Replacements for Long (if he goes)

[Sarah Star]

We'll keep any money we get for Long to pay off next years defecit for this well run club of ours.

What are you saying WR? That the club doesn't sell players to use the majority of their transfer fee to balance the books?

We all thought the Sigurdsson money would cover this summers deficit didn't we? Then Mills went and it still doesn't sound quite enough.

I thought the Sigurdsson money covered the deficit from the bank calling in their loan last summer, but also provided the funds to pay for Zurab, keep the club running at a certain level etc... but carry on anyway.

[Z175]

I think the "replacement for Long" arguments are misunderstanding Brian's comments.

In my humble opinion, Brian meant that it would be impossible to replace Long as he is unique to this team. His workrate, team linkup play and form are all top notch and we could not get in the one man replacement as he doesn't exist.

Its a bit like replacing Sigurdsson. We didn't. We merely played another way. Without Long harrying the opposition and heading on to Kebe and getting on the end of Hunt's flicks a top championship or even a premierleague striker, say a Danny Graham or a DJ Campbell would simply not replace Long. Only a Kevin Doyle, Andy Carroll, or say Robin Van Persie etc would offer so much to our team to compensate for the loss of what Long gives.

As for getting another striker in, it wasn't ruled out. But saying Long's fee less £4m will be our budget is never how Reading have worked.

Brian has 4 options if you include HRK so he will work out a new style and see who is needed. I suspect Brian will return to his 4-3-3 with McAnuff and HRK taking turns in the middle. If it doesn't work he will identify one on his list who is needed and we will sign him. Irrespective of cost (within reason).

In terms of the bottomless black hole its more that we run at a big loss so have to accept bids, and Long is out of contract in 12 months and won't sign another as he wants to play in the premierleague.

Again theres not a £xm loss needed to be covered. Last year we needed a minimum to avoid going into debt but I think we weren't in that position this year. Now it is a case of prudency and nest-egging.

Frankly I would tell Shane he stays for 12 months and thus back Brian for automatic promotion. But given this would mean we would need to lose and not replace half our team next summer if we failed, I can see why they might not choose this path.

[Woodcote Royal]

I'm saying the club doesn't need the proceeds from selling both Mills & Long (anything up to £15m) to balance the books and that anything emanating from the club suggesting this should be taken with a very large pinch of salt.

Also, all I've seen regarding this is Brian "suggesting" he won't replace Long........................which is not the same as saying he would not get any money from the sale.

This happens every year during the window and every year we get the same knee jerkers throwing their toys out of the pram even though it's been very rare for us not to bring in several players during this period.

So far, we've acquired an international defender on loan plus Leigertwood, for whom QPR would have demanded a substantial fee. These acquisitions would have made a serious dent in the budget yet one was made long before SGE stumped up a stupid fee for Mills.

I keep reading the view from yourself and others that no one believes our pleadings of poverty when it's worked very nicely for us down the years.

Unlike others, I don't pretend to have full details of the club's finances but whilst we rarely show a profit, we're in much better shape than most and SJM would never allow the club to sink £10m plus into the red in the current climate..........................do you really need this being pointed out to you

We achieve this healthy state by buying low and selling high and, frankly, it doesn't matter whether other more desperate clubs believe what we say publicly about our finances or not.

As things stand, Brian's squad is good to go for Millwall but I'm damn sure he and Squeeky have a shopping list and know who needs to sell before the deadline and will, therefore, be prepared to drop their prices if they have to.

Furthermore, would it be so unreasonable if Long was not replaced immediately? This time last year many fans were desperate for someone to take him off our hands. Now, we have the likes of Chuch, Mansett and HRK who all have it in them to be next the Shane Long so why fork out big bucks straight away if we don't need to?

Who knows, perhaps the club will elect to hang to any further windfalls in this window and spend some of the spoils in January........................and just how many other clubs would then be saying "Ah!!! We know you've still got £8m to spend from the sale of Shane Long. YOUR LOADED"

So you are still, basically, saying that the club are putting out all these 'we're not spending anymore money' stories to prevent other clubs realising we've got a bit more money in the kitty than they otherwise might realise? Sorry, but that's borderline mental. I do agree that what they say should be taken with a pinch of salt though. Very little of what they ever say makes a hell of a lot of sense.

A couple of other points from your post too.

Why do you think QPR would've been demanding a substantial fee for Leigertwood? He was surplus to requirements, couldn't get near their team, only had a year to run on his contract and most likely we'd have done some deal with them last year to arrange a fee if we wanted to keep him. Add in a probable loan fee last season and I doubt we paid too much for him to be honest as they would've just been keen to get rid of him.

