Rumour - Ben Watson

[Southbank Old Boy]

I think the club has brought a lot of the criticism on themselves with all the spin and loose talk of ambition, spending and growth etc.

It raised the expectation levels of many, rightly or wrongly.

Anyway, if you believe the press and the rumours coming out at the Palace end of things, it's a straight fight between us and QPR for Watson.

[Royal Rother]

I think the club has brought a lot of the criticism on themselves with all the spin and loose talk of ambition, spending and growth etc.

I can't argue with that.

[TheMaraudingDog]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

Some of them don't even ever go and just watch all the games on the internet.

And some of them probably spend all their spare time on a Man Utd fans' site.

Actually no, no Reading supporter would be that fcuking stupid.

Spare time?!

I've posted about 3 out of hours post on here all year.
I'm strictly a post while at work man. Don't spend spare time on here pal, you seem to rack up posts over the weekends though.

[TFF]

Back on topic...

QPR closing in on Watson capture?

Tuesday, 01 July 2008

By Richard Cawley

BEN Watson’s future as a Crystal Palace player is set to be one of the key talking points for manager Neil Warnock when the club resume pre-season training on Wednesday.

Three Championship clubs have expressed an interest in signing the 22-year-old, who is entering the final 12 months of his contract at Selhurst Park.

But the South London Press understands that one of those clubs - which is up north - has been ruled out by Watson, whose preference is to join former Eagles boss Iain Dowie at Queens Park Rangers, who have announced they are hoping to make up to three signings before the end of this week.

Reading have been linked with a move for the midfielder but the Royals are not one of the teams to have made an approach for his services.

Palace have already moved to replace former England U21 international Watson, with Nick Carle completing his switch from Bristol City today for an undisclosed fee.

http://www.southlondon-today.co.uk/tn/Sport.cfm?id=9972

Don't get too excited then.

[Stranded]

I never take any notice or get excited by paper talk, good or bad, as we always look to keep things out of the press.

We could well have made a bid but have asked for it to be kept out of the press until a deal is done, equally we may not have bid at all, or may bid today....

[Roger the Rabbit]

I also always treat phrases like 'made a bid' as newspaper shorthand that probably don't actually reflect how transfer deals are done !
I have no clue about how a transfer actually progresses, but I'd suspect it isn;t a question of faxing off increasingly large sums of money until the other club finally says 'yes'.
Would love to hear from an insider whether there is a standard protocol for how these things are done .

[Southbank Old Boy]

I also always treat phrases like 'made a bid' as newspaper shorthand that probably don't actually reflect how transfer deals are done !
I have no clue about how a transfer actually progresses, but I'd suspect it isn;t a question of faxing off increasingly large sums of money until the other club finally says 'yes'.
Would love to hear from an insider whether there is a standard protocol for how these things are done .

Wasn't there a blog from the club secretary on the official site not long ago that did exactly that?

I hope the Watson deal doesn't turn into a mirror of the O'Neil transfer last season. One that seemed such a good fit from outside but we didn't follow up and then Coppell (I think) admitted he thought about it but didn't and then kind of regretted it.

Between Watson, O'Neil and Marvin Elliot I think we missed the boat last season and we could've plugged the holes in our midfield a lot more effectively than we did.

[Roger the Rabbit]

Wasn't there a blog from the club secretary on the official site not long ago that did exactly that?
.

There was, but that was more about the mechanics of actually processing a deal IIRC. I'm thinking more of the bit before that - how the initial contact is made, does Coppell phone someone, make a bit of polite conversation, make a comment about a player he's not actually interested in then just before he hangs up make a throwaway remark about his real target to see what the reaction is. Does it then develop into a bit of a stalking exercise with late night calls to mobile phones and hard nosed bargaining ?

[Agent Balti]

We worked our way out of the Championship admirably, I was proud to be associated with MY club. People who had no affiliation to the club marveled at how we did it. I told them, we spent little money, we used what we had and used it well.

The same people ask me what went wrong last season, I told them, we spent little money and used what we had and we DID NOT learn that lesson.

On the face of it yours is a good post because it sums up many people's feelings very well, with passion and eloquence - however this extract just sums up perfectly what really pisses me off.

You were very happy when the policies worked brilliantly in 2005/6 and 2006/7, proud to be associated with the club, because everyone admired us, and proud to explain that we did it differently.

Yes, mistakes were made (and subsequently acknowledged) but the club continued to operate within the exact same framework of principles in the very next season, yet when it didn't work so well you became so disillusioned that you won't renew your season ticket.

