Leroy out for a while...

[79Royal]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

[mzungu_royal]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

Agreed, we must have spent almost 90% of the cash we have in the kitty on Cisse and the other new player (name has gone through my head again). The money we got from HalOLford has been and gone, so there's nothing left to spend.....

....Get well soon Lita

[londinium]

Not a major loss in my eyes as like most people are saying we would have played 4-5-1 against United anyhow and we arent really expected to get points off of either United or Chelski so for him to miss those two games isnt a great loss. I also would have prefered the Kitson Doyle combo for Everton and Bolton anyway. That gives Lita another couple of weeks to get back to fitness.

Just remember we missed Kitson for half a season last year and we did ok didnt we, and he had been our top scorer the previous two seasons so his loss in our first season in the prem you would have thought would prove to be a disaster and it was far from that. And as I recall Lita also went through a really bad patch at that time and we were still top 8!!!

[Hoop Blah]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

Heidur Helguson

[Only one Trevor Morley]

Not a major loss in my eyes as like most people are saying we would have played 4-5-1 against United anyhow and we arent really expected to get points off of either United or Chelski so for him to miss those two games isnt a great loss. I also would have prefered the Kitson Doyle combo for Everton and Bolton anyway. That gives Lita another couple of weeks to get back to fitness.

Just remember we missed Kitson for half a season last year and we did ok didnt we, and he had been our top scorer the previous two seasons so his loss in our first season in the prem you would have thought would prove to be a disaster and it was far from that. And as I recall Lita also went through a really bad patch at that time and we were still top 8!!!

I dont understand the assumption that we'll play 4-5-1 - Coppeel has said that we're at our best whenw e pklay our usuakl way. Equally we played 4-4-2 for the last 3 utd matches.

[Huntley & Palmer]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

Agreed, we must have spent almost 90% of the cash we have in the kitty on Cisse and the other new player (name has gone through my head again). The money we got from HalOLford has been and gone, so there's nothing left to spend.....

....Get well soon Lita

If we can only sign players for the same amount as we sell them, then we really are in big trouble. Our outlay this season must be less than £1 million, yet the revenue this season has gone up by over half of what it was last season

[Scarface]

This injury reminds me when Adi Williams claimed he hurt is back getting out of bed which lead to him being out for ages, however I had witnessed him getting thrown down the stairs in Utopia the weekend before.

[Huntley & Palmer]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

Zamora
Hulse
Helguson
Collins John
King

All could do a very decent job for us and offer something completely different to our current front line. Lita is an 18 yard box player, Doyler is a channel runner and Kitson is a link up man.

[Rawlie19]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

Agreed, we must have spent almost 90% of the cash we have in the kitty on Cisse and the other new player (name has gone through my head again). The money we got from HalOLford has been and gone, so there's nothing left to spend.....

....Get well soon Lita

Where are you getting this from? We got £3.5m for Halfrod, spent £2.5m on Fae and less than £1m on Cisse? That adds up to £3.5m and so we haven't even touched a 'kitty'. But it was said a while ago that we don't have a 'kitty'. If Coppell has a player in mind he just needs to ask Mr Mad for the money and if he believes it's worth it he'll fund it. That's the way this club works, not saying "you have £10m, go buy players".

[79Royal]

Tell me one striker worth having as a stop gap, that fits our three main criteria.

You either continue with Long, or sign a striker that's going to be better than what we already have and we cannot afford that at the moment.

Zamora
Hulse
Helguson
Collins John
King

All could do a very decent job for us and offer something completely different to our current front line. Lita is an 18 yard box player, Doyler is a channel runner and Kitson is a link up man.

What do you think the fee would be for those players, given that Chopra went for £5m and Southampton value Kenwyne Jones higher than that? You're looking at £3-4m+ for each of those I'd say and none of them are worth it or indeed any better than we already have.

I agree that it would be handy to have another striker at the club, but I honestly cannot think of one that fits the bill. You could go abroad and bring in an unproven striker for less money, but I don't see the point if we've got Long waiting in the wings who the club regard very highly.

[papereyes]

Hulse adds something different and, imo, proved he could play and score in the Premiership.

How much would he cost? Less than Chopra et al because he's not a 'name'

[Huntley & Palmer]

Well Helguson's move to Bolton can't have been more than £2 million. The fact is that any of those listed are a better third or fourth striker than what we currently have on the books

[Stranded]

Well Helguson's move to Bolton can't have been more than £2 million. The fact is that any of those listed are a better third or fourth striker than what we currently have on the books

Was around £2.5m I think. I would expect Hulse to be available for around the same poss £3m.

