No striker on the horizon

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Gylfi wasn't taken with a surprise bid out of the blue. Hoffenheim had been tracking him, with the full knowledge of RFC, for a considerable period of time. Similarly, those in the know at Star were reasonably certain that the club were quietly hawking certain players around in order to address the parlous state of the finances.
I do not believe for a second that the club employs scouts, but only sends them out to work when the money is in the bank. Ergo, the club had either identified contingency targets, or they hadn't. My bet is they did, but the proceeds from Gylfi's sale were needed elsewhere.
The rest of it is spin to keep bums on seats.

Or maybe the deal(s) we had in place fell through.

Like I said, this isn't championship manager. You can scout all the players you want, but finding a player who a) is within the transfer budget, b) is within the salary budget, c) wants to come to the club and d) plays in the right position, is not as easy as it is on your PC.

[Stranded]

I thought it was in the public domain that we failed with a couple of bids for strikers on transfer deadline day.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

How many of them were in our position of selling their best player on the last day of the transfer window?[/quote]


Comments like this really wind me up. Like a Bundesliga club goes & spends £7m on a youngster without tracking them for bloody months!! We knew the deal was going to go through yet the excuse of not having enough time to get other faces in was used when we didn't strength our forward options.

Our strikers are not good enough. McAnuff looks like the next player to be out the door IMO & Kebe will follow - whether that be in Jan or in Aug. Slowly but surely all the quality is being sold off or driven away by the lack of ambition & in 2 seasons or so we really will be talking about relegation.

[RoyalBlue]

Gylfi wasn't taken with a surprise bid out of the blue. Hoffenheim had been tracking him, with the full knowledge of RFC, for a considerable period of time. Similarly, those in the know at Star were reasonably certain that the club were quietly hawking certain players around in order to address the parlous state of the finances.
I do not believe for a second that the club employs scouts, but only sends them out to work when the money is in the bank. Ergo, the club had either identified contingency targets, or they hadn't. My bet is they did, but the proceeds from Gylfi's sale were needed elsewhere.
The rest of it is spin to keep bums on seats.

Or maybe the deal(s) we had in place fell through.

Oh great! Another one from the 'RFC Bumper Book of Excuses'! How many times have we been fed that one in the past?! We must be the unluckiest (or most careless) club around based on the number of deals we have fall through!

I thought it was in the public domain that we failed with a couple of bids for strikers on transfer deadline day.

I really can't understand the aversion of other clubs to peanuts!

Why wouldn't they accept a derisory bid when they know we have such a big black hole? (ssshhh - don't mention the £7M!)

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Comments like this really wind me up. Like a Bundesliga club goes & spends £7m on a youngster without tracking them for bloody months!! We knew the deal was going to go through yet the excuse of not having enough time to get other faces in was used when we didn't strength our forward options.

The question is when they put the bid in. They may have been tracking him for months, but that doesn't mean we knew they were going to make us an offer - an offer that we'd accept - months in advance as well.

Our strikers are not good enough. McAnuff looks like the next player to be out the door IMO & Kebe will follow - whether that be in Jan or in Aug. Slowly but surely all the quality is being sold off or driven away by the lack of ambition & in 2 seasons or so we really will be talking about relegation.

We don't need to sell either now. If we do sell Kebe it'll be because we know he can go for nothing when his contract is up.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Gylfi wasn't taken with a surprise bid out of the blue. Hoffenheim had been tracking him, with the full knowledge of RFC, for a considerable period of time. Similarly, those in the know at Star were reasonably certain that the club were quietly hawking certain players around in order to address the parlous state of the finances.
I do not believe for a second that the club employs scouts, but only sends them out to work when the money is in the bank. Ergo, the club had either identified contingency targets, or they hadn't. My bet is they did, but the proceeds from Gylfi's sale were needed elsewhere.
The rest of it is spin to keep bums on seats.

Or maybe the deal(s) we had in place fell through.

Oh great! Another one from the 'RFC Bumper Book of Excuses'! How many times have we been fed that one in the past?! We must be the unluckiest (or most careless) club around based on the number of deals we have fall through!

Yes. No other clubs in the world have transfers fall through. It must be all be lies.


