Who is to blame, this season? (in your opinion)

[AthleticoSpizz]

..but didn't Hammond "get the deal done" for the likes of our 106 team and the successful likes (mentioned on another thread).

Somethings changed

[Divvy]

Brian said after the first transfer window "I got everyone I wanted"...

[Royal Lady]

The whole 'manager signed the players' thing is a bit of a red herring in some ways, after all we have a DoF who sanctions these things yet still we haven't heard a peep from this week. Why not come out and be honest about things?

Also we have AZ being painted by the RFC spin-machine as fanatical, down the training ground, sat in a Portakabin with his decimated coaching team and according to many on here who choose to believe any positive spin he is "knowledgeable" about football.....yet as the man who ultimately writes the cheques he has no blame for the cheap budget crap we have signed?

You can't have it both ways.

Yeah but Hammond doesn't do a Denis Wise and sign a player for the manager against his wishes/knowledge.

Manager and scouts identify a target and Hammond goes out and gets the deal done (or not in our case)

Didn't someone on here say that they'd heard McD had not seen Carrico play (ergo it wasn't him who signed him ) and that's why he wouldn't play him?

[Royal Lady]

Brian said after the first transfer window "I got everyone I wanted"...

You don't think he said that because he had to? How would it have looked if he'd moaned he didn't get the players he wanted because he wasn't given nearly enough money to buy in the players we needed to give us a sporting chance of staying up?

[Once were Biscuitmen]

Erm nobody?

The lack of a sane, self-regulatory structured for the Premier league a la the NBA, NFL etc?

The lack of even the pretty weak football fair play regulations being in place a long time ago?


The Reading way is just trying to act like a sane business in an insane world without a super-rich indulgent, owner to keep reality at bay.

[Divvy]

Carrico sounded very much like a signing the new chief scout would have identified for Fulham. We took a punt. Maybe BM didn't want him, maybe there are problems with his fitness, maybe he threw a paddy at being subbed at half-time and BM injured him..

[Divvy]

Brian said after the first transfer window "I got everyone I wanted"...

You don't think he said that because he had to? How would it have looked if he'd moaned he didn't get the players he wanted because he wasn't given nearly enough money to buy in the players we needed to give us a sporting chance of staying up?

Of course he did, but the buck still stops with him. He wouldn't have a player come in if he didn't want him.

[Royal Lady]

How is he meant to stop them? If AZ dictates he wants x player coming in, unless McD wants to walk away from the club, he has to accept it - but maybe not playing them (like Carrico) was the only way he could make a point? I'm not saying this is definitely what happened, because none of us know, but it would make a bit of sense.

[Divvy]

How is he meant to stop them? If AZ dictates he wants x player coming in, unless McD wants to walk away from the club, he has to accept it - but maybe not playing them (like Carrico) was the only way he could make a point? I'm not saying this is definitely what happened, because none of us know, but it would make a bit of sense.

McDermott would have walked had the owner been buying players for him without his approval. That or he'd have been sacked long ago for not playing those players...

[SydenhamRoyal]

when bad things happen involving complex multi factorial systems, blame is almost always spread prettty evenly across the board

Christ its the next Rouge; I look forward to seeing the Melonheadometer

[2.8 lita injection]

Impossible to know.

If brian had no money then it could be the board, but the way Gunter has performed then Bm must take some responsibility. For me BM is just steve coppell all over again. 442 with good wingers and clinical strikers but with a shit central midfield that are just defensive midfielders, oh and hoofball.

[Arch]

I wouldn't waste too much energy pointing the finger at Hammond. We don't know enough about his work. There seem to be some respects in which he excels, such as driving a hard bargain and negotiating good money for players we want to offload. There's no evidence he has much to do with choosing our targets.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Ultimately, the blame lies with the people at the FA who meekly allowed Rule 34 to be scrapped in 1983, at the insistence of Irving Scholar of Tottenham Hotspur.

That allowed football clubs to be changing into PLCs, allowed them to be bought out and taken over, allowed vast sums of money into and out of the game - and created a financial model that is so weighted in favour of the biggest clubs that a club like Reading wild *never* be able to compete properly or stabilise in the Premier League.

So I'm I'm not sure you can pin the blame on any of those mentioned so far. The whole set of financial constraints they have to operate under make it don't make it a level playing field, and it'd take something special for even short-term success (like in 2007).

[Stuka]

[Elmo's Park]

At the end of the day everyone has to take a portion of the blame but who should take the lions share? Well i believe that a good manager can take 11 mediocre players and make a good team, so in my opinion as it was Brian pulling the strings he should therefore shoulder the responsibility.

[Stuka]

I personally refuse to shoulder any of the blame. I have conducted myself this season in the same manner as our Championship winning last season, namely by going to a game about once a month, drinking ale, and shouting the odd obscenity.

[SCIAG]

McDermott's decisions, such as playing Gorkss and Morrison ahead of Pearce and Mariappa (before recognising that and changing), not playing 4-5-1 (before recognising that and switching) and trying to play Guthrie as an AMC (before recognising that, never picking him there again and trying to shoehorn others into that role) have cost us a lot of points this season. I would say the blame lies largely with him. However, I would not have sacked him.

[Ian Royal]

The whole 'manager signed the players' thing is a bit of a red herring in some ways, after all we have a DoF who sanctions these things yet still we haven't heard a peep from this week. Why not come out and be honest about things?

Also we have AZ being painted by the RFC spin-machine as fanatical, down the training ground, sat in a Portakabin with his decimated coaching team and according to many on here who choose to believe any positive spin he is "knowledgeable" about football.....yet as the man who ultimately writes the cheques he has no blame for the cheap budget crap we have signed?

You can't have it both ways.

Yeah but Hammond doesn't do a Denis Wise and sign a player for the manager against his wishes/knowledge.

Manager and scouts identify a target and Hammond goes out and gets the deal done (or not in our case)

Didn't someone on here say that they'd heard McD had not seen Carrico play (ergo it wasn't him who signed him ) and that's why he wouldn't play him?

Firstly, where is McDermott supposed to have watched him, seeing he'd barely played a competitive game for half a season or more? Secondly McDermott did play him. He then dropped him after 45 minutes because fitness was obviously a big issue.

So that just sounds like someone's made up conspiracy theory to me.

[Rex]

I blame my mum.

[Lacoste]

Brian 100 percent to blame.

Shit signings then saying he had no money whhen we now know that we did. Shit tactics, shit loyalty and shit excuses.

Should have happened before christmas to give the new guy a chance.