[Alan Partridge]

This happened all last season, we never seemed to have all 3 fit at the same time. We always debated on here about another striker even when we got to the stage of 1 up front or Seol up front, the management never went down the route of a loan or a short term signing (Andy Cole maybe) so i don't expect them to do that this time.

Gutted really cos Leroy is going to be a big player for Reading this season. Our most natural goalscorer and he's going to be a big miss at the start.

[londinium]

Not a major loss in my eyes as like most people are saying we would have played 4-5-1 against United anyhow and we arent really expected to get points off of either United or Chelski so for him to miss those two games isnt a great loss. I also would have prefered the Kitson Doyle combo for Everton and Bolton anyway. That gives Lita another couple of weeks to get back to fitness.

Just remember we missed Kitson for half a season last year and we did ok didnt we, and he had been our top scorer the previous two seasons so his loss in our first season in the prem you would have thought would prove to be a disaster and it was far from that. And as I recall Lita also went through a really bad patch at that time and we were still top 8!!!

I dont understand the assumption that we'll play 4-5-1 - Coppeel has said that we're at our best whenw e pklay our usuakl way. Equally we played 4-4-2 for the last 3 utd matches.

I dont understand the assumption either, but looking at the predicted team posts, most seem to think it will be 4-5-1.

I hope we play 4-4-2 as that is our best system as shown by the non 4-4-2 we played in the Untd replay in the cup at the Mad Stad for the first 10 mins!!!

[londinium]

This happened all last season, we never seemed to have all 3 fit at the same time. We always debated on here about another striker even when we got to the stage of 1 up front or Seol up front, the management never went down the route of a loan or a short term signing (Andy Cole maybe) so i don't expect them to do that this time.

Gutted really cos Leroy is going to be a big player for Reading this season. Our most natural goalscorer and he's going to be a big miss at the start.

Happened the season before too... every time one got injured another just came back from injury, so really only had 2 of the 3 main strikers all season... we did ok then too!!

[79Royal]

Well Helguson's move to Bolton can't have been more than £2 million. The fact is that any of those listed are a better third or fourth striker than what we currently have on the books

Kitson was out top scorer in the Championship and he can't be judged by last season as he missed so much of it. Kitson was a better striker than Hulse in the Championship, so there's no reason why he can't score goals in the Premier League.

As for long, yes, I would agree that Hulse is a better player at the moment, but the club have high hopes for Long, so they are unlikely to push him down the pecking order. He's got a contract to 2011 I think, so they have invested a lot in him.

Zamora and Collins John have been hit and miss and Helguson has already moved, so that's a no go.

It's a difficult situation, but you never know, Long may start to repay some of the faith shown in him this coming season.

[chilipepper91]

This of course gives the BBC license to roll out "freak injuries" for the 483rd time.

Dave Beasant Dropped a bottle of salad cream on his foot
Rio Ferdinand Picked up a tendon strain watching TV
Richard Wright Shoulder injury falling through his loft
Santiago Canizares Dropped a bottle of aftershave and severed a tendon
Alan Mullery Injured his back cleaning his teeth
Darren Barnard Slipped in a puddle of his dog's liquid


The image on the news article...

[Rawlie19]

This of course gives the BBC license to roll out "freak injuries" for the 483rd time.

Dave Beasant Dropped a bottle of salad cream on his foot
Rio Ferdinand Picked up a tendon strain watching TV
Richard Wright Shoulder injury falling through his loft
Santiago Canizares Dropped a bottle of aftershave and severed a tendon
Alan Mullery Injured his back cleaning his teeth
Darren Barnard Slipped in a puddle of his dog's liquid


The image on the news article...

Thing is these aren't really freak injuries. They're just accidents that didn't happen while playing football. Everybody has accidents and injuries that keeps them from work all the time. I injured my back doing up a suitcase in March and was away from work for a month.

[cmonurz]

Well if he doesn't I think we might be in a bit of trouble.

And to further paint myself into the negative corner, I think a lot of Reading fans are guilty of complacency. 'We'll be alright', 'we were fine last season', 'Kitson is back' - why are Reading fans so oblivious to other teams around us improving (at least on paper). West Ham, Newcastle, Fulham, Man City could all be much better sides than we faced last season.

Have just been talking about this with guys in the office - and we could only come up with Derby, Brum and Wigan who should, conceivably fare worse than Reading this season. That's not a long list, and doing 'as well as we did last year' won't get us as many points. I am hugely concerned about relegation this season, and I think a list of backup strikers (not including midfielders who can play up front) that reads Shane Long and Simon Cox is not allaying my fears.