Brian - Goals on Sunday

[themadstad]

Brian said before that back in summer he talked to Anton and said that he felt the squad was good enough mostly as it is so they decided to not change too much. Anton trusted Brian in this case, that trust gained from promotion.

January money was again spent, two big bids went in but we bought a new RB after spending over £2m on one in summer. Quite vague about things but it points to he wasn't active enough and that'll be backed up by him saying he is more hungry now and he'll go to a club being more so.

Hammond has said support is there but decision is with the manager and Brian told Adkins Anton will back you 100%.

Brian kept saying its worked in past (hard workers etc) it can again. Seems Brian genuinely thought this and after Guthrie didn't want to bring unknown expensive players in and risking problems then still going down etc.

[winchester_royal]

@ReadingFC__News
BM - "I spent what I was given" "The budget I had I spent, in hindsight, both Anton and I realise now we needed to do more." #readingfc

coupled with the "i should have been stronger" in pushing the owner for a bigger budget comments, and id say that conclusively ties up the who was ultimately to blame for the summer spending/lac k of it

Hardly. Anton's a young guy, in his first transfer window as an owner. He'll have set a budget based on conversations with Nicky/Brian etc. We don't know what was said in these discussions, in fact Brian saying 'I should have been stronger' suggests that he wasn't pushing for a bigger budget. Club-wide decision, club-wide blame.

[Divvy]

SJM made many mistakes when he was chairman. AZ will too. We all learn as we go along! Clearly his intentions are good for the club. Adkins is a good appointment and now we move on with this experience behind us to learn from.

[Caskeys Lovechild]

Why do people think that the manager of a club on the scale of Reading, would just be handed a budget of £20-30million and then get told to "Spend it on who you want"?

I deal with massive budgets day in day out, and I'm ultimately responsible for the results of those budgets - However, I still have to justify everything over £100k with a convincing and sound business case, stating both the business benefit, and the residual value of the expenditure - I'm not simply allowed to go out and buy what I want....I'd like to...but I can't!

Reading FC is, and always has been run as a business, and is all the better for it. It does mean we are slower out of the blocks, as demonstrated by the Sigurdsson situation - if we'd started earlier, we might have been able to thrash out a deal, but because the case had to be considered and justified, we didn't. You could argue that it puts us at a disadvantage to do things like that....but overall, you'd be wrong.

I suspect Brian put all of his eggs in one, Gylfi Sigurdsson shaped basket, and knew his days were numbered when that move didn't pay off. He will have learnt from that mistake and will move forwards - whereas we have gone backwards by bringing in someone who hasn't yet had to make that mistake, and hasn't learnt the same lessons. Consistency would have been key here, which is why I think Anton is a fool for letting all of that experience walk out of the door, potentially into the clutches of one of our rivals.

[melonhead]

@ReadingFC__News
BM - "I spent what I was given" "The budget I had I spent, in hindsight, both Anton and I realise now we needed to do more." #readingfc

coupled with the "i should have been stronger" in pushing the owner for a bigger budget comments, and id say that conclusively ties up the who was ultimately to blame for the summer spending/lac k of it

Both of them?

ultrimately, but many on here have tried to say that brian definitely decided himself that the squad would be fine, and that doesnt look like it was true

[melonhead]

Brian said before that back in summer he talked to Anton and said that he felt the squad was good enough mostly as it is so they decided to not change too much. Anton trusted Brian in this case, that trust gained from promotion.

.

that really doesnt appear to be the case, and i can find no quotes on that first sentence whatsoever



once the summer window was closed he said he was ghappy with what he had, but thats not the same in any way

[themadstad]

Brian said before that back in summer he talked to Anton and said that he felt the squad was good enough mostly as it is so they decided to not change too much. Anton trusted Brian in this case, that trust gained from promotion.

.

that really doesnt appear to be the case, and i can find no quotes on that first sentence whatsoever



once the summer window was closed he said he was ghappy with what he had, but thats not the same in any way

Doesn't appear to be the case? Well it's what he said on BBC radio berks after a match a while back, just before Jan window, because I remember saying to radio as he said it, yes, yes that's what I thought. Quotes, I don't know not they must be somewhere I'd have thought.

[melonhead]

couldnt find em.



can find the ones saying im happy with what i have



theres usually a quote every year just before january aimed at fan expectation management that there wasnt going to be a big pot of money available fopr transfers, did you mean that one?

[themadstad]

couldnt find em.



can find the ones saying im happy with what i have



theres usually a quote every year just before january aimed at fan expectation management that there wasnt going to be a big pot of money available fopr transfers, did you mean that one?

No that's definitely not it though I know of that one.

[melonhead]

im afraid i cant move on until you find the quote.

we are at an impasse, i demand you resolve it

[themadstad]

Though I didn't say there was a quote for sure. I did have a look though and one thing I did find was an article by sky where Brian said he wouldn't demand big funds from Anton maintaining he wouldn't want us to go way of sky. This with the 'active' is that Anton expected Brian to find his players and he'd back him. We heard many a time right player we'll pay bigger money etc.

[melonhead]

not talking to you without that quote.



have to agree to disagree- its a bit muddy, but it looks to me like it was a group decision in the summer, but brian wishes hed pushed harder for a bigger budget, and that anton gave that bigger budget in january, but brain failed to spend it for various reasons.

and as usual the blame is scattered about between all the main protagonists

[themadstad]

Fair play, I'm completely unmoved because I know what I heard.

[melonhead]

fair enough, although what you think you heard makes no difference to me whatsoever, since i also know what i heard

[themadstad]

fair enough, although what you think you heard makes no difference to me whatsoever, since i also know what i heard

Clearly

[melonhead]

right. well then....fine.

[maffff]

[sandman]

Fair play, I'm completely unmoved because I know what I wanted to hear.

That's more like it.

[Man Friday]

He will have learnt from that mistake and will move forwards - whereas we have gone backwards by bringing in someone who hasn't yet had to make that mistake, and hasn't learnt the same lessons. Consistency would have been key here, which is why I think Anton is a fool for letting all of that experience walk out of the door, potentially into the clutches of one of our rivals.

Agree with these latter comments (well said). WE, not someone else, should be benefiting from Brian learning from these acknowledged mistakes.

[Hoop Blah]

Having listened to McDermott's comments my thoughts are:

- 'I should've been stronger' relates to having the balls to drop players and sign improvements and recommend the right way forward to Hammond & Zingaravich
- He's accepted that he didn't do enough and could've/should've done more
- I'm confused by his 'I spent all my budget' comment when he then goes on to say he was working on bringing in a few other signings in the summer that didn't come off. If he'd spent all his budget I don't see how that makes any sense
- He's also on record as saying he got everyone he wanted, another contradiction
- You basically can't believe a word any of them say half the time and even if they aren't just putting a spin on things and telling 'half-truths' their perception of what happened at the time isn't necessarily the reality (as it isn't for anyone)
- His comments about being the second most active club in the January window are laughable when you look at the quality of players he bought in
- He was just a bit too 'happy to be in the league' as if we didn't deserve to be and so just enjoying our time with the big boys

We'll never really know who was most responsilble for the summer budget and approach but my inclination, having listened to those involved over the last few years, is that McDermott would've been the most happy to stick with what he had as that's the kind of guy he is and he's the one most emotionally attached to his existing squad (just as Coppell was before him).