The Summer clearout / Coming in thread. Updated 27/8

[Ian Royal]

offer above a sum agreed with the player is received then we contractually have to accept it

Not if the player wants to stay, we don’t.

You've never met any football agents, have you?

If a player hasn’t been approached, how exactly is the agent going to manipulate conflict with a colleague who has been approached, and has seen an increase to keep him?

This really is terribly naive. There are virtually no footballers who will turn down a lot more money and the chance to play at a higher level.

Did you support us a couple of years ago? Stephen Hunt was demanding he be allowed to leave because his agent told him clubs were interested, despite apparently no one making an offer.

Agents tout their players round all the time and try to engineer interest in a move on their player's part. It's how they make money.

[brendywendy]

offer above a sum agreed with the player is received then we contractually have to accept it

Not if the player wants to stay, we don’t

but every player has a price. holding onto players when weve been offered more than their value would also be suicidal fo us, and probably end with two or three good players leaving on frees every season, cos we didnt sell them when we could, and upset them by not letting them leave for a bigger/better/richer club



and welcome to the board.

good to see some sensible reasoned argument regarding the other view on finances on here
your lack of shrieking and hand wringing is commendable.

still wrong though

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

offer above a sum agreed with the player is received then we contractually have to accept it

Not if the player wants to stay, we don’t

but every player has a price. holding onto players when weve been offered more than their value would also be suicidal fo us, and probably end with two or three good players leaving on frees every season, cos we didnt sell them when we could, and upset them by not letting them leave for a bigger/better/richer club


do agree Brendy - if you are offered more than the market value...snap their hands off as that is rarely what happens so when it does, you cannot refuse...the player will also get dis-interested as well ....the prblem is with the inflated market and "deep pocket clubs shelling out loads on average players....you can understand why clubs like Reading value their players higher than the real going rate...is Jones , now valued at £20m ...6 times better/valuable than Mills ... valued at c£3.5m ??? ...dont think so ....

[under the tin]

I’m no less a supporter than you for feeling frustrated that our club is becoming a bit of a feeder for those who once were our equals.

I enjoyed reading your contribution, and equally, the party loyalists queueing up to rebutt your posts.
However, the statement above can only partly hold any water in our two seasons in the sun.
Even then, being in the same division as the big boys does not make us the other clubs' equals.
Reading's historical peer group is closer to the Bournemouths and Tranmeres of the football world, rather than the Villas, Wolves,etc.

I do, however, have some sympathies with your overall view that the club trying to perpetuate the "doing things on the cheap" mentality has an in-built element of risk. It's worked thus far; that is inarguable,it's why we're now higher up the football ladder than the Bournemouths and the Tranmeres.
Will it work in perpetuity? Hmmmm...

[The Rouge]

looked a good player every time i saw him, but siggurdsons meteoric rise rather spoiled his progression through the levels here.
hope he does well wherever he goes. hes a really decent prospect for a league 1 or new championship side imo

Sigurdsson's meteroic rise had nothing to do with Scott Davies progression through the levels at Reading. The only thing that stopped Davies from breaking in to our team was the fact that he simply wasn't good enough.

If he was good enough, he would have made it.

I'm with Brendy - Davies & Gylfi both played in the same position and once Gylfi had made that role his then Davies was surplus to requirements. Hence all the loan moves when he could have been getting coaching and gaining experience here.

Disagree. For anyone who was at Newcastle v Reading - 3-0 defeat was it. I have hardly seen a player look so out of his depth, or worse than those around him. For me, that display plus one or two of Marcus Williams' (who may have some hope because of his role but I am doubtful) typified these.

[Ian Royal]

There's risk in everything. I'd say we're demonstrating ably that "doing things on the cheap", or as I'd prefer to call it, "living within your means" is going pretty well. We're in the most successful period our club has ever had. We're still competing at the right end of the second tier of English football and are an established second tier team now, despite promotion to, and relegation from, the Premier League and all the problems that entails.

We're balancing very good chances of staying a solid tier two side with a decent shot at promotion to tier one most seasons for the next 5 - 10 years. With a good shot at promotion, but increased chance of tier three or four obscurity within the next 5 - 10 years.

Clearly few people are advocating we do a Leeds or Pompey and spend massively above our means. But even if we did it's no guarantee of success. Any success you do get is potentially very short lived as you have to sustain that level of investment and one blip can send you spiralling out of control.

The goal is promotion again, but that doesn't mean there's a desperate hurry for it. We've had it and seen its downside, so we'll play it safe, enjoy where we are and know sooner or later we'll do it again. Afterall, we've been around almost a 140 years and we've got a stronger chance than most for still being around in another 140.

[Arch]

[Hoop Blah]

There's risk in everything. I'd say we're demonstrating ably that "doing things on the cheap", or as I'd prefer to call it, "living within your means" is going pretty well. We're in the most successful period our club has ever had. We're still competing at the right end of the second tier of English football and are an established second tier team now, despite promotion to, and relegation from, the Premier League and all the problems that entails.

The obvious counter to that is that we only started living within our means once we got promoted to the Premier League. The previous however many years made substantial loses whilst we tried to compete like everyone else.

[Once were Biscuitmen]

But given the vast majority of football clubs make a loss you need to look at how much the competitor clubs around us were losing in that period. We were better run than most.

[Handsome Man]

In January, we could have invested £2 million in the striker who ended up on Burnley's bench (I have forgotten his name already; is it Charlie Austin?) or risked massive wages on Yakubu, or bought a fat lump like Parkin. As it was our tightwad chairman made us stick with pretty much what we had and we had an 8-match winning run, a trip to Wembley and lots of end-of-season excitement. Why are people still moaning about lack of investment?

