Reading FC: Missing out on Premier League winner was rare Steve Coppell era mistake - View | OneFootball

Highlights

Back in the summer of 2006, Reading were in a great position to attack the Premier League.

Having registered a record 106 points during their Championship title-winning 2005/06 campaign, the Royals were full of confidence and already had some of the ingredients needed to thrive in the Premier League, with or without any summer signings.

Nicky Shorey was a very talented player, even back then, and Ivar Ingimarsson and Ibrahima Sonko formed a solid partnership at centre-back.

Steve Sidwell, meanwhile, looked destined to thrive at the top level and they had enough of a wide threat to provide excellent service to their strikers.

Shane Long was still very young at the time, but he did well at times during 2005/06. And their other strikers, Kevin Doyle, Leroy Lita and Dave Kitson, all shone during their promotion-winning season.

Thankfully for the Berkshire side, their first-teamers from the 2005/06 season stepped up to the plate, because most of their 2006 summer signings didn't make that much of an impact.

Sodje, De la Cruz and Mate all didn't have the impact they would have wanted to, whilst Seol left the club after just one season.

That was a shame because the former South Korea international showed real quality at times, impressing on his debut against Middlesbrough and also scoring against Sheffield United during the early stages of 2006/07.

But the biggest shame was missing out on Joleon Lescott.

Steve Coppell revealed how Reading FC missed out on Joleon Lescott

During the summer of 2006, then-manager Steve Coppell targeted a move for Lescott, who was thriving at Wolverhampton Wanderers at the time and looked destined to make the step up to the top flight sooner rather than later.

Revealing that the club were willing to pay as much as £4m for him at the time, Coppell also told Berkshire Live (formerly the Reading Post) back in 2009: "If there was one player I wished we had been able to sign then it would have been Lescott after we had gone up.

"We were in for him and it would have been a real signal of intent, but with Everton there as well it was always going to be very hard to get him. He was the one that got away."

The central defender went on to sign for the Toffees and established himself as a key player at Goodison Park, before going on to win the Premier League title with Manchester City.

He may not have enjoyed the best end to his career, with his spell at Aston Villa not going as planned, but he represented England and played at the highest level.

Reading FC could have benefitted from signing Joleon Lescott

It could be argued that it would be harsh to call the Lescott near-miss a "mistake", considering they were up against a side as formidable as the Toffees in the race for him.

However, he's a player that the Royals could have sold for a healthy profit and on the pitch, he could have been a real asset at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

The duo of Ingimarsson and Sonko was always going to be hard to break up, but the latter wasn't available for much of the second half of the 2006/07 campaign and the early stages of the 2007/08 season.

Others were able to step up to the plate, including Andre Bikey and Michael Duberry, but that space could have been filled by Lescott.

During the period when Sonko was on the sidelines, Lescott could have established himself as a regular starter in Berkshire and kept the Senegalese defender out of the starting lineup when he returned.

They may not have been that lethal in attack during the 2007/08 season, but they conceded 66 goals and that was a key reason why they were relegated at the end of that term.

Lescott could have potentially prevented that relegation - or could have been sold on for a big profit during the summer of 2008.