Exodus

[The 17 Bus]

I am optimistic about RFC, shit happens though, and having been around since the mid 60's and seen all the ups and downs since then I know that at times we change division, same as almost all other clubs.

For me we could not have a better manager than Coppell at the moment, he made mistakes, and I hope to see a different man next season, playing flair football like the last time we were here.

We have the nucleus of a good side again, and I expect us to be up there from the start, players like Murty and Hahneman who I did not think were good enough for the Prem will have an amazing desire to return, and if that rubs off on the whole team and any new players coming in the spirit should be right.

I would like to see JM stop all the talk of selling up, he has supported the club financially, and by the looks of it got his money back, surely now is the time to hand over the reins and take a back seat, there was talk in the past of his daughter taking it on, perhaps now is the time, we should be sound with money, and so long as budgets are set and adhered to should be for a long time, allow the budgets to be more open, and we may have a model to succeed and move ahead again.

[RoyalBlue]

Long.

But I'd be happy with a statement that Hahnemann, Bikey, Rosenior, Cisse, Matejovsky, Harper, Hunt, Convey, Kitson, Doyle, Lita and Long will definitely be staying.

That lot mingling with a selection from Duberry, Ingimarsson, Pearce, Murty, Sonko, Federici, Henry, Gunnarsson, Karacan, Robson Kanu (and some lessons learned from last season) would be very strong candidates for promotion in anyone's book. (Well, almost anybody...)

If you think we'd go back up with that squad then you really have no idea.

If you think that there are 2 stronger squads in the Championship at the moment then you have no idea.

Truth is that no-one, including I suspect the management of RFC, has sufficient knowledge of the other squads in The Championship to make a proper judgement of that.

Time will tell but my gut feeling is that our current squad is not as strong as some believe and that other squads may be stronger than anticipated.

[West Stand Man]

If you think we'd go back up with that squad then you really have no idea.

Ahh, the voice of intelligent reasoned thought. Or maybe not.

[PlasticRoyale]

I am optimistic about RFC, shit happens though, and having been around since the mid 60's and seen all the ups and downs since then I know that at times we change division, same as almost all other clubs.

For me we could not have a better manager than Coppell at the moment, he made mistakes, and I hope to see a different man next season, playing flair football like the last time we were here.

We have the nucleus of a good side again, and I expect us to be up there from the start, players like Murty and Hahneman who I did not think were good enough for the Prem will have an amazing desire to return, and if that rubs off on the whole team and any new players coming in the spirit should be right.

I would like to see JM stop all the talk of selling up, he has supported the club financially, and by the looks of it got his money back, surely now is the time to hand over the reins and take a back seat, there was talk in the past of his daughter taking it on, perhaps now is the time, we should be sound with money, and so long as budgets are set and adhered to should be for a long time, allow the budgets to be more open, and we may have a model to succeed and move ahead again.

Which daughter? I'm sure that quite a few people on this board now Helen and Camilla and would agree that the thought of having them in charge doesn't even bare thinking. (I'm not sure if there are any other daughters)

[Dirk Gently]

I am optimistic about RFC, shit happens though, and having been around since the mid 60's and seen all the ups and downs since then I know that at times we change division, same as almost all other clubs.

For me we could not have a better manager than Coppell at the moment, he made mistakes, and I hope to see a different man next season, playing flair football like the last time we were here.

We have the nucleus of a good side again, and I expect us to be up there from the start, players like Murty and Hahneman who I did not think were good enough for the Prem will have an amazing desire to return, and if that rubs off on the whole team and any new players coming in the spirit should be right.

I would like to see JM stop all the talk of selling up, he has supported the club financially, and by the looks of it got his money back, surely now is the time to hand over the reins and take a back seat, there was talk in the past of his daughter taking it on, perhaps now is the time, we should be sound with money, and so long as budgets are set and adhered to should be for a long time, allow the budgets to be more open, and we may have a model to succeed and move ahead again.

Camilla. For the past year or so she has been getting a lot more involved in the business side - and has been spending some time in each "department" of the JM empire. She was recently at R107.

Which daughter? I'm sure that quite a few people on this board now Helen and Camilla and would agree that the thought of having them in charge doesn't even bare thinking. (I'm not sure if there are any other daughters)

[Alan Partridge]

Great big LOL at Floyd, Royal Blue, Royalee chatting amongst themselves again.

