Are we now a selling club?

[bigmike]

Lack of investment in new players is one of the major factors in reading being relegated. IMO its not just one player we need to take in to strengthen the team after 2 full seasons we still have not replaced Sidwell.

Didn't we break our club transfer record to replace Sidwell ?

We've spent a fair amount of money on players, probably more than enough to have survived.

Sadly the players we spent money on were unable to perform to the required level.

The investement was made on the wrong players and I strongly suspect we could have spent LESS money in the last 2 seasons and had a stronger squad.

No I dont believe we did replace Sidwell... There was a slight attempt but nothing much came of it. The attempt was to replace a £6m + rated midfielder with a player who couldnt run a bath nevermind the midfield.

Fae cost £2.5m ... We shouldnt have spent £2.50 on him

[Southbank Old Boy]

No one is arguing that we didn't fail to strengthen though FFS!

Amount spent does not account for that. The failure is in how, where and on who it was spent.

Not signing a proper right winger was a massive mistake and failure to strengthen.
Signing Fae was a mistake and failed to strengthen us, likewise Cisse, though he's proving useful at a lower level. Not using the resources we had well enough was a big mistake.

Not correcting the mistakes of the summer in January was a big mistake. Not strengthening upfront in January was a mistake.

None of that really bears a great deal of relation to how much we did, or were willing to, spend. We've proved we could get Premier quality players for low prices, as have other clubs.

FFS Ian, read my post again

It is in DIRECT response to you saying "we didnt NEED to strengthen" when we first went up

We tried to strengthen on the cheap later, when we then needed to get players ready to hit the ground running. Instead, we bought players who needed more time to adjust and fit in, and to be honest, werent really the right type of player either. we did that because we did it on the cheap, players who are ready to fit straight in usually cost more money

[West Stand Man]

failing to strengthern properly is not being denied, seeing as that is covered by our buying badly.

Our first season is not really that relevant as we didn't NEED to strengthern much then as shown by 8th.

so really you are looking at the bad, or certainly not good spending of roughly £6m. Increased by the poor spend on Halford the January before. Albeit offset by his sale. I guess the £6m is also offset by Seol going out. So roughly £5m net in one season. I think you could probably find clubs who'd done similar or lower net sales quite easily.

Oh and so you know how I arrived at that figure.
Bikey - ~£1m
Fae - ~£2.5m
Rosenior - ~£1m
Matejovksy - ~£1m
Kebe - ~£500k

Oh, and Pearcey that time covers a massive one year extra... huuuuuuuuuge time span.

....and Wolves have just spent more than that on one player!

Forgive me if I have misunderstood something here, but isn't it usual to pat yourself on the back for getting the best that you can at the LOWEST price. You don't often hear people come out of a car showroom arguing about who [paid the most for the car they have just bought - they try to force a bargain. I think this club should be reasonably proud of the way it deals in players.

[Hoop Blah]

I wouldn't be shouting about getting a Skoda for £5k when what I needed to succeed was a top of the range BMW, even if that top of the range BMW was going to set me back at least £20k.

I agree with the sentiment that you don't have to spend big money to get the right players, but the players that cost the extra cash are the ones that have usually proven themselves at the level you need them for and so others are competing for them and their price reflects that.

[West Stand Man]

I wouldn't be shouting about getting a Skoda for £5k when what I needed to succeed was a top of the range BMW, even if that top of the range BMW was going to set me back at least £20k.

I agree with the sentiment that you don't have to spend big money to get the right players, but the players that cost the extra cash are the ones that have usually proven themselves at the level you need them for and so others are competing for them and their price reflects that.

If I went out for a Skoda I'd want one for the best price I could get. If I wanted a BMW I'd also be looking for the best price. If I went out for a Skoda and got persuaded to part company with money for a BMW I didn't need or want I'd be wasting money.

Mind you, the truth is that plenty of people do simply buy BMW because they think they are getting an image rather than a decent car - and that is where the analogy really does take off. What so many football fans want is the image that goes with signing a 'big name' at a ridiculous cost; what many car owners want is the image that goes with owing a 'prestige' car, even if it is beyond their means, useless for their real needs and beyond its useful life - (and so the analogy really does get stronger)!

To date we have been reasonably good at picking up a good quality Skoda at an affordable price and doing some maintenance/modification on it to produce something closer to a BMW. We have also made a couple of errors where we have paid BMW prices to get a Skoda that was not ready for modification but those are well documented.

Now, when it comes to buying a Ferrari we are scuppered. We can't afford the purchase cost, the maintenance costs or the routine running costs and we just have to accept that.

[Franchise FC]

When have we been anything other than a selling club ?

[Ian Royal]

No one is arguing that we didn't fail to strengthen though FFS!

