Next Reading Manager

[Nameless]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

The club said in the interview with STAR that it was only Joao and one other player I can't remember

[Hound]

Yeah agree with the above but don’t mind Ince at all. Don’t think he is a superb manager etc but he may well be the man for the job of keeping us afloat next year

I’d not say no to Warburton or Mowbray but Ince has the head start on them of knowing who we will be left with and what we have in the academy etc

I think it’s impt for the club to work out who will be staying asap. Don’t need a situation where we are heading into July with the oocs still not committing one way or another (though suspect this might well happen)

The problem we have is the club have absolutely no power in defining when any OOC's may re-sign. Ince has stated as much. We can offer, say Yiadom a deal on the same terms but he is absolutely right to sit on his current deal until 30th June and then decide he's off to QPR or decide to re-sign for us. It's partly why I'd be tempted to bin the lot and just go for a total rebuild - even if signing on a couple makes sense.

I’d almost be happy with end of June. Nothing to stop them waiting til end of July and see who offers them the best deal

But yeah agree - best to give them a deadline and go from there. Honestly wouldn’t be too upset with any of them not re-signing. Some will be missed of course but have to move on

[Stranded]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

Don't have the numbers but given we are going into a key summer where apparently most, if not all, our scouting network have left teamed up with the fact that our Head of Recruitment joined the club directly from a job at a company owned by Kia - it's not currently difficult to see the likely direction of travel this summer.

[Stranded]

Yeah agree with the above but don’t mind Ince at all. Don’t think he is a superb manager etc but he may well be the man for the job of keeping us afloat next year

I’d not say no to Warburton or Mowbray but Ince has the head start on them of knowing who we will be left with and what we have in the academy etc

I think it’s impt for the club to work out who will be staying asap. Don’t need a situation where we are heading into July with the oocs still not committing one way or another (though suspect this might well happen)

The problem we have is the club have absolutely no power in defining when any OOC's may re-sign. Ince has stated as much. We can offer, say Yiadom a deal on the same terms but he is absolutely right to sit on his current deal until 30th June and then decide he's off to QPR or decide to re-sign for us. It's partly why I'd be tempted to bin the lot and just go for a total rebuild - even if signing on a couple makes sense.

I’d almost be happy with end of June. Nothing to stop them waiting til end of July and see who offers them the best deal

But yeah agree - best to give them a deadline and go from there. Honestly wouldn’t be too upset with any of them not re-signing. Some will be missed of course but have to move on

End of June wouldn't be a total disaster but my concern would be with the season starting on 30th July, if we don't get things sorted with the squad asap, we may well lose the benefit of pre-season.

[Pepe the Horseman]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

General rule is if it's a bad signing it must be Kia. If it's a good signing we don't talk about it.

[Snowflake Royal]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

Don't have the numbers but given we are going into a key summer where apparently most, if not all, our scouting network have left teamed up with the fact that our Head of Recruitment joined the club directly from a job at a company owned by Kia - it's not currently difficult to see the likely direction of travel this summer.

Yeah, this.

No scouts means we're relying on agents basically. Whether that's Joorabchian or one of the other super agents it's much of a muchness. And they have a really obvious conflict of interest. It's not hard to see the issues we've experienced in making signings without a real plan for the playing side.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

Don't have the numbers but given we are going into a key summer where apparently most, if not all, our scouting network have left teamed up with the fact that our Head of Recruitment joined the club directly from a job at a company owned by Kia - it's not currently difficult to see the likely direction of travel this summer.

Yeah, this.

No scouts means we're relying on agents basically. Whether that's Joorabchian or one of the other super agents it's much of a muchness. And they have a really obvious conflict of interest. It's not hard to see the issues we've experienced in making signings without a real plan for the playing side.

I don't think it's so much not having a plan from the playing side of things, more the actual amounts that we've decided to pay both the players and the club we have bought from.

I think it's been clear since the summer when we bought both Joao and Puscas that they were bought to play as a pair and the limited time they've spent as a pair they've looked dangerous and it seems as if Ejaria was bought to play in a narrow midfield trio with Swift being the creative/technical players as well.

I think there was a plan there and there are elements that we have seen work, just not consistently enough to be reliable and the sheer money we paid for Puscas, Ejaria and Joao along with their wages, including Rafael, Swift, Moore, Baldock, Aluko et al made our position what it is today.

[Snowflake Royal]

Don't have the numbers but given we are going into a key summer where apparently most, if not all, our scouting network have left teamed up with the fact that our Head of Recruitment joined the club directly from a job at a company owned by Kia - it's not currently difficult to see the likely direction of travel this summer.