As much as it's a fact that we always sign a player or two every window, the inbound transfers are always, in recent history, a small percentage of the outbound fees. That would indicate we rarely re-invest anywhere near the amount we receive in. That's why we're in decent financial shape. That's why we won't be seeing a hell of a lot of the c. £10m-£15m we could receive this summer going back into player acquisition. You seem to agree on this at the same time as laughing at those who say pretty much the same thing. That's why I'm struggling to get the thrust of your argument here.

You say our pleading of poverty has worked out very nicely for us down the years. In what way? We've not exactly bought many bargains way below the perceived market value and, according to you, we've just been held to ransom by QPR for a substantial fee for a journeymen midfielder they didn't want. We've sold well yes, but I don't think that's been influenced by the poverty line as if anything that would push prices down a little bit as clubs think we need the money.

Would it be reasonable to not replace Long? It depends what our aims for the season are. I think we need another attacking player because we don't quite have enough in numbers as it is (once we lose Long). If we're looking for Hunt, Manset, Church and Robson-Kanu to score us our goals then I think we're short on quality and will certainly need another winger to add to McAnuff, Kebe and Obita (Antonio is discounted from contention for me as I don't rate him). I think it would be quite a gamble to rely on our existing quartet to get us in the play-off mix. It's a gamble that may well pay off, but I think realistically we'd need another player in there somewhere.

There are only so many ways to say the same thing.

Yes, we need to balance our books by selling a player each season in order to plug what was reported as a £4m black hole at the time we sold Siggy.

On the other hand, no one is yet to suggest that this black hole has now grown to £10m plus per annum and that this will swallow any fee we are likely to receive for Long but, of course, that hasn't prevented our resident wrist slitters from assuming that this was what McD meant when he suggested Long might not be replaced.

Your observations regarding our strike force minus Long must very close to hundreds posted this time last year regarding our strike force WITH Long which goes to show that to gain the full benefit from investing in young talent at some point they need to be given a chance to establish themselves in the team. Surely it's no coincidence that Long improved dramatically once he became a regular starter and if Brian feels it's time to give similar opportunities to Church, Mansett & HRK, I for one am happy to back his judgement.

It beggars belief that you cannot understand why the club would wish to under play the resources at their disposal but, so be it

[Cypry]

I'd be very surprised if we lose Long and spend nothing of that money during this transfer window, however, I suspect that McDermott is being a little too subtle for some.

What he's actually saying is that he won't be replacing Long like for like - i.e. if we sell Long for £8M it's highly unlikely that we'll then go out and spend £8M or anything near it on another player of equivalent current standing to Long....

I suspect it's about setting expectations as far as McD and the club are concerned. A lot of people will see a certain fee for Long and expect that same money to be spent on a replacement - that's not the way we work and IMO nor should we....

If Long goes, my thinking is that what we'll see is more likely two or three inbound players who McD feels will complement what he already has, and build a more complete squad.
We've had loads of un-named trialists in the recent "development squad" games - a big lump (Eastern European perhaps?) centre forward in the Woking game, on Friday we only named 12 players on the O/S for the Hungerford game and only 2 defenders - one assumes therefore that we had a number of trialists again (couldn't make it myself, perhaps someone who was there could give a bit more info?), given the lack of named defenders maybe we're looking at another CB (in case we decide against Sonko?), perhaps a new LB (we had a trialist LB at the Woking game as well)?

So if we sell Long, will we get a replacement, another high profile striker? I very much doubt it, but what I would expect to see is two or three carefully considered buys; perhaps a LB, perhaps Sonko or another CB, perhaps a striker who McD feels will complement Hunt, Chruch, HRK, Manset.....

[BR2]

From Woodcote's postings anyone would think we actually got promoted last year rather than scrambling into the play-offs.
Surely the object each season is to try to improve the quality of the playing staff and do well enough to get promoted?
We have seen what Hunt,HRK,Manset and Church can do and on performances shown so far they are not good enough to get us promoted.
We know that Brian is a mini miracle-worker but you can't expect a manager to perform miracles every year so he needs a bit of help and that is where the transfer system comes into play.

I don't like double-speak and the crap about mind games-Reading will be one of the better-off clubs at this level if Long goes for £3million plus therefore we could afford to buy a promising striker for £1million or so if Brian thought that such a player would be better than the mediocre 4 mentioned earlier.
Regardless of poverty being pleaded by the club other clubs will know that we will (if Long goes)have had more money coming in than any other club outside of the Premier League and more than some Premier League clubs so they would expect any offer that we make for a player to be realistic.

Woodcote is a sucker if he thinks that all other clubs will fall for the hard-up line emanating from a club that has just made the play-offs ,had Premiership parachute payments for 2 years,sold a player last year for £7 million and sold a couple of players amounting to £7 or £8 million this summer and during that period paid relatively little for incoming players.

