Mcd says we haven't got any cash....

[brendywendy]

which is why i shouldnt engage with royalee on this issue

his accounting procedures are very one sided.

[glass half full]

The club has had to cancel any plans to release blue and white balloons in the near future. that's inflation for you....

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

From the Deloitte review of PL finances 2008...

Reading: The most drastic wage increase in the Premier League was recorded by Reading, who hiked their wage bill by 109 per cent between 2005 and 2007. They also spent £11 million on their stadium and facilities.

Yes, but where's all the cash gone....?

Did we really spend £11m on the stadium and facilities? I remember the media center cost around 2m but that was the second/relegation season. We spent on the training ground (new pitch and better standard buildings) but as we rent this off JM and did not purchase outright, £11m seems way too much. What else did we do?

[Yellowcoat]

Well done Brendy for holding the line for common sense. For the record I think you were very restrained in only calling Royalee a "spasmo" when he is clearly worse than that. Despite all the financial information being available in the public domain he just keeps up with his personal prejudices year after year despite it being proved wrong so many times.

[brendywendy]

From the Deloitte review of PL finances 2008...

Reading: The most drastic wage increase in the Premier League was recorded by Reading, who hiked their wage bill by 109 per cent between 2005 and 2007. They also spent £11 million on their stadium and facilities.

Yes, but where's all the cash gone....?

Did we really spend £11m on the stadium and facilities? I remember the media center cost around 2m but that was the second/relegation season. We spent on the training ground (new pitch and better standard buildings) but as we rent this off JM and did not purchase outright, £11m seems way too much. What else did we do?

those bucket seats in the dug outs dont come cheap you know!

id say that constant 1 million pound pitch replacements
media centre
training ground total revamp probably accounts for pretty much all of that

[rob the royal]

So we've gone from a club that makes a 6 million loss every year but can afford to spend a million or two on transfers every year to a club that is balancing the books and will have to sell a star player to fill any gaps that the Academy can't fill. Surely the only way for a club like that to go is down?

before sjm was willing to pay those losses for us. now he isnt.
if you know of anyone who likes reading, and has 6 million quid to throw away every year, forever, please let it be known to him that he should step up and buy the club

I wrote this about half an hour ago but had to go off so actually Brendy has basically just said something along similar lines above but I'll post it anyway

But isn't that the point - not only is he not willing to pay for those sort of losses - but now he'll even restrict the budget so it's so tight you have to scrape around for free transfers... or sell your best players to fund any squad building. The club is going nowhere - or worse - if things carry on like this we might end up flirting with relegation in a couple of seasons when Gylfi and McAnuff and Kebe get fed up with the club's lack of ambition and move on (not saying it's going to happen - just as you can't rule out having a decent season this year even with a small squad with weak defensive depth).

What's the solution? Of course we'd have to find a buyer or Madejski would have to find some spare cash somewhere to fund McDermott's transfers. Neither is likely to happen so in my opinion unless everything goes with us this season or next and we end up getting promoted I reckon we will gradually lose our better players and unless we get really good money for them their won't be much money to go towards new players... That, like it or not, would appear to me to be the stark reality of the club's situation. I said it 6 months ago and I've seen or heard little to change my opinion.

So in case your wondering what is is beef then? My beef is don't talk about Premiership ambitions AND talk about the club having a stable financial outlook and a secure future when the reality is we are now a poor selling minnow that will eventually end up struggling to survive in this division unless Brian McD can do a Coppell (the luxury Coppell had was if he hadn't got us promoted that year he'd still have had cash next year to continue refreshing his squad).

[rob the royal]

actually it just shows that at this level we will never make a profit.moving us to the madstad, and steadily improving the season ticket sales/fan base/club profile, has helped make us way more viable than when jm took us over, playing in a cowshed(albeit a lovely one)with gates of 5-8k a week. jm payed for the stadium, and we repay in loans competetively priced, thats fair enough to me.
and until someone arrives who is willing to fund the losses, we will do well to stay here.
but then we know that the club is/has always been a small one, and i accept that we have no devine right to championship football, let alone premiere league football.

This is the one. I agree. So what I'm saying is why does he continually talk rubbish about having Premiership ambition for the club when the reality is as you say we will do well to even stay in this division in the future... maybe if he stopped spouting his rubbish about how ambitious we are people like royalee would get used to the fact that we are a now back to being a pretty small club albeit with a fancy stadium and a bit more of a reputation than we had before...

