Confidence Part 2

[Horsham Royal]

No

Just taken the plunge at 22/1 on Reading to be relegated.

Don't actually think we will but that is huge price for a team that's started badly and just lost its top scorer and best player without replacing him. I would have thought about 6/1 would be fair.

Shame you've not got a few million to risk on buying players instead of a few quid to risk on relegation

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Wow, I'm surprised you pulled your tongue out of Madejski's arsehole for long enough to type that.

I wish Madejski would go too. He doesn't have the ambition any more. I think it would be great if he went back to chipping in the odd million every year to help the books balance, like he used to.

I'm just not a little johnny-come-lately child who believes football success is a birthright, and demands it.

Football has always followed something of a boom/bust cycle, and overachieving will invariably be followed by a period of austerity.

I remember the anguish 5 years ago when loads of people like yourself, who have grown up in an era where nothing except the premiership matters, were slating the club then for showing no ambition.


We are an average championship club. If you can't accept that then sod off and support Arsenal or Man Utd or whoever will give you dick-waving reflected glory you so desperately seek, as for clubs of Reading's (new) stature, spells in the top flight will come around only once every 10-20 years or so.

[joe999]

What makes you think I grew up and starting supporting the club during the premiership era? My memories of Elm Park are just as clear as those of the Madejski so I don't really see your point at all.

And if you too want Madejski out because of no ambition and underinvestment then I don't even see how our views are different at all.

[Top Flight]

Anyone who has had any experience running a business will understand that there are limits and restrictions to what you can do financially.

I'd love to own a Ferrari, but I can't afford one.

If you haven't got the money, and the banks aren't lending to businesses then what are you supposed to do?

Alot of people need to get in the real world. Too many RFC fans are in cloud cuckoo land.

Yes, I understand this PERFECTLY, and I agree. But as I've been saying again and again, this is what football is now. It's disgusting, it really is. But we can't be the ONLY club like it. It's not fair. If he can't manage financially, he needs to find someone who can. Now.

I see the Derby County Chief Executive is having to defend his decision to sell Rob Hulse to QPR for just £1.75 Million.

We are not the only club at all.....

[Dave the rave]

I put a 'don't care' as no one knows what people are thinking.
I'll keep supporting my club.

I note AE is in lockdown. What have the lunatics done to the asylum now?
Also what's the point of moving the 'what's wrong with AE' thread to AE when you can't access AE?!?!

[Kitson12]

Now I've been known for bashing Mad-Stad and Hamster, but as some have said, if Gylfi had been at a Premier League club and Hoffenheim had offered £7million then it would have still been very hard to turn down. Now with regards to using the money, I don't think the two signings were adequate, however we have the loan market opening on the 8th, and who knows, if Madejski is true to his word we may see some more, permanent players in in January.

[westendgirl]

But we can't be the ONLY club like it. It's not fair.

And you say you are not a child - this certainly sounds like one.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

What makes you think I grew up and starting supporting the club during the premiership era? My memories of Elm Park are just as clear as those of the Madejski so I don't really see your point at all.

The difference is my memories of Elm Park involve being able to see over the perimeter wall.

I can also remember how previous relegations caused us to lose our better players as we couldn't afford them any more, just as it's been for pretty much every club in the world in the last 100 years, but somehow to a few here seems to be something that only happens at Reading.

And if you too want Madejski out because of no ambition and underinvestment then I don't even see how our views are different at all.

...I don't have the opinion that spending money regardless of ability to pay is the right thing to do. Yeah, you can have a great old time if you live on credit, but it catches up with you in the end.

I also don't think all chairman are sugar daddies splashing out fortunes on players, and criticise one's who don't spend.

Ideally the league should bring in regulation stopping the kind of chairman who are in it for short-term glory from being reckless. It would also stop crybaby fans from thinking spending their own personal fortune in a shot at glory is the way chairmen should run clubs.

[adamh4608]

people amaze me, first you hate mr Madejski for selling our best player, for about £7 millon.and now you all love him and all he has signed a 33 year old on a 2 year contract. another 33 year old that mighht join the club which at that age, they could spend more time in the treatment room, than on the pitch. i think we may get a season at most.and a center back on loan for a season . and might just get one or 2 on loan, so at the start of next season we will be 5 players short. plus we have 2 or 3 older player contracts up by then . will we sell more play to get more loan player in. we could need as many as 7 new player. and we will be told about money short fall at this rate reading will be a club full off loan player

[The whole year inn]

people amaze me, first you hate mr Madejski for selling our best player, for about £7 millon.and now you all love him and all he has signed a 33 year old on a 2 year contract. another 33 year old that mighht join the club which at that age, they could spend more time in the treatment room, than on the pitch. i think we may get a season at most.and a center back on loan for a season . and might just get one or 2 on loan, so at the start of next season we will be 5 players short. plus we have 2 or 3 older player contracts up by then . will we sell more play to get more loan player in. we could need as many as 7 new player. and we will be told about money short fall at this rate reading will be a club full off loan player

The lobotomy went well then adam?

