The Retained List

[Snowflake Royal]

Would agree with this. Wing alongside someone like Savage or Craig or Elliot would probably be fine in Champ. Much how Leigertwood had a good partnership with Karacan.

Hopefully we'll find out in two seasons and you'll be right.

I fear we've probably got 2 more seasons of L1 at least though, by which time he'll be 31 ish.

We won't be going up next season, don't think we will even make the playoffs. Selles did well, I just don't think he is the guy to get us to that level. We look short in some areas as well and the squad needs fattening up. Be interesting to see how the new owners get involved in that bit.

At this stage definitely too early to say.

But with Bindon, Mbengue, Wing, Knibbs, Azeez and Smith we have a very good L1 spine. With plenty of developing quality in Savage, Craig, Dorsett, and Ehibhatiomhan. Given how many breakthroughs we got this season, which we wouldn't necessarily have expected, there may well be more too.

We may not be able to spend fees still, but you don't need to for you to get good L1 players.

I tend to think we're better off with a top half finish and then promotion to develop what we have. But that starts to leave Wing a bit aging, and us likely to lose at least one if not several key players.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Given the cost of running a club of Reading's size in League 1 ( I reckon it will be around £10M net loss), I can't see how any new owner would not target promotion next season - anything else is just creating a bigger financial mess.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Just my view

[Snowflake Royal]

Given the cost of running a club of Reading's size in League 1 ( I reckon it will be around £10M net loss), I can't see how any new owner would not target promotion next season - anything else is just creating a bigger financial mess.

Depends what you mean by that.

If you mean betting the farm on going straight up then they'd be mad to do so because it's just not that likely and the financial impact of doing it is disastrous. As we've seen with that approach over a 10 year period.

And any new owner can't spend a penny in transfer fees anyway. And have limits on their permitted wage budget.

We're far better off trying to carefully build a competitive squad of good value by increments and taking a couple of years of substantial losses over going all out, likely failing and having to to it all again the next season, with spiralling wages and a huge loss.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Given the cost of running a club of Reading's size in League 1 ( I reckon it will be around £10M net loss), I can't see how any new owner would not target promotion next season - anything else is just creating a bigger financial mess.

Depends what you mean by that.

If you mean betting the farm on going straight up then they'd be mad to do so because it's just not that likely and the financial impact of doing it is disastrous. As we've seen with that approach over a 10 year period.

And any new owner can't spend a penny in transfer fees anyway. And have limits on their permitted wage budget.

We're far better off trying to carefully build a competitive squad of good value by increments and taking a couple of years of substantial losses over going all out, likely failing and having to to it all again the next season, with spiralling wages and a huge loss.

So assuming my figures are in the right ballpark - and I'm using Charlton's last couple of years of published accounts as a proxy - adding £20M to the clubs debt just to stand still in L1 is what your asking the new owners to do?

Not sure if that's in the plan for investors who want to flip us for a profit

[Snowflake Royal]

Given the cost of running a club of Reading's size in League 1 ( I reckon it will be around £10M net loss), I can't see how any new owner would not target promotion next season - anything else is just creating a bigger financial mess.

Depends what you mean by that.

If you mean betting the farm on going straight up then they'd be mad to do so because it's just not that likely and the financial impact of doing it is disastrous. As we've seen with that approach over a 10 year period.

And any new owner can't spend a penny in transfer fees anyway. And have limits on their permitted wage budget.

We're far better off trying to carefully build a competitive squad of good value by increments and taking a couple of years of substantial losses over going all out, likely failing and having to to it all again the next season, with spiralling wages and a huge loss.

So assuming my figures are in the right ballpark - and I'm using Charlton's last couple of years of published accounts as a proxy - adding £20M to the clubs debt just to stand still in L1 is what your asking the new owners to do?

Not sure if that's in the plan for investors who want to flip us for a profit

No, I said nothing about standing still, in fact I explicitly said "build a competitive squad of good value by increments". And Charlton are hardly a great model, they've spent fairly heavily. I think we can do better than that.

Any owner who's plan is dependent on immediate promotion is a moron who is going to fail.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Depends what you mean by that.

If you mean betting the farm on going straight up then they'd be mad to do so because it's just not that likely and the financial impact of doing it is disastrous. As we've seen with that approach over a 10 year period.

And any new owner can't spend a penny in transfer fees anyway. And have limits on their permitted wage budget.

We're far better off trying to carefully build a competitive squad of good value by increments and taking a couple of years of substantial losses over going all out, likely failing and having to to it all again the next season, with spiralling wages and a huge loss.

So assuming my figures are in the right ballpark - and I'm using Charlton's last couple of years of published accounts as a proxy - adding £20M to the clubs debt just to stand still in L1 is what your asking the new owners to do?

Not sure if that's in the plan for investors who want to flip us for a profit

No, I said nothing about standing still, in fact I explicitly said "build a competitive squad of good value by increments". And Charlton are hardly a great model, they've spent fairly heavily. I think we can do better than that.