By the way, care to answer the queston you've been avoiding about how much money every year a real chairman would be putting into the club?

I thought it was in the public domain that we failed with a couple of bids for strikers on transfer deadline day.

I really can't understand the aversion of other clubs to peanuts!

Why wouldn't they accept a derisory bid when they know we have such a big black hole? (ssshhh - don't mention the £7M!)

so not only did we not try to sign anyone, those players we didn't try to sign, we only made derisory bids for?

[Hoop Blah]

Most clubs are ready to pounce when other deals go through and we're no different (see examples like Rosenoir or Harte) and we knew Sigurdsson was off. The deal was done the day before wasn't it? So plenty of time to sort out our targets really.

Truth is we made moves but they didn't come off. We need something to happe and, as under Coppell, I think we sometimes need to be more proactive and aggressive in the market.

[RoyalBlue]

Or maybe the deal(s) we had in place fell through.

Oh great! Another one from the 'RFC Bumper Book of Excuses'! How many times have we been fed that one in the past?! We must be the unluckiest (or most careless) club around based on the number of deals we have fall through!

Yes. No other clubs in the world have transfers fall through. It must be all be lies.


By the way, care to answer the queston you've been avoiding about how much money every year a real chairman would be putting into the club?

How many clubs have the number of bids 'conveniently' fall through like we do. All for undisclosed amounts, of course! And if you believe every word Madejski and co come out with, then you really are a mug.

As for the question, I'm still waiting for your answer as to how much the Messiah Madejski has truly donated, as opposed to lent. Afterall, he was only too quick to come out with the statements (not quantifiable, of course) as to how much it was costing him.

And here's a clue to your answer: Look at Wigan, MK Dons, QPR etc.

[RoyalBlue]

The question is when they put the bid in. They may have been tracking him for months, but that doesn't mean we knew they were going to make us an offer - an offer that we'd accept - months in advance as well.
.

There is a rumour floating around (all lies, of course) that the Germans were even allowed to watch him in training sessions! As for last minute bids, here's a novel approach: Given the club must have been aware of the level of serious interest, how about telling the interested party (ies) that bids would only be accepted if made a week before the window closed?!

And given that you've swallowed Madejski's line, (hook and sinker) once again. As money was available to sign a player permanently before the deadline, how come we don't spend that money on decent loan signings now?

BTW, history always seems to repeat itself with RFC (forget learning from it!). We had money available to buy Tommy Smith last season. That fell through, we were assured that McAnuff and Rasiak were always intended signings and weren't replacements for Smith, yet suddenly the money that had supposedly been available for Smith disappeared (I think we got fed the same old line about other deals falling through before the deadline) and we struggled to be able to afford loan signings. Indeed the tight *rsed ego only finally conceded when the shyte was really spread all over the blades.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Comments like this really wind me up. Like a Bundesliga club goes & spends £7m on a youngster without tracking them for bloody months!! We knew the deal was going to go through yet the excuse of not having enough time to get other faces in was used when we didn't strength our forward options.

The question is when they put the bid in. They may have been tracking him for months, but that doesn't mean we knew they were going to make us an offer - an offer that we'd accept - months in advance as well.

Our strikers are not good enough. McAnuff looks like the next player to be out the door IMO & Kebe will follow - whether that be in Jan or in Aug. Slowly but surely all the quality is being sold off or driven away by the lack of ambition & in 2 seasons or so we really will be talking about relegation.

We don't need to sell either now. If we do sell Kebe it'll be because we know he can go for nothing when his contract is up.

Weren't we told we didn't need to sell last time round?? Also if Kebe is sold it'll be the same old "We had another black hole of x amount that had to be filled & the offer was a good one for the player & the club" Blah oxf*rd blah.

Any players at Reading now who are half decent will see that we aren't going anywhere & they'll be looking for moves pretty soon. That will be music to John's fu cking ears wont it.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

How many clubs have the number of bids 'conveniently' fall through like we do. All for undisclosed amounts, of course!

Every club has bids fall through. You just don't pay attention to the transfer dealings of other clubs as it's of no interest. And clubs virtually never reveal the prices of such bids.