[under the tin]

[I can also remember how previous relegations caused us to lose our better players as we couldn't afford them any more,

Sorry, Rev, I'm struggling with the accuracy of that statement.
From my memory, our "better players" were generally sold to bigger, more ambitious clubs than ours.
The players involved saw it as career development.
Friday went to Cardiff, who were playing at a higher level.
Webby went to Pompey, ditto.
Dixon, Chelsea.
Senior, Middlesbrough
etc.
The phenomenon of offloading high earners, to my memory, started with the dismantling of the Prem side.
If, as I'm in my fifties now, I'm wrong, blame the onset of dementia

[brendywendy]

surely they both apply.

we cant afford to keep the, they want to play at higher levels.
doesnt seem mutually exclusive to me.

[Svlad Cjelli]

In previous years and at lower levels, the effect of TV money was a lot less, and so financial gap between the divisions was much less than it currently is between the top two levels, so the financial impact of relegation was a lot less.

[under the tin]

surely they both apply.

we cant afford to keep the, they want to play at higher levels.
doesnt seem mutually exclusive to me.

Seems to me there's a world of difference between selling Shaka to a bigger club, when our club gets a big payday, and of course, he will get a pay rise, and letting Rasziak go for free, just to get him off the payroll.

[Gatecrasher]

fair enough if we have to live within our means, but you can't reconcile the sale of Gylfi with Madejski's much quoted claim that "this (Glyffi's) contract underpins our determination to progress in the forthcoming season." A sickening deception as far as I can see, more fool me for believing it.

[brendywendy]

surely they both apply.

we cant afford to keep the, they want to play at higher levels.
doesnt seem mutually exclusive to me.

Seems to me there's a world of difference between selling Shaka to a bigger club, when our club gets a big payday, and of course, he will get a pay rise, and letting Rasziak go for free, just to get him off the payroll.

yes. but no difference whatsoever between shaka and gylfi

apart from the obvious

[brendywendy]

fair enough if we have to live within our means, but you can't reconcile the sale of Gylfi with Madejski's much quoted claim that "this (Glyffi's) contract underpins our determination to progress in the forthcoming season." A sickening deception as far as I can see, more fool me for believing it.

yes you can- we gave him the improved contract to A: convince himto stay, and B: to ensure that if he did go, we would be payed handsomely

fair enough in my book

[Top Flight]

Well I love Madejski.

Like everyone else, I am really sad to see Gylfi go. But I don't doubt for one moment the integrity of John Madejski at all. I fully trust the man and am completely confident that every decision he has made and continues to make is what he genuinely believes are in the best interests of the football club and its long term sustainability and survival and hopefully future prosperity.

Relegation from the premier League has had a devastating impact on all who have suffered it. The list is massive and obvious. Reading have faired better than the vast majority and that is down to Madejski. We are still only a couple of outstanding and clever signings away from promotion. And it can still happen this season even with the squad we have (although we probably need a new striker unless the young guns can finally prove themselves).

[Svlad Cjelli]

I think you're overstating the involvement of John Madejski in all of this. As with all his businesses, he employs people to run them for him and then stays "hands off" - even more so now he is leaving this business unit to be self-sufficient.

Yes, he's wheeled out to say the right things at press conferences etc, but in the main he leaves well alone. Of course, though, he'll make public announcements whenever there's a reporter in earshot, and if the PR minders aren't with him that usually where the trouble starts, as he says things that directly contradict what he said the previous week.

Then everyone on this forum analyses every single syllable to death, on the assumption that SJM actually understands what's happening at a detail level, and there there is a coherent strategy and narrative. There's not - he's just saying what he feels that day!

[royal tee]

Running a club from a fans' perspective - going for success and capitalising on it with timely investments and striking when the iron's hot and making the fans proud of the club and confident in their ability to make a real success of it it footballing terms - you must be ****ing joking.

An excellent quote that sums up everything that is wrong with the modern football fan