Yeah, this.

No scouts means we're relying on agents basically. Whether that's Joorabchian or one of the other super agents it's much of a muchness. And they have a really obvious conflict of interest. It's not hard to see the issues we've experienced in making signings without a real plan for the playing side.

I don't think it's so much not having a plan from the playing side of things, more the actual amounts that we've decided to pay both the players and the club we have bought from.

I think it's been clear since the summer when we bought both Joao and Puscas that they were bought to play as a pair and the limited time they've spent as a pair they've looked dangerous and it seems as if Ejaria was bought to play in a narrow midfield trio with Swift being the creative/technical players as well.

I think there was a plan there and there are elements that we have seen work, just not consistently enough to be reliable and the sheer money we paid for Puscas, Ejaria and Joao along with their wages, including Rafael, Swift, Moore, Baldock, Aluko et al made our position what it is today.

I don't think that's true at all. We've shown no inclination to play with two strikers at all except under extreme fan pressure. You argue we signed Puscas and Joao to play together and in the same breath contradict yourself to say we signed Ejaria to play in a midfield three behind. That's 5 forwards. We don't play with 5 forwards. Playing with 5 forwards is ridiculous. And Ejaria didn't particularly start out on the left for us.

We've gone from having 3 left backs, to one to starting a season with none.

We constantly overload one or two positions leaving ourselves bare in others. When we have one real left back, we sign a young right back to cover the other two and a half right backs we've got.

We make ridiculously inexperienced keeper loans when we have an academy producing multiple young keepers.

We play strikers like Puscas, Baldock, Grabban and Vydra out of their comfort zone.

We sign Aluko for big money when what we actually need is a striker, because we aren't prepared to pay more for our primary target.

It's all just going for whatever is flashed in front of us.

Just come out of q transfer embargo? Ok, lets buy two strikers for a combined price of allegedly about £10m.

There was no plan.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Yeah, this.

No scouts means we're relying on agents basically. Whether that's Joorabchian or one of the other super agents it's much of a muchness. And they have a really obvious conflict of interest. It's not hard to see the issues we've experienced in making signings without a real plan for the playing side.

I don't think it's so much not having a plan from the playing side of things, more the actual amounts that we've decided to pay both the players and the club we have bought from.

I think it's been clear since the summer when we bought both Joao and Puscas that they were bought to play as a pair and the limited time they've spent as a pair they've looked dangerous and it seems as if Ejaria was bought to play in a narrow midfield trio with Swift being the creative/technical players as well.

I think there was a plan there and there are elements that we have seen work, just not consistently enough to be reliable and the sheer money we paid for Puscas, Ejaria and Joao along with their wages, including Rafael, Swift, Moore, Baldock, Aluko et al made our position what it is today.

I don't think that's true at all. We've shown no inclination to play with two strikers at all except under extreme fan pressure. You argue we signed Puscas and Joao to play together and in the same breath contradict yourself to say we signed Ejaria to play in a midfield three behind. That's 5 forwards. We don't play with 5 forwards. Playing with 5 forwards is ridiculous. And Ejaria didn't particularly start out on the left for us.

We've gone from having 3 left backs, to one to starting a season with none.

We constantly overload one or two positions leaving ourselves bare in others. When we have one real left back, we sign a young right back to cover the other two and a half right backs we've got.

We make ridiculously inexperienced keeper loans when we have an academy producing multiple young keepers.

We play strikers like Puscas, Baldock, Grabban and Vydra out of their comfort zone.

We sign Aluko for big money when what we actually need is a striker, because we aren't prepared to pay more for our primary target.

It's all just going for whatever is flashed in front of us.

Just come out of q transfer embargo? Ok, lets buy two strikers for a combined price of allegedly about £10m.

There was no plan.

How have you deduced 5 forwards from 2 strikers and 2 creative midfielders? I presume you thought I meant two wingers but I did mention a narrow midfield 3?

I didn't say it was remotely sensible, sustainable or whatever other words you want to use, but there was a plan to gamble for promotion but what has completely worked against us is the fees and the wages for all the players, that's been the problem. We haven't utilised our players well enough, I don't think Ejaria is a left winger, I think he's a talented players but maybe not in the right position and I've said my bit about Joao and Puscas as a two.

I think what it was is that we went for who our agent has/had contacts with and could get a player into us. It wasn't scouting in a traditional sense, there probably wasn't much scouting at all, we just relied on a "super-agent" to do the work for us.

