JM is confident we'll stay up

[IMAMATEOFJOVSKY]

in his defence - and i rarely defend, i dont ever think it was as low as £12m - but its a big u turn- over confidence of an inadequate squad by a chairman who knows jack about football gets you to this situation- it must be embarrassing to talk it up but have to retract it- as they say you reap what you sow - unfortunately Madejski just didnt sow enough

[Northern Git]

in his defence - and i rarely defend, i dont ever think it was as low as £12m - but its a big u turn- over confidence of an inadequate squad by a chairman who knows jack about football gets you to this situation- it must be embarrassing to talk it up but have to retract it- as they say you reap what you sow - unfortunately Madejski just didnt sow enough

Mate I think you will find its was. If I can find the info over the weekend I will post it. He has a long history of inflating figures as and when it suits him - remember the 'doubling of the wage bill' that went from 8 to 12 to 15 to 18 million when we got promotion? Pisses me right off

[Gordons Cumming]

John is right.

We will stay up.

[RoyalBlue]

just seen Mr Mad on tv - the expansion of the stadium is likely to be put on hold - it was going to cost £35m - surely half of that invested in quality players would have meant we would be in the premiership next season and then the expansion could have gone ahead. When you are an established team, you can expand, as Hammond keeps telling us - I think their priorities were round the wrong way.

Another set of creative figures from our chairman. What happened to 12 million cost of a year ago? Bloke always inflates / deflates figures as it suits him

Initially made his money with a magazine selling used cars - so is it any surprise?!!

[IMAMATEOFJOVSKY]

Good point royal blue - he's bought a top of the range BMW and is now trying to sell it as a Bugatti!

[North Somerset Royal]

M-add Stad
READING FC will have a stadium to match its grand ambitions of being one of the biggest clubs in the land if its expansion dreams become
reality.

And Royals fans can have a say in what the upgraded stadium will look like.

The club has unveiled preliminary £13 million plans that would boost Madejski Stadium’s capacity from 24,000 to a whopping 38,000 by 2008.

As reported in October 2006

[Vision]

I would suspect there may have been £4-5 million available for a transfer given our past bids, whether the wages budget would reflect the needs of say an established premier league player I would doubt. The impact of half the squad knocking on the door demanding rises could be destabilising and I do believe there is a fixed wage structure that Mr Howe and Mr Hammond operate from JM that would be more restrictive than any transfer amount we may decide to bid.

Thanks particularly to Mr Bruce and Mr Keane a decent championship player under contract now costs between £3-6 million (look at the Marlon King fiasco) with no real guarantee that they will make the grade (£6 million for Nugent and he has done very little this season).

RFC as a club are really reduced to up and coming championship/lower league players or cheaper African players from France where there is a large market of hungry players looking for success or Eastern European players who don't get paid much. The trouble with these players as with the championship ones is that there is a higher risk that they will take longer to settle in and in the end may not make the step up.

The RFC business strategy is to buy cheap and reasonably young and hope they gain in value and can adapt to premier league football with the option to sell.

You could of course say why doesn't JM kick start the process with say £20 million and get some players in but the difficulty would be sustaining the wages and in the end you may not be greatly above where we are now (see Wigan).

Top post.

Transfer fees are not really that much of an issue in my opinion but fitting their wage demands withing the current framework not only scares JM to death from a financial aspect but also goes against Coppell's philosophy of squad harmony and togetherness. We wont pay the necessary wages to bring in major signings that "might" give us an instant improvement and even if we were prepared to do so, i dont think Coppell would want to.

We do generally buy young and up and coming players who represent good value for money but this isn't solely a financial perogative in my opinion. If it was we could have cashed in on the likes of Sidwell, Shorey, Lita and Hunt who were all the subject of substantial interest (bids?) in recent times. As well as the fact that JM wants to reap the rewards of 16 years of investment, its perhaps more relevent that Coppell doesn't actually want to work with supposedly "readymade" players but is happier and more comfortable with players he believes he can improve and mould into something better.

For this season that might well prove to be our downfall but for the overall health and future of Reading FC i believe its the only sensible way for a club of our size to operate given the strengths and personalities of those we have in charge at this time.