It's up to you of course but can you not see how fickle that makes you sound? Real men, real supporters don't swing from loving something one minute so much that they tell everyone about it with great pride, and then go all hissy the next minute when it doesn't work so well. It's childish and it's feeble.

Real men? Real Supporters? What on earth does that mean? If relegation without so much as a decent fight isn't enough for me to question where I put my money, then what does? Are we to go back to League 3 before people think it's unacceptable to have a vote? If I feel my money (and Sky's money) wasn't utilized to the best way, how else am I supposed to vent my displeasure? A personal letter to Mr Mad?...now that's childish.

I don't care if I sound fickle, I've given 20 years support and had an ST ever since we moved to the Mad Stad. I'm not going hissy, I've waited a long, long time and even less time than a lot of others who would be more loyal than me, but to just take it and say "Oh thanks for the memories" is bull. Everyone takes our club in isolation to the rest of the football planet and it drives me insane (it shows, I know.) Speculate, accumulate, speculate, accumluate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but avoiding any of those options or appear to be doing it 'in the Reading way' is enough for most. At some point you have to move with the times, do what's necessary, do what you bloody must to NOT lose the club more money than if you speculated in the first place. Football is a gamble, but our club doesn't want to part with it's chips. So how are we ever to win that gamble?

I absolutely and totally understand those that say 'But look where we've come from'...but it should be where we want to go, not where we've been that matters. If we had had a stellar past, there would be more raving from more lunatics like me, but since we're oh so humble for two seasons in the Prem we have to just take it and be *ahem* loyal? If the club wishes to have no ambition (and even if they do show some ambition in the next month, it's now moot) then I'm perfectly within my rights to say "So do I!". I'm not having a pop at you or anyone else, Rother - I'm sure we could banter about this in a pub, quite sensibly, but what I can't abide is folk saying "It'll be alright, we we're in the 4th Division once, you know". With that thought process, we'll never ever grow as we've always got that to fall back on. To use a shit analogy, we had a Ferrari last year, before that we had a quite decent Porsche, but we lost them...ah, but remember that old Cortina we had, that was a ride." (Told you it was shit.)

P.S. Sign Ben Watson.

[Sarah Star]

Agent Balti, I think you should reconsider sending that personal letter to Mr Mad.

[Royalee]

Agent Balti, I think you should reconsider sending that personal letter to Mr Mad.

Why, did he choose not to sign any players last season and is he now running the first team?

[Agent Balti]

Agent Balti, I think you should reconsider sending that personal letter to Mr Mad.

If thought it would have an effect, I would. Alas, I don't think he listens when it comes to spending money.

[Sarah Star]

Agent Balti, I think you should reconsider sending that personal letter to Mr Mad.

Why, did he choose not to sign any players last season and is he now running the first team?

Why? Because in posting here he is just letting off steam - which can be a good thing - but his message is really for the team.

[brendywendy]

LOL at relegation without a fight-youve made it sound like we were derby

[Agent Balti]

LOL at relegation without a fight-youve made it sound like we were derby

'greed. Derby were relegated without a clue, however.

[Tilehurst Mike]

We worked our way out of the Championship admirably, I was proud to be associated with MY club. People who had no affiliation to the club marveled at how we did it. I told them, we spent little money, we used what we had and used it well.

The same people ask me what went wrong last season, I told them, we spent little money and used what we had and we DID NOT learn that lesson.

On the face of it yours is a good post because it sums up many people's feelings very well, with passion and eloquence - however this extract just sums up perfectly what really pisses me off.

You were very happy when the policies worked brilliantly in 2005/6 and 2006/7, proud to be associated with the club, because everyone admired us, and proud to explain that we did it differently.

Yes, mistakes were made (and subsequently acknowledged) but the club continued to operate within the exact same framework of principles in the very next season, yet when it didn't work so well you became so disillusioned that you won't renew your season ticket.

It's up to you of course but can you not see how fickle that makes you sound? Real men, real supporters don't swing from loving something one minute so much that they tell everyone about it with great pride, and then go all hissy the next minute when it doesn't work so well. It's childish and it's feeble.

Real men? Real Supporters? What on earth does that mean? If relegation without so much as a decent fight isn't enough for me to question where I put my money, then what does? Are we to go back to League 3 before people think it's unacceptable to have a vote? If I feel my money (and Sky's money) wasn't utilized to the best way, how else am I supposed to vent my displeasure? A personal letter to Mr Mad?...now that's childish.

