NO LONGER A RUMOUR - Karl Sheppard

[Wizard]

I'm actually quite excited by this. He is younger than Mooney was, that can only be a good thing. Sounds like a good find by the scouts, provided it does all go through of course.

[melonhead]

They already spend more, don't they? Why does our current competitiveness dip because we stick a few more quid in?

and we are already competetive with them, so spending doesnt = promotion?

[floyd__streete]

I'm actually quite excited by this

Fair play to you. Do you ever switch the microwave on and watch the plate turn round and round too?

[TBM]

I'm actually quite excited by this

Fair play to you. Do you ever switch the microwave on and watch the plate turn round and round too?

Not only do i do that ^^ - i stop it at 1 second and pretend i am a heroic bomb disposal man

[floyd__streete]

I'm actually quite excited by this

Fair play to you. Do you ever switch the microwave on and watch the plate turn round and round too?

Not only do i do that ^^ - i stop it at 1 second and pretend i am a heroic bomb disposal man

When we were kids and the family bought our first ever microwave, my brother and I used to stick a couple of slices of bread in, stick it on for 30 seconds so that we could have hot bread and butter.

Happier, simpler times.

[chilipepper91]

I'm actually quite excited by this

Fair play to you. Do you ever switch the microwave on and watch the plate turn round and round too?

Not only do i do that ^^ - i stop it at 1 second and pretend i am a heroic bomb disposal man

[Cripple Creek]

Toasting marshmallows over an open fire beats a microwave any day but then I am of a certain vintage.

[robinsfriday]

This will be confirmed on Friday.

[tomrfcurz]

This will be confirmed on Friday.

It will be confirmed tomorrow more like. Sheppard on his Twitter has said, and i quote: "mouth is shut for today can open my mouth tomorrow!!"

[Ark Royal]

Is he different?

Haven't seen enough of him to judge.

But if he's quick then yes.

And I doubt we'd be bringing him in if he wasn't different, given we're not exactly lacking numbers.

After watching the Youtube clip, my first gut reaction was that he does not give the impression of being quick. Looks like a box player.

[Ian Royal]

at the cost, it hardly matters does it?


hes free for instance, and wages will not be a problem
so he could end up more bennet than doyle, and we'd still probably make a profit on him

It adds up. We spent somewhere between £500k and £1m on the likes of Sodje, Bennett & Mooney. Which added precisely shit all to the team or squad. And then there's the wages.

Cheap gambles are a good way to plan ahead and get the occasional gold mine. But we do go for too many of them really.
Sodje, Bennett, Mooney, M. Williams, B. Williams, Baseya, Baradji, Obinna, Mate, Halls maybe and I'm sure there's more I can't think of right now. You could potentially add Manset to that list in the not too distant future.

When you add it to the fact most of our big money signings have been failures, or limited successes, (albeit that we've largely made our money back on) it's not actually that brilliant a transfer record. Just when we have had a success it's been a phenominal one.

Of course if we actually sign this guy and he gets on the pitch he should get support. But it's perfectly reasonable to be skeptical in the time being. Yes Doyle was a big success and so was Long (e v e n t u a l l y), but you can't expect the hit rate for that level of expenditure to be very good and we've already had moer than our fair share of the unlikely hits.

[RoyalJames101]

I would rather spend nothing on someone who could turn out to be a failure than spend millions on someone who could turn out to be a failure.

[Ian Royal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZgeAi6pPg&feature=related

Seems to thrive on decent service from wide. Anyone spot a potential problem?

He seems a good, calm finisher which is nice. Definitely doesn't look quick as Ark says, but tall and can place a header well.

My main problem and reason for not being hugely enthusiastic after watching that, is he's only actually under pressure from a defender for one or two of those goals at all. Half of them he's had to make no effort to be in space with a free shot / header. There's no way on earth he'll get the sort of opportunities for most of those goals in the Championship.

And most of the crosses come in from wingers in fairly decent amount of space who haven't had to work very hard to get the (albeit mostly very good) crosses in. Again, that doesn't really happen at our level.

[Ian Royal]

I would rather spend nothing on someone who could turn out to be a failure than spend millions on someone who could turn out to be a failure.

1) It's not nothing, it's still something. There's always wages at the very least and usually a signing on fee, expecially when there's no transfer fee.
2) No one is advocating breaking the bank and spending millions. Just being less reliant on cheap gambles which are massively unlikely to come off. Sheppard isn't necessarily a bad gamble. He's a decent age to progress afterall. But we currently have about 6 "ones for the future" struggling to make a big enough impact, if any at all, at the club. And one limited proven striker.

We've made poor choices who are/were virtually certain to be failures and that has cost money and other resources we could have put to better affect elsewhere.

The point you are missing is that even though our big money signings have been pretty poor, they are still much more likely to be a success than a cheapo, or even any three or four cheapos. And the cheapos are virtually never ready to step up to the plate straight away. Which is what we need. And it's not unreasonable to expect us to spend £250k - £1m to try and do it.

[urz13]

Half our team are academy products or unknowns.
Federici
Cummings
Mills
Kebe
Hunt (sort of)
Manset (may gwt there)
Are all gambles that have paid off imo (if a little to early to tell)
He'll hopefully be worth taking a chance on.

[RG30]

Fifth striker we'll have signed in just over a year Suspect we'll get the usual sound vibes from Hammond that it's the "Reading way."

Le Fondre has shown he can finish but has been pretty quiet in recent weeks while the rest of them haven't bought or done anything to suggest they are the long term future of the club. And yet we continue to keep the likes of Hunt on our books who hasn't been able to maintain any kind of fitness throughout his spell at the club and has to rank among our worst signings given he cost us the best part of £500,000.

I struggle to see why we don't aim towards the young Premier League players who for whatever reason can't seem to crack it at that level. Swansea managed it perfectly fine with the addition of Sinclair last season with Borini chipping in and yet we get non league players who tend to be playing at a level they should be playing at.

[melonhead]

I'm actually quite excited by this

Fair play to you. Do you ever switch the microwave on and watch the plate turn round and round too?

Not only do i do that ^^ - i stop it at 1 second and pretend i am a heroic bomb disposal man

[melonhead]

the rest of them haven't bought or done anything to suggest they are the long term future of the club. And yet we continue to keep the likes of Hunt on our books who hasn't been able to maintain any kind of fitness throughout his spell at the club and has to rank among our worst signings given he cost us the best part of £500,000.

The real tragedy is we didn't cut our losses, we actually gave him a new contract. Big mistake if you ask me.

i like him, seems to have kept fit this season at least
mainly cos hes not playing that much- still our best striker imo

[Svlad Cjelli]

the rest of them haven't bought or done anything to suggest they are the long term future of the club. And yet we continue to keep the likes of Hunt on our books who hasn't been able to maintain any kind of fitness throughout his spell at the club and has to rank among our worst signings given he cost us the best part of £500,000.

The real tragedy is we didn't cut our losses, we actually gave him a new contract. Big mistake if you ask me.

i like him, seems to have kept fit this season at least
mainly cos hes not playing that much- still our best striker imo

As soon as we start treating players like commodities and ruthlessly "cutting our losses" we lose a big part of what is our USP - players come here and stay here longer than they could be expected to because of the way we treat our players, look after them and generally act fairly and openly. People may scoff, but that really is a big factor in the recruitment and retention of players - where we do a lot better than you'd expect for our financial muscle.

[TheWearing]

It's all done...Waiting for official confirmation