Next Season

[Royal Lady]

So your whole reckoning is based on that no one has bought us yet, so no one will buy us in the future. That is pretty lame.

I was referring to the rest of this season and next season, sorry if I didn't make that clear.

[Ian Royal]

So your whole reckoning is based on that no one has bought us yet, so no one will buy us in the future. That is pretty lame.

I was referring to the rest of this season and next season, sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Do you not think that a world wide recession might be slightly more relevant than someone not buying us last season?

[Royal Lady]

No. Not really. There wasn't so much of a recession last season, Sir John made it clear he'd like to sell, there didn't appear to be a sniff by anyone interested. Therefore, in answer to the guy who said, in response to my post about I think Coppell would leave at the end of the season, despite where we might end up, and him saying we might get a new Chairman, I was stating that no-one would be interested. Am I talking in tongues or what?

[Royalee]

Royalee, the man who thought Derby would win the title this season, when in fact they have been utter dog shite and are in a relegation fight. Not only that, but a man who thinks Coppell - widely recognised as our best ever manager - is useless.

Why on earth would anyone pay any attention to what he thinks we need to do?

Interesting you pick out a rare failed prediction as opposed to one of the many that outnumber it in correctness.

[jocombes]

Reading Town v Reading (In a pre-season)

[Ian Royal]

Royalee, the man who thought Derby would win the title this season, when in fact they have been utter dog shite and are in a relegation fight. Not only that, but a man who thinks Coppell - widely recognised as our best ever manager - is useless.

Why on earth would anyone pay any attention to what he thinks we need to do?

Interesting you pick out a rare failed prediction as opposed to one of the many that outnumber it in correctness.

ROFLaROFLe.

[Royalee]

So your whole reckoning is based on that no one has bought us yet, so no one will buy us in the future. That is pretty lame.

I was referring to the rest of this season and next season, sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Do you not think that a world wide recession might be slightly more relevant than someone not buying us last season?

You are seriously thick if you think we didn't spend last year because of the recession - for one thing the season began before it. Every business doesn't benefit from a £30 million annual TV windfall either you clown.

[Dirk Gently]

But, in SC's own words, any team would need to invest £100M to be competitive in the PL.

That's bullshit - to challenge for Europe consistently maybe, but certainly not to consolidate, it's just another excuse he's preparing for next year. It's ironic that the more Coppell spends on a player, the worse they turn out to be - perhaps this has more to do with his man-management skills when it comes to bigger egos rather than investment levels.

As I said, they are SC's own words. If you don't mind, when it comes to matters related to football I'd rather listen to the opinions of one of the most experienced and highly-regarded regarded football managers in the UK rather than those of a keyboard warrior who can't see objectivity over the weight of his numerous prejudices.

[Victor Meldrew]

It's is all a gamble anyway. Nothing can be done to prepare for the premier until we know if we are promoted. Even then wheeling and dealing with players can still be a totally unquantifiable factor. The first season in the premier was full of dead and fear about continual hammerings and this was a real surprise. We took teams of with pure grit and a good team ethic that was buoyed up but confidence and ability. Sidwells impact that season was also telling. The second season was more about midfield partnerships, players going missing on the pitch and less patience in our style of play. We got found out and when chasing the game the midfield allowed too many teams to surge directly through the centre. This season the speculative lump it and see has come to the fore in our style of play and this route one style of play will not cut it in the premier league. It will only have a limited impact and we need to get back to building and holding play which is controlled and effective from midfield.

You say nothing can be done but I think it can although we now have less than 24 hours to do it in!!
On a different post I suggested that in this window we should have been starting to build for The Premiership and I don't think it is sense to go with what we have got just because we are currently second.
The time to buy players is often better from a position of strength and the other two up with us are buying and the top club Wolves are supposedly ready to spend £2.3 million on Hearts centre-back which is surely a statement of intent.
Yes I know that paying bigger money doesn't guarantee anything and as a club our recent big money buys have flopped (Fae,Halford and Marek) so maybe our management are not very good in getting middle-range costing players but I do feel strongly that the best way forward is to bring in some players now that would be good enough if we were to go up.

