"Strengthening The Playing Squad"

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

...reading beween the lines. sounds like BM could be getting slightly p*ssed off with the clubs position on transfer budgets

READING manager Brian McDermott has no idea whether he has cash to spend despite a summer of sales at Madejski Stadium.

Shane Long completed his £7.5 million transfer to West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday just a few weeks after Matt Mills moved to Saturday's Championship opponents Leicester City for £5.5 million.

Long's club-record move eclipsed the £7 million Royals received for Gylfi Sigurdsson when he moved to Hoffenheim a year ago.

In addition, successive FA Cup quarter finals appearances under McDermott plus a Wembley appearance in last season's Championship play-off final have further boosted the club's coffers.

But while Royals have been raking in the money, McDermott has had little to play with in the transfer market. Reading fans are now calling on the club to reinvest some of those funds back into the team, but McDermott is unclear on what is available to spend.

Speaking exclusively to the Chronicle, he said: "The club has brought in a lot of money. No other Championship club has been doing the kind of deals we have been doing in recent years.

"I have to say that our director of football Nick Hammond has done a great job in that respect. We've brought players to Reading like Shane and developed Academy players like Gylfi who have been sold for big money. No other club in this division can say that.

"We also got to another FA Cup quarter-final and the play-off final at Wembley, which also brought in a lot of cash.

"But where that leaves us, I don't know. However, I can guarantee we will be doing our very best to make this team successful. That's been the case since the day I got this job 18 months ago."

It is believed McDermott is now set for budget talks with chairman Sir John Madejski within the next week. But even if there is little money to spend, he is confident Royals can compete in the Championship this season.

"We've lost two big players this summer in Shane Long and Matt Mills in addition to Ivar Ingimarsson and Zurab Khizanishvili," he explained. "We need to look at that and address it.

"But there are hungry players at Reading already and I certainly won't be overlooking any of them."

And he also admitted: "It has been a tough week for us with Shane going. The most important thing for me is to take a step back and look at what we've got left.

"If I see a deal out there, we will do it. If not, we look at what we've got, what we don't have, and try and address it.

"Like everything, it depends what finances are available and I'm not even sure how we stand on that. But if we see something, and can afford it, we will do it."

McDermott was instrumental in bringing Long to Reading from Cork City as an unknown teenager in a £78,000 deal that included former striker Kevin Doyle, who was sold to Wolves for £6.5 million two years ago.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Southampton have had a few good sales in the recent past.

[Cypry]

...reading beween the lines. sounds like BM could be getting slightly p*ssed off with the clubs position on transfer budgets

READING manager Brian McDermott has no idea whether he has cash to spend despite a summer of sales at Madejski Stadium.

Shane Long completed his £7.5 million transfer to West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday just a few weeks after Matt Mills moved to Saturday's Championship opponents Leicester City for £5.5 million.

Long's club-record move eclipsed the £7 million Royals received for Gylfi Sigurdsson when he moved to Hoffenheim a year ago.

In addition, successive FA Cup quarter finals appearances under McDermott plus a Wembley appearance in last season's Championship play-off final have further boosted the club's coffers.

But while Royals have been raking in the money, McDermott has had little to play with in the transfer market. Reading fans are now calling on the club to reinvest some of those funds back into the team, but McDermott is unclear on what is available to spend.

Speaking exclusively to the Chronicle, he said: "The club has brought in a lot of money. No other Championship club has been doing the kind of deals we have been doing in recent years.

"I have to say that our director of football Nick Hammond has done a great job in that respect. We've brought players to Reading like Shane and developed Academy players like Gylfi who have been sold for big money. No other club in this division can say that.

"We also got to another FA Cup quarter-final and the play-off final at Wembley, which also brought in a lot of cash.

"But where that leaves us, I don't know. However, I can guarantee we will be doing our very best to make this team successful. That's been the case since the day I got this job 18 months ago."

It is believed McDermott is now set for budget talks with chairman Sir John Madejski within the next week. But even if there is little money to spend, he is confident Royals can compete in the Championship this season.

"We've lost two big players this summer in Shane Long and Matt Mills in addition to Ivar Ingimarsson and Zurab Khizanishvili," he explained. "We need to look at that and address it.

"But there are hungry players at Reading already and I certainly won't be overlooking any of them."