I don't care if I sound fickle, I've given 20 years support and had an ST ever since we moved to the Mad Stad. I'm not going hissy, I've waited a long, long time and even less time than a lot of others who would be more loyal than me, but to just take it and say "Oh thanks for the memories" is bull. Everyone takes our club in isolation to the rest of the football planet and it drives me insane (it shows, I know.) Speculate, accumulate, speculate, accumluate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but avoiding any of those options or appear to be doing it 'in the Reading way' is enough for most. At some point you have to move with the times, do what's necessary, do what you bloody must to NOT lose the club more money than if you speculated in the first place. Football is a gamble, but our club doesn't want to part with it's chips. So how are we ever to win that gamble?

I absolutely and totally understand those that say 'But look where we've come from'...but it should be where we want to go, not where we've been that matters. If we had had a stellar past, there would be more raving from more lunatics like me, but since we're oh so humble for two seasons in the Prem we have to just take it and be *ahem* loyal? If the club wishes to have no ambition (and even if they do show some ambition in the next month, it's now moot) then I'm perfectly within my rights to say "So do I!". I'm not having a pop at you or anyone else, Rother - I'm sure we could banter about this in a pub, quite sensibly, but what I can't abide is folk saying "It'll be alright, we we're in the 4th Division once, you know". With that thought process, we'll never ever grow as we've always got that to fall back on. To use a shit analogy, we had a Ferrari last year, before that we had a quite decent Porsche, but we lost them...ah, but remember that old Cortina we had, that was a ride." (Told you it was shit.)

P.S. Sign Ben Watson.

one of the best and most agreeable posts I have read for many a long time!!

[Muskrat]

So are we going to sign Ben Watson or not then?

Personally I hope so and I think he also fits the profile of players that we sign (OMG I sounded like Hammond there). But general concencus seems to be that he would be a good partner for Marek and I agree.

[papereyes]

He's good in Football Manager and looks a bit like Sidwell.

That's enough for me.

[Norfolk Royal]

If we are interested in Watson, and I hope we are because he's the sort of player we need, I think whether we sign him will be very telling about the club's ambitions for the season.

If it is true that Harper is off for £3,5-million, then that's 1.5-million more than QPR are said to have bid for Watson.

If you want the best you have to pay for it.

[Arch]

Real men? Real Supporters? What on earth does that mean? If relegation without so much as a decent fight isn't enough for me to question where I put my money, then what does? Are we to go back to League 3 before people think it's unacceptable to have a vote? If I feel my money (and Sky's money) wasn't utilized to the best way, how else am I supposed to vent my displeasure? A personal letter to Mr Mad?...now that's childish.

I don't care if I sound fickle, I've given 20 years support and had an ST ever since we moved to the Mad Stad. I'm not going hissy, I've waited a long, long time and even less time than a lot of others who would be more loyal than me, but to just take it and say "Oh thanks for the memories" is bull. Everyone takes our club in isolation to the rest of the football planet and it drives me insane (it shows, I know.) Speculate, accumulate, speculate, accumluate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but avoiding any of those options or appear to be doing it 'in the Reading way' is enough for most. At some point you have to move with the times, do what's necessary, do what you bloody must to NOT lose the club more money than if you speculated in the first place. Football is a gamble, but our club doesn't want to part with it's chips. So how are we ever to win that gamble?

I absolutely and totally understand those that say 'But look where we've come from'...but it should be where we want to go, not where we've been that matters. If we had had a stellar past, there would be more raving from more lunatics like me, but since we're oh so humble for two seasons in the Prem we have to just take it and be *ahem* loyal? If the club wishes to have no ambition (and even if they do show some ambition in the next month, it's now moot) then I'm perfectly within my rights to say "So do I!". I'm not having a pop at you or anyone else, Rother - I'm sure we could banter about this in a pub, quite sensibly, but what I can't abide is folk saying "It'll be alright, we we're in the 4th Division once, you know". With that thought process, we'll never ever grow as we've always got that to fall back on. To use a shit analogy, we had a Ferrari last year, before that we had a quite decent Porsche, but we lost them...ah, but remember that old Cortina we had, that was a ride." (Told you it was shit.)

P.S. Sign Ben Watson.

That is a good post, indeed, but try this. The Reading way has brought us a long way in the time you've been supporting the club. It has its pitfalls and there are down times with this method, but the general trend has been up. compare that with the methods of the rest of football - speculate to accumulate. Never mind the Leeds and Bradfords of this world, even Birmingham City provides a cautionary tale. That ambitious club is not just rumoured to be losing its players; it is losing them. The results have been extremely hit-or-miss for the standard approach. The injunction to look where we've come from is a reminder that the John Madejski approach has been working.