SIGNED - Hope Akpan

[Cypry]

- we won't be selling two or three players for millions each (Davies went for £8m iirc)
- if we did there is no evidence at this stage that money would be reinvested wholly in the playing squad
- at this stage there is no evidence that TSI are prepared to make that level of additional investment on top of transfer fees in.

i see the fact that the bloke has happily thrown away millions of his own money every window on transfers since hes been here(including the one where he didnt even own the club yet) over and above any transfer fees coming in, as clear and strong evidence he would happily invest money that we make that doesnt come straight out of his and his investors pockets in the same way.

You do post some cobblers at times (or most of the time) as unpaid spokesperson for RFC.
"Happily thrown away millions of his own money".
He hasn't thrown money away,he has invested a few million quid in a business where within a year or so he will receive many millions for this year's TV money plus a number of years' very handy parachute payments.
What many of us find odd is that he appears not to be prepared to invest some more with the aim of not just getting parachute payments but the masses more that will arise if we were to stay up.

Dear God......

You think the TV money goes into Antons personal bank account? HE will receive nothing....the business will receive the money, and spend it as the business sees fit....if he decides to take a payment (which I very much doubt) then it'll appear in the accounts...

And you accuse others of posting cobblers.....beggars belief....

[cmonurz]

Fair enough. I'll believe it when I see it (reinvestment of transfer fees in), but as I said it's to an extent a moot point as we don't exactly have multi-millions in assets like Davies and Koumas that we might sell if we go down.

Which takes us to point 3, and whilst AZ has put his hand in his pocket to fund Gunter and Mariappa, West Brom spent £15m+ on transfer fees in each of those two seasons, and I can't imagine we'll see that level of investment at Reading.

thats not point 3 as it was in the quote
and is that 15 million net?

Point three was about spending additional money on top of any transfer fees we receive in. As I pointed out, we won't get the transfer fees in that West Brom did (it was not £15m fees, not net), and so to 'do a West Brom', investing heavily in a Championship side, we will need to spend much of Anton's/TSI's hard cash.

[Platypuss]

If you really want to carry on talking about this sort of thing there are far better threads for it.

[melonhead]

Fair enough. I'll believe it when I see it (reinvestment of transfer fees in), but as I said it's to an extent a moot point as we don't exactly have multi-millions in assets like Davies and Koumas that we might sell if we go down.

Which takes us to point 3, and whilst AZ has put his hand in his pocket to fund Gunter and Mariappa, West Brom spent £15m+ on transfer fees in each of those two seasons, and I can't imagine we'll see that level of investment at Reading.

thats not point 3 as it was in the quote
and is that 15 million net?

Point three was about spending additional money on top of any transfer fees we receive in. As I pointed out, we won't get the transfer fees in that West Brom did (it was not £15m fees, not net), and so to 'do a West Brom', investing heavily in a Championship side, we will need to spend much of Anton's/TSI's hard cash.

so was it not just fees, or not net?

still changed point three from the one i replied to never mentioned figures for starters.
and since he payed out money in every window, without having any money from player sales, what on earth makes you think he wont do the same, if we sell some players?

[melonhead]

If you really want to carry on talking about this sort of thing there are far better threads for it.

aplogies

roger that

[Wimb]

Sorry Platy, for my last input on this aside....

all very fair Winch! FWIW

Good question, I'd argue it's because many clubs do take the short term view in doing all they can to survive, and hence are in the weaker position of not having planned for the eventuality of the championship. Therefore financially they may be under pressure to sell players, or have a squad full of big timers who believe themselves to be too good for the level.

Yes and no. While you do have the Hulls, Leicesters and Boltons that spend big with no eye on the future, you also have teams like Blackpool, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Watford who all spend little and seemed to be building for the future.

I distinctly remember Watford buying the likes of Hoskins and Williamson from Rotherham and thinking 'hmmm good long term planning' when they were adrift at the bottom. Obviously they never made it back and nor have a lot of other clubs who have taken the money and run. I appreciate that each club's circumstances are different but just because you look to have strengthened for the future doesn't mean they'll pan out that way. Reading also tried to similarly boost the squad in our last Prem/Parachute cycle, but the likes of Alan Bennett and Dave Mooney never really flopped despite decent hype.

