Adkins: 'I don't think Reading can reach 100 goal target"

[Linden Jones' Tash]

I just read the interview and, apart from his odd pseudo-management consultant/motivational sports speaker turn of phrase and repetition irrespective of the question, he seems to have said nothing and everything at the same time.

Very lawyery.... Ie, you can read between the lines that he is unhappy about the players being pursued (Sissoko) or being sold (mapps), but he doesn't actually say anything that could be deemed inflammatory...

It's like House of Cards- "you may well think that, I couldn't possibly comment"....


Not sure if it's better or worse that the blandspeak we normally hear from managers

[MmmMonsterMunch]

I just read the interview and, apart from his odd pseudo-management consultant/motivational sports speaker turn of phrase and repetition irrespective of the question, he seems to have said nothing and everything at the same time.

Very lawyery.... Ie, you can read between the lines that he is