[ZacNaloen]

We were comfortably in the play offs

[Chaney]

sven as admitted he is interested (states bbc website) but he expects him to go to a premiership team, same article say west ham had a 7million bid rejected,

[BR2]

We were comfortably in the play offs

We didn't come 3rd which is the only "comfortable" placing and IMHO we were a long way off being a side good enough for promotion.
That's why I feel to "go with what we have got" is unlikely to get us into that top 2 which surely has to be the aim for most clubs and we need to bring in more players hopefully to turn out better than what we have got.

[ZacNaloen]

Look at the points gap, were ended finishing comfortably in a play off position. No other way of looking at it.

[Ian Royal]

We were comfortably in the play offs

We didn't come 3rd which is the only "comfortable" placing and IMHO we were a long way off being a side good enough for promotion.
That's why I feel to "go with what we have got" is unlikely to get us into that top 2 which surely has to be the aim for most clubs and we need to bring in more players hopefully to turn out better than what we have got.

Well unfortunately your humble opinion isn't worth a lot tbh. We comfortably finished 5th in the end by 5 points. We comfortably went past Cardiff in the Play Off semi and we made Swansea, a team who were in and around the fight for auto promotion in much of the run in, work very hard for their promotion in the end.

As for your points about Hunt, Church and Manset. Hunt has a very good scoring record for us, but is unfortunately hampered by his injury record. Saying we've seen what Manset can do based on half a season of bit parts whilst not up to standard in fitness and making the step up two divisions in quality is ludicrous. Church is a young player with plenty of room to improve, exactly as Long was.

Personally I consider us stronger now than we started last season and at least as good as we finished it. And I'll wait to see what we do in response IF Long goes, before passing judgment on where we are then.

[Hoop Blah]

I think the "replacement for Long" arguments are misunderstanding Brian's comments.

In my humble opinion, Brian meant that it would be impossible to replace Long as he is unique to this team.

I think there is a lot to be said for that train of thought.

Not sure the point of saying it in the first place though.

[Ian Royal]

I think the "replacement for Long" arguments are misunderstanding Brian's comments.

In my humble opinion, Brian meant that it would be impossible to replace Long as he is unique to this team.

I think there is a lot to be said for that train of thought.

I agree. But anything that gets said gets taken in the worst possible light and then turned into something different through chinese whispers by some negative ninny or other.

[Hoop Blah]

Your observations regarding our strike force minus Long must very close to hundreds posted this time last year regarding our strike force WITH Long which goes to show that to gain the full benefit from investing in young talent at some point they need to be given a chance to establish themselves in the team. Surely it's no coincidence that Long improved dramatically once he became a regular starter and if Brian feels it's time to give similar opportunities to Church, Mansett & HRK, I for one am happy to back his judgement.

And that gamble from last season didn't really pay off. We had a fantastic run of form for 2 months which saw us nick an unlikely place in the play-offs. To top that off we had a real chance of grabbing second as well, as mad as that seemed looking back to where we were before the run of wins.

As good as that form was I think the reliance on an under-resourced squad before Christmas probably meant we didn't quite have the quality to see us over the final hurdle. We came a lot closer than I expected yes, but ultimately we paid the price for not quite going far enough. If that's our lot then fine, I'm reasonably happy with that. I just think it's a bit of a shame we don't have the capability to push that little harder or that any such view expressed on here is seen as unrealistic or knee jerk.

It beggars belief that you cannot understand why the club would wish to under play the resources at their disposal but, so be it

The football world is so incestuous that I don't believe for one minute that other clubs are influenced by our PR mutterings of poverty or our transfer intentions. The moment we signal our intentions over a player or make a bid that players club knows exactly where we stand. What makes you think otherwise?

If you think it's for any other reason then I'd be interested to hear them as you've not hinted at it being anything else.

[Woodcote Royal]

So, after all those countless and highly tedious posts about "mid-table mediocity" missing out on a place in the top flight by the width of a post counts as "not coming off"

Did it "come off" when we ended up with 106pts after all those howls of derision and "no ambition" from many of the same blinkered fans when we signed Kitson for not a lot and Doyle for even less

If, for argument sake, we can agree that we have an annual black hole of around £4m, what exactly would you like to have seen done to address what you saw as an "under resourced" team in the period before Christmas? Bearing in mind that the bank called in it's over draft some time back and most of the Chairman's money appears to be locked into other ailing businesses, should SJM have tried to sell his body down the Oracle or, DON'T TELL ME!!! Perhaps he should have adopted the Brown/Balls approach by getting the dosh from anywhere, at any rate and burying the evidence so deeply that he would stand a good chance of being dead by the time it rose to the surface

The football grapevine is in a far worse state than you seem to think. Most clubs would expect most of the others to be in a similarly parlous financial state to themselves but you clearly have no desire to wake up and smell the coffee and that's your choice.