Amount spent does not account for that. The failure is in how, where and on who it was spent.

Not signing a proper right winger was a massive mistake and failure to strengthen.
Signing Fae was a mistake and failed to strengthen us, likewise Cisse, though he's proving useful at a lower level. Not using the resources we had well enough was a big mistake.

Not correcting the mistakes of the summer in January was a big mistake. Not strengthening upfront in January was a mistake.

None of that really bears a great deal of relation to how much we did, or were willing to, spend. We've proved we could get Premier quality players for low prices, as have other clubs.

FFS Ian, read my post again

It is in DIRECT response to you saying "we didnt NEED to strengthen" when we first went up

We tried to strengthen on the cheap later, when we then needed to get players ready to hit the ground running. Instead, we bought players who needed more time to adjust and fit in, and to be honest, werent really the right type of player either. we did that because we did it on the cheap, players who are ready to fit straight in usually cost more money

And that wasn't directed at you but at Pearcey's comment just before my post.

I disagree with your point, but it is a relevant and fair one to make.

Our need to strengthen previously is only based on bringing players up to speed. We could have got players who were much more ready to go and actually filled in in the right places well, for similar amounts to that which we spent on Fae, Cisse, Rosenior etc or a little bit more, which we were clearly willing to spend, given the bids for players that didn't come.

That's just why I disagree with. You are wholly correct based on the players we ACTUALLY bought, although even then it probably wouldn't have been enough as we still had no right winger and Cisse is even now barely good enough for the Champ top level.

[West Stand Man]

When have we been anything other than a selling club ?

When we bought players maybe?

[Sun Tzu]

Lack of investment in new players is one of the major factors in reading being relegated. IMO its not just one player we need to take in to strengthen the team after 2 full seasons we still have not replaced Sidwell.

Didn't we break our club transfer record to replace Sidwell ?

We've spent a fair amount of money on players, probably more than enough to have survived.

Sadly the players we spent money on were unable to perform to the required level.

The investement was made on the wrong players and I strongly suspect we could have spent LESS money in the last 2 seasons and had a stronger squad.

No I dont believe we did replace Sidwell... There was a slight attempt but nothing much came of it. The attempt was to replace a £6m + rated midfielder with a player who couldnt run a bath nevermind the midfield.

Fae cost £2.5m ... We shouldnt have spent £2.50 on him

So we DID replace Sidwell, just not successfully ?

It was hardly a 'slight' attempt given that we had previous offers rejected and ended up paying a lot of money for him.

[Hoop Blah]

I'm sure the club made a point of saying that Fae and Cisse weren't bought in to replace Sidwell.

That was definately the case with Cisse at least.

I'm amazed that anyone who had seen Fae play ever thought he would be an adequate replacement for Sidwell anyway. He just wasn't the same type of player and we certainly failed to replace Sidwell in any way shape or form.

Not sure what the original point of the Sidwell discussion was mind, but there can't be much doubt that we're a selling club as we're just not in a position not to be when we're fortunate enough to get players who perform well enough to attract the right kind of interest.

[rhroyal]

People saying we should have replaced Sidwell better......who with exactly? We offered 4.5mill for Scott Brown. However, players of that calibre were capable of signing for a better club than Reading, as we found out when he chose Celtic. Even if we were talking 5-6mill for the central midfielder to replace Sidwell in summer 07, I'd like to hear who people had in mind. Which central midfield player of Sidwell's quality was going to move to Reading in summer 07?

[Hoop Blah]

All conjecture of course, but I think nabbing Marvin Elliot on a free from Millwall would've been a good step in trying to replace Sidwell.

He is a similar strong running midfielder who is capable of playing box to box. I can't remember if his free transfer would've allowed him to overlap with Sidwell or not, but if it did then even better as he could've learnt from him at the time.

I think making a move for players like Gary O'Neil or Sean Davis who had experience and proven quality in the Premiership would've been a much less risky move than Fae/Cisse who had never played in British football. Even the likes of Henry, Pires, Tevez, Mascherano, Viera etc etc took time to bed in to football over here. We took a high risk strategy that didn't pay off.

[Sun Tzu]

I'm sure the club made a point of saying that Fae and Cisse weren't bought in to replace Sidwell.

That was definately the case with Cisse at least.

I'm amazed that anyone who had seen Fae play ever thought he would be an adequate replacement for Sidwell anyway. He just wasn't the same type of player and we certainly failed to replace Sidwell in any way shape or form.

Not sure what the original point of the Sidwell discussion was mind, but there can't be much doubt that we're a selling club as we're just not in a position not to be when we're fortunate enough to get players who perform well enough to attract the right kind of interest.

