Out of Contract 2022

[Lower West]

Swift just said his goodbyes on Twitter, guess he has agreed terms elsewhere.

Yep he is off to West Brom. I’m surprised no one from the PL has come in for him. On his day he has been an absolute joy to watch. A big loss.

The days of joy aren't consistant enough. Injury prone. Lacks real pace. Too lightweight. Not criticisms, just observations.

[Zip]

Swift just said his goodbyes on Twitter, guess he has agreed terms elsewhere.

Yep he is off to West Brom. I’m surprised no one from the PL has come in for him. On his day he has been an absolute joy to watch. A big loss.

The days of joy aren't consistant enough. Injury prone. Lacks real pace. Too lightweight. Not criticisms, just observations.

Certainly inconsistent and defensively weak. The injury prone bit is overstated. He averaged 31 games a season for 6 seasons. That’s decent enough.

[On Strings]

Yep he is off to West Brom. I’m surprised no one from the PL has come in for him. On his day he has been an absolute joy to watch. A big loss.

The days of joy aren't consistant enough. Injury prone. Lacks real pace. Too lightweight. Not criticisms, just observations.

Certainly inconsistent and defensively weak. The injury prone bit is overstated. He averaged 31 games a season for 6 seasons. That’s decent enough.

He still misses 33% of games a season, and then add his inconsistency too. Good player when he has his purple patches, but's certainly not irreplaceable.

[Stranded]

Too many people ready to discard Swift or downgrade what a good player he has been for us. 6 years is arguably too long to stay at a club these days.

We now need to not fixate or finding a player to replace him. What we need to do is find a style that fits the squad we are building so that we are overly reliant on one player so much. Lost count of the amount of times we've said "Stop Swift Stop Reading" or "We didn't play well today as Swift was off".

We need to find a way that shares his output across the midfield/attack making us more balanced and harder to play against.

So Swift leaving is a blow but expected but if recruitment is smart it doesn't need to hurt us - though it probably will.

[Sutekh]

Yep he is off to West Brom. I’m surprised no one from the PL has come in for him. On his day he has been an absolute joy to watch. A big loss.

The days of joy aren't consistant enough. Injury prone. Lacks real pace. Too lightweight. Not criticisms, just observations.

Certainly inconsistent and defensively weak. The injury prone bit is overstated. He averaged 31 games a season for 6 seasons. That’s decent enough.

More importantly for Reading now is who is there at the club that’s reasonably useful at free kicks etc.

[blythspartan]

Swift was always going but I’ll be more concerned if lose both Rhino and Laurent, which is probably likely. Forest supporting mate is convinced they’re signing Laurent irrespective of whether they win the playoffs or not. Personally, I can’t see him going to Forest but wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up at Cardiff. If they do both go it’s more big holes to fill so hopefully Ince and his team have a plan in place. Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

[Nameless]

Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

[Coppells Lost Coat]

Swift was always going but I’ll be more concerned if lose both Rhino and Laurent, which is probably likely. Forest supporting mate is convinced they’re signing Laurent irrespective of whether they win the playoffs or not. Personally, I can’t see him going to Forest but wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up at Cardiff. If they do both go it’s more big holes to fill so hopefully Ince and his team have a plan in place. Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

Losing Swift is an expected blow and the summer allows us to restructure our midfield - which is hugely needed tbh.
Losing Rino or Laurent would be another blow but we could recover.
Losing all 3 would be catastrophic and we would need to pull on levers let the wheels spin and see what comes out the machine....

A motivated and fit Drinkwater looked very good. I would have no issues with him returning on a deal that works for everyone.
However a unmotivated Drinkwater is a huge liability.

[NathStPaul]

There are more players on planet Earth than the ones that used to play for us, we don't need to go back to Drinkwater under any circumstances. We need young, fit players with something to prove and not hasbeens who are clearly not interested like Danny Drinkwater. He didn't like being here and on the whole we didn't like him.

[paultheroyal]

There are more players on planet Earth than the ones that used to play for us, we don't need to go back to Drinkwater under any circumstances. We need young, fit players with something to prove and not hasbeens who are clearly not interested like Danny Drinkwater. He didn't like being here and on the whole we didn't like him.

Agreed - we need to be raiding the likes of League One - there are some hot talents out there. Twine would be the one but with zero networking going on id imagine that ships has sailed.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Too many people ready to discard Swift or downgrade what a good player he has been for us. 6 years is arguably too long to stay at a club these days.

We now need to not fixate or finding a player to replace him. What we need to do is find a style that fits the squad we are building so that we are overly reliant on one player so much. Lost count of the amount of times we've said "Stop Swift Stop Reading" or "We didn't play well today as Swift was off".

We need to find a way that shares his output across the midfield/attack making us more balanced and harder to play against.

So Swift leaving is a blow but expected but if recruitment is smart it doesn't need to hurt us - though it probably will.

