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Former Royals boss alan pardew announced his departure on September 10th, a whopping 29 days ago. Indeed, Director of Football Nicky Hammond had promised that the club would name their new manager before last Saturday's game against Bradford, but that self-imposed deadline has long since elapsed.
Today's announcement came as something of a relief for Reading fans who have been bombarded by continual speculation in recent weeks linking just about every manager in the league with Reading.
But Madejski today apologised for the delay which has been a major contributor to the club's poor on-the-field form.
"The process took a lot longer than we would have wished and I apologise to Reading fans for that," said Madejski during this morning's press conference.
The Royals chief, who has bankrolled Reading in recent years, revealed that the delay was down to his insistence on sticking to the rules. Madejski was livid at the way West Ham went about appointing alan pardew as their new manager so he made sure he didn't conduct his manager appointing operation along the same set of principles.
Madejski added: "We wanted to go through the correct procedures, and when I first phoned Dick Knight, Brighton's chairman, quite a while ago now they had a clutch of games to play and he was anxious that Steve wasn't interrupted during that time, so it was a while before we could speak to him," Madejski added.
John Madejski can hold his head high today as he has appointed a new manager honourably despite being treated dishonourably by alan pardew.