It's not uncommon for clubs to try and reduce pressure on players brought in to replace popular former players to state they are 'not a replacement'. In some ways it's a statement of the obvious as no player can be a direct like for like replacement of another. I know for a fact that when Harps joined he found it very hard to settle because he was hyped as 'Caskey's replacement' when he was a totally different player. It took him ages to break out of that ....

It is of course undeniable that Fae didn't manage to claim a place in the midfield. But the point was that we did make significant signings in order to replenish our midfield. I don't know whether Coppell intentionally went for players who were different to Sidwell, there is nothing that says you have to replace an outgoing player with a clone.

As for being a 'selling' club, I'd say the answer is not a fixed one. It's obvious that there have been times when we have not been (if we had then Doyle would have gone ages ago). It's a meaningless distinction - you can be both a buying and selling club at the same time and whilst for years we were neither (ie tended to buy mid range and sell mid range ) we've moved to being a buying club (meaning we were under no pressure to flog off our best players as soon as some one put in a half decent bid) to a point where we're perhaps a 'cashing in' club where we've got valuable players who have reached the end of their span with us.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

My take on a selling club is a club that has to sell to balance the books or stay afloat. We dont' so we are not. The recent sales just made sense for both buyer, seller and player. Player wants to leave, club offers a lot of money, we say thanks very much.

Brentford are a typical 'selling club'. Over the years they have sold literally dozens of players that have gone on to better things.

[Tilehurst Mike]

Lack of investment in new players is one of the major factors in reading being relegated. IMO its not just one player we need to take in to strengthen the team after 2 full seasons we still have not replaced Sidwell.

Didn't we break our club transfer record to replace Sidwell ?

We've spent a fair amount of money on players, probably more than enough to have survived.

Sadly the players we spent money on were unable to perform to the required level.

The investement was made on the wrong players and I strongly suspect we could have spent LESS money in the last 2 seasons and had a stronger squad.

I don't agree that Fae was unable to perform to the required level. You only have to look at how well he has done since we sold him. He looked a class act when we played him in his proper central midfield position in the away cup tie at Tottenham.

We pay a club record fee for him, fail to put him in the team from the start, and then when we do give him his debut, play him out of position on the right. I'm also inclined to believe that Sonko was probably the bad influence of the pair and not the other way around.

We were in danger of treating Matjosky the same way, and it was only when we were giving him a string of games towards the end of the season and playing to his strengths that he really started to show his true talents. I think if we has persevered with Fae, we would have got a really good player.

No I dont believe we did replace Sidwell... There was a slight attempt but nothing much came of it. The attempt was to replace a £6m + rated midfielder with a player who couldnt run a bath nevermind the midfield.

Fae cost £2.5m ... We shouldnt have spent £2.50 on him

[Hoop Blah]

Some fair comment their Sun Tzu. At the end of the day we didn't get it right whichever way you look at it so the end result is the same.

Agree that you don't have to replace like for like all the time, but for me, a key cog like Sidwell was sorely missed.

Tony L'M, that's possible the best definition on the thread. I'd still say we have to sell to balance the books though, hence the clubs line about trying to get in £11m this summer before we go spending again. We might be a little less reliant than some other clubs though, but as was said earlier in the thread, it's all shades of grey and not black and white.

[bigmike]

So we DID replace Sidwell, just not successfully ?

It was hardly a 'slight' attempt given that we had previous offers rejected and ended up paying a lot of money for him.

No we did not replace Sidwell. Lets put it this way one of your tyres on you car gets punctured you remove the wheel and put a pork pie in its place you have not replaced the wheel.

[Terminal Boardom]

Of course we replaced Sidwell. Unfortunately, the replacement(s) has not met the high standard that Sidders set. Had we not replaced him we would have taken the field with only 10 players. Maybe the pork pie that was used would have been the better option

I am with Sun Tzu on this.

[Sun Tzu]

So we DID replace Sidwell, just not successfully ?

It was hardly a 'slight' attempt given that we had previous offers rejected and ended up paying a lot of money for him.

No we did not replace Sidwell. Lets put it this way one of your tyres on you car gets punctured you remove the wheel and put a pork pie in its place you have not replaced the wheel.

I assume that by introducing an utterly irrelevant analogy you are conceding the point ?

Fae is a good enough player that another club was prepared to pay a large sum of money for him.

It didn't work for Fae here. No one bought him expecting him to fail, he didn't come here expecting to fail but it happens. We didn't simply ignore Sidwell going, through bad luck, bad research or other factors the options we chsoe didn;t deliver as we would have expected.

[readingbedding]

All clubs are selling clubs, all clubs buy players too.

Amazing!

Obvious that we said to Doyle, right we'll do you a deal, commit to us, we'll increase your wage and we'll add a min release clause.
If we don't go up, you can go with our blessing and we'll get a shi* load of cash.
Paid off Cork City's clause too