AP and papereyes must be watching the cricket or something.

Just having a re read of the Over Reaction thread.

[Royal Rother]

Life is short so you must take your pleasures where you can AP.

[Agent Balti]

I feel that whilst potentially the squad has all the experience of winning the Championship and a very decent season in the Prem behind it, it's mentally that I think we'll suffer.

Last season was a case in point, the squad wasn't supplemented well enough and the same players couldn't raise their games to the all new exciting premiership first season. Second Season syndrome was plain to see. Now I fear we'll suffer from largely apathetic performances from the players who wished they were elsewhere or somewhere better. Fair play to Little for getting his last big pay day, it came at the perfect time for him. I couldn't begrudge any player for doing what he's done at his time in his career.

Madejski thinks we have to cut our cloth accordingly...that's fine, but we still need to outspend our rivals to freshen up the squad for players that 'want it'. I feel that players that have been there and done it once, won't quite have that same hunger, or perhaps feel that this is 'too easy' and we'll get caught out.

Yes, we have the squad members who can do it, but without fresh blood in key areas (Bodde springs to mind immediately) I think we'll fall into the trap of believing that we'll walk it with the players we have, we won't.

[Alan Partridge]

Life is short so you must take your pleasures where you can AP.

Well quite. Fact is it's June, I'm disappointed that Little has gone but i don't begrudge him his move. It's a fairly low risk signing for 'Arry that might just pay off, if it doesn't then he'll leave next year.

'Please Stay Steve' Hmm I'm so on the fence regarding Coppell, I had no massive wish for him to stay, had he gone it would have been thanks very much lets move on. Now he's staying, ok that's fine but lets seriously learn from the last 2 years. It's almost embarassing that so many fans (people with little or no knowledge of the club itself) could see what was fundamentally wrong with the Reading team last season yet someone with 20 years managerial experience couldn't.

I'm not making any predictions about next season because at this stage I have no idea, if we went in with our current squad we'd probably finish about 10th or 12th but there will be some more change yet. We all expected change, I just think with Little it was an unexpected one and it's hit everyone a bit for six. He's a really good player, one of the best I've seen and would have been a major player next season but nevermind, the challenge is to find a new, younger model.

Last season was deeply depressing at times, just knew what was going to happen and said around October/November time after we got hammered at Fulham that we would be seriously struggling, again the inquest is to how the powers from above couldn't see that?

In fact in a funny way, our little winning run before January came at the wrong time imo, it gave another false sense of security, 'oh we might actually be alright with this squad' as we were sort of safe in 12th place even though there was only about 5 points between us and 18th. What follwed was 8 defeats and the decline towards relegation.

What's done is done, this is Coppell's last year and hopefully he wants to go out with a bang, we desperately need a turnover of players imo to freshen things up and if he can do that and bring ins ome exciting young players then I'll have no issue. If I see the likes of Gunnarsson and others struggling through 30 games then I will have serious issues with Coppell.

Until then we'll see, this absolutely certainly won't be the last player to leave Reading this summer.

[Royal Lady]

Can I just say, that if a bunch of grown men cannot play well if the fans don't encourage them to, have no right to call themselves PROFESSIONAL footballers. I do wish people would stop going on about "it's up to the fans to be optimistic and encourage them" - they're paid to do a job, last season an awful lot of them didn't do their job as well as they could have, and although I don't condone the booing of players, I'm buggered if I think my bit of shouting and clapping is the thing that is spurring them on. Thank you.

[Royalee]

If you think that there are 2 stronger squads in the Championship at the moment then you have no idea.

We'll see.

[Royalee]

If you think we'd go back up with that squad then you really have no idea.

Ahh, the voice of intelligent reasoned thought. Or maybe not.

[Wax Jacket]

Can I just say, that if a bunch of grown men cannot play well if the fans don't encourage them to, have no right to call themselves PROFESSIONAL footballers. I do wish people would stop going on about "it's up to the fans to be optimistic and encourage them" - they're paid to do a job, last season an awful lot of them didn't do their job as well as they could have, and although I don't condone the booing of players, I'm buggered if I think my bit of shouting and clapping is the thing that is spurring them on. Thank you.

^what she said

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

The optimists are quite entitled to voice the opinion that they remain positive and expect great things but, having been so conclusively wrong last time, it's amazing to see them adopting the same patronising tone in addressing the opinions of those who, last year, were proved so conclusively right.