Agree with that really - although a part of me did think that another 4/5 years here and he'd have gone down as a Reading legend rather than just a very good player we had on our books for a number of years. But he was never going to turn down a similar/better wage than what he was on with us as well as playing in a better team, potentially in the PL in a season or two.

In response to Drinkwater, I'd have him back on a reasonable wage. He did pretty well for us last season, you could see his quality on the ball and, towards the end of his loan spell, off the ball as well. He just needs to keep himself in good shape really and, if we could build his fitness, he would be a really good asset for us I think.

[Zip]

Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

He’s made his money. At his stage it will likely be about wanting to play football. He won’t get any PL offers. So his days of big contracts are well and truly over. Besides being paid £8k a week isn’t too shabby.

[On Strings]

Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

He’s made his money. At his stage it will likely be about wanting to play football. He won’t get any PL offers. So his days of big contracts are well and truly over. Besides being paid £8k a week isn’t too shabby.

Why wont he get Premier League offers? A Forest, Huddersfield, even a Southampton could do a lot worse.

[NathStPaul]

And you wouldn't rather pay that money to a recently released Premer League youth player who has something to prove and is motivated to do well? Drinkwater isn't the answer to any Reading FC related question. We need to be done with him and his ilk, they are in football purgatory.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

He’s made his money. At his stage it will likely be about wanting to play football. He won’t get any PL offers. So his days of big contracts are well and truly over. Besides being paid £8k a week isn’t too shabby.

Can't imagine he'd be in a rush to come back to a club where a section of fans chanted "Danny you're a pcunt" at him for no reason other than he wasn't playing particularly well.

[Stranded]

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

He’s made his money. At his stage it will likely be about wanting to play football. He won’t get any PL offers. So his days of big contracts are well and truly over. Besides being paid £8k a week isn’t too shabby.

Can't imagine he'd be in a rush to come back to a club where a section of fans chanted "Danny you're a pcunt" at him for no reason other than he wasn't playing particularly well.

Well quite, die is cast on that, he would be the target again as soon as we struggle next year.

I would have no issue with him coming in if were alongside younger talent but lets face it, he was part of a squad that underacheived and we shouldn't be looking to rebuild by filling too many squad gaps with players who were already here and not setting the world alight.

[Zip]

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

He’s made his money. At his stage it will likely be about wanting to play football. He won’t get any PL offers. So his days of big contracts are well and truly over. Besides being paid £8k a week isn’t too shabby.

Can't imagine he'd be in a rush to come back to a club where a section of fans chanted "Danny you're a pcunt" at him for no reason other than he wasn't playing particularly well.

Yep his leaving message made no mention of thanking the fans. I doubt he will return because of that but there won’t be a queue of teams lining up for his services.

[blythspartan]

And you wouldn't rather pay that money to a recently released Premer League youth player who has something to prove and is motivated to do well? Drinkwater isn't the answer to any Reading FC related question. We need to be done with him and his ilk, they are in football purgatory.

I agree with this and put the question out there about Drinkwater based on us losing Rino and Laurent. I want to see a squad mostly filled with young, hungry, fit players who have a lot to prove and want to build a rapport with the fans. However, we’ll probably also need some older heads to help them out. I believe we can unearth a few gems, which makes me feel positive about next season.

[NathStPaul]

And you wouldn't rather pay that money to a recently released Premer League youth player who has something to prove and is motivated to do well? Drinkwater isn't the answer to any Reading FC related question. We need to be done with him and his ilk, they are in football purgatory.

I agree with this and put the question out there about Drinkwater based on us losing Rino and Laurent. I want to see a squad mostly filled with young, hungry, fit players who have a lot to prove and want to build a rapport with the fans. However, we’ll probably also need some older heads to help them out. I believe we can unearth a few gems, which makes me feel positive about next season.

I would agree we need someone who plays in the Paul Ince mould in midfield. Someone who isn't afraid of picking up a yellow card or putting his body on the line for the team. Someone like that is hard to find though given our limitations, sure there is someone out there available on a free though who can do that job. We just have to look past ex-players I think, lets forget Danny Drinkwater.

[Snowflake Royal]

Would anyone be happy with Drinkwater coming back on a salary we could afford?

Suspect Drinkwater wouldn’t be....

He’s made his money. At his stage it will likely be about wanting to play football. He won’t get any PL offers. So his days of big contracts are well and truly over. Besides being paid £8k a week isn’t too shabby.

Big fat no. Guy should be bossing midfield in the Championship, but in the majority of his performances he dropped multiple clangers a game. He was directly at fault for multiple goals costing us games. He had one decent run of 5 - 10 games where he upped his game, and then fell apart again.

We need consistency more than quality. For too long we've been a team that looks good but suicides because of individual calamities.

Drinkwater is the epitome of that problem and the sort of bad signing we make. Someone with loads of skill, low application and dreadful errors.