Any owner who's plan is dependent on immediate promotion is a moron who is going to fail.

Only promotion will change the financial dynamic - staying in L1 restricts income potential - ( the championship brings it's own issues - but one challenge at a time)

So each season in L1 requires significant losses to be accumulated - I can't see the rumoured new owners being that patient...

If we don't build a competitive (via freebies and loans) squad, looking for promotion next year, then it's gonna be a challenge for these type of owners.

[6ft Kerplunk]

We're far better off trying to carefully build a competitive squad of good value by increments and taking a couple of years of substantial losses over going all out, likely failing and having to to it all again the next season, with spiralling wages and a huge loss.

I think on balance at the moment I'd take a however long it takes at this level to have the club run where we're not building up substantial losses every year. You know, like the club have properly learnt there lesson and any owner deciding they aren't going to keep pumping money into the club doesn't mean we end up back in this mess. Sadly I know the way football finances seem to work these days that's not really a realistic hope.

[WestYorksRoyal]

It's catch 22. The best way to balance our finances is to get back to the Championship as fast as possible, but betting big on promotion is exactly the sort of risk taking approach to be avoided.

I agree with IR more that new owners should be more cautious and if need be make decisions that reduce our losses, such as selling Azeez or Bindon or sub leasing part or Bearwood. Then we should look to incrementally improve the team year on year. We're already a good L1 team, so if you set a simple objective of being a better team than last season every year, you'll be back in the Championship sooner or later.

[Snowflake Royal]

We're far better off trying to carefully build a competitive squad of good value by increments and taking a couple of years of substantial losses over going all out, likely failing and having to to it all again the next season, with spiralling wages and a huge loss.

I think on balance at the moment I'd take a however long it takes at this level to have the club run where we're not building up substantial losses every year. You know, like the club have properly learnt there lesson and any owner deciding they aren't going to keep pumping money into the club doesn't mean we end up back in this mess. Sadly I know the way football finances seem to work these days that's not really a realistic hope.

I'm not sure we have a lot of option. We can't pay fees for two windows and our wage bill needs to be getting to about 70% of turnover in L1 to comply with its FFP.

Plys we're being bought by an investment group looking to turn a short to medium turn profit by bouncing us up the league and selling on.

They aren't going to do that just throwing money at us. We have an Academy with saleable assets to fund a small wage gap, one of the better attendances in the league when we were shit. We should be able to play relatively sustainably and compete well at this level.

[Green]

Given the cost of running a club of Reading's size in League 1 ( I reckon it will be around £10M net loss), I can't see how any new owner would not target promotion next season - anything else is just creating a bigger financial mess.

I mean you'd have to question the commitment of any owner who said "You know what? I think mid table is just fine, we're probs punching above our weight as it is"

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Given the cost of running a club of Reading's size in League 1 ( I reckon it will be around £10M net loss), I can't see how any new owner would not target promotion next season - anything else is just creating a bigger financial mess.

I mean you'd have to question the commitment of any owner who said "You know what? I think mid table is just fine, we're probs punching above our weight as it is"

Quite

[morganb]

ACADEMY RETAINED LIST CONFIRMED

Following the conclusion of their respective seasons, the club can now confirm the contractual decisions that have been made for players across our Under 21 and Under 18 teams.

UNDER 21s

Options

The following players have had one-year options implemented on their contracts, meaning they will be signed on with the Royals for a further season:

Jacob Borgnis
John Clarke
Jeremiah Okine-Peters
John Ryan
Charlie Wellens

Contract Offered

The following players have been offered contracts from the club, and these are currently under consideration:

Adrian Akande
Matthew Rowley
Jay Senga-Ngoyi
Michael Stickland
Basil Tuma

Released

Hamid Abdel-Salam
Billie Clark
Jahmari Clarke
Harvey Collins
Ajani Giscombe
Geneiro Maragh
Harvey Maudner
Sam Paul
Ben Purcell

We would like to place on record our thanks and best wishes to all nine players listed who will depart the club at the expiration of their contract.

Under Contract

Louie Holzman


UNDER 18s

Contract Offered

The following players have been offered new contracts that will see them extend their stay with the club:

Joseph Barough
Boyd Beacroft
Harrison Rhone

Contract Offered – Rejected

Toby Mawer

Toby has rejected the contract offer from the club to accept a College Sponsorship place in the United States. We wish all the best to Toby in his future career and studies.

Released

Tyler Field
Matthew Goulding
William Gutierrez-Ramirez
Jayden Porter-Atkinson
Jack Timberlake
Aaron White

Tyler, Matthew, William, Jayden, Jack and Aaron will all depart the club at the expiration of their current deals. We would like to thank them all for their hard work and dedication throughout their time in RG2.

Under Contract

Abraham Kanu
Shay Spencer