Goal difference of 3 goals is anything but "conclusive"!

What was conclusively and laughably wrong were the pessimists' beliefs that after first game defeat we'd not even make the playoffs.... but we broke the English record. Or that not signing would get us relegated in our first Prem season... but we just missed out on Europe. To name just a couple of examples over the years. Those were conclusive.

3 goals is anything but.

The "I told you so" mentality therefore still belongs firmly in the optimists' corner.

Having said that, I'm not so optimistic at all about bouncing straight back up but the optimists may patronise away at me.

But as I've said numerous times that wasn't what people were saying. The vast majority of this board though anyone who though we wouldn't finish comfortable mid table and that Coppell suicidal transfer policy was the right one.

How many sides were we better than again?

It's not about being optimistic, it's about whether you have faith in Coppell make do transfer policy, history proves we should not. As other have said he was pro active, one summer and it's no coincidence that we got promoted after he bought those players in.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

The optimists are quite entitled to voice the opinion that they remain positive and expect great things but, having been so conclusively wrong last time, it's amazing to see them adopting the same patronising tone in addressing the opinions of those who, last year, were proved so conclusively right.

Goal difference of 3 goals is anything but "conclusive"!

What was conclusively and laughably wrong were the pessimists' beliefs that after first game defeat we'd not even make the playoffs.... but we broke the English record. Or that not signing would get us relegated in our first Prem season... but we just missed out on Europe. To name just a couple of examples over the years. Those were conclusive.

3 goals is anything but.

The "I told you so" mentality therefore still belongs firmly in the optimists' corner.

Having said that, I'm not so optimistic at all about bouncing straight back up but the optimists may patronise away at me.

But as I've said numerous times that wasn't what people were saying. The vast majority of this board though anyone who though we wouldn't finish comfortable mid table and that Coppell suicidal transfer policy was the right one.

How many sides were we better than again?

It's not about being optimistic, it's about whether you have faith in Coppell make do transfer policy, history proves we should not. As other have said he was pro active, one summer and it's no coincidence that we got promoted after he bought those players in.

Hmm. So you don't recall fans moaning about how signing a free transfer from Brentford and a cheap player from the "conference standard" Irish league showed we had no ambition back then?

[londinium]

If you think that there are 2 stronger squads in the Championship at the moment then you have no idea.

We'll see.

We obviously will see, but I am with Winchester on this one, we don't know what anyone's squad will be by the 9th August, but going on what we all have at present, I don't think there is one squad let alone two better than ours.

I guess, we will see.

[Ian Royal]

Makes perfect sense to me. If the fans have an upbeat loud and positive start to the season, that may translate into the players playing up.

Do you honestly believe that?

Yes, I honestly believe that it MAY do that. It CERTAINLY won't cause any harm, whereas being pessimistic and disgruntled MAY cause harm, but CERTAINLY won't help.

I didn't think I needed to spell it out that clearly.

[FiNeRaIn]

Makes perfect sense to me. If the fans have an upbeat loud and positive start to the season, that may translate into the players playing up.

Do you honestly believe that?

Yes, I honestly believe that it MAY do that. It CERTAINLY won't cause any harm, whereas being pessimistic and disgruntled MAY cause harm, but CERTAINLY won't help.

I didn't think I needed to spell it out that clearly.

I didn't ask you to spell it out, I asked you whether you genuinely believed that. Nice attempt at a cheap shot though.

[Southbank Old Boy]

being pessimistic and disgruntled MAY cause harm, but CERTAINLY won't help.

It may help if the players are still sitting in a comfort zone or waiting for a bigger club to come and save them from the mess they find themselves in at little old Reading.

Sometimes people need a kick up the arse.

[Ian Royal]

Can I just say, that if a bunch of grown men cannot play well if the fans don't encourage them to, have no right to call themselves PROFESSIONAL footballers. I do wish people would stop going on about "it's up to the fans to be optimistic and encourage them" - they're paid to do a job, last season an awful lot of them didn't do their job as well as they could have, and although I don't condone the booing of players, I'm buggered if I think my bit of shouting and clapping is the thing that is spurring them on. Thank you.

Number 2 who didn't really read what I was saying and just made an assumption.

Who here works at their best in a quiet and depressed atmosphere?

I know I bloody don't. I work best in a relaxed, happy and slightly noisy atmosphere. (background burble not cacophony)