[brendywendy]

hes only restricting the budget so that we remain a viable business
its his money to give , or take.
you can want to get back to the prem, and want to run the business viably at the same time.
the only waywe can change this, other than being taken over by a random sugar daddy who may or may not just leave after an alotted time leaving us in more shit - is to make the academy a byword for classy proffessional young footballers, who we create for very little, and sell for very much.
which is what we are trying/and mostly succeeding to do imo

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

Chairman bleats on about getting to premiership and how strong our squad is...but lets be honest...its not that strong compared to some of the other teams in Championship...its a good squad that will see us comfortable in this division , but certainly not as good as Chairman thinks ie. better than most

We've got some good players, with maybe a handful of very good players...but that isnt going to get us promotion...so the sooner the hierarchy realise that the better

[brendywendy]

actually it just shows that at this level we will never make a profit.moving us to the madstad, and steadily improving the season ticket sales/fan base/club profile, has helped make us way more viable than when jm took us over, playing in a cowshed(albeit a lovely one)with gates of 5-8k a week. jm payed for the stadium, and we repay in loans competetively priced, thats fair enough to me.
and until someone arrives who is willing to fund the losses, we will do well to stay here.
but then we know that the club is/has always been a small one, and i accept that we have no devine right to championship football, let alone premiere league football.

This is the one. I agree. So what I'm saying is why does he continually talk rubbish about having Premiership ambition for the club when the reality is as you say we will do well to even stay in this division in the future... maybe if he stopped spouting his rubbish about how ambitious we are people like royalee would get used to the fact that we are a now back to being a pretty small club albeit with a fancy stadium and a bit more of a reputation than we had before...

tbf season tickets are way higher than before we looked like wed go up, and havent suffered massively sinbce coming down-despite some awful results.
and it is possible to want to go up, and not want to pay for it at the same time
not only that, but he has an example of where it has worked before - ie the <5 million it cost to assemble the entire record breaking 106 point team.

but yeah, i wish hed shut up too.

[ZacNaloen]

With a few exceptions we've mostly just released them at the end of their contracts if they don't make the grade at our level.


We really need to start selling our academy products to make money.

hopefully we'll be able to sell one of our many goalkeepers for a tidy sum soon.

[brendywendy]

Chairman bleats on about getting to premiership and how strong our squad is...but lets be honest...its not that strong compared to some of the other teams in Championship...its a good squad that will see us comfortable in this division , but certainly not as good as Chairman thinks ie. better than most

We've got some good players, with maybe a handful of very good players...but that isnt going to get us promotion...so the sooner the hierarchy realise that the better

you only have to look at the division historically to see that this is not true
average teams go up all the time, often with nothing more than decent players
ffs we nearly did it last year, and didnt start winning till january/feb

[Wycombe Royal]

Why shouldn't Madejski talk to the media about his ambitions of getting this club to the Premiership again? It's obvious that is what he wants. Isn't it what pretty much all of us want?

However having that ambition doesn't mean he should throw away all his principles and business acumen, not to mention money he doesn't have on getting it there?

[brendywendy]

agreed- the disappointment stems from the people who hear that and think it means he will happily throw money down the drain

[andrew1957]

The problem with this debate is that some think that we should become Portsmouth and that Sir John should spend tens of millions - whereas others think we should have no ambition at all.

Surely there needs to be some balance as this might well be the last season for the foreseeable future when we have a realistic chance of promotion without SIGNIFICANT investment. This season a small amount of investment might just be enough. Personally I would be happy with the addition of just one more quality CB. I think we have enough up front. The mythical 20 goal a season striker is largely an illusion. In the Championship the only striker who achieved that last season was Nicky Maynard and Church, Long, Hunt and Rasiak are amongst the strongest striking forces in the division.

If we fall short because we are not good enough at the back this season, however, then we will almost certainly have to sell Church, Sig, Kebe, McAnuff etc and I very much doubt their replacements will be as good.

£400-£500K for a loan this year is a small risk and even if it fails we will recoup the money fromn player sales anyway.

I will be very surprised if we did not find this problem dealt with by 1st September. If Sir John does not do so and we start to struggle then crowds will fall and it will cost him even more money in the long run - so it is in his interest to make sure we are challenging at the top.

[brendywendy]

With a few exceptions we've mostly just released them at the end of their contracts if they don't make the grade at our level.


