Reading FC: £65,000-a-week striker went from zero to hero | OneFootball

Pavel Pogrebnyak didn't thrive during his first season in Berkshire, but ended up becoming a cult hero at the club.

Reading made quite a few moves during the summer of 2012 to strengthen their squad, following their return to the Premier League.

It's probably fair to say that the Royals didn't have the most talented set of players in the Championship during the previous season but the way they worked together made their title win possible.

Thankfully for Brian McDermott, he was able to retain much of his promotion-winning team and then added to his squad during the 2012 summer window.

Looking back, it wasn't the most successful window.

Danny Guthrie didn't make a hugely positive impact under McDermott and didn't enjoy the best time in Berkshire, even though he managed to make some decent contributions for the Royals under Nigel Adkins.

Nicky Shorey made some decent attacking contributions but wasn't able to keep the club in the top flight. Adrian Mariappa put in some decent performances but only stayed with the side for one season and Stuart Taylor only played a handful of times, though he would have expected his involvement to be limited when he signed.

Ex-Nottingham Forest pair Garath McCleary and Chris Gunter were perhaps the Royals' most successful signings of that window, considering both players spent a long time at the club.

Gunter was a fairly steady full-back, though he did split opinions, and McCleary was a very threatening winger for a decent chunk of his spell. It's just a shame for the latter that his time at the club probably didn't end as well as he would have wanted it to.

Pavel Pogrebnyak's move to Reading FC

With Anton Zingarevich now co-owner, the Royals looked set to have more to spend in the transfer market.

They didn't exactly spend big on fees but they reportedly handed out a big contract to Pavel Pogrebnyak, who arrived at the club on a long-term contract following the end of his stay at Fulham.

Whether Zingarevich's Russian connections to Pogrebnyak played a part in this transfer remains unclear but he was certainly one of the biggest signings of the window.

He was reportedly earning £65,000-per-week – a huge sum of money in comparison to other players in Berkshire.

Pavel Pogrebnyak became a cult hero at Reading FC after a tough first season

Unfortunately for the Russian forward, his first season at the club wasn't an overly successful one.

He did enjoy some bright moments, heading in an equaliser against Chelsea and scoring in three consecutive games. Strikes against West Ham and West Brom helped the Royals to earn an extra six points, with his late winner against the latter arguably one of the highlights of the season.

In total, he scored five goals in 29 league appearances during the 2012/13 top-flight campaign. But considering he scored six goals in 12 top-tier appearances for the Cottagers during the previous season, many fans would have expected more from him.

He enjoyed a fairly decent 2013/14 season though, scoring 13 goals in 39 Championship appearances, netting a brace against Derby County, and scoring in big home wins against Bolton Wanderers and Blackpool. He also registered a brace on the penultimate matchday of that term to keep the club's play-off hopes alive.

This campaign solidified his status as a cult hero in Berkshire, despite the fact the Royals finished outside the top six.

Nicknamed the BFR, including the terms 'big' and 'Russian', you can join the dots and work out what the fans affectionately called him!

The 2014/15 campaign, his final season in Berkshire, wasn't as eventful, but he still scored six goals in 26 league appearances - and provided the assist for McCleary's goal in the play-off semi-final against Arsenal.

There was genuine sadness when it was announced during the summer of 2015 that the forward, who in many ways had gone from zero to hero, would be moving on to Dynamo Moscow.