Relief as the window closes and the clouds clear

[Royal Rother]

How well our expectations have been managed downwards so that this morning we are celebrating the fact that, rather than adding some quality signings to our squad, we haven't sold off any more of our star players! Even I fell for it last night!!!

Amazing!

Tell us, how did you drown your sorrows on the best day of your life?

[Stranded]

Well I'm sure the more negative of you won't want to hear it but to my eyes that wasn't a bad window for us.

I'd agree that perhaps the "known talent" at our disposal this morning may be less than in the past but what we have done is got rid of a number of "bad apples" who were causing a lot of friction at the club and replaced them with players who want to be here.

Yes we've only spent about £1.5m but that's almost irrelevant in many ways - we saw a committed performance from this squad on Saturday, something we've not seen in a long time - the proof of the pudding will be in the eating but there are certainly reasons to be positive today.

[West Stand Man]

Wow great the transfer window's nearly shut,

To sum up Reading Football clubs dealings:

£10 Million plus Sold

£1.1Mill Bought

That's around 90% deficit

"Arise Sir Nicky Hammond" Madejski will give you a warm handshake in the morning you puppet

Remind me not to go into business with you. In my accounting system £10M in against £1.1M out is a surplus not a deficit. But would do I know?

[Streets]

Well I'm sure the more negative of you won't want to hear it but to my eyes that wasn't a bad window for us.

I'd agree that perhaps the "known talent" at our disposal this morning may be less than in the past but what we have done is got rid of a number of "bad apples" who were causing a lot of friction at the club and replaced them with players who want to be here.

Yes we've only spent about £1.5m but that's almost irrelevant in many ways - we saw a committed performance from this squad on Saturday, something we've not seen in a long time - the proof of the pudding will be in the eating but there are certainly reasons to be positive today.

Well said.

[Royal Rother]

But I'm confident....

That's good enough for me. I knew you'd get there in the end!

[Royal Rother]

Streets, for God's sake - you just can't turn as quickly from Moaning Minnie into Happy Harry this quickly and retain a modicum of respect.

Make it a bit more gradual - perlease!

[papereyes]

But I'm confident....

That's good enough for me. I knew you'd get there in the end!

I've said throughout that we have enough about us now to probably get into the playoffs.

But also that we could easily strengthen key areas. I still don't see why we necessarily couldn't and I think there's a high chance of a long, cold winter/spring as we saw in 2005.

we saw a committed performance from this squad on Saturday, something we've not seen in a long time

I have a feeling there's two reasons for this.

1) Players like Doyle realised that they're here for the medium-term and have to play their way to a move in January or the Premiership with Reading.

2) We brought in two kids - "the mindset is there, but the ability might not be" ...

[Hampshire Royal]

That would do me, if we followed this season like we followed 2004/2005.

[papereyes]

That would do me, if we followed this season like we followed 2004/2005.

One hell of an IF

[Hampshire Royal]

As it was in 2005...

[Stranded]

we saw a committed performance from this squad on Saturday, something we've not seen in a long time

I have a feeling there's two reasons for this.

1) Players like Doyle realised that they're here for the medium-term and have to play their way to a move in January or the Premiership with Reading.

2) We brought in two kids - "the mindset is there, but the ability might not be" ...

So arguably players in both camps are committed again - the reasons for that commitment may be different but for the medium-term ie this campaign, this is good for us.

[papereyes]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

One's a bit more fragile a commitment than the other, mind ...

[Hampshire Royal]

That's true. But if we are successful this season, then maybe the more established players will see their future with us, rather than with a team like Stoke.

[Focher]

despite many negative posts admittedly from myself, having kept all our current players and having seen the emergence of the likes of Pearce and Karacan (and hopefully more), im a very optimistic Reading fan.

We will probably get twatted in our next game

[Scarface]

I'm a bit disappointed we didn't manage to offload Lita yesterday, but it wouldn't surprise me if he isn't loaned out.

Now the speculation has gone I'd also like to see James Harper start playing, so far this year apart from a goal he's contributed nothing during the games.

I assume you were either not there or slept through the Plymouth game because was everywhere and was even throwing himself into tackles.

Your post - little harsh. He does need to do it more often though!

Perhaps it is a little harsh, but now we're back in the Championship I expect Harper to look our best player and control midfield. All I see is someone sitting a yard from the centre backs waving his arms. Away from home at Charlton and Forest he may as well not bothered even playing.

[Stranded]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

One's a bit more fragile a commitment than the other, mind ...

No disagreement there - but as we know, players only true commitment is to themselves regardless of what shirt they pull on - so any commitment in football is fragile.

Even the younger players are only truly committed to furthering their own career - just that they are a different stage of career development.

[andrew1957]

Overall a very good window for us. We lost a few players - in some cases not perhaps the ones I would have expected. I thought we were more likely to lose Doyle and Hunt for example than Kitson and Little. I thought Sonko would be off - just took a lot longer than I expected. In the end we got reasonable prices for those who went and made three interesting additons - think Armstrong and Hunt will be successful and obviously Mooney is a low cost punt who could turn out to be the next Doyle or may turn out to be rubbish - time will tell.

We have at least two players in every position still and the emergence of the young players gives hope to us all.

G - USA/Fed (Andersen)
LB - Armstrong/Golbourne (Kelly)
CB - Ingi/Pearce/Bikey/Duberry (Cisse)
RB - Murty/Rosenior (Kelly)
LW - Hunt/Convey (Robson-Kanu)
CM - Harper/Karacan/Matejovsky/Gunnarson/Cisse (Sigurdsson)
RW - Kebe/Henry (N.Hunt)
A - Doyle/Hunt/Lita/Long/Mooney

Looks a very competitive squad to me. Come on URZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Sarah Star]

despite many negative posts admittedly from myself, having kept all our current players and having seen the emergence of the likes of Pearce and Karacan (and hopefully more), im a very optimistic Reading fan.

We will probably get twatted in our next game

That's the problem isn't it. Most of us are feeling quite content after two good wins and not losing another key member of the team. If we lose any of our next few matches it'll be back to 'why didn't we do something in the transfer window'.

[Huntley & Palmer]

LOL @ Streets, more personalities than Andy Goram

[Stranded]

despite many negative posts admittedly from myself, having kept all our current players and having seen the emergence of the likes of Pearce and Karacan (and hopefully more), im a very optimistic Reading fan.

We will probably get twatted in our next game

That's the problem isn't it. Most of us are feeling quite content after two good wins and not losing another key member of the team. If we lose any of our next few matches it'll be back to 'why didn't we do something in the transfer window'.

There will be some who do that no doubt. We have use of the loan system from Monday so if we need to do any new business for the short term we can do it then.