Show me the money

[Gus the teenage cow]

Myself and Couhig have had a few chats. He knows he has a lot of goodwill already but a successful businessman is always planning ahead. He needs to get the fans on board so he is reaching out to key influencers like myself.

I told him he has a lot of metaphorical credit in the bank just because he isn't Yongge, but I cleverly proceeded to ask if he had literal credit in the bank.

Because the simple fact is money, and lots of it, gets teams promoted. Look at the teams that went up from this division last year.

It worried me a little that he said we would be focusing on free transfers and out of contract players. This policy, I predict will mean we will wheeler-deal our way to a similar position to last season; trying to scrape into a play-off position.

We shouldn't fear spending just because reckless deal-making in the past got us into bother. We need to spend money on good players. Mighty Stockport just broke their transfer record to take a player from Peterboro for a million plus. They will probably sell him for 5 million after he tops the goalscoring charts a year from now.

What's my point? We need to spend to go up, spending is not necessarily risky, and can indeed yield massive profits if it's done right i.e. young players with potential not asking for massive wages.

Our current policy = standing still. I need more.

[Brogue]

no thanks. i hope we never pay a transfer fee again. We can build a perfectly adequate squad without paying transfer fees.

[Sutekh]

Large fees should only be paid on the odd occasion the player concerned would make an obvious difference. Really don't want another round of Aluko's and Puscas' turning up.

Hopefully Reading won't be spending silly amounts until they return to the PL where that asinine behaviour is the norm for everyone. Bargains are to be had to get a club there if it has the right approach to recruitment, especially by doing your homework on players and having a plan.

[linkenholtroyal]

no thanks. i hope we never pay a transfer fee again. We can build a perfectly adequate squad without paying transfer fees.

Yes I Agree but…. We seem to have slightly missed the boat on the best free transfers. There are a few out there but most we would have wanted have signed or are linked to other clubs. Paudie is the only one in so far.
He is good but we need more.
The answer now seems to be loans which is great to fill squads, but if they do well which we hope they will they will then not be an investment we will return on, they are not long term prospects for the club and may well end up blocking the paths of youth team players who may have a resell value.

I would like to see some investment but more along the lines of 4 or 5 talents from league 2/1 for a million that will potentially develop and then be able to be sold on to reinvest for say 5 million in a year or twos time that’s just good business. Rather than the business model of borrow everyone else’s players get promoted, then have none of our own developed to sustain the club and no one to sell to reinvest.

We all asked for sustainability which this is.


Just my view

[MartinRdg]

no thanks. i hope we never pay a transfer fee again. We can build a perfectly adequate squad without paying transfer fees.

Certainly agree with this in L1 - Championship and above probably a different matter

[blueroyals]

You don’t need to spend money on transfers in L1 to build a competitive team

[Royalwaster]

Don't forget we are spending a lot of money on developing academy talents. Would you prefer to scrap the academy and spend the money on transfers instead? We can't do both without losing tons of money

[Elm Park Kid]

Your wage bill is the main determinate of the quality of your squad in L1, not transfer budget.

If Couhig wants to spend more of his own money trying to bring in better players then i'm not going to complain about that! But at the same time, if he runs the club as close to break-even as possible that's also fine with me. If Reading can't generate the revenue internally to be a Championship club then it doesn't deserve to be a Championship club. I know that's a radical/controversial/naive viewpoint in this day and age, but I do believe it.

I will never moan about any owner not spending more than we're bringing in. I'll complain about them spending it poorly, or making not doing enough to bring in revenues. But not burning money.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

A few decent loans and you can do very well in this league - like Orient last year.

[Brogue]

Only two loans spaces left… (the maximum we can loan is 8 but only 5 can be named in a match day squad) would seem silly to bring in any more than two more.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Only two loans spaces left… (the maximum we can loan is 8 but only 5 can be named in a match day squad) would seem silly to bring in any more than two more.

