NO LONGER A RUMOUR - Karl Sheppard

[melonhead]

Considering the figures behind most of our transfers aren't public, i'm not sure how FineRain got those figures beyond the medias own speculation.

However, regardless of the fee's we recieve you can see from the clubs accounts how much is spent. And every penny is accounted for. We still spend more than we earn in fact. That others can still yet spend more comes down to the simple fact their owners are either loaded or not in the least bit concerned about the future of the club.

Ours is slightly loaded, but more concerned about the long term future than short term success. You can debate the rest merits of the approaches to your hearts content, but it seems to me that we are competing just fine by our method.

& that is the only real measure that matters

it amazes me that a few months after a play off final, sitting in 5th place this has come up again.



the accounts are there for all to see- detailing what is spent, and what is recieved.

and even if it were the mythical 40 million detailed in the tabloids, if we spent 41 million on wages and fees, and running costs- how does it make th eblindest bit of difference?

[melonhead]

Considering the figures behind most of our transfers aren't public, i'm not sure how FineRain got those figures beyond the medias own speculation.

Umm, not " beyond" the media own speculation at all. I didn't even add in Fae's transfee fee or Seols as I didn't know...despite the speculation fae was in 3 million. So revoke that nonsense please.

Your point also works in terms of fee's paid then, so when you all claim mills was 2 mill, gorks 900k,etc we'll just take some of that off as its media nonsense.

seol was reputed to cost 1.5 million- but i believe that the 0.5 may have been in clauses

[melonhead]

Welcome to Reading Karl Sheppard, and I hope you have a long and succesful career here.

no no no this thread is for moaning about where all the money has gone, and complaining about how unsuccesful our transfer policy has made us

not welcoming our new irish free transfer

[melonhead]

That's why there's a fair few questioning this. It's not a case of saying don't look for the buried gems. Or we shouldn't have signed him. It's more that we've signed several we shouldn't have bothered with already and we need to lose some of the obssession we're developing with hunting out these gems.

If we hadn't wasted time and money on the likes of Baseya and Brett Williams, players who were never going to make it here, and who I believe are either older, or have far worse scoring records... or both, there would be a lot less concern.

Bloody hell - I agree with every single word of a post written by my gr8 m8 Ian Royal. Bring the end of the world forward by a few hundred days, the apocalypse cometh.

YEEEEESSSSSSS!at last!

youll have to form your own STG post apocalyptic commune- cos youre not welcome in mine!

[Hoop Blah]

and even if it were the mythical 40 million detailed in the tabloids, if we spent 41 million on wages and fees, and running costs- how does it make th eblindest bit of difference?

I think it harks back to the well run club claims and probably more specifically Dirks comment about RFC spending their money so much more efficiently than any other club.

When you see the amount of money we've received in transfer fees (relative to anyone else in the division - and so the inacuracies of media figures and the impact of upfront paymens vs clauses probably evens itself out) then those claims are certainly open to question.

Totally agree that this thread has gone off track a bit and that it would've been nice if it was more about the lad himself. I for one hope he's a cracking player and we get to watch him perform week in week out because that'd mean he's better than what we have now so he's a success.

I note he's not gone straight into the squad though (I don't think Shamrock have played for a while though so that's not too surprising).

[melonhead]

and even if it were the mythical 40 million detailed in the tabloids, if we spent 41 million on wages and fees, and running costs- how does it make th eblindest bit of difference?

I think it harks back to the well run club claims and probably more specifically Dirks comment about RFC spending their money so much more efficiently than any other club.

When you see the amount of money we've received in transfer fees (relative to anyone else in the division - and so the inacuracies of media figures and the impact of upfront paymens vs clauses probably evens itself out) then those claims are certainly open to question.

Totally agree that this thread has gone off track a bit and that it would've been nice if it was more about the lad himself. I for one hope he's a cracking player and we get to watch him perform week in week out because that'd mean he's better than what we have now so he's a success.

I note he's not gone straight into the squad though (I don't think Shamrock have played for a while though so that's not too surprising).

good post



i dont think it does call it into question though- we take the concious decision, that in order to remain competetive, we need to pay our best players well, and pay good wages when we buy new proven players, in order to atract, and keep them.
the rest get payed less, until they prove themselves, then they get a new contract.

this means we end up spending more than we bring in, but we have decided that its better doing that, and remain competetive, despite having to sell our stars each season to pay for it.
the other option, is to pay what we can afford, not get those proven pros in when needed, lose our good players even earlier to higher paying competitors, and slip inexorably down the leagues.

every other team can do it because they arent paying their tax bill/have an owner who likes throwing money down drains, or will want it all back with profit at some future point, or have endebted themselves up to the eyeballs to banks and will; go banrupt if they ever go down.

youll be amazed to hear that i prefer the way we do it.
i dont even want us to get a rich benefactor. unles he is so ridiculously loaded and loves the club so much he wants to just throw millions at us, and never ever want it back.

[Hoop Blah]

That's fine brendy, and I agree to an extent that the way we do work it is fine.

