too confident?

[Extended-Phenotype]

Gamble if you do, gamble if you don't.

Spend and reach the PL and you more than make your money back four times over. Fail and you are lumbered with a debt you may struggle to pay, requiring a clear out of your best players and no money to re-strengthen; could be a long time before you can challenge again, could even get relegated.

Don't spend and fail to reach the PL, your best players will likely leave and at best you enter the following season with no improvement and confronted with the spend dilemma again.

Far less of a gamble not spending in the championship, as long as you can retain a team that keeps you challenging; fail to do that and quality players won't really be interested in coming to you.

Not spending in the PL is quite frankly insane from both a football and economic perspective.

[SCIAG]

If we bought Rhodes for 10m and Austin for 5m, were promoted on their goals, I rather think that Promotion to the Prem would give us vastly more than 15M

Option A- spend £15m on luxury players, 70% chance of promotion, promoted
Option B- spend little more, 50% chance of promotion, promoted
Option C- spend little more, fail to get promoted, try again
Option D- spend £15m on luxury players, fail to get promoted, be in deep trouble

I think you'll actually find that there are far more examples of "D" than "A"

[Extended-Phenotype]

You've kinda reduced it to a binary dilemma.

There is a grey area in between 'spend like a fruitloop' and 'spend like a tightarse'.

[Millsy]

If we bought Rhodes for 10m and Austin for 5m, were promoted on their goals, I rather think that Promotion to the Prem would give us vastly more than 15M !

Flaming and petty arguments aside this a reasonable point and one that is probably underlies of a lot of confusion for a lot of fans.

It seems that the maths is a no brainer- spend 15mill and get 90mill reward.
What about when we went down last time- why spend 420k on Kebe when we could have spent 5mill or so to get us much more if we survived.
Or January just gone, why didn't we spend more? Or the summer earlier?

Surely the maths is clear cut. Southampton got from league 1 to Prem Survival with that maths.

But then we look at the likes of QPR who spent shed loads and still got relegated. Having said that they splashed the cash when they were already dead and buried.

It's all confusing for us fans especially when Anton comes out and says we should've spent more.. Then doesn't buy a striker or two when it's clear we desperately need at least one and chances are it'll be the difference between promotion and not as we have such a good squad and a good chance already...

Who knows.

I don't think your point is wrong or silly, and I don't think the opposing view is wrong or silly either.

There is obviously a lot more to it that just splashing cash on players. They would then be on our books eating up wages if they don't work out. And they wouldn't guarantee promotion. Etc etc.

The thing that gives me much more confidence now than ever before is that much as I love Madejski, he has wanted out for a long time and wasn't willing in his old age any more to have the balls to spend and risk, so any lack of investment was down to his attitude and his annoying caution rather than anything else. But NOW we have Anton, who thinks like we do, wants what we want, is young and hungry and has no reason to deceive. He's come out and made it very clear that we should've spent more and with the signings so far has made it clear that we mean business. So if we don't sign a striker or two I won't like it but I'll be sure theres a very good reason I.e. we couldn't get who we wanted or Adkins thinks what we have is good enough.

Basically, in Anton and Adkins we must trust.

[Cypry]

Just because you've named yourself after Robin Friday doesn't mean you have to go ranting and raving like a drugged up alcoholic.

It's obvious we're not going to buy those players! If you want to take that up with someone e-mail your crazy ramblings to the club rather than boring us with it like you have been doing for over a year.

We'd all like someone like Rhodes but unfortunately it just isn't going to happen! Blackburn paid £8 million for him and they aren't going to sell him for anything less than £10 Million because their owners are even more batshit crazy than you are. As for Austin A. He has an injury problem hence why he didn't move to Hull and B. He is another Lita waiting to happen.

Just because you've named youself SANDMAN, does'nt mean you have to have sand between the ears! If we bought Rhodes for 10m and Austin for 5m, were promoted on their goals, I rather think that Promotion to the Prem would give us vastly more than 15M - Dickhead!

Whilst I agree with you in principle, that's a pretty big if. There's no guarantee of promotion simply through signing a couple of marquee names.

Also, there is no way on this earth that Championship Reading would spend £15m on two players.

And as I keep repeatedly having to point out, the transfer fees are only a part of the financial commitment when signing a player....