I'm afraid I can't agree with that last point. Especially with this squad of players. Every game in the premiership is against a quality team, with players better than the ones we have. Each game is a struggle, and it will take an excellent performance combined with a bit of luck in each of the remaining games for us to get close to 36 points. We got to around the 90 point mark last season despite having a shocking start and a very average squad. We're in a much better position to compete from the start next year, and with a manager who's proved very successful in the league over 3 seasons along with a chairman that is willing to give him enough money to keep his original squad and add a couple of new players (as well as blooding a few of the excellent youngsters we have) I can see us coming straight back up.

They are quality teams but Brian McDermott will be the first to admit his side have choked in games when they should have got a result. Southampton, Sunderland, Wigan, Norwich, Newcastle. Just a handful of games from the top of my head where we should have done a lot, lot better. Equally, consider the games last season where in your heart of hearts you knew we were a bit lucky to come away with things. Bristol City, we were shockingly bad and got all 3, Brighton at the end of the season, even Southampton and West Ham both could and should have buried us in those key promotion deciders. Very, very few teams will ever go on the sort of run that saw us win the title.

Likewise when any team is relegated you're going to have huge uncertainties all summer as you wait for the PL vultures to pick their targets. It only takes 1 or 2 bad results before the window shuts and suddenly a club decides it wants a striker and gambles on Le Fondre, who may have spent the whole summer playing as our number 10. Or as happened deadline day 2010, Sigurdsson goes on deadline day and our whole formation/system comes undone.

I wouldn't say any of us are assuming we'll come back up, it will take a lot of careful planning and management to ensure we're in the best position to. However I am certainly of the belief that to secure our status in the long run we may well be better off taking a couple of years in the championship and building a young, talented squad that will compete in the Premiership (ala Coppell's 106 team) rather than hanging on in the league for a couple of years and then going down with a number of older players on big money. Obviously I'm taking the extreme view there, and if we stay up this season we could end up building something special. But it won't be as easy, and the money we'd need to invest to give us a good chance of survival would put us at a significant risk if we went down. Also, the only players likely to want to come to us this January with premier league experience will be the older ones on their decline. Not exactly players that we're going to be able to build around over the next 5 years.

It's a nice principle but again we're at the mercy of bigger teams with bigger budgets and who can tempt players away twice a year. Certainly Norwich, Swansea and Southampton all benefited from taking a step back, but it doesn't always work. Coppell's 106 team had the beauty of flying really low under the footballing radar, a team that 3 years before had been in the third tier and who'd rarely entered the mind of the bigger clubs. Players like Harper, Shorey and Murty came through and established themselves in that third tier and how Sidwell stayed I'm not sure! Not to mention getting underrated jems like Glen Little, Kevin Doyle and Marcus Hahnemann and it's almost impossible to see us getting such luck again.

Take the point about the sums needed to survive but I think the right loan signings could bring the right balance between risk and reward.

The only players I can see PL clubs coming in for if we went down are Karacan and Pearce. Possibly Mariappa. I don't think we have much to worry about in that respect. And if we do have to sell them due to them wanting out at least it will be on a sound financial footing, giving us the capability to invest all of the money back into the team.

I do understand the frustration of many. It may look like a missed opportunity this season. I do however believe the club has a long term vision and yes, ideally they'd like to stay up this season, and I believe they have done all they can to make us competitive without derailing that vision.

As mentioned above it's hard to know exactly who'll be off, no idea who other scouts rate and don't rate! The sentiment of the last point is right, however just like 2008 I get the feeling that one £3-4m midfielder could just have made the difference this summer and that Brian's gambled on Guthrie producing and Jem staying fit. To leave Ledge and Tabb as the backups was a foolish gamble and like 08 it looks as if it'll be the undoing of us

[Royal Lady]

My problem with this is that normally if there is a stand-out lower league player playing against you, you tend to notice them - but I can't see I've seen ANYONE who was at the Cup game mention on the BFTG thread that he looked a good player and we should sign him up - which is what often happens. Indeed, the people I have spoken to who were at the game, didn't particularly notice him at all. How McD can allude to the fact that he could be playing in the first team from the off is also worrying. But, as I said yesterday, I'm perfectly willing to eat humble pie if he's as good as some people seem to think he will be.

