Steve Sidwell's Future

[Alan Partridge]

I believe that Sidwell will be in high demand and will not be here next year. He will leave on a free in the summer having played a blinder of a season for us.

I will not begrudge him this for one minute. It will be thanks and good luck.

Hear hear.

I was scathing in my criticism of him for his conduct during the summer but he has answered that with excellent performances and commitment to the cause. If he goes in the summer for free having having played his part in keeping us up, then good luck to him. If he goes in January for a fee with our status in the Premiership (hopefully) looking fairly secure he'd have played his part in half a job well done and I'd say good luck and thanks in that eventuality too.

why couldnt everybody react the same with Pardew?

and unlike Sidwell he was getting seriously stiffed with the money he was on

goodluck to Sidwell when he leaves, cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him.... suppose no player is bigger than the club

Becuase there lies a slight difference. Sidwell is still here honouring his contract.

[Stranded]

I believe that Sidwell will be in high demand and will not be here next year. He will leave on a free in the summer having played a blinder of a season for us.

I will not begrudge him this for one minute. It will be thanks and good luck.

Hear hear.

I was scathing in my criticism of him for his conduct during the summer but he has answered that with excellent performances and commitment to the cause. If he goes in the summer for free having having played his part in keeping us up, then good luck to him. If he goes in January for a fee with our status in the Premiership (hopefully) looking fairly secure he'd have played his part in half a job well done and I'd say good luck and thanks in that eventuality too.

why couldnt everybody react the same with Pardew?

and unlike Sidwell he was getting seriously stiffed with the money he was on

goodluck to Sidwell when he leaves, cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him.... suppose no player is bigger than the club

Pardew looked to break the terms of his contract and then resigned. Totally different situation. But that's by the by.

As has been said Sidwell clearly backs himself to play at the highest level and clearly believes that he will have a better chance of European football & international recognition elsewhere. He's off in the summer at the latest and that's no problem as far as I'm concerned.

[SpaceCruiser]

cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him

And I suppose you want us to lose money and be forced to sell players to keep afloat whilst still paying Sidwell's expensive wages?

[RobRoyal]

Hear hear.

I was scathing in my criticism of him for his conduct during the summer but he has answered that with excellent performances and commitment to the cause. If he goes in the summer for free having having played his part in keeping us up, then good luck to him. If he goes in January for a fee with our status in the Premiership (hopefully) looking fairly secure he'd have played his part in half a job well done and I'd say good luck and thanks in that eventuality too.

why couldnt everybody react the same with Pardew?

and unlike Sidwell he was getting seriously stiffed with the money he was on

goodluck to Sidwell when he leaves, cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him.... suppose no player is bigger than the club

Pardew looked to break the terms of his contract and then resigned. Totally different situation. But that's by the by.

As has been said Sidwell clearly backs himself to play at the highest level and clearly believes that he will have a better chance of European football & international recognition elsewhere. He's off in the summer at the latest and that's no problem as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed, come the summer Sidwell is under no moral or contractual obligation to us. Hopefully by then we will be thanking him for his part in a successful season. To be honest if he's the only player we fail to hang on to we won't have done too badly.

I have a feeling that when he moves to a bigger club he may find out he's not as good as he thinks he is, but again that's by the by. (Would he really suceed where Jenas and Butt have failed?)

[Big Ern]

Considering the teams interested in Sidwell were Middlesbrough, Man City and Charlton, me may decide that he might as well stay at Reading. I'm not saying that we are bigger than any of these teams, but we should be able to match them on the playing field.

The problem will be if a team like Spurs comes in for them, and then we don't stand a chance. Still think he will go unfortuantely.

[bobby1413]

Considering the teams interested in Sidwell were Middlesbrough, Man City and Charlton, me may decide that he might as well stay at Reading. I'm not saying that we are bigger than any of these teams, but we should be able to match them on the playing field.

The problem will be if a team like Spurs comes in for them, and then we don't stand a chance. Still think he will go unfortuantely.

I agree.

I think by the time the season finishes, all things continuing how they are now, we will have survived. Added to this the other load of game sleft to play and sidwell has lots of chances of being spotted. The talent he is I could well see a club like Everton, Spurs, coming in for him.

Who knows though. It's only October.

[Norfolk Royal]

Its a pain in the Ar*e losing Sidwell, but we all know its on the cards!

I respect him for giving everything in the final year of his contract with us. I wish him good luck for the future. You can't deny Sidwell the chance to move to a bigger club and earn a bigger salary. That is what he is in the game to achieve!

Just as long as he doesn't make a decision that is only money motivated and results in his career going backwards and ending up back in the Championship. (Charlton & Man City)

I won't begrudge Sidders a move to a club like Everton or Newcastle. But please not Man City. That would be awful!

So what's the point of being a football fan with all its partisan loyalty without being p*ssed off that the star player is leaving for more money with another club.

It touches on the very heart of supporting a football club.

Fans want players to show the same loyalty to the club as they do. They don't and fans get pissed off it.

[rabidbee]

Everyone speculating about how much we will be paid for Sid in January (which will be a pittence anyway) should remember that there is a sell-on clause agreed with Arsenal. I have heard, though I don't know how reliably, that this was set at 40% (presumably because it enabled us to talk down the transfer fee at the time). Even if this is too high, we will lose a sizeable chunk of the small amount of money we could recoup in January. There is no way that we would cash in on Sid unless he suddenly refused to perform for us. So far, he has played out of his skin (I rate this his best season in the last two, or maybe even three, years), and I don't think his attitude will become a problem either.

I'm still optimistic that, should we survive the season, there may be a situation where we would offer him revised terms to keep him here. I would be happy if that turns out to be the case. However, I suspect that he will move to pastures new in June.