I do wonder how much money we waste on the lesser players and how much we do pay our top earners. We're always told on here (I think you're one of those who put forward the argument at times) that the club won't pay too much because we're a team without stars and the wage reflects that and it's a strength that we're all in it together blah blah blah. You're post would seem to contradict that though, not that I think you're wrong this time of course.

In terms of us being the masters of efficient use of money and resources, I've done a little bit of digging on this. The only way I can really see to measure this is to look at how well we spend our money and turn that into league performance. I think our source of income is more honest and sustainable than others but at the end of the day that doesn't translate into points.

The below is a selection of turnover/wages/finishing positions from the 2009/2010 Championship. I've not included Newcastle or West Brom who went up 1st and 2nd.

Forest - 14.6m turnover, 15.6m wages, finished 3rd
Cardiff - 15m, 16m, 4th
Leicester - 16.2m, 14.4m, 5th
Swansea, 10m, 7.5m, 7th
Sheff U, 15m, 16.7m, 8th
Reading, 27m, 18.2m, 9th
QPR, 18.2m, 14.3m, 13th
Derby, 29.7m, 14.3m, 14th
Ipswich, 15.6m, 17m, 15th
Watford, 11.25m, 10.8m, 16th

The above doesn't show how much those clubs spent on transfer fees, just how much they paid the staff. What was interesting for me was that apart from Newcastle and West Brom (I assume they were paying a lot more than us so didn't look) we were the club with the highest wage bill but we finished 9th (the Rodgers/post-Coppell clear-out effect).

I've not done the same for 2009, although I might, but I have looked at the majority of the wage bills for that season and only Boro (£33m) appear to have paid out more than us (£25m). Even Birmingham (£23.6m), Wolves (£16.7m) and Sheff U (£20m) paid less than us in wages that season.

It does dispel the myth that we're poor payers in this league too.

[melonhead]

I do wonder how much money we waste on the lesser players and how much we do pay our top earners. We're always told on here (I think you're one of those who put forward the argument at times) that the club won't pay too much because we're a team without stars and the wage reflects that and it's a strength that we're all in it together blah blah blah. You're post would seem to contradict that though, not that I think you're wrong this time of course.

we have a pretty well defined wage structure.
i just dont know what it is.

my guessing:
id be surprised if anyone here is on 15k a week though
and only legde, gorkss, mcanuff, kebe type players would be on anywhere close imo

that would mean we could compete with many in the market at this level,
but nothing will stop someone leaving if an ex prem team comes in offering 20kpw

[FiNeRaIn]

we have a pretty well defined wage structure.
i just dont know what it is.

Brilliant melon!

[M-U-R-T-Y]

So why are we writing off Baseya? Only been here a few months and spent a couple of them on loan, unless he was utter shite there and I missed the memo.

[Ian Royal]

That's why there's a fair few questioning this. It's not a case of saying don't look for the buried gems. Or we shouldn't have signed him. It's more that we've signed several we shouldn't have bothered with already and we need to lose some of the obssession we're developing with hunting out these gems.

If we hadn't wasted time and money on the likes of Baseya and Brett Williams, players who were never going to make it here, and who I believe are either older, or have far worse scoring records... or both, there would be a lot less concern.

Bloody hell - I agree with every single word of a post written by my gr8 m8 Ian Royal. Bring the end of the world forward by a few hundred days, the apocalypse cometh.

YEEEEESSSSSSS!at last!

youll have to form your own STG post apocalyptic commune- cos youre not welcome in mine!

You'd better not be booting me, just because I'm not completely happy with how much emphasis we're placing on unearthing buried gems.

Just to put it in perspective, we're in a better position to make a push for promotion, than we have been in January since our first season back in tier two. And then there didn't seem to be a big need to make signings. I completely agree with how we generally behave in January. And in trying to find the hidden gems. Just not to the extent we're doing in some cases. And now seems the ideal time to role the dice as we're well placed. Especially given some unconvincing winning performances recently and a couple of very disappointing defeats.

On Baseya - he has an extremely poor scoring record historically and hasn't really played much in his loan from what I recall, but that could be wrong. I can't remember his age either but I don't think he's as young as Sheppard. Basically he doesn't have a lot of pedigree in the first place, with most our gems you can see the logic in giving them a go. DOn't think it's there in Williams or Baseya.

[Hoop Blah]

So why are we writing off Baseya? Only been here a few months and spent a couple of them on loan, unless he was utter shite there and I missed the memo.

I think he's got a few things going against him.

1) He hasn't scored a first team goal in professional football
2) He failed to get into the team at Barnet, making just two sub appearances in 2 months
3) He hasn't made an impact at any of his previous clubs

It doesn't sound promising does it?

[FiNeRaIn]

He didn't even get into barnets team? But he tormented Readng University so I can't understand this.

[Hoop Blah]

Just to put it in perspective, we're in a better position to make a push for promotion, than we have been in January since our first season back in tier two. And then there didn't seem to be a big need to make signings.