And he also admitted: "It has been a tough week for us with Shane going. The most important thing for me is to take a step back and look at what we've got left.

"If I see a deal out there, we will do it. If not, we look at what we've got, what we don't have, and try and address it.

"Like everything, it depends what finances are available and I'm not even sure how we stand on that. But if we see something, and can afford it, we will do it."

McDermott was instrumental in bringing Long to Reading from Cork City as an unknown teenager in a £78,000 deal that included former striker Kevin Doyle, who was sold to Wolves for £6.5 million two years ago.

Smacks of sensationalist reporting that one - Fordham's been going down the same "where's the money gone" path recently a bit as well....

There are far too many contradictions in there to really take it seriously - on the one hand it's saying McD has no cash to spend, on the other hand he's saying "if we see something, and can afford it, we'll do it"....

I suspect the truth of the matter is that he's been asked to tell the club who he would like to bring in and then they'll take a look at the finances and whether it works. The traditional football model seems to be to give the manager a budget and let him get on with it - I believe we work differently, where McD has to justify why he wants to spend money (make a business case if you will) and then the club will determine if it can be squeezed into the budget (hence him not knowing what's available).
This is the way I have to work in business all day every day - I'm not just given a budget to blow on whatever I see fit, I determine what's needed to move the business forward, make a case for it and present that to the powers that be who decide whether spending the money is in the best interests of the business or not......it's common sense, and I believe the right way to do things...

[brendywendy]

I suspect the truth of the matter is that he's been asked to tell the club who he would like to bring in and then they'll take a look at the finances and whether it works.

the wayweve done our transfer business for years, at least since coppello was here

[Cypry]

I suspect the truth of the matter is that he's been asked to tell the club who he would like to bring in and then they'll take a look at the finances and whether it works.

the wayweve done our transfer business for years, at least since coppello was here

Agreed - I guess the point I was getting at is that for whatever reason the local press suddenly seem to have adopted a bit of a sensationalist approach regarding the finances of the club....Dellor's been at it as well.....

[Svlad Cjelli]

I suspect the truth of the matter is that he's been asked to tell the club who he would like to bring in and then they'll take a look at the finances and whether it works.

the wayweve done our transfer business for years, at least since coppello was here

Agreed - I guess the point I was getting at is that for whatever reason the local press suddenly seem to have adopted a bit of a sensationalist approach regarding the finances of the club....Dellor's been at it as well.....

In other news, Pope still Catholic, Bears still using outdoor toilet facilities adjacent to trees

[Woodcote Royal]

Rest assured, people inside the game will have a pretty good idea of how much has/will change hands (that's what some of them are paid to know/find out). Asfor the bit about outsiders thinking we have all that cash sitting there to spend, it's all relative. RFC don't yet have all of the cash, but any deals they strike are likely to be structured on a similar basis. Therefore, if we sign a player for a headline £4M, not only will pigs be cleared for take off but also the club won't be stumping up £4M up front.

Don't you think, RB, that, that last sentence totally undermines your whole position?

Yes, despite Long's fee being undisclosed everyone with a passing interested in the domestic transfer market knows that RFC has raked in upwards of £10m this summer yet you, a dedicated fan, is completely convinced that there's more chance of hell freezing over than your club re-investing a fraction of that sum in the team.

Furthermore, this board is littered with like minded posters and full to over flowing with threads expressing the same view.

Feel free to explain why ANY other club would see RFC as anything other than a financially sound business that doesn't throw it's money around.

On the other hand, the Football League is teeming with clubs teetering on the brink of financial melt down and desperate to off load before deadline day.


You should put your house on Squeeky knowing several such clubs who have players we would like to sign for the "right" price and, should push come to shove, it will be a buyers market.

[brendywendy]

You can't bank on a £6million cheque to score 25 goals
By Jonny Fordham
August 10, 2011


Bought for just £30,000 and sold for £6million – it’s not a bad investment on a converted hurling star from Cork City.

Shane Long’s departure will leave a glaring void on the pitch, but the boost he brings to the bank was impossible to turn down for prudent chairman Sir John Madejski.

It was a matter of when, not if, the 24-year-old would leave Reading this summer.

The Reading Post revealed on Friday July 22 that West Brom were ready to smash their transfer budget to land Long.