It might also make sense to set up an Academy that casts it net (not necessarily far and wide) to capture any potential players for the future that might otherwise go to Southampton,QPR or Chelsea etc.especially now that we have some pedigree (albeit possibly brief) as a Premiership club.
Perhaps the chairman could be persuaded to invest in such a novel idea.

Agreed but unfortunately the proof of that particular pudding lies several years after the actual intake. The casting of this net takes place at age 7 or realistically at least between the ages of 7 and 11. That being the case , its only the last couple of years that we;ve been a better bet than Southampton, we've not had a higher profile than Chelsea and in terms of developing our own from an early age , in recent times QPR can hardly claim to be a roaring success in this department.

[RoyalBlue]

John is right.

We will stay up.

How?

Did voting for the PL travelling circus plans grant us indefinite membership of the pig trough?

[IMAMATEOFJOVSKY]

If we are going to thrive as a club and show real ambition - hopefully a premiership club, we definitely need a new man leading the club - madejski has made his money and exposed his name through the club, and now its time for someone new

We will only continue to go backwards with the current chairman in charge - he doesnt understand the financials of football -its not like running autotrader where little investment can bring huge returns

If he stays then the club is going south - after listening to him on the radio spouting on about premiership football and the money that wud be generated from overseas matches, the guy is obsessed with making money and couldnt give a toss about the club and its fans.

Dont anyone be fooled - this guy has made a lot more money out of the club than he's put in -hes NEVER been a benefactor - hes been a loaner, and look at the accounts to see that - i have for every year that hes been at the top - people need to wake up and take of the rose tinted specs

[Gordons Cumming]

If we are going to thrive as a club and show real ambition - hopefully a premiership club, we definitely need a new man leading the club - madejski has made his money and exposed his name through the club, and now its time for someone new

We will only continue to go backwards with the current chairman in charge - he doesnt understand the financials of football -its not like running autotrader where little investment can bring huge returns

If he stays then the club is going south - after listening to him on the radio spouting on about premiership football and the money that wud be generated from overseas matches, the guy is obsessed with making money and couldnt give a toss about the club and its fans.

Dont anyone be fooled - this guy has made a lot more money out of the club than he's put in -hes NEVER been a benefactor - hes been a loaner, and look at the accounts to see that - i have for every year that hes been at the top - people need to wake up and take of the rose tinted specs

[Royal Lady]

I would have bought the club if I'd won the Euromillions last night. As it was I only got one lousy number. Roll on tonight's lottery ...

[Victor Meldrew]

[Victor wrote:-
It might also make sense to set up an Academy that casts it net (not necessarily far and wide) to capture any potential players for the future that might otherwise go to Southampton,QPR or Chelsea etc.especially now that we have some pedigree (albeit possibly brief) as a Premiership club.
Perhaps the chairman could be persuaded to invest in such a novel idea. [/quote]

Agreed but unfortunately the proof of that particular pudding lies several years after the actual intake. The casting of this net takes place at age 7 or realistically at least between the ages of 7 and 11. That being the case , its only the last couple of years that we;ve been a better bet than Southampton, we've not had a higher profile than Chelsea and in terms of developing our own from an early age , in recent times QPR can hardly claim to be a roaring success in this department.[/quote]

I quoted QPR as an example of what has happened over the years(not specific to the last decade) and could easily have included Palace and Oxford over the same period.
We had a successful youth policy under Branfoot that was allowed to decline and my grouse therefore goes back to pre-Academy days-it's not as if we had NO youth set-up before the Academy came into being and we were not starting from scratch( Neil Webb is the most famous product).
Until the day arrives when we actually produce a few good enough to play at the level we are at the club just has to invest in players from outside-our failing this season is that (for whatever reason and by whoever's decision) we haven't bought players whilst others have.
Maybe the Academy will produce players good enough for The Championship and we can then hail it as a success.

[RoyalBlue]

If we are going to thrive as a club and show real ambition - hopefully a premiership club, we definitely need a new man leading the club - madejski has made his money and exposed his name through the club, and now its time for someone new

We will only continue to go backwards with the current chairman in charge - he doesnt understand the financials of football -its not like running autotrader where little investment can bring huge returns

If he stays then the club is going south - after listening to him on the radio spouting on about premiership football and the money that wud be generated from overseas matches, the guy is obsessed with making money and couldnt give a toss about the club and its fans.

