Rapid Richards: The Reading left-back set to become the latest English export to Germany – scout report

Over the last few years, German football has emerged as the most attractive destination for young players from all over the world, and especially from England. Clubs in Germany are a lot likelier to give a young player a chance in the first-team than their English counterparts, and this has been seen with the likes of Jadon Sancho, Jude Bellingham and Jonjoe Kenny, among others, in recent seasons. Thus, it is not surprising that a number of young players across England see German clubs as a viable option to continue their development, and the latest example of this seems to be Omar Richards, the 23-year-old Reading left-back, who is seemingly on his way to Bayern Munich upon the expiry of his contract in the summer.

Richards is being seen as backup for Alphonso Davies at the Allianz Arena, as he offers similar traits to the Canadian. This scout report will look at Richards’ performances so far this season to try and understand his playing style, and whether he can be an effective understudy to Davies at Bayern.

Playing profile

Richards is a left-footed player who primarily plays at left-back, although he has been used higher up the pitch, as a wing-back or even a winger, on occasion by Reading this season. He is 6’1” tall and weighs 69 kgs. He has made 38 appearances for Reading across all competitions this season, having played 3234 minutes at the time of writing, which shows how durable he is and how important he has been to the Royals.

His heat map for the season shows how he primarily plays out wide on the left touchline, encompassing the entirety of the flank from the defensive to the offensive third. Being left-footed, Richards is very much a traditional full-back in that he stays wide and supplies width, looking to overlap beyond his winger and cross or pass into the box. On occasion, he will underlap and move infield as well, but this is certainly not a frequently-seen move – as we will see further in this analysis, the Reading full-backs are tasked with staying wide as far as possible. He is quite fast, and uses this pace to get up and down the pitch quickly, and is therefore well-suited to playing in a team with a high-tempo playing style.

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