[juanpablo]

cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him

And I suppose you want us to lose money and be forced to sell players to keep afloat whilst still paying Sidwell's expensive wages?

yeah im sure the extra 2 grand or so a week it would take him to sign would put us under

[rabidbee]

cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him

And I suppose you want us to lose money and be forced to sell players to keep afloat whilst still paying Sidwell's expensive wages?

yeah im sure the extra 2 grand or so a week it would take him to sign would put us under

The rumours (only rumours) suggest that we were something like £5-10K a week out, which would £250,000-500,000 each year. If one player of our current squad gets such highly inflated wages, why shouldn't the others ask for similar? And, of course, any player we sign is going to look at Sidwell's contract and say that they are at least as good, if not better, and so deserve similar, if not better, wages. Before you know it, you've added £10-12M onto your annual wage bill...

[SpaceCruiser]

cant help thinking we should break the bank to keep him

And I suppose you want us to lose money and be forced to sell players to keep afloat whilst still paying Sidwell's expensive wages?

yeah im sure the extra 2 grand or so a week it would take him to sign would put us under

It's not just the 2 extra grand. He wants £25K a week. We offered him something like £15K a week. I imagine he's already on something like £8-12K a week. Therefore it's bound to be an increase of 10K a week.

And it's not just that. If we start paying him big wages, would the others look at that and start demanding bigger wages too? We have a wage structure and it's important to stick to that.

[juanpablo]

i know i agree hence why i said no player should be bigger than the club, however if we are going to progress sooner or later we will have to pay top players top wages. Kevin Doyle will be over the moon with his current contract but a couple years down the line, he will probably expect the kind of money top strikers are on

how many top half premier league teams have a whole squad on less than 25k a week. To progress we have to spend or lose players....1 day....

[SpaceCruiser]

1. We have been in the Premiership for less than three months. So we are hardly likely to have accumulated any wealth to pay top whack.

2. Our long term status is uncertain. If we do get relegated within 2 years, we'll be stuck with Premiership wages that we cannot afford to pay whilst in the Championship.

[juanpablo]

1. We have been in the Premiership for less than three months. So we are hardly likely to have accumulated any wealth to pay top whack.

2. Our long term status is uncertain. If we do get relegated within 2 years, we'll be stuck with Premiership wages that we cannot afford to pay whilst in the Championship.

yes i mean if we are going to push ourselves, hence i said doyle would be looking for the money in a few years (depending on the team being in the prem his performance etc)

i think relegated clubs get a parachute payment now to help with transition

and there is the same argument of replacing sidwell, we could end up going through 3 or 4 midfielders spending money on transfers/wages etc before we find somebody as reliable as sidwell, we have an established player willing to commit for the right price

[tom_t69]

I have heard from some inside the club that sidwell is definately leaving in the summer. It is a shame that he should leave the club that gave him his chance just for the money but that is how football is nowadays an this a shame. I think we should splash out and pay him his wages cos a player like sidwell will cost a lot of dosh e.g. John Mensah

[Top Flight]

i know i agree hence why i said no player should be bigger than the club, however if we are going to progress sooner or later we will have to pay top players top wages. Kevin Doyle will be over the moon with his current contract but a couple years down the line, he will probably expect the kind of money top strikers are on

how many top half premier league teams have a whole squad on less than 25k a week. To progress we have to spend or lose players....1 day....

I'm sure when the Mad Stad gets extended and we have 38,000 fans watching us each week we will have a chance to compete financially with most clubs in the Premiership. At the moment we are one of the smaller clubs. If we can overachieve on the pitch for a few years we will be ok, but we are always gonna be easy prey for bigger clubs.

We need to get more established in the Prem with bigger financial income from the larger stadium and better prospects to win things...... Only then can we realistically hope to keep top drawer players.

That is something that is on the way!

It will be our players of the future that we will be able to pay top whack to! If our current lads are good enough then they will gravitate above us to clubs prepared to pay more than we can afford right now!

Let's just accept our current disadvantage, cheer the Royals on as much as possible, knowing that our Board are doing everything they can to enable us to compete on a more even footing with the Biggest guns in the next few years. As long as the Reading public ensures the new stadium is full in the future then we will be alright!

[KC Royal]

Tbh I'm slightly surprised by all this negative talk, I thought Sidwell would assess the situation in the summer depending on the season we've had and the clubs after him. I just think that he's probably counting his lucky stars at the moment, because if the club had accepted the bid from Charlton he would have been playing for a side that could well be going down, and where would he have been then. I do think deep down however that the better we do, and the more influence he has the better his position is.

I'll admit I was one of those desperate for us to cash in during the summer, mainly because I feared that by turning down bids for him, he'd go down the route that Caskey took and stop performing on a consistent basis for us. But that hasnt happened and I'd be disappointed to see him leave in January as I think he'd be more valuable for the remaining 6 months of his contract than for any money we get for him.

[ScottishRoyal]

The money we would get in January after Arsenal having taken their cut would be a pittance so there would be more value in keeping him.

He obviously still interested in a return to Arsenal...

http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hli ... ers+return

[cmonurz]

2. Our long term status is uncertain. If we do get relegated within 2 years, we'll be stuck with Premiership wages that we cannot afford to pay whilst in the Championship.

If we aren't prepared to pay Premiership wages until we become a Bolton or Villa then we are doomed.

And aren't we talking about £18k per week? Hardly going to break the bank, even if we did go down, in which case Sidwell would leave anyway.

Sidwell will go in January, imho.

[rotherwick_royal]

If he thinks he's in with a chance of going back to Arsenal then expect a class performance next week