It is difficult to attract these players but from the outside we look like a team heading for The Premiership (even if some of us who see us play every week might not agree)so it shouldn't be impossible to sell the idea of joining us and to get Premiership reserve players for example that could improve our squad.
Most of us on here seem to agree that we need anything from 3 or 4 up to as much as 10 new players for next season and I feel that some new blood needs to be here now and start to form the basis of a side for next season who are used to each other rather than start next season with wholesale changes.
If we don't go up we might have a stronger squad to try again next season and I will be disappointed if we don't see a couple of new players signing tomorrow.

One final point and that is the way we play demands high levels of fitness and last season we saw the energy sap away as the season progressed.Hopefully this time the strong position we are in will help keep them all going but fresh players and not just Harding and Tabb would help as the pressure mounts.

[brendywendy]

Reading need to sign pretty much an entire new team minus three or four players (goalkeeper, Pearce, Bikey and Doyle) in order to have a side capable of establishing itself in the Premiership. This is why for all the bluster, I still don't see that any improvement whatsoever has been made in the last three years - if anything we've gone backwards.

what a surprise!

i think 3 players is being a little bit hard, but thats just my optimistic opinion

before the last time we went up, many of us have said ingi, murts, hunt, etc wouldnt cut the mustard either !

id give karacan and pearce outside chances at making it, and with cisse and kebe full of confidence/experience, coming into the prem anew, theyve still a chance to prove last season a one off
matejovski/armstrong also with potential, and a point to prove
as would lita, and nhunt

we will need at least 1 new CB, 1 new winger, 1 new striker in the summer-plus replacements for any others leaving, and some proven competition for some places
with more brought in in jan if the above list of current players doesnt prove themselves
though, tbf, im totally agreed that this team is a shadow of the 05/06 team, and should therefore be treated a little harder than their predecessors on promotion(if it happens)

so in terms of three years we may have gone backwards as a squad, but forward massively as a club in terms of profile and respect in the game etc
since last year however, i think we have made a pretty significant step forward in terms of transition, whilst maintaining a hugely competetive team for this league,
no mean feat, considering the graveyard for ex prem teams that is currently the bottom of the championship

I agree about the reputation within the game, but that was always going to happen with more resources at the club these days thanks to Madejski. However, that doesn't guarantee you Premiership football, the quality of the players you put on the pitch and how you use them does.

Ingimarsson got found out even in the first season in the Premiership to be fair - we were just lucky at how well Sonko played before his injury - after then we conceded more goals. He certainly won't be good enough if we go back up again.

Kebe's too weak for me and relies on pace - he hasn't exactly exploded this year in the way Little and Convey did in 05/06 and neither of those two exactly set the Premiership alight. Cisse I think will be alright as long as he's deployed as a defensive midfielder and sticks to his strengths, Armstrong's only had one season up there which ended in relegation so he's hardly proven and Lita was dreadful in that division apart from the little run he had in January '07.

The concern for me in particularly is that the main weak areas still appear to be right through the middle of the park, which is where the team was most easily exposed last year. This is the hardest place to strengthen and it's going to be extremely difficult to put in place a full functional partnership in midfield and at the back in the space of one pre-season.

i agree totally with your well thought out and considered opinion, even if i come at it from the rosy side of the fence, willing to give a little extra chance to some of our players


are you ok?
am i ok?

[brendywendy]

Seriously, no-one will want to buy us.

no one would want to buy a team that gets promoted from the championship, has a low wage bill, rapidly receding debt burden, planning permission for ground extension, with a proven track record of improving players and selling at huge profits?

why not?

umm because no-one wanted to buy us the whole of last season when we WERE a prem team, albeit we were relegated at the death.

that aint no reason dagnammit