Back from the game (ish)

[Hoop Blah]

im hopinbg they arent miracles, and just that brrian needs half a season to assess and rebuild each seasons brand new team.

im sure itll happen again after xmas this year....
gulps nervously

Doesn't that first paragraph highlight a bit of an issue with the way we/McDermott conducts our business?

[melonhead]

[quote]I remember well the messages of 'don't worry how we're playing as we're winning' comments in the lead up to Christmas '08, right before we went on a run of however many games it was without winning a game because Doyle was no longer scoring 90% of his chances and flattering our performances with good results.[/quote


people have been doom mongering every season i can remember, and that was the only one where it turned out awful in the last ten years!,
so you cant really hold that up as any proof of owt
they/you were bound to be right every now and then
(he says hoping, this isnt one of those now and then season etc)

[melonhead]

im hopinbg they arent miracles, and just that brrian needs half a season to assess and rebuild each seasons brand new team.

im sure itll happen again after xmas this year....
gulps nervously

Doesn't that first paragraph highlight a bit of an issue with the way we/McDermott conducts our business?

just the reality- not really to do with heston- not his fault he produces and then loses his best player each year, its simply the facts of how this football club is run.

if a player does really well( and by that i mean scores 20 goals, someone from the prem will come in and offer lots of money in fee and wages, and the player will have to go, and we will have to sell, and brian will have to be left with yet another total rebuild.
our only way out of this cycle is to have a shit season, but not be relegated, and then keep the whole squad for th enext season.....maybe thats their plan all along!

[paddy20]

I think time has caught up with us. I cant see us having anyone to sell next year, we have only average players coming through the system at the moment i.e. Church, Kanu. We have two ageing full backs with inadequate replacements ( except for Cummings), only defensive midfielders, a captain who is too old to play on the wing and our best player disinterested. I think its survival at the moment and hope the next batch of youngsters are better. Staying in the championship must be our goal but the future looks challenging especially if we lose Brian. Unfortunately, no quick answer other than to cope with the lack of any development foresight over the last 4 years.

[who are ya?]

Is Howard a lost cause?

[melonhead]

Unfortunately, no quick answer other than to cope with the lack of any development foresight over the last 4 years.

we produced a decent proportion of our team in the last 4 years incuding sig and long?

if we go down itll be because they all werent quite good enough, not that we didnt develop them

[RoyalBlue]

Unfortunately, no quick answer other than to cope with the lack of any development foresight over the last 4 years.

we produced a decent proportion of our team in the last 4 years incuding sig and long?

if we go down itll be because they all werent quite good enough, not that we didnt develop them

No, it will be because having developed some really good ones, we were forced into letting them go.

[melonhead]

sig and long, agreed

how would you have stopped that happening?

[RoyalBlue]

sig and long, agreed

how would you have stopped that happening?

Don't start me! Let's just say that the black hole man would have been devastated had they turned down moves.

[melonhead]

and thats where youre whole argument falls down.
he doesnt create the black hole, he doesnt make it, or make it up
its a yearly shortfall bewteen what we bring in, and what we spend.

either we try and sell and keep some of what comes in to pay the gap, or we spend less on wages and fees, reducing the quality in the team.that way instead.

regardless of all of that- there arent many clubs in this league who could turn down 7 million quid bids for any of their players, and not many players who would turn down the prospect of earning triple/quadruple/quintuple their wages, in a top world league


other than what his asking price/criteria for selling the club are, i can see no reason to berate/blame madejski
especially until you bring someone forward willing to pay for the club, & pump their own money into the team, without ever wanting it back.
otherwise whinging about it is pointless, and counterproductive.

but then you know thats what i think, and i know what you think. neither of us are likely to change.
im starting to wonder what the whole point of discussion boards is at all you know.

[Hoop Blah]

just the reality- not really to do with heston- not his fault he produces and then loses his best player each year, its simply the facts of how this football club is run.

Should he, or we as a club, challenge that reality then?

Should we continue to make it an easy option to leave us (Sigurdsson and Long actively encouraged to leave) or should we be more proactive in the transfer market (in terms of getting players out the door as well as in) in order to prevent this recent trend of only starting to build a team after the window closes.

Seems to me that we buried our head in the sand in regards to Long this summer. I don't think the current method gives us the best chance of building a decent team and I'd rather we worked on getting obvious want away players out the door earlier (even at a financial cost) so we can move on before it's too late.