[Snowball]

In January, we could have invested £2 million in the striker who ended up on Burnley's bench (I have forgotten his name already; is it Charlie Austin?) or risked massive wages on Yakubu, or bought a fat lump like Parkin. As it was our tightwad chairman made us stick with pretty much what we had and we had an 8-match winning run, a trip to Wembley and lots of end-of-season excitement. Why are people still moaning about lack of investment?

Agreed, though the obvious answer is, "We'd've got automatic with that player."

We bought more for 2011-12, good thinking IMO. Few (other than stupid people like Snowball)
(in January) would have thought we could make the play-offs...


And in 2011-12 we have three virtually new signings, (Manset, Morrison, Williams) and one loanee made permanent (L-wood)

PLUS (as things stand) a fully-fit Noel Hunt with a proper pre-season.

[brendywendy]

I’m not sure what makes Reading so much more expensive to run than any other club in the division. I just see us as a standard football club who has tighter purse strings than everyone else, and am speculating where we may be if they were loosed. Some are saying we would explode in a ball of flames and the entire club and it’s supporters would contract HIV. I think that’s a tad hysterical. Some think we might have given ourselves more of a fighting chance for promotion. I think that’s pretty rational.

the whole point is that every other club seems to think its fine to build up their debts massively, pay out 100% of their incoming on wages, and pay for loads of transfers on the hope that they will go up and get 90 million from the prem.
im totally happy with the no debts, paying a sensible ammount of our incomings on wages, and not mortgage the club on possible future success.
A: its just the way it is with JM not putting any more money in
B:its how it should be for all businesses, and all football clubs
C:thats what i want my football club to do.

i see you feel differently. thats fine.

Are you saying any investment would categorically fail to give a return? Somebody should tell Theo Pafitiititiuisis. Oh and anyone JM wants to sell the club to, because apparently they don’t have to pay him any money for it.

no, the opposite. all investments will give a return. ie anyone putting money in, will want that money back one day + profit, meaning it will be taken back out of the club in some way or another.
JM has spent about 40 million on building this club.when he sells for~80 million?! hell take that extra 40 million profit for himself.(and good luck to him for the job hes done here) but if he sold for only the 40 million hed spent the 40 million could go to the club- same goes for any investor. theres no free money.

Well, it’s actually not unheard of for people to put money into a hobby or something they love for no financial return. Shit, I’ve been doing it with Reading FC all my life.

LOL at people just giving millions of pounds away with no wish to see it again. millionaires dont stay millionaires for long doing it like that.
yes there are some people willing to bankroll a club simply for the fun of it, and the local prestige. but i can count them on four fingers.and none of them happen to be interested in RFC

[brendywendy]

(apologies for double post - missed out svlad)

“that approach increases the likelihood of success, it doesn't ensure it.”

And I said as much. It’s called ambition.

theres a difference between ambition, and stupidity
so we pour all the money(that we dont have) into buying a load of expensive stars, on bigger wages, and then dont go up, and therefore dont recoup any of the money from prem TV cash.
who pays that money?
how many seasons can you do that for without infinite cash?
is it a good way to run anything?
is it worth betting the cluib that it will work?

on current crowds, and other income we are a break even club as set up now, with sensible wage structure, and a reluctance to buy big cash players
if we get full houses every week we make a profit.
i think thats set up aboutright tbf

[brendywendy]

In January, we could have invested £2 million in the striker who ended up on Burnley's bench (I have forgotten his name already; is it Charlie Austin?) or risked massive wages on Yakubu, or bought a fat lump like Parkin. As it was our tightwad chairman made us stick with pretty much what we had and we had an 8-match winning run, a trip to Wembley and lots of end-of-season excitement. Why are people still moaning about lack of investment?

^ ^ ^

[Snowball]

How much did Pompey spend?

How much have Cardiff and Forest spent? Bristol City? Boro?

Only 3 clubs can go up. Punting for it is quite silly, really.

The way the argument goes, all 24 clubs should try. That would mean 21 clubs with horrendous debts.

And the 3 promoted clubs DON'T do that well.



Say it costs 20M over a sensible budget to go up. You then have wages that are 2-5 times higher
and you have to have a bigger squad. It's worth under 50M a season to be in the Prem. You start
owing 20M plus your "normal" shortfall (4M in RFC's case)... So 24M of the 50M is "gone" in an instant
(debts carried forward)... wage bill goes from 15M to 45M? and you're now -4M to be covered by the
extra 8,000 gates x 19 = 200,000 = 3.8M


So I reckon you're close to evens after a full Prem season

[ZacNaloen]

IF everyone spent within their budgets it would still be the clubs with most resources that succeeded, the point would be that very few clubs would go out of business or receive penalties relating to their financial state.

[Snowball]

Thinking about it, we have a squad of very fit young men

Why don't they get organised and rob a bank?

[Hoop Blah]

But given the vast majority of football clubs make a loss you need to look at how much the competitor clubs around us were losing in that period. We were better run than most.

Are you sure about that? There would've been a few with silly losses yes, but we were losing a few million a year still at that point (IIRC) so I'm not sure we were this exception to the rule that we're trying to be now.

[ZacNaloen]

We weren't that well behaved before, Madejski was propping us up like the others in danger.

I think the current situation is a reaction to the fact that once we were in the premier league it proved (to Madejski) to not really be worth the investment he put in so if we want to be in the premier league again we have to do it on the clubs own merits.

[Royal Rother]

It was SJM's long stated aim for the club to be self-sufficient and no longer reliant on his money.... long before the 2 years in the PL.