I'd go that Kamari Doyle lad and a winger. Then Leahy as an experienced defensive mid on a free, bring Meite back and an additional option up front. Then we're done, unless Kelvin leaves in which case one more winger.

[Royal_jimmy]

no thanks. i hope we never pay a transfer fee again. We can build a perfectly adequate squad without paying transfer fees.

Even if we were in the championship or premier league?

[Brogue]

no thanks. i hope we never pay a transfer fee again. We can build a perfectly adequate squad without paying transfer fees.

Even if we were in the championship or premier league?

When we have the revenue that can make it sustainable, fine. But certainly in league one we shouldn’t need to.

[Royal_jimmy]

A few decent loans and you can do very well in this league - like Orient last year.

O'Mahony could be this seasons Charlie Kelman

[Forbury Lion]

He needs to get the fans on board so he is reaching out to key influencers like myself.

Not sure he's thought this through since you've literally pushed for him to spend money and you've posted on here to influence our views that he should indeed be spending money.... surely he wants you to be on board with his views and to influence others to his point of view?

I don't think we need to spend big to win promotion, we're not competing with Birmingham and Wrexham this season. We do need to spend wisely and plan to sell wisely, That means sell players before they leave on free transfers and have an adequate replacement in the pipeline who we can develop and sell in a few years time. It isn't always going to work but it's a sound plan which the fans should be able to get on board with.

[Royal_jimmy]

no thanks. i hope we never pay a transfer fee again. We can build a perfectly adequate squad without paying transfer fees.

Even if we were in the championship or premier league?

When we have the revenue that can make it sustainable, fine. But certainly in league one we shouldn’t need to.

Fair enough that makes sense. I would say I away in agreement here.

[Lower West]

Your wage bill is the main determinate of the quality of your squad in L1, not transfer budget.

Sheffield Wednesday had the 4th lowest wage in the Championship in 23/24 season - £22.3 million . When the owner runs out of readies as hasn't hit the big time payout. The disintegration of the club starts. Heading for the same woes as RFC. There's only one way to go.......

A new model is required. More akin to the SJM one. Successfull organisations in any field are about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

[Dirk Gently]

Your wage bill is the main determinate of the quality of your squad in L1, not transfer budget.

Sheffield Wednesday had the 4th lowest wage in the Championship in 23/24 season - £22.3 million . When the owner runs out of readies as hasn't hit the big time payout. The disintegration of the club starts. Heading for the same woes as RFC. There's only one way to go.......

A new model is required. More akin to the SJM one. Successfull organisations in any field are about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

That'd make a great title for a book on the subject...

[Extended-Phenotype]

I sympathise with the view that making loan signings is just kicking the can down the road, but I do think it can be seen as having a decent placeholder while young homegrown talent gets up to speed, and books are balanced to be more aggressive in the transfer market in the future.

Loans aren’t ideal. If they play well, their club will want them back, if they play badly our club won’t want to keep them. But the only real difference between loans and permanent signings is not that good loan players will leave - good permanents leave too - it’s that we miss out on the financial profit of their departure.

However, if you draw a simile with economics, loans aren’t always a bad thing. They are often vital for a business to get up and running. You have to pay them back, but hopefully the stability and gains you make from them is worth it. I guess it’s like renting while you save up or build yourself up to buying a house. Perhaps you even end up buying the house you rented.

[Forbury Lion]

I sympathise with the view that making loan signings is just kicking the can down the road, but I do think it can be seen as having a decent placeholder while young homegrown talent gets up to speed

I'm not all over the academy situation but I imagine we emptied it of all players available to make the step up to the first team, probably a few who were not quite ready too and the ones we don't have in the squad now are the ones we failed to tie down with new contracts and/or were sold for emergency funding.

I also imagine our academy may have struggled to attract players for the period where we lost academy 1 status and again when there was all that uncertainty happening so we may have some gaps in the conveyor belt with little or no output coming through.

If this is the situation and the medium to long term plan is to produce our own players then it maybe does make sense to cover the gaps with loan players until our home grown players are ready.