[melonhead]

how doe we, or he challenge reality?
by ignoring it?
i just dont think 7 million bids are turn downable for a club with less than optimal gates such as ours.
or for the players themselves.
the one thing we cant be criticised is holding out for the biggest possible bids for our players when they are eventually sold.
im not sure long was ever encoruaged. possibly sig, but that may also be disengenuous imo.
he said he didnt really want to go, but that could easily m,ean he was reluctant to, but had to go cos it was a great opportunity.

[FiNeRaIn]

Sig didn't want to go as has been said many times, long however...no one can argue with that sale. Mills also was a far better centre back than anything left at the club now and we sold him too. Thats three players ( the spine of the team) from the last few seasons we've removed and not replaced with quality. You can't keep selling quality players and expect not to suffer on the pitch. We've received astronomical amounts in transfer fee's compared to everyone else in the football league in the last 3/4 seasons yet we still somehow cannot compete with them financially. No other club can boast anywhere close to over 40 million received in player sales yet we've invested how much of that in trying to maintain our team? I don't care whose fault it was/is anymore, as has been mentioned we vastly overspent on wages in the prem and we're still suffering so we know thats where the money has gone...we are still suffering from the clubs poor management of the premiership money. Our only hope is that we can clear all that and start fresh from this point on...the only problem with that is convincing any quality that may come through our academy ( lets face it that's the only place they are going to come with our spending power) that they should stay on at Reading and hope we get to the prem to appease them. Chances of that happening in today's game? Not very high as soon as someone from the prem comes calling. Really not a lot to look forward to in honesty...as soon as our young players start to gel and really come on..they'll be off and we'll be rebuilding continuously.

[leicsRoyal]

One thing is for sure,

There is no £6m asset in this squad to fill the next black hole.

[Wimb]

Sig didn't want to go as has been said many times, long however...no one can argue with that sale. Mills also was a far better centre back than anything left at the club now and we sold him too. Thats three players ( the spine of the team) from the last few seasons we've removed and not replaced with quality. You can't keep selling quality players and expect not to suffer on the pitch. We've received astronomical amounts in transfer fee's compared to everyone else in the football league in the last 3/4 seasons yet we still somehow cannot compete with them financially. No other club can boast anywhere close to over 40 million received in player sales yet we've invested how much of that in trying to maintain our team? I don't care whose fault it was/is anymore, as has been mentioned we vastly overspent on wages in the prem and we're still suffering so we know thats where the money has gone...we are still suffering from the clubs poor management of the premiership money. Our only hope is that we can clear all that and start fresh from this point on...the only problem with that is convincing any quality that may come through our academy ( lets face it that's the only place they are going to come with our spending power) that they should stay on at Reading and hope we get to the prem to appease them. Chances of that happening in today's game? Not very high as soon as someone from the prem comes calling. Really not a lot to look forward to in honesty...as soon as our young players start to gel and really come on..they'll be off and we'll be rebuilding continuously.

it's been said many times but never ever once proved that Sig didn't want to go

Find me one shred of evidence that says he was forced out

[LoyalRoyalFan]

I have been saying for a long time that Howard should be a regular in our side. People disagreed

[Hoop Blah]

how doe we, or he challenge reality?
by ignoring it?
i just dont think 7 million bids are turn downable for a club with less than optimal gates such as ours.
or for the players themselves.
the one thing we cant be criticised is holding out for the biggest possible bids for our players when they are eventually sold.
im not sure long was ever encoruaged. possibly sig, but that may also be disengenuous imo.
he said he didnt really want to go, but that could easily m,ean he was reluctant to, but had to go cos it was a great opportunity.

How? By actively, and ultimately successfully, moving on those outward bound players quicker than we have done over the last few years so that we can rebuild.

We're obviously restrained by offers coming in but I always get the impression we're waiting for things to happen instead of working to get business done quickly so we can move on and not miss out on replacements and valuable rebuilding time. It's not all about stopping players leaving or not accepting bids, it's about not getting into the situation you described earlier whereby we're rebuilding the side over Oct/Nov/Jan.

[paddy20]

.

we produced a decent proportion of our team in the last 4 years incuding sig and long?

if we go down itll be because they all werent quite good enough, not that we didnt develop them



I meant by not investing some of the proceeds of sales.

[Wimb]

Tilehurst End match report

http://thetilehurstend.co.uk/2011/11/02 ... ng-affair/

[sandman]

What a great headline on the OS, ''McDermott reflects on fine margins''. Not sure I'd call 1 shot in 90 odd minutes a fine margin.