[melonhead]

My problem with this is that normally if there is a stand-out lower league player playing against you, you tend to notice them - but I can't see I've seen ANYONE who was at the Cup game mention on the BFTG thread that he looked a good player and we should sign him up - which is what often happens. Indeed, the people I have spoken to who were at the game, didn't particularly notice him at all. How McD can allude to the fact that he could be playing in the first team from the off is also worrying. But, as I said yesterday, I'm perfectly willing to eat humble pie if he's as good as some people seem to think he will be.

low cost gamble. doenst really matter if hes not as good as those people are saying.
as long as hes not our last signing of january

[Maguire]

My problem with this is that normally if there is a stand-out lower league player playing against you, you tend to notice them - but I can't see I've seen ANYONE who was at the Cup game mention on the BFTG thread that he looked a good player and we should sign him up - which is what often happens. Indeed, the people I have spoken to who were at the game, didn't particularly notice him at all. How McD can allude to the fact that he could be playing in the first team from the off is also worrying. But, as I said yesterday, I'm perfectly willing to eat humble pie if he's as good as some people seem to think he will be.

You weren't even at the game so stop being so pfcuking ridiculous.

[Norfolk Royal]

In any case you only really notice opposition players when they score, there are few fans who spend time analysing the performances of the opposition players.

[Royal91]

There seems to be a lot of coverage about him on the OS and he seems highly confident he will be in the mix from the start.

Seems to have a good character as well to be fair!

[ZacNaloen]

I do remember someone commenting on their number 6 tbf

[winchester_royal]

Re: Wimb, some good points there very eloquently put. I think there are strong elements to both sides of this particular debate. There are plenty of examples of teams that have gone down, rebuilt, and been stronger for it (e.g. WBA, Norwich, West Ham, Southampton)..and also many that have failed to return. It certainly isn't an exact science, but nothing in football is.

I do believe that the intentions of the management are good. I believe that Anton has shown that he isn't just here on an ego-trip or to make a quick buck, he buys into the long-term vision that Hammond and Howe promote and for me that is a relief. He's not the sugar daddy some perhaps thought he was..but he hasn't broken any promises. He seems to think that investment in the infrastructure is more important for the future than investment in the players, and I agree with him on that. Some may wish we'd invested more in players, and it would be fun to see a couple of big names in a Reading shirt, but I think we can rest easy knowing that if such a scenario does come to pass at least if they don't work out the cost to the club's LT future won't be too high.

[Royalclapper]

Looks like we're taking a low risk punt on a Coppell recommendation.

[Wimb]

Re: Wimb, some good points there very eloquently put. I think there are strong elements to both sides of this particular debate. There are plenty of examples of teams that have gone down, rebuilt, and been stronger for it (e.g. WBA, Norwich, West Ham, Southampton)..and also many that have failed to return. It certainly isn't an exact science, but nothing in football is.

I do believe that the intentions of the management are good. I believe that Anton has shown that he isn't just here on an ego-trip or to make a quick buck, he buys into the long-term vision that Hammond and Howe promote and for me that is a relief. He's not the sugar daddy some perhaps thought he was..but he hasn't broken any promises. He seems to think that investment in the infrastructure is more important for the future than investment in the players, and I agree with him on that. Some may wish we'd invested more in players, and it would be fun to see a couple of big names in a Reading shirt, but I think we can rest easy knowing that if such a scenario does come to pass at least if they don't work out the cost to the club's LT future won't be too high.

I think we're on the same page just differing levels of confidence, I'm just more of a pessimist I'll happily be wrong when it comes to predicting the worst though!

[phil in cornwall]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeSGW0UypSg&feature=youtu.be

Seems like a really nice guy.

[melonhead]

apart from his flagrant disregard for the keep off the grass signs

[winchester_royal]

Not to mention the creases in his shirt.

Arshavin would never have been dressed so sloppily.

Booo.

[pea]

My problem with this is that normally if there is a stand-out lower league player playing against you, you tend to notice them - but I can't see I've seen ANYONE who was at the Cup game mention on the BFTG thread that he looked a good player and we should sign him up - which is what often happens. Indeed, the people I have spoken to who were at the game, didn't particularly notice him at all. How McD can allude to the fact that he could be playing in the first team from the off is also worrying. But, as I said yesterday, I'm perfectly willing to eat humble pie if he's as good as some people seem to think he will be.

He looked as good as our midfielders

[CTFC56]

I haven't been through the rest of this thread so I don't know what has been said. The general feeling amongst our fans is disappointment, his vision is top class and loves to play passing football. He has been absent for a few games this season as his tackling sometimes leaves a lot to be desired but he is a quality player and was the heart of our midfield. He wasn't a regular last season in league 2 but this season would be the first name on the team sheet. If he continues to improve at the rate he has done, baring in mind he is still young, you have yourselves a bargain for 300k.