Well done McDermott and Hammond - Positive transfer window

[Chuckle Brother]

My final thought on this window for right now is, no matter how much I/others would have liked to seen us pick up one more player...I would much rather be a Reading fan than a QPR fan right now. This isn't gonna turn out well for them...not that I will be shedding any tears for them when that happens.

On the contrary. I will be crying with laughter if it all goes wrong for 'arry and his cronies.

[TommyF]

I'm going to reserve judgement until after Sunderland.

The 2 ALF goals masked just how lacking we are. For 85 minutes we were as toothless a home side as I have ever seen in the prem.

I just home Danny Graham doesn't get a hatrick.

[super darren caskey]

Akpan looks decent and while im not that disappointed with not bringing anyone in yesterday it does all seem a bit the same as when we was last in the prem.

While we have had some good results recentley,like somebody else said it dont mask the fact we have been way out of our depth most of the season.

If it all goes tits up the finger will be pointed and we wont be saying "what a positive transfer window we had"

[Norfolk Royal]

Notwithstanding the four players brought in, the failure to land two main targets mean it is difficult to conclude the transfer window has been anything other than a majority failure.

[super darren caskey]

If we do manage to stay up but dont invest heavily in quality players in the summer that are comftable in the prem and we are still starting with players like ledge then i will be very disappointed.

[Bandini]

Agreed with the OP.

[loyalroyal4life]

Reading have revealed that they failed with a club-record bid before the close of the transfer window on Thursday night.

The Royals had been linked with a move for Blackpool's Tom Ince and they had made a bid for the England Under-21 international earlier this week.

Brian McDermott has been busy in this month's transfer window bringing in Stephen Kelly, Hope Akpan, Nick Blackman and Daniel Carrico, but Director of Football Nick Hammond has revealed they have just missed on a fifth new face which would have been a club record signing.

"We have been working throughout the day on one last record deal to bring a player to the club but it hasn't come to fruition," Hammond told the club's official website. "We've made four very good signings in this window and you can see that the players we've brought in have already made an impact."

[LoyalRoyal22]

A little deflated. The failure to add some creativity to the midfield will see us get relegated i reckon.

Carrico looks a decent player if we can get him fit, Kelly barely an improvement on Gunter. And the other 2 are more development signings

[Bandini]

Three different Loyal Royal appellations in 28 posts. Quite a result.

[Cypry]

Notwithstanding the four players brought in, the failure to land two main targets mean it is difficult to conclude the transfer window has been anything other than a majority failure.

I'm not entirely convinced that is true - last week we were told "that's it" for the transfer window "unless anything interesting comes up"...I'm assuming one of the two is Sunzu - seems that deal failed due to circumstances beyond our control, as for the other one yesterday, if they were "main targets" we would've been after them much earlier in the window, and not looking at opportunistic buys..

For me, we've spent a bit of money £2M+ on Carrico, Akpan and Blackman, plus whatever we spent on Kelly (rumoured to be around £1.3M) - suffice to say it was over £3M total, and so far both Kelly and Akpan look to bring something to the side immediately, something I'm sure we'll be saying about Carrico once his fitness is where it needs to be...

It looks like we tried to do something yesterday, I don't think it was Ince. I agree it's unlike us to speak publicly about targets, but Brian was asked a direct question about Ince, and I believe he simply answered honestly (he did the same when asked about Blackman). Personally I think the Ince deal was dead several days ago, Blackpool didn't need, or want, to sell.
I suspect they were working on something more "under the radar" yesterday, but unless they decide to come out and tell us who the player was (which is highly unlikely) we'll probably never know why the deal wasn't done......of course the STGs will say that we tried to pay under the odds, or that there was never a deal anyway (tin foil hats required there), but deal can go wrong for a whole host of reasons. We could have been reliant on the players current club replacing him first, and that failed to happen.......there's loads of possible explanations. It was interesting to hear the chairman at Wolves talking yesterday about how every players price was getting inflated by 30-40% this window - I'm sure something we were concious of as well....

In an ideal World I'd have perhaps liked us to sign Pog v2, particularly with it looking like Roberts is going to struggle to recover from his injury. If Pog is injured I guess we'll need to turn to Hunt as a lone striker as it stands (although I reckon he can probably play the role - Pog is largely playing a hold up role at the moment anyway, Hunt is tough and good in the air).

Yes a new CAM would be nice as well, but it seems that Brian has decided to go with a game plan of keeping it tight, not worrying too much about scoring early in games, then going all out for the last 20 minutes in a 4-4-2 to try and bag goals - I'm not sure where an out-and-out CAM would fit into this system?

For me it's been a reasonable window - it would've been fun to have seen a late deal yesterday, but it's not the end of the World that it didn't happen, and I'm far happier this morning as a Reading fan, than I would be if I supported QPR...

[rfc58]

Only at the end of May will our transfer policy show if its worked or not.

The club, or Anton has said his burning ambition is to establish us as a top half premiership side, so I'd expect everything we do to match those ambitions, not just player signings, but ground improvements etc.

We have signed four players.

The Portuguese lad sounds promising, and it's obvious from his CV, he can play a bit, but we need him now, and it sounds like I'm fitter at 45 than he is.

Kelly looks a good addition, experienced at this level, but he was needed to replace the poor signing that was Gunter.

Signing two players from league One when you're in a relegation scrap will be either a master stroke as they have enough talent to make the step up, or Reading doing things on the cheap, as I said, May time will answer that question.

I keep thinking back to what Gary Neville said, this lot are a hard working bunch, they just help, by having a little bit of quality around them, to close games out when leading, and I think even the most rose tinted Reading fan would agree with that, have we signed that "bit of quality" ?