We really need to start selling our academy products to make money.

hopefully we'll be able to sell one of our many goalkeepers for a tidy sum soon.

agreed on the past- the the fruits are only now starting to come to the fore.

every one of our next academy sales - sig/karacan/keeper/pearce will go for a million at the very least.
sig closer to 5

[brendywendy]

The problem with this debate is that some think that we should become Portsmouth and that Sir John should spend tens of millions - whereas others think we should have no ambition at all.

Surely there needs to be some balance as this might well be the last season for the foreseeable future when we have a realistic chance of promotion without SIGNIFICANT investment. This season a small amount of investment might just be enough. Personally I would be happy with the addition of just one more quality CB. I think we have enough up front. The mythical 20 goal a season striker is largely an illusion. In the Championship the only striker who achieved that last season was Nicky Maynard and Church, Long, Hunt and Rasiak are amongst the strongest striking forces in the division.

If we fall short because we are not good enough at the back this season, however, then we will almost certainly have to sell Church, Sig, Kebe, McAnuff etc and I very much doubt their replacements will be as good.

£400-£500K for a loan this year is a small risk and even if it fails we will recoup the money fromn player sales anyway.

I will be very surprised if we did not find this problem dealt with by 1st September. If Sir John does not do so and we start to struggle then crowds will fall and it will cost him even more money in the long run - so it is in his interest to make sure we are challenging at the top.

if we havent done that by th etime th eloan window shuts, i will be very surprised, but who knows.
and i agree, not doing it will heavily reduce our chances of doing anything at all, for this season and beyond

[rob the royal]

and it is possible to want to go up, and not want to pay for it at the same time
not only that, but he has an example of where it has worked before - ie the <5 million it cost to assemble the entire record breaking 106 point team.

but yeah, i wish hed shut up too.

But now he's taking it to the extreme it seems to me - he's not just putting a block on bringing in decent quality signings he's putting a block on McDermott even when he really could do with one more player to play centre-half. If the money really just isn't there whatsoever and can't be found or borrowed at a reasonable cost then fine - but if you ask me he's getting greedy about saving money - and I hope we don't end up paying the ultimate penalty for that - i.e. relegation.

All chairmen and boards would love to see their club in the Premier League but you don't need to go around saying stuff like this:

“I am a very positive person and am absolutely determined that we get back into the Premier League... We are very confident...We’ve got a big, strong squad, as well as high hopes for those coming through the academy once again...We’ve been in the Premier League once and I believe we can get back there.”

when the reality would be more like:

"I am realistic.This is a tough division and we know from last year that no club is safe from the threat of relegation. Our squad is a bit on the thin side, but that's the nature of things at the moment - we just don't have any money. Obviously we'd love to get back to the Premier League but we can't spend money to achieve that goal.We'll look primarily to consolidate our position in the Championship and avoiding the situation we were in last year at Christmas time and anything more we can achieve of course will be a massive bonus"

Then that way when the manager comes out after a game when we've lost and had loads of injuries and says we can't afford any players at all unless we sell some nobody would be in the least bit surprised...

brendywendy said: the disappointment stems from the people who hear that and think it means he will happily throw money down the drain

the disappointment stems from the people who hear that and think it means that if we have holes in our squad he will at least plug them...

I hope we make a move for someone but all we can do at the moment is go on the fact that we've been told players must go in order to finance any ins - the question is - who?

[under the tin]

But isn't that the point - not only is he not willing to pay for those sort of losses - but now he'll even restrict the budget so it's so tight you have to scrape around for free transfers... or sell your best players to fund any squad building. The club is going nowhere - or worse - if things carry on like this we might end up flirting with relegation in a couple of seasons when Gylfi and McAnuff and Kebe get fed up with the club's lack of ambition and move on (not saying it's going to happen - just as you can't rule out having a decent season this year even with a small squad with weak defensive depth).

This is the thrust of my concern. Our club has grown incredibly over the last ten years, and it is because of that growth that we have assembled a squad that competes at a higher level than has been endured over most of the club's history.
Footballers are competitive sportsmen. Some transfers are fuelled by higher wages, but equally, some are inspired by professional ambition.
There's an element of a self fulfilling prophecy about it.
Sidwell left because he wanted to join a club that he believed gave him a better chance of winning professional honours. His best mate, Shorey, saw one of his more talented team mates leave, (and crucially, not adequately replaced), diminishing the quality of the team as a whole, so further lessening the chances of gaining any professional honours here. Next thing you know, the dominoes start tumbling.
If we sell our best players, and not adequately replace them, then we will wind up where we were ten years ago, and Madejski will find it a bloody sight harder to balance the books for a league 1 club, or to sell it.

[Ferris]

thrust

lol