And yet perhaps we haven't learnt from that window, or the Premier League, where we also didn't really strengthen the side and saw our form tail off significantly.

This is what I mean when I say that if you're just standing still you end up going backwards. It's a competitive league where everyone is trying to evolve and keep on improving. Unless you're lightyears ahead of the pack (like we were on 05/06) you need to keep striving to improve.

[Archies Left Foot]

That is an absolutely ASTOUNDING amount of money for a club to make on transfers. If you could find me any clubs in the football league who come close please let me know, the same clubs who can unbelievable spend more than us still.

Southampton ??

How much are they at?

Haven't got the time to list them all by player, but this site http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/south ... _2005.html gives a pretty accurate record by season.

2005/06 - Transfer revenue: 24.596.000 £ - Transfer expenditures: 3.388.000 £ = +21.208.000 £
2006/07 - Transfer revenue: 3.960.000 £ - Transfer expenditures: 6.116.000 £ = -2.156.000 £
2007/08 - Transfer revenue: 26.488.000 £ - Transfer expenditures: 2.750.000 £ = +23.738.000 £
2008/09 - Transfer revenue: 2.974.400 £ - Transfer expenditures: 1.782.000 £ = +1.192.400 £
2009/10 - Transfer revenue: 4.466.000 £ - Transfer expenditures: 2.486.000 £ = +1.980.000 £
2010/11 - Transfer revenue: 0 - Transfer expenditures: 2.626.800 £ = -2.626.800 £
2011012 - Transfer revenue: 12.619.200 £ - Transfer expenditures: 2.499.200 £ = +10.120.000 £

I make that approx £53m profit since 2005/06 season.. When did they go into administration?

[FiNeRaIn]

Um that list also claims we bought Rasiak from them for 1.5 million

Not much credibility there. crouch for a start with 7 million, not something like the 9.5 listed.

"On 25 May 2007, Bale signed a four-year deal with Tottenham Hotspur with Spurs paying an initial £5 million for Bale, potentially rising to £10 million based on appearances and success.[23] However, Tottenham paid Southampton an early settlement payment of £2 million in 2008 to reduce the final fee to £7 million and allow the Saints the immediate cash that they desperately needed."

That site you listed claims 12.9 million. Next to no credibility, I used sky/bbc/getreading and the local press for the players we sold. Couldn't find valid one's for fae even though the sky estimated 3 million.

I do accept southampton are right up there though.

[Archies Left Foot]

Um that list also claims we bought Rasiak from them for 1.5 million

Not much credibility there. crouch for a start with 7 million, not something like the 9.5 listed.

"On 25 May 2007, Bale signed a four-year deal with Tottenham Hotspur with Spurs paying an initial £5 million for Bale, potentially rising to £10 million based on appearances and success.[23] However, Tottenham paid Southampton an early settlement payment of £2 million in 2008 to reduce the final fee to £7 million and allow the Saints the immediate cash that they desperately needed."

That site you listed claims 12.9 million. Next to no credibility, I used sky/bbc/getreading and the local press for the players we sold. Couldn't find valid one's for fae even though the sky estimated 3 million.

I do accept southampton are right up there though.

I would bow to your knowledge on that, I don't have time to do that level of research, however the original question was if there was any club that came close to Reading in terms of transfers, I suggested Southampton, and if you consider the likes of Bale, Walcott and Chamberlain alone (which isn't a secret that they went for big bucks); I am sure they are up there, if not excede us, in terms of transfer revenue, would you not agree?

[FiNeRaIn]

Yes, prepared to accept they are a lot higher than I thought after looking through and definitely push if not exceed.

They are also prepared to invest though,

On 10 August 2009, with a total of 155 appearances and 59 goals for Bristol Rovers, Lambert completed a move worth in excess of £1 million to recently-relegated League One club Southampton.

On 11 August 2011, he signed for Southampton on a four-year deal for an undisclosed seven figure fee rumoured to be around £1.8 million.

On 7 July 2011, Cork signed for Southampton, after they agreed an undisclosed fee with Chelsea.[15] However the fee is thought to be around £750,000 mark


Just three of their lineup. Their squad cost significantly more than ours to assemble it looks like, despite being below us for quite some time, I didn't know that.

[Wycombe Royal]

Just three of their lineup. Their squad cost significantly more than ours to assemble it looks like, despite being below us for quite some time, I didn't know that.

They also have incredibly rich Swiss owners.

[melonhead]

Bloody hell - I agree with every single word of a post written by my gr8 m8 Ian Royal. Bring the end of the world forward by a few hundred days, the apocalypse cometh.

YEEEEESSSSSSS!at last!

youll have to form your own STG post apocalyptic commune- cos youre not welcome in mine!

You'd better not be booting me, just because I'm not completely happy with how much emphasis we're placing on unearthing buried gems.

.

nope youre out too


go and live with floyd, and finerain, in a puddle

& spend some time thinking about the error of your negative ways

enjoy!