As for the question, I'm still waiting for your answer as to how much the Messiah Madejski has truly donated, as opposed to lent. Afterall, he was only too quick to come out with the statements (not quantifiable, of course) as to how much it was costing him.

Already answered. Do try and keep up. The tin foit hat you wear must have obscured your eyes.

And here's a clue to your answer: Look at Wigan, MK Dons, QPR etc.

And QPR's spending is what you expect? They lost £19 million in 2009.

Jesus, you really are a hopeless case if you think Madejski should be subsidising the club to that amount each year.

You really should just go and watch Chelsea because, let's face it, even if we did get back up, you'd be moaning that there's nopoint being mid-table, and a proper chairman would be pushing us towards the champions league.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Weren't we told we didn't need to sell last time round??

No

Also if Kebe is sold it'll be the same old "We had another black hole of x amount that had to be filled & the offer was a good one for the player & the club" Blah oxf*rd blah.

Take £2 million for Kebe in Jan or lose him for nothing at the end of the year. What's the best deal?

[MmmMonsterMunch]

I couldn't give a fcuk what the best deal is. He won't be adequately replaced if sold so I'd rather his contract was ran down so keep our best players as long as we can.

[Wycombe Royal]

how about telling the interested party (ies) that bids would only be accepted if made a week before the window closed?!

You do understand how a release clause works don't you? I know it doesn't fit into your argument so you'll probably ignore the question, but I thought I'd ask it any way....

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

The release clause issue confuses me. The only thing a can remember seeing about it was that it was 3m, but the transfer seems to have been a club record.

Don't get me wrong, the bid was too good to turn down regardless.

I really believe they had targets they couldn't afford and we're not prepared to bring in players no better than what we have.

That's the problem with running the club the way we are, but there's not much choice in it. JM aint sitting on a nest egg anymore. I'm under the impression that he is desperate to sell, maybe he wants too much money, but that's his choice. I actually think he just wants the right buyer. But we've seen with numerous takeovers, when it comes to it, not many people want to lose their money. For example how many new owners have the likes of Sheff Wed, Derby, Coventry etc had in recent years?

[RoyalX]

Also if Kebe is sold it'll be the same old "We had another black hole of x amount that had to be filled & the offer was a good one for the player & the club" Blah oxf*rd blah.

Take £2 million for Kebe in Jan or lose him for nothing at the end of the year. What's the best deal?

As I mentioned in another thread, Kebe's contract doesn't run out until 2012.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 781475.stm

[Archie's penalty]

Great work you p*ssed up northern ponce.

Doffs cap in mutual respect.

[Jeffers217]

I couldn't give a fcuk what the best deal is. He won't be adequately replaced if sold so I'd rather his contract was ran down so keep our best players as long as we can.

Yer I agree, sadly this is something we are having to get used to...Lita, Harper, others to follow. Could have got decent money for those. Like with the Sidwell scenario, it's best to cling onto those decent players just simply to keep us in the league and let em go for free seeing as the money won't be reinvested

[Hampshire Royal]

Yeah but....if JM had just wanted to pocket the money from transfer deals (rather than reinvest it), why not let Sidwell go for a fee rather than let him play out hie contract and get nothing?

[under the tin]

Gylfi wasn't taken with a surprise bid out of the blue. Hoffenheim had been tracking him, with the full knowledge of RFC, for a considerable period of time. Similarly, those in the know at Star were reasonably certain that the club were quietly hawking certain players around in order to address the parlous state of the finances.
I do not believe for a second that the club employs scouts, but only sends them out to work when the money is in the bank. Ergo, the club had either identified contingency targets, or they hadn't. My bet is they did, but the proceeds from Gylfi's sale were needed elsewhere.
The rest of it is spin to keep bums on seats.

Or maybe the deal(s) we had in place fell through.

Like I said, this isn't championship manager. You can scout all the players you want, but finding a player who a) is within the transfer budget, b) is within the salary budget, c) wants to come to the club and d) plays in the right position, is not as easy as it is on your PC.

I am totally confident that the scouts this club employs are mindful of a), b), c), d).
I can't exactly see the club sending people out to try and prizr Barcelona's right back away from them!