[Pseud O'Nym]

I think the "replacement for Long" arguments are misunderstanding Brian's comments.

In my humble opinion, Brian meant that it would be impossible to replace Long as he is unique to this team.

I think there is a lot to be said for that train of thought.

I agree. But anything that gets said gets taken in the worst possible light and then turned into something different through chinese whispers by some negative ninny or other.

Blessed are the cheese makers?

[Ian Royal]

Did it "come off" when we ended up with 106pts after all those howls of derision and "no ambition" from many of the same blinkered fans when we signed Kitson for not a lot and Doyle for even less

Awful argument. Kitson had already scored very well in the league with us before that season (19?) and we bought Lita for £1m.

If you're going to join the light side and argue in favour of the club, get it oxf*rd right.

[Avon Royal]

missing out on a place in the top flight by the width of a post counts as "not coming off"

Yep, it counts as not coming off. Because it didn't.

[Woodcote Royal]

Did it "come off" when we ended up with 106pts after all those howls of derision and "no ambition" from many of the same blinkered fans when we signed Kitson for not a lot and Doyle for even less

Awful argument. Kitson had already scored very well in the league with us before that season (19?) and we bought Lita for £1m.

If you're going to join the light side and argue in favour of the club, get it oxf*rd right.

Kitson cost next to nothing, as did Doyle, and the club was accused of lacking ambition when they arrived yet this became our major strike force in the most successful side that has ever graced the division..........................how the fcuk does Kitson being signed in the previous season undermine the point I'm making?

[The Glory Days :(]

We were comfortably in the play offs

We didn't come 3rd which is the only "comfortable" placing and IMHO we were a long way off being a side good enough for promotion.
That's why I feel to "go with what we have got" is unlikely to get us into that top 2 which surely has to be the aim for most clubs and we need to bring in more players hopefully to turn out better than what we have got.

Well unfortunately your humble opinion isn't worth a lot tbh. We comfortably finished 5th in the end by 5 points. We comfortably went past Cardiff in the Play Off semi and we made Swansea, a team who were in and around the fight for auto promotion in much of the run in, work very hard for their promotion in the end.

As for your points about Hunt, Church and Manset. Hunt has a very good scoring record for us, but is unfortunately hampered by his injury record. Saying we've seen what Manset can do based on half a season of bit parts whilst not up to standard in fitness and making the step up two divisions in quality is ludicrous. Church is a young player with plenty of room to improve, exactly as Long was.

Personally I consider us stronger now than we started last season and at least as good as we finished it. And I'll wait to see what we do in response IF Long goes, before passing judgment on where we are then.

+1 to that buddy!

[rhroyal]

I'm very much assuming somebody has already voiced this opinion, but I can't be bothered to trawl through and check.

I'm thinking we might not miss Long too much if he goes and we don't bring in a replacement. People talk about the need for a 20 goal striker at this level; it's not always necessary. Goals coming from all over the team and a range of sources is better still as opposed to relying upon 1 man. We didn't have this much last season; Harte was our 2nd top scorer with his set pieces. If Harte can replicate his record, then we'll have a decent source. Furthermore, a solid 6 or 7 of Long's goals were penalties. Harte could have taken them too. Indeed he should have; he's a better penalty taker than Long.

As for replacements up front, Hunt has finally got through a pre-season, with only a minor injury in Slovenia. He got 2 goals last night and apparently looked a class apart (check out the relevant thread). He reached double figures in 08/09 before his injury and got a fair few last season. If he could have a fit season, or even a 75% fit season which is more than usual, we could expect 15 from him by my reckoning. HRK is ready to move up front with Obita ready to step into his old role of wing backup. He's been one of the stand out performers in pre-season and I think we could also expect 10-15 from him next season if given the chance. He'd probably be competing with Manset up front. Manset looks fitter now. We saw him poach goals at Cardiff and Barnsley last season and he was capable of the spectacular at Hereford. We could also realistically look at him reaching double figure. After that, we have Church who stagnated big time last season. However he was very promising in 09/10 - could we see a return.

We still have Kebe on the wing. McAnuff could step up as captain. Karacan improves year on year, could he add more goals to his game this season? Khumalo will add a threat at set pieces, as has Pearce in the past. This will fill that void from Mills' departure.

I doubt all these things would come off. We'd be surefire promotion candidates if they did. However we'd only need 2 or 3 of these players to step up and we'd fill the 20+ goals lost by selling Long.

The greater worry is Long's overall team play. Pace, strength, deceptively good in the air and a great work rate. We don't really have another striker with all this.