Royals fans have been braced for the news ever since that heart-breaking play-off final defeat to Swansea at Wembley just 10 weeks ago, but it is still a bitter pill to swallow.

They’ve seen it all before – Gylfi Sigurdsson last summer and Kevin Doyle and Dave Kitson in previous transfer windows.

The drive, passion and ambition of the fans is matched by manager Brian McDermott, his coaching staff and their players, but questions continue to be asked whether or not that is being matched by those who sign the cheques at the Mad Stad.

Indeed straight after the play-off final chairman Sir John Madejski told the Post that: “We know who is going to win the Premier League. We don’t know who is going to win the Championship.

“The Championship is a much more exciting place to be. Had we gone up, unless I can find my benevolent billionaire, which is unlikely, we would have just been an ‘also-ran’.”

Follow Royals reporter Jonny Fordham on Twitter here

The danger and fear right now among fans is that unless Royals can hold their own in the markets, they will become an ‘also-ran’ in the second tier of English football.

Supporters have been quick to point out that for a club seemingly so well run, there must surely be funds for McDermott to play with in the transfer market.

Reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Cup for two consecutive seasons, as well as gracing Wembley for the play-off final should have brought in funds that could be used to replenish the squad.

Fans have pleaded in their droves to reward McDermott with that unbudgeted cash that he has helped bring in.

There are 21 days to go in the current transfer window, so if he were to be given a cheque by his chairman, McDermott and director of football Nick Hammond would have plenty of time to flex their muscles.

In the last year, player sales have yielded more than £13million. In return the expenditure on new recruits is believed to have totalled no more than 10 per cent of that.

McDermott’s record with a tight budget has been phenomenal and fans can only dream of how far he could take the team with improved financial backing.

Indeed in sport, and sadly for Royals, there are no prizes or trophies for having a bank balance in the black at the end of each season.

You also can’t hire out an open-top bus to parade the money men along Friar Street at the conclusion of the Championship campaign.

And you certainly can’t field a £6million cheque up front and hope it will pay you back by scoring 25 goals in a season.

Reading fans are clued up and like their chairman, are on the whole proud of how their club is run.

Of course nobody wants to see the club’s financial stability put at risk in an attempt to replace Long.

But a flash of ambition in the transfer market would appease scores of stay-at-home supporters. The next 10 games could be season-defining for the club.

Now it’s time to show there can be life after Long.

furk orf fordham you smug oxf*rd.
cant wait for him to get slapped down like the bloke from BBCRB when he started going on about the money and hotel.

[Friday's Legacy]

Royals boss Brian McDermott is looking to add new signings before the end of the month, and he maintains complete faith in his current squad so will only do a deal if it's absolutely the right thing to do.

The boss was quizzed by the press this week on his transfer plans, and said, "We've got a couple of players that we're trying to get, and we shall see what the outcome is.

"We'd try to sign them [permanently] if we could, one is an experienced player and one I would regard as a work in progress. We've been speaking to one club for a long period, and the other club for a week or so.

"We'll have to wait, we try to do it as quietly as we possibly can. It's difficult, nobody is easy to get so we will have to see."

Asked about bringing in more attacking options, Brian said, "If something comes our way, and it's right for us, then fine. But having said that, I ask anyone to find somebody available who could fill Shane Long's shoes.

"I look at the four we've got - Manset, Churchy, Hal Kanu, Hunty, and then Brett Williams, who we have to wait for a little bit, we've got strikers here who can make the difference. We've scored four goals in the first two games, we didn't score on Tuesday but could have done, and if there's someone there who can make the difference, we'd go for it.

"But I've got complete faith in our guys, and what I love is for our fans to have faith in them as well, I think that's really important, and what's been proven in the last couple of years here is that if you have faith in people they repay you in spades."

The boss was asked specifically about Sanchez Watt, Gavin Hoyte and Adam Le Fondre, but said they are not on any list of targets.

When quizzed about whether any players could leave before the end of August, Brian said, "It wouldn't be because we have to, which is important, if someone goes it'd be because it's right for the player and our club, not because we have to do it - we don't have to sell any players."

Brian continued, "Michail Antonio came to me after one game and said he thought it would be best if he went out on loan, I didn't necessarily agree and I told him to think about it but he thought it was right for him, and good luck to him, I hope it goes well and if he comes back better for it, it's worked in his favour."