Reading have endured an eventful campaign so far with the departure of Jose Gomes last week, and the contested appointment of Mark Bowen this week.

The club parted ways with Portuguese manager Jose Gomes last week, with Reading in the relegation zone of the Championship in time for the October international break.

Mark Bowen, the club’s Sporting Director, was announced as Gomes replacement earlier this week - his first gig as a first-team manager having served as Mark Hughes’ number two for several years.

His first task will be to drag his side out of the relegation zone, and they’ll look to start that task with the visit of Preston this weekend.

Bowen inherits a team that saw ten arrivals in the summer, but not all of them have had the impact that they'd have hoped.

Here we take a look at two signings who’ve failed to hit the ground running in Berkshire.

Lucas Joao

Reading signed Lucas Joao from Sheffield Wednesday after the opening game of the season.

In fairness, Joao hit the ground running - scoring the winner against Reading on the opening day before signing for them, and then scoring on his Royals debut.

Since then though, Joao has slowly fallen down the pecking order at the Madejski Stadium to the likes of club-record signing George Puscas and Yakou Meite.

Inconsistency is the theme of Joao’s season so far, as it so often has been since he arrived in England with Wednesday back in 2015.

He’ll be hoping that a new manager in place will give him some more first-team opportunities, and he’ll have to impress to get a starting spot ahead of Puscas and Meite, who are the club’s leading scorers this season with three and four respectively.

Charlie Adam

Winning promotion to the Premier League with Blackpool in 2010 seems an age ago, but Charlie Adam, who scored 19 from midfield on the way to promotion that season, is still only 33-years-old.

He’s a player with plenty left to offer at this level, but since joining Reading on a free from Stoke City in the summer, has only made three substitute appearances in the Championship this season.

Gomes was rumoured to have fallen out with several first-team players, and Adam may well have been one of them - he's one of several first-team players who were exiled by Gomes.

Things haven’t gone to plan for the Scot since moving to Berkshire, but Bowen may see the fire in Adam and give him the opportunities that Gomes didn’t.