[Nameless]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

The club said in the interview with STAR that it was only Joao and one other player I can't remember

We have definitely signed more than 2 Kia players.
There are more than 2 Kia players on the books currently.
I’m sure someone with lots of time could trawl through the tangled web of agents and work out who is linked to who !

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I see frequent reference to us ‘only signing Kia players’.
I have no idea how many players we have signed in recent years have had any kind of relationship with Kia or his associates.
Does anyone know ?

The club said in the interview with STAR that it was only Joao and one other player I can't remember

We have definitely signed more than 2 Kia players.
There are more than 2 Kia players on the books currently.
I’m sure someone with lots of time could trawl through the tangled web of agents and work out who is linked to who !

One quick search shows that the only players on the books of Sports Invest UK (owned by Kia) are both Nelson Abbey and Mamadi Camara.

We were heavily linked with Diego Rossi in last seasons January transfer window on deadline day, who is also a client, as well as Rodrigo Riquelme who was on trial last summer before joining Bournemouth on loan. Previous academy player Augustus McGiff is also on the books there.

The more high profile names include Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz and Phillipe Coutinho as well as ex-Chelsea and Arsenal player Willian.

[Snowflake Royal]

I don't think it's so much not having a plan from the playing side of things, more the actual amounts that we've decided to pay both the players and the club we have bought from.

I think it's been clear since the summer when we bought both Joao and Puscas that they were bought to play as a pair and the limited time they've spent as a pair they've looked dangerous and it seems as if Ejaria was bought to play in a narrow midfield trio with Swift being the creative/technical players as well.

I think there was a plan there and there are elements that we have seen work, just not consistently enough to be reliable and the sheer money we paid for Puscas, Ejaria and Joao along with their wages, including Rafael, Swift, Moore, Baldock, Aluko et al made our position what it is today.

I don't think that's true at all. We've shown no inclination to play with two strikers at all except under extreme fan pressure. You argue we signed Puscas and Joao to play together and in the same breath contradict yourself to say we signed Ejaria to play in a midfield three behind. That's 5 forwards. We don't play with 5 forwards. Playing with 5 forwards is ridiculous. And Ejaria didn't particularly start out on the left for us.

We've gone from having 3 left backs, to one to starting a season with none.

We constantly overload one or two positions leaving ourselves bare in others. When we have one real left back, we sign a young right back to cover the other two and a half right backs we've got.

We make ridiculously inexperienced keeper loans when we have an academy producing multiple young keepers.

We play strikers like Puscas, Baldock, Grabban and Vydra out of their comfort zone.

We sign Aluko for big money when what we actually need is a striker, because we aren't prepared to pay more for our primary target.

It's all just going for whatever is flashed in front of us.

Just come out of q transfer embargo? Ok, lets buy two strikers for a combined price of allegedly about £10m.

There was no plan.

How have you deduced 5 forwards from 2 strikers and 2 creative midfielders? I presume you thought I meant two wingers but I did mention a narrow midfield 3?

I didn't say it was remotely sensible, sustainable or whatever other words you want to use, but there was a plan to gamble for promotion but what has completely worked against us is the fees and the wages for all the players, that's been the problem. We haven't utilised our players well enough, I don't think Ejaria is a left winger, I think he's a talented players but maybe not in the right position and I've said my bit about Joao and Puscas as a two.

I think what it was is that we went for who our agent has/had contacts with and could get a player into us. It wasn't scouting in a traditional sense, there probably wasn't much scouting at all, we just relied on a "super-agent" to do the work for us.

You aren’t making any sense. We bought Puscas and Joao to play together yet we've barely played them together at all despite many opportunities. We bought Ejaria to play in a midfield three despite the fact we've barely played a midfield three at all whilst he's been here, and it can't be the three in behind as we actually play because that's either one striker or five forwards

So the only option I can think of is 3 centrebacks, 2 wing backs, 3 midfielders, 2 strikers, something we've shown barely any interest in playing at all, we consistently play a back four.

There's no point if you're just going to make stuff up.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I'm making stuff up yet you're saying I've said we would be playing with 5 forwards? It's not that I'm not making any sense, you've just completely misunderstood the midfield trio with our strikers playing as a pair.

That's how we set up under Gomes until his dismissal, that's what I was getting at. Then when Bowen came in, we changed and it's changed since then.

As I say, just because it hasn't worked doesn't mean to say there wasn't a plan. Or unless you think these people are just genuinely thick.

[Nameless]

The club said in the interview with STAR that it was only Joao and one other player I can't remember

We have definitely signed more than 2 Kia players.
There are more than 2 Kia players on the books currently.
I’m sure someone with lots of time could trawl through the tangled web of agents and work out who is linked to who !

