Pin this on the dressing room wall

[Huntley & Palmer]

To be honest you can't really blame him for choosing Celtic, besides it's not like previous bad statements about the club have done us any harm:

"Southampton are a far greater team than Reading"- Darren Powell after drawing 0-0 with Reading. Reading finish top with a record points total, Southampton finish mid-table.

"We'll see who's laughing at the end of the season"- Neil Warnock after Sheff Utd's 2-1 loss to Reading. Reading finish 16 points ahead of Sheff Utd.

"You know you have a problem when you lose to a team like Reading"- Martin Jol after Reading's 3-1 win over Jol's Tottenham. Reading finish 1 point off a UEFA Cup place.

Unless we are going to be playing Celtic in a surprise friendly, then really your point means nothing

[Bucks Dave]

Actually,yappy, I think Martin Jol said that before we beat them. It went up on the wall before the match.

[ReadingFlan]

The truth is we only want players who want to play for Reading. So forget this thick sweaty. Remember the last time a certain Mr Burns tried to bring in loads of useless scottish players. They weren't up to the job. Name me a Scottish player who has made a major impact in the the Premiership.

[brendywendy]

The truth is we only want players who want to play for Reading. So forget this thick sweaty. Remember the last time a certain Mr Burns tried to bring in loads of useless scottish players. They weren't up to the job. Name me a Scottish player who has made a major impact in the the Premiership.

that old fella for coventry

ermmm

macallister

[Behindu]

The truth is we only want players who want to play for Reading. So forget this thick sweaty. Remember the last time a certain Mr Burns tried to bring in loads of useless scottish players. They weren't up to the job. Name me a Scottish player who has made a major impact in the the Premiership.

that old fella for coventry

ermmm

macallister

Kenny Dalglish....

[Ian Royal]

Souness?

[ReadingFlan]

PREMIERSHIP !! So that rules out Kenny Dalglish. You are also clutching at straws with McCallister

[Tinrib]

The truth is we only want players who want to play for Reading. So forget this thick sweaty. Remember the last time a certain Mr Burns tried to bring in loads of useless scottish players. They weren't up to the job. Name me a Scottish player who has made a major impact in the the Premiership.

A certain Mr Murty...

[brendywendy]

PREMIERSHIP !! So that rules out Kenny Dalglish. You are also clutching at straws with McCallister

he played in the prem to a very high standard for years, until quite elderly!
keeping teams up, getting them to europe
if thats not making an impact i dont know what is

[SpaceCruiser]

PREMIERSHIP !! So that rules out Kenny Dalglish. You are also clutching at straws with McCallister

So football didn't exist before 1992?

[Katie Marsden]

PREMIERSHIP !! So that rules out Kenny Dalglish. You are also clutching at straws with McCallister

he played in the prem to a very high standard for years, until quite elderly!
keeping teams up, getting them to europe
if thats not making an impact i dont know what is

He was quality at Liverpool aswell for one season.

Colin Hendry is another who made a big impact.

[ReadingFlan]

My point was no player has come down from Scotland and made a big impact in the Premiership. Dalglish, Souness, Hansen we all know about as they have been around for years before the premier league began. The game is totally different now. No back pass rule for starters.
Colin Hendry ! come on ! I am talking about an impact. You can't name one !

[Arch]

I don't think the Premiership is generally kind to tiny players. And do we want someone who gets carded one in every three games? Makes Bikey look like a saint.

[windjammer]

Err... I would suggest that both Celtic and Rangers would beat this Reading team. (Fair point about the rest).

He can play in front of bigger, more passionate crowds. Get paid more. Earn more bonuses. And play against the best team in Europe... Not really a hard decision is it?

And lose to the best teams in Europe. Scots football is of a far lower standard and has far smaller crowds excluding Celtic and Rangers. Most of the SPL teams would struggle in our Championship, Scots 1 would be League 2 here and Scots Div 2 and 3 would struggle against Conference sides. The Royals would beat Rangers at least 7 out of 10 and be 50-50 with Celtic. The old Firm would never play down here because they know there's a good chance they would never qualify for Europe.

[BonBoh]

I really do think it is good he didn't sign for us.
What he says is the sign of a lazy player who is not prepared to take on a challenge and wants the cushy life of having everything served on a silver plate.

Not worth the effort of discussing this further. His £4.4 million price tag was also quite scary so in a way we have saved ourselves a fortune for some wannabebigtimecharlie.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

More interesting is the fact that we had a £4.4 million bid accepted !

Last summer we had similar sized bids in for Lescott, Mensah and Fae (IIRC) which suggests JM is fairly serious about investing in new talent.

I predict we will break our transfer record at least twice this summer (by which I mean we'll sign 2 players who cost more than Halford - just to cover my back in case we splash £5 million and then follow it up with a £4 million deal)

I agree with this. 4.4 million for a player. I know we take these things for granted but thats a huge figure for us!

[SpaceCruiser]

Thinking about it, who was the most expensive Scot to come from a Scottish team, how much was it and when was it?

Is £4.4 millon expensive for such a player?

[Ian Royal]

My point was no player has come down from Scotland and made a big impact in the Premiership. Dalglish, Souness, Hansen we all know about as they have been around for years before the premier league began. The game is totally different now. No back pass rule for starters.
Colin Hendry ! come on ! I am talking about an impact. You can't name one !

You do realise Blackburn won the premiership with Hendry? Thats a fairly large impact...

[savage 4 england]

I can understand why he joined Celtic.

He's a good player.

But, why does he have to bring us into it?
Hope he gets what's coming to him

[PremAddict]

If you stepped back and tried to view this as a non Reading fan, you might be able to see it more objectively.

We finished 8th this year. Fantastic achievement, but you can hardly call us an established top flight team...

What does it really mean to be "an established top flight team"?. I think everyone would have thought of Charlton to be established and they're gone. In my opinion, there are only 5 teams that are "established".

Because of funds, everyone else is suspect. Including Reading.