Across the last two of Adam Reach’s three seasons at West Brom, he could not catch a break with injuries.In 2022-23, he was limited to just three Sky Bet Championship starts and only five in 2023-24.
When his contract expired in June 2024 and he left The Hawthorns, the saving grace was that he was fit again and ready to find a new club.
Then 30, and with over 400 appearances to his name, he would be an attractive prospect – or so he thought.
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Lincoln City’s Adam Reach discusses the realities of the seven-month period he spent as a free agent after leaving West Brom in the summer of 2024.
“It was the first time really I’d been out of contract and I think I was a little bit naïve now, looking back,” he tells Sky Sports.
“I automatically thought, I’ve played X amount of games in the Championship that, by default, that the next club will just come along.
“But we’re seeing in the last couple of years is clubs taking a slight shift towards younger players and players from overseas, trying to bring them in and flip them for profit, which is great. But, with every shift of a strategy, there’s always then some people who get left behind and fall through the net and I think I was in that.
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Reach managed just eight Championship starts across 2022/23 and 2023/24
“Those seven months when I was out of contract were really difficult as someone who’s played every season for the last 13, 14 years. To then not have that feeling of being in a club and sitting on the sofa and watching Gillette Soccer Saturday instead of being out there and playing is really difficult.”I hope that I’m not in that situation ever again. I don’t wish that upon anyone.”Reach attended the inaugural PFA pre-season – a fully-funded, residential training camp designed to help free agents back into the game – that summer, but when the 2024-25 season got under way, he was still at square one.”For pretty much 99 per cent of the time, I trained on my own,” he says.”Naturally – and quite fortunately – I’m a fit lad and I don’t think it takes loads for me to keep on top of it. But you…
2026-02-16 10:00:00
