘He’s not what you would expect on the touchline,’ says Watts. ‘He kicks every ball and is constantly moving. But he doesn’t bellow, he’s very much a thinking manager, and calm. But he’s a huge presence, a huge figure. All the players look up to him, they can’t not. They all have only good things to say about him.’

Williams agrees. ‘Reading have some quality players but they were underachieving. Stam needed to come in and kick them up the backside. He’s got steel and determination. I’ve been to training and seen him there, getting involved. When your manager is Jaap Stam you listen. He was world class and defensively now we look great.

‘He has an aura – Alan Pardew had it when I was at Reading. He looks the part and there’s a touch of arrogance. That can rub up players the wrong way but he took Reading to the next level. So could Stam.

‘There was uproar when a lot of big names left in the summer: Hal Robson-Kanu and Oliver Norwood among them. But have Reading missed them? No. It’s been an unbelievable transition period but Stam is still getting results. It’s been a whirlwind – the backroom staff have all changed too. But everything he touches turns to gold.’

There is, however, one downside to Stam’s remarkable start in management; Reading are in a classic Catch-22.

‘Jaap Stam is never going to be the Reading manager in two years,’ says Williams. ‘If results become poor then he’ll be fired, but if results are good then big clubs will come calling. But it’s a two-way street: Stam is using the football club to gain experience and the football club is using him too. Will he be a Premier League manager? Yes, 100 per cent.’

But will he be a Premier League manager at Reading? If the club’s upward curve continues on the same trajectory then anything is possible. Even the sight of Jaap Stam on the touchline at Old Trafford in the not too distant future.