Back From The Game - Sheff Utd (H)

[strap]

centre backs are paid to do their job - defend

Alex Pearce - now we have seen his perfomance/behaviour at Newcastle is not a one off, he has to go back out on loan. You cant give a guy a million and one chances

... unless he's a non-footballer from Mali of course

[Wimb]

Several possible reasons. Support his lifestyle? Support his other businesses (same of which are struggling badly)? Support other projects - station Hill? Get his investment back? Report and accounts show how much interest he is amassing from his loans. Those come straight off the bottom line.

I know football goes in cycles ever was and ever will be the case. However, as should be obvious, any business, be it football or anything else, it is easier to move forward or reorganise from a position of strength. Dont wait untill you are in the shit before doing something. A small correction/ investment in the promotion season may have kept us up. A slightly bigger correction/ investment last season might have got us promoted.

We now have dumped most of our assets, have plummeting income, have an inexperianced manager and squad - plus a Chairman that wants out.

We now face a massive task to get back anywhere near the position we were in and I now dont believe we have the Management with the required desire, or a Manager and players with the skills to even start the task. Hope I am wrong but I fear not.

Talk of Ipswich, Leeds etc is irrelevant - its Reading we are talking about here.

How is talk of Ipswich, Leeds etc is irrelevant? they are examples of clubs who overspent chasing the dream 'from a position of strength' and have struggled ever since.

I'm not disputing for one second that a little more investment in the PL would have seen us stay up, but the players we did have SHOULD have kept us up and just bottled it at home to Bolton and Fulham but that's not the issue. SSC did TRY and buy but the likes of Mensah, Scott Brown and Lecsott wanted to go to bigger clubs.

In terms of asset dumping. What really winds me up is that the players we've sold WANTED to leave and it was fair enough that Hunt, Doyle, Bikey, Shorey, Kitson, Sonko, et all we allowed to leave if they wanted too. They weren't kicked out of the door. We have invested in replacements it's just they haven't worked out. Cisse, Fae, Bikey, Armstrong, Mills, Marek, Doobs, Rosey all cost more then the players who left (when we originally signed them) If Coppell had faith in signing players of lesser value before and it worked, was it unreasonable to try it again?

Yes Madejski has business interests but the peanuts he could take out of this club are nothing near what he needs for things like station hill. You are talking hundreds of millions of pounds, not the 2.8 million we got for Bikey. Yes he's getting interest on his loans but I very much doubt (though admittedly can't confirm) that he's taken any of it. In all probability he would only take it when someone with deep pockets comes in and in that scenario why the bloody hell shouldn't he?

And as for people suggesting he's going to come out even because of the loan listed on the books. Oh come on, millions of money has been ploughed in not just loans.

[Northern Git]

Several possible reasons. Support his lifestyle? Support his other businesses (same of which are struggling badly)? Support other projects - station Hill? Get his investment back? Report and accounts show how much interest he is amassing from his loans. Those come straight off the bottom line.

I know football goes in cycles ever was and ever will be the case. However, as should be obvious, any business, be it football or anything else, it is easier to move forward or reorganise from a position of strength. Dont wait untill you are in the shit before doing something. A small correction/ investment in the promotion season may have kept us up. A slightly bigger correction/ investment last season might have got us promoted.

We now have dumped most of our assets, have plummeting income, have an inexperianced manager and squad - plus a Chairman that wants out.

We now face a massive task to get back anywhere near the position we were in and I now dont believe we have the Management with the required desire, or a Manager and players with the skills to even start the task. Hope I am wrong but I fear not.

Talk of Ipswich, Leeds etc is irrelevant - its Reading we are talking about here.

How is talk of Ipswich, Leeds etc is irrelevant? they are examples of clubs who overspent chasing the dream 'from a position of strength' and have struggled ever since.

I'm not disputing for one second that a little more investment in the PL would have seen us stay up, but the players we did have SHOULD have kept us up and just bottled it at home to Bolton and Fulham but that's not the issue. SSC did TRY and buy but the likes of Mensah, Scott Brown and Lecsott wanted to go to bigger clubs.