Dont anyone be fooled - this guy has made a lot more money out of the club than he's put in -hes NEVER been a benefactor - hes been a loaner, and look at the accounts to see that - i have for every year that hes been at the top - people need to wake up and take of the rose tinted specs

Funny how Mick Gooding was pretty categoric today about how JM had got plenty back out of his involvement with the club.

Also stated that when he was manager with JQ they were never given a specific budget for players and he suspects the same is happening to SC. Far from being a good thing, he said it made their job exceptionally difficult as they never knew how they could/should cut their cloth.

Who on this board knows any successful business whose managers don't know the budgets they are expected to operate within?

If it is true then an absolutely crazy approach from the Mad man.

[Royal Lady]

Like JM is going to come out and say "I think we'll go down". Years ago when we were losing in the old 3rd division or what have you, I can't remember moaning about buying new players - we almost accepted that some days we'd play better than others and we knew we had no money. These days when your chairman bigs up how he's raising the price of the ST in order to help compete with the "big boys" in the Prem and that will give us the ability to buy players of PL quality, and when the chairman says there's money available to the manager to strengthen the team, you sort of believe him and so when nothing is done and two years down the line, despite having raked in millions from TV revenue and the increase in STs, you've only spent about 8 million on players and maybe another 3 million on wage increases (and that's me being generous with figures there) - it rather rankles when performances are bad, you don't know where the next win is coming from and you can see your beloved club sliding down to the championship. For the Chairman to still give this hype about "we've got a great bunch of lads and we'll stay up" is taking the p*ss somewhat in my eyes. Yes, we are all eternally grateful to JM for what he has done for this club, but that gratitude is fast waning when he makes false promises. At least when the crowds are well down next season if we're relegated, when ST numbers diminish and we lose half our current players, we'll have the millions from 2 years worth of tv revenue plus a parachute payment to offset the losses which will inevitably occur. Yes, it's doom and gloom, yes it's moaning - but that's the way it is I'm afraid.

I'll still be cheering them on and praying for a result every single game, I'll do my bit. But the players have to do their bit. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that a lot of them have one eye on leaving at the end of the season and aren't particularly bothered whether RFC stay up or not. There's no passion or determination in their play. That's the galling bit, we, the fans, are the only ones who are willing them to succede at the moment. And as I've said before, what happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago or 136 years ago is of no import anymore. It is the future we should be looking at. We managed to get to the PL, we have as much right as anyone else to believe that we could stay here a lot longer.

[Spirit of Elm Park]

Maybe next time he does one of his "pitchside ego wanders" we can give him the vocal backing that he so deserves........


Oh.

[Royal Lady]

He obviously won't be walking round the pitch any time soon, unless we're guaranteed safety, then watch him take the plaudits like it's all down to him.

[The 17 Bus]

He obviously won't be walking round the pitch any time soon, unless we're guaranteed safety, then watch him take the plaudits like it's all down to him.

I hate to say it as I have a lt of respect for what JM has done for RFC, but at the moment it appears to be him that is letting the club and the fans down.

Still it will not be long before we have some lovely shiny offices near the Station, and like the Madstad they could well be empty due to lack of demand.

[strap]

Dont anyone be fooled - he's NEVER been a benefactor - hes been a loaner, and look at the accounts to see that - i have for every year that hes been at the top - people need to wake up and take of the rose tinted specs

Just what I was saying 13 yers ago. Welcome to the club. That makes 2 of us who are awake and smelling the coffee. Anyone else care to join us?

[Royal Lady]

As far as I'm aware, the money that he loaned to the club was repaid some time ago wasn't it?

What will happen to the millions in the bank if Madejski does eventually manage to sell the club?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

We will only continue to go backwards with the current chairman in charge

we were so much better off before he came

- he doesnt understand the financials of football -its not like running autotrader where little investment can bring huge returns

I imagine you are talking from experience here, and know all about the typical investments and returns required in setting up a multinational business from scratch.

Dont anyone be fooled - this guy has made a lot more money out of the club than he's put in -hes NEVER been a benefactor - hes been a loaner, and look at the accounts to see that - i have for every year that hes been at the top - people need to wake up and take of the rose tinted specs

you've seen the accounts?

Great. As you know, then maybe you can clear this up once as for all - how much exactly has Madejski put into the club and how much has he taken out?