If you're going to pay £10M for Rhodes, you also need to take into account his wages and NI (one assumes a three or four year contract, certainly on more than £35k a week, a VERY conservative estimate - over three years that would be approaching £6M) - add in insurance, agents fees, bonuses etc, and you could easily be looking at a financial commitment of £20M minimum.

£5M on Austin, would probably equate to more than £12M commitment.

So you would like us to commit more than £30M (in excess of half of our total parachute payments for the next four years) to TWO players!

I wonder why people don't take anything you say seriously????

[marlowuk]

personally I don't like us being confident. I prefer not being confident.

I like us being confident. I prefer not to be over-confident - or 'arrogant' as it can so easily become!

As an example of arrogance I point you to Guthrie's latest comments - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23547978

"We are the big fish and we need to have a bit of swagger about us and walk into these games knowing that we are the big team in this league."

Are we really the big team in The Championship? This remark is just begging to be rammed back down our throats as well as being disrespectful to the other teams.

[maffff]

oxf*rd the tinpot / little old Reading approach. We ARE a big club in Championship terms [the - maybe not] but still. I'm embracing this change of philosophy from the owner to the manager to the players.

[sandman]

Guthrie in doing something stupid shocker.

[maffff]

Are you talking about his haircut?

[Extended-Phenotype]

If you're going to pay £10M for Rhodes, you also need to take into account his wages and NI (one assumes a three or four year contract, certainly on more than £35k a week, a VERY conservative estimate - over three years that would be approaching £6M) - add in insurance, agents fees, bonuses etc, and you could easily be looking at a financial commitment of £20M minimum.

You don't pay three years of wages up front. I appreciate you are committing to an annual payout but what you are saying is misleading.

[Cypry]

If you're going to pay £10M for Rhodes, you also need to take into account his wages and NI (one assumes a three or four year contract, certainly on more than £35k a week, a VERY conservative estimate - over three years that would be approaching £6M) - add in insurance, agents fees, bonuses etc, and you could easily be looking at a financial commitment of £20M minimum.

You don't pay three years of wages up front. I appreciate you are committing to an annual payout but what you are saying is misleading.

It's not really misleading though is it, as I've also looked at the total of four years of parachute payments in terms of income....? I've never anywhere said Rhodes would cost £20M up front, but it is a contractual commitment.

When you sign a player, and sign a three or four year contract, you're effectively committing to the total value of that contract over the time period of that contract. Of course, you could sell the player before the contract reaches it's conclusion, but that doesn't negate the fact that you committed to the contract in the first place.

My point is that on one side you've got some £60M of parachute payments coming in the next four years, on the other side Seige wants us to sign players with transfer values of a quarter of that, and total commitment through their contracts of more than half the total income from parachute payments.....

Yes, we could win promotion this year, and then the TV money from 2014/15 in the Prem would completely nullify this argument, but the club is (like it or not) still being prudent, and you can pretty much guarantee they will not bet the farm on promotion by spending at this level on players.....

[melonhead]

Anton comes out and says we should've spent more.. Then doesn't buy a striker or two when it's clear we desperately need at least one

transfers are difficult to do, transfers of top quality players to championship clubs are almost impossible to do, the bigger the money/higher the profile of the deal, the more likely it is it will go on over a long period of time and be more complex. the more money and higher profile the transfer is, the more likely someone else will come in and nick the player, or the player use us to generate interest higher up.

once your first choice, second choice, third choice of players have gone elsewhere do you just keep going,down to 5th/6th/100th choice player? just spending the money cos youve got it, etc


& anton isnt in charge of the transfers, he is in charge of saying there is money, try and spend it on players who might want to come here, and who will improve this side

[Extended-Phenotype]

That argument kinda works if you pretend players are linear in ability.

[melonhead]

That argument kinda works if you pretend players are linear in ability.

nope. it works throughout the ability ranges,
you pick players based on if they play the way you want, at a good enough quality level, who would consider coming, whos clubs would consider letting them come.
all players you look at will fall somewhere on that scale. some will be ideal, some will by definition be less so.
at our level almost none will be perfect, and exactly what we want/need. but there will still come a point where you should say- ok, weve done our best,its not really worked out, and im not really up for just spending money on anyone to keep mental fans happy


plus it wasnt an argument. it was a simple question.
the answer to which appears to be, in your case, id prefer it of we just spent the money, regardless of how appropriate that spending is, on players we are less than sure are what we really want/need

[Extended-Phenotype]

I do understand why you have to straw man my argument, really I do.