This season is so reminiscent of our last season in the top flight, we recognise the need for additional quality in the side, just enough to avoid relegation, and after recent results, we are now giving ourselves a real chance of staying up, but I fear like last time, we've not added the right players in January that could make the difference.

We will soon see.

[If you still hate Futcher]

I think we've been quite clever with our signings with one eye on relegation whilst improving the squad, if only a little.

Akpan has shown he has something about him, although I'm not suggesting he should be starting
Kelly adds experience to the defence
Blackman, from what I've seen of him looks big, strong and has a good touch
Caricco is the only one I'm not sure of - will probably be good next season buy will he be able to contribute in the next few weeks. It's going to take time foot him to get match fit and longer still to get used to the Premiership

Yes it would've been nice to make that marquee signing but whilst our recent results may have helped raise the possibility, our position would make it very difficult to convince someone like Ince to come to us. I also don't think, given our position, we want the sort of player that would only be attracted purely by wages.

I was never seriously concerned we'd lose anyone in this window - in the summer it may be a different story.

[howser]

No question there is going to be a slightly deflated feeling around many supporters today with the failure to land the "record signing", possibly the uplift in recent form has made the three muskateers think differently about what our needs were.

The missing attacking midfielder will remain a mystery, in our recent matches we are surrendering possesion upwards of 35%-65% and relying on the opposition forwards "firing blanks", Chelski should have been out of sight on wednesday with the chances Oscar had, and similarly with West Brom and Newcastle they both had a lot of chances that they failed to take advantage of, makes our 2 or 3 shots on goal per game a bit week ? we surrendered possesion in the championship last year and in all honesty "got away with it" more than a few times. Surly this cries out for someone who can hold and create from the centre midfield ?

When SJM spoke, many times, about selling the club he orated wisely that he would only sell to a billionaire, someone with deep pockets, and that Premiership football clubs are the fashion accessory of the modernday multi millionaire/billionaire, promising that the new owner would be someone who could take us to the next level, I think the Jury will be out on that one for a while yet.

So we now face the run in with slightly renewed confidence based on our last three league matches, of course home matches against many of the teams around us is where the survival will be won or lost, IMHO we will stay up, however, with all the team spirit in the world we do, and did, need that little bit of quality that might just guarantee safety, but this is the "Reading way" of course.

Hammond was quite happy and full of praise with the 4 signings we have made, I think he is talking about numbers rather that substance, Akpan a couple of good little cameo's, Kelly looks sound, Carrico gone missing, not fit enough, not played enough this season, Blackman who ?

There are of course comparisons over this window, not only the same colours but in a similar position, QPR, simply they have to survive or they will be the next Leeds, Portsmouth they have so spent more than ridiculous, as Simon Jordan amusingly said last night, "the lunatics are running the asylum", so time will tell are we the wise ones or have they been ?? Premiership dreams for the future continue..........................

[ManchesterRoyals]

"We've made four very good signings in this window and you can see that the players we've brought in have already made an impact."

Can some one tell me what impact Carrico and Blackman has had ????????????

[HoneyRoastHoax]

Can someone tell me what the financial situation with Pog is?

[royal_ross]

Considering what we needed and what we got, it's been an entirely mediocre transfer window. Kelly looks solid and Akpan was good in the BRIEF bit of time he played on Wednesday. The chap form Porto was shit and we havent bought an attacking midfielder and if The Pog injures himself collapsing in a heap we are going to have to rely on Hunt or this chap from Sheffield that no ones ever heard of to keep us up.

The CHAP from Porto isn't match fit. He's played 6 mins of football this season plus 45 mins vs West Brom. At least give him a chance before you write him off.

[loyalroyal4life]

Anyone know who this supposed failed record bid was for??? Was it someone other than Ince?

[HoneyRoastHoax]

I can reveal that late last night #readingfc made a »10m plus bid for GYLFI SIGURDSSON. More on @getreading soon...

[Cypry]

after recent results, we are now giving ourselves a real chance of staying up, but I fear like last time, we've not added the right players in January that could make the difference.

A pretty reasonable post on the whole, but I would ask the question that if you were in McDermotts head, who would have been the right players?

Look at, what appears to be, our current preferred starting 11...

----------------------Feds------------------------
Kelly---------Pearce-------Mariappa-----Harte
----------Karacan----------Leigertwood--------
Kebe---------------Guthrie------------McAnuff
------------------Pogrebnyak--------------------

Who do you sacrifice with the "right player"? Jobi and Harte seem to be flavour of the month in terms of scapegoats, but since Harte has returned to the side we've lost two (Man C - and they only scored after he was subbed with a knock / Spurs), and, as Talksport pointed out this morning, if the season started on Boxing Day we'd currently be in sixth). Jobi is still reasonably high in the assists table and, rightly or wrongly, I just can't see Brian dropping him. Karacan is a possible, but we'd be needing to look at a CDM to replace him (and given we signed Carrico I suspect that this could be dealt with anyway once Carrico's fit), which pretty much leaves Danny Guthrie - a player that many consider has the type of quality you're talking about....

With ALF seemingly able to score at will from the bench, and the very promising Akpan, it also seems that we have decent options from the bench who are able to make an impact at this level...

As you say, time will tell, but it's my opinion that we pretty much got what we were after this window (with the exception of Sunzu due to circumstances which appear to be out of our control) and anything we tried to do yesterday was simply opportunistic...

[HoneyRoastHoax]

Now its defintely a load of bollocks, as if we were seriously in for him.