In terms of asset dumping. What really winds me up is that the players we've sold WANTED to leave and it was fair enough that Hunt, Doyle, Bikey, Shorey, Kitson, Sonko, et all we allowed to leave if they wanted too. They weren't kicked out of the door. We have invested in replacements it's just they haven't worked out. Cisse, Fae, Bikey, Armstrong, Mills, Marek, Doobs, Rosey all cost more then the players who left (when we originally signed them) If Coppell had faith in signing players of lesser value before and it worked, was it unreasonable to try it again?

Yes Madejski has business interests but the peanuts he could take out of this club are nothing near what he needs for things like station hill. You are talking hundreds of millions of pounds, not the 2.8 million we got for Bikey. Yes he's getting interest on his loans but I very much doubt (though admittedly can't confirm) that he's taken any of it. In all probability he would only take it when someone with deep pockets comes in and in that scenario why the bloody hell shouldn't he?

And as for people suggesting he's going to come out even because of the loan listed on the books. Oh come on, millions of money has been ploughed in not just loans.

I just think that the Leeds situation was and is different from Ipswich, is different from Reading, is diiferent from Man Utd etc etc etc. The only way it could be relevant is if , say, Ipswich were in exactly the same position as Reading both league wise and finanacially and messed up (or did better) You would then have a like for like. For instance you said Ipswich had overspent - we had not. Massive difference.

The players wanted to leave yes, but we held their contracts. If we had wanted to keep them we could. Granted they probably would have thrown their teddies out the pram, but the fact remains most of our key assest have been sold and the squad, in my opinion, is drastically weakend from even a year ago, never mind three seasons ago. Fine if they insisted on going but get the replacements in before they go and make sure those guys are as good as or better than the guy who is leaving.

I think, again looking at the accounts, he has taken money out the club, not anything he is not entitled to of course, but money has been paid back. He funded the ground ten years ago for around £40 miliion - the total debt outstanding to him from RFC is now £8,760,649 . So on that item alone at least 32million has been paid back. RFC accounts for the last year of the Premiership show interest payments to debtors of £1,183,929 during the year. As JM is the major creditor it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a fair chunk of that went to him?

I would be delighted to see documented proof that 'millions have been ploughed in, not just in loans'. I have looked and looked for this over the years and have yet to see any funding into RFC that was (and is) not repayable to someone. If you have the evidence I would be very interested to see it!

[Wimb]

I just think that the Leeds situation was and is different from Ipswich, is different from Reading, is diiferent from Man Utd etc etc etc. The only way it could be relevant is if , say, Ipswich were in exactly the same position as Reading both league wise and finanacially and messed up (or did better) You would then have a like for like. For instance you said Ipswich had overspent - we had not. Massive difference.

The players wanted to leave yes, but we held their contracts. If we had wanted to keep them we could. Granted they probably would have thrown their teddies out the pram, but the fact remains most of our key assest have been sold and the squad, in my opinion, is drastically weakend from even a year ago, never mind three seasons ago. Fine if they insisted on going but get the replacements in before they go and make sure those guys are as good as or better than the guy who is leaving.

I think, again looking at the accounts, he has taken money out the club, not anything he is not entitled to of course, but money has been paid back. He funded the ground ten years ago for around £40 miliion - the total debt outstanding to him from RFC is now £8,760,649 . So on that item alone at least 32million has been paid back. RFC accounts for the last year of the Premiership show interest payments to debtors of £1,183,929 during the year. As JM is the major creditor it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a fair chunk of that went to him?

I would be delighted to see documented proof that 'millions have been ploughed in, not just in loans'. I have looked and looked for this over the years and have yet to see any funding into RFC that was (and is) not repayable to someone. If you have the evidence I would be very interested to see it!

Some valid points NG.

I agree that Leeds isn't the best comparrison but Southampton, Norwich, Bradford etc perhaps are as Premiership teams who tried to get back and buckled. The point I'm trying to make is that its safer for the long term preservation of this football club to not even TRY what crippled several clubs. Yes such a policy might never yield Premiership football again but it might, and it will ensure we are a in the top 50 clubs in the country easily.

The playing situation is a double edged sword. Yes you're right they could have stayed even if teddies were out of the pram, but if they had then turned in a string of dour performances whilst we had young hungry players on the bench then there would be outcry. You only have to look at the performances of Hunt and Shorey to see how once the heart's not in it it's just not worth it. Perhaps if we were in 23rd come March then yeah you'd throw them in whatever the cost, but I'd rather give the kids a chance first rather then the club spending £250k a month on Doyle and Hunt.