[melonhead]

you smell of poo.


if you cannot accept that some players are more or less suited for any club at any particular time, you are beyond my help.

i can only apologise for my own inadequacies

[NewCorkSeth]

It's not really misleading though is it, as I've also looked at the total of four years of parachute payments in terms of income....? I've never anywhere said Rhodes would cost £20M up front, but it is a contractual commitment.

When you sign a player, and sign a three or four year contract, you're effectively committing to the total value of that contract over the time period of that contract. Of course, you could sell the player before the contract reaches it's conclusion, but that doesn't negate the fact that you committed to the contract in the first place.

My point is that on one side you've got some £60M of parachute payments coming in the next four years, on the other side Seige wants us to sign players with transfer values of a quarter of that, and total commitment through their contracts of more than half the total income from parachute payments.....

Yes, we could win promotion this year, and then the TV money from 2014/15 in the Prem would completely nullify this argument, but the club is (like it or not) still being prudent, and you can pretty much guarantee they will not bet the farm on promotion by spending at this level on players.....

Still its not really the done thing on player purchases is it? most only talk about transfer fee and probably for a good reason (or because its easier math) when talking about record signings or how much a player has had spent on them in total nobody adds up every cent the club has spent on them.

For example if i were to say Zlatan "the god" Ibrahimovich has had 120 million spent on him not many people are gonna say "actually if you take into account app. fees, goal bonuses and sign on fees its more like *pulls figure out of arse.. *or google"

I just think its easier if the world agrees to only talk about the money spent on getting a player from one club to another. Makes it more smoooth.

[Cypry]

It's not really misleading though is it, as I've also looked at the total of four years of parachute payments in terms of income....? I've never anywhere said Rhodes would cost £20M up front, but it is a contractual commitment.

When you sign a player, and sign a three or four year contract, you're effectively committing to the total value of that contract over the time period of that contract. Of course, you could sell the player before the contract reaches it's conclusion, but that doesn't negate the fact that you committed to the contract in the first place.

My point is that on one side you've got some £60M of parachute payments coming in the next four years, on the other side Seige wants us to sign players with transfer values of a quarter of that, and total commitment through their contracts of more than half the total income from parachute payments.....

Yes, we could win promotion this year, and then the TV money from 2014/15 in the Prem would completely nullify this argument, but the club is (like it or not) still being prudent, and you can pretty much guarantee they will not bet the farm on promotion by spending at this level on players.....

Still its not really the done thing on player purchases is it? most only talk about transfer fee and probably for a good reason (or because its easier math) when talking about record signings or how much a player has had spent on them in total nobody adds up every cent the club has spent on them.

For example if i were to say Zlatan "the god" Ibrahimovich has had 120 million spent on him not many people are gonna say "actually if you take into account app. fees, goal bonuses and sign on fees its more like *pulls figure out of arse.. *or google"

I just think its easier if the world agrees to only talk about the money spent on getting a player from one club to another. Makes it more smoooth.

Yeah, and I'm in no way suggesting that the figures are anything other than pulled out of my backside, but you can't have it on one side, that people only consider the transfer fees, yet the parachute payments are a known quantity...

One complaint is that we've got £x from TV money, parachute payments etc, why can't we spend £5M, £8M, £10M on a "name" striker - I'm trying to make the point that, as a club, we can't (and won't be) looking at simply the headline number that you read in the papers on a players value. We'll look at the overall financial commitment and consider the player on that figure, not simply his "value".

The Siege seems to try to make himself out to be Mr. Intelligent, yet he seems to be wholly unable to grasp this simple fact.....

[The Rouge]

Relax guys. Gonna get promoted.

[NewCorkSeth]

Yeah, and I'm in no way suggesting that the figures are anything other than pulled out of my backside, but you can't have it on one side, that people only consider the transfer fees, yet the parachute payments are a known quantity...

One complaint is that we've got £x from TV money, parachute payments etc, why can't we spend £5M, £8M, £10M on a "name" striker - I'm trying to make the point that, as a club, we can't (and won't be) looking at simply the headline number that you read in the papers on a players value. We'll look at the overall financial commitment and consider the player on that figure, not simply his "value".

The Siege seems to try to make himself out to be Mr. Intelligent, yet he seems to be wholly unable to grasp this simple fact.....

Ah my apologies! you are exactly right! as I said I find it difficult to comprehend large figures which is likely why i misunderstood your point! I was bamboozeled.