One quick search shows that the only players on the books of Sports Invest UK (owned by Kia) are both Nelson Abbey and Mamadi Camara.

We were heavily linked with Diego Rossi in last seasons January transfer window on deadline day, who is also a client, as well as Rodrigo Riquelme who was on trial last summer before joining Bournemouth on loan. Previous academy player Augustus McGiff is also on the books there.

The more high profile names include Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz and Phillipe Coutinho as well as ex-Chelsea and Arsenal player Willian.

I think it’s more about what agencies Kia might also have interest in. We’ve been told he was involved in the Joao signing and he enabled the loan signings of a couple of years under Gomes. Hein and Hurtado were also connected to him and I’d me amazed if Araruna and Rafael couldn’t be linked in some way as well.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

We have definitely signed more than 2 Kia players.
There are more than 2 Kia players on the books currently.
I’m sure someone with lots of time could trawl through the tangled web of agents and work out who is linked to who !

One quick search shows that the only players on the books of Sports Invest UK (owned by Kia) are both Nelson Abbey and Mamadi Camara.

We were heavily linked with Diego Rossi in last seasons January transfer window on deadline day, who is also a client, as well as Rodrigo Riquelme who was on trial last summer before joining Bournemouth on loan. Previous academy player Augustus McGiff is also on the books there.

The more high profile names include Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz and Phillipe Coutinho as well as ex-Chelsea and Arsenal player Willian.

I think it’s more about what agencies Kia might also have interest in. We’ve been told he was involved in the Joao signing and he enabled the loan signings of a couple of years under Gomes. Hein and Hurtado were also connected to him and I’d me amazed if Araruna and Rafael couldn’t be linked in some way as well.

Yeah I'd agree there, it was the only one I could find, I didn't spend time extensively looking. There seems to be another company called Jazzy Limited that he is a director of but it's unclear what they actually do.

[leon]

One quick search shows that the only players on the books of Sports Invest UK (owned by Kia) are both Nelson Abbey and Mamadi Camara.

We were heavily linked with Diego Rossi in last seasons January transfer window on deadline day, who is also a client, as well as Rodrigo Riquelme who was on trial last summer before joining Bournemouth on loan. Previous academy player Augustus McGiff is also on the books there.

The more high profile names include Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz and Phillipe Coutinho as well as ex-Chelsea and Arsenal player Willian.

I think it’s more about what agencies Kia might also have interest in. We’ve been told he was involved in the Joao signing and he enabled the loan signings of a couple of years under Gomes. Hein and Hurtado were also connected to him and I’d me amazed if Araruna and Rafael couldn’t be linked in some way as well.

Yeah I'd agree there, it was the only one I could find, I didn't spend time extensively looking. There seems to be another company called Jazzy Limited that he is a director of but it's unclear what they actually do.

He’s not doing it because he loves the Royals.

It stinks and we need to get back to a grown up way of conducting ourselves. A way of playing. Scouts and a DoF that is entirely in sync with the manager.

It’s not difficult.

[royalp-we]

One quick search shows that the only players on the books of Sports Invest UK (owned by Kia) are both Nelson Abbey and Mamadi Camara.

We were heavily linked with Diego Rossi in last seasons January transfer window on deadline day, who is also a client, as well as Rodrigo Riquelme who was on trial last summer before joining Bournemouth on loan. Previous academy player Augustus McGiff is also on the books there.

The more high profile names include Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz and Phillipe Coutinho as well as ex-Chelsea and Arsenal player Willian.

I think it’s more about what agencies Kia might also have interest in. We’ve been told he was involved in the Joao signing and he enabled the loan signings of a couple of years under Gomes. Hein and Hurtado were also connected to him and I’d me amazed if Araruna and Rafael couldn’t be linked in some way as well.

Yeah I'd agree there, it was the only one I could find, I didn't spend time extensively looking. There seems to be another company called Jazzy Limited that he is a director of but it's unclear what they actually do.

Kia’s interests go back to when Piazon signed. Along with the above he also brokered the Miazga deal. Probably loads more too. His involvements are far more entrenched than the club is letting on.

In a few interviews Paunovic even mentioned his phone conversations with Kia. That wasn’t too long ago either.

Makes you wonder if Ince has spoken with Kia at all since joining the club…

[morganb]

Has anyone heard anything linking Michael Carrick to Reading? Mr Dai seems to like an ex-Man Utd player.

[windermereROYAL]

Has anyone heard anything linking Michael Carrick to Reading? Kia Joorabchian.seems to like an ex-Man Utd player.

Corrected for you.