As has been repeated over and over again both officially and unofficially, BR is trying to spend some money and already has provided a new £2 million centre back and a very promising left back. He will spend the money but I'm glad he's not doing a Burns and chucking tons of money at players and hoping it works.

In relation to Sir John. How on earth could he have taken 32 million back?! we haven't made a profit save for two years. I can't honestly see him taking out £3.2 million a year when we were in League 1, we'd have gone bust.

I too would love to be able to provide evidence, but on the basis that we have been making a loss for decades I'd have to believe he's put his money where his mouth is

[Seal]

As for the game itself, yes we were maybe a liitle unlucky, but you could just see it happening.

I don't like to take cheap shots at players, but unfortunately Shame Long is just incredibly frustrating. For a professional footballer his movement is absolutely shocking. There were a number of times when our centre mid would pick up the ball and push forward, only to see Long running off into the distance with his back to play. The worse instance was when Tabb had the ball in the last third, running at an angle across the goal, and rather than making space and pulling players away from Tabb, he mirrowed the run, squuezing the play and the chance was lost.


He is also far too slow to react to the second ball....especially in the box. Still, I think he is a decent enough impact sub, and does good work down the channels, but is just not good enough to start.

When Church came on you could instantly see a striker who understands movement and space, even if he is still a little raw.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

JM backed the loans for the ground, he had no choice as without him guaranteeing them it would not have got built, these were not loans from JM, so much has been paid back on these loans, but not to JM.

At a supporters information evening at prospect park it was explained that with crowds of 15k the ground would be paid for over 3 seasons, that ended up not being the case as we got relegated and did not make that average, there will have been overhang from that scenario.

And NG you cannot gamble on bringing in replacements before others leave, as if they then do not leave you have a liabilty of an unhappy play, and two lots of wages to cover, and if that extra wage is unaffordable it will cost the club dearly.

[Northern Git]

JM backed the loans for the ground, he had no choice as without him guaranteeing them it would not have got built, these were not loans from JM, so much has been paid back on these loans, but not to JM.

At a supporters information evening at prospect park it was explained that with crowds of 15k the ground would be paid for over 3 seasons, that ended up not being the case as we got relegated and did not make that average, there will have been overhang from that scenario.

And NG you cannot gamble on bringing in replacements before others leave, as if they then do not leave you have a liabilty of an unhappy play, and two lots of wages to cover, and if that extra wage is unaffordable it will cost the club dearly.

I bow to your superior knowledge on the ground funding - but the cash has still been repaid somehow, maybe thats partially why there where large losses (that JM covered with loans that he now takes interest on?) in the seasons running up to and including the promotion year.

I dont actually see it as a gamble bringing in a repalcement if its is done as and when a player makes in known he wants out. We knew for a whole season that Sidwell was going. The same with Shorey. The club also knew Doyle and Steve Hunt wanted out. The massive problem now is we have a build up of top quality players have left the club and the replacements have not been up to scratch - so the overall capability of the squad is going down. The gamble, I would suggest, is hoping that ex-academy and reserve team players will fill the gaps and be as good or hopefully better than the players they are replacing. If they do I will be delighted, but I have serious doubts.

Anyway interesting times ahead!

[Wimb]

Noel Hunt's latest tweet...

"thanks 4 all D messages guys shite game yesterday!Rome wasnt built in a day,& thanks to ye all for the kind words we will get there promis!!"

I'm with Hunty

[SLAMMED]

Send him a link to hob nob.

[Wimb]

Send him a link to hob nob.

I wouldn't put anyone through that

[SLAMMED]

Not even JM?

[07RFC]

Noel Hunt's latest tweet...

"thanks 4 all D messages guys shite game yesterday!Rome wasnt built in a day,& thanks to ye all for the kind words we will get there promis!!"

I'm with Hunty

+1 and the obvious intelligence of footballers strikes again.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Noel Hunt's latest tweet...

"thanks 4 all D messages guys shite game yesterday!Rome wasnt built in a day,& thanks to ye all for the kind words we will get there promis!!"

I'm with Hunty

+1 and the obvious intelligence of footballers strikes again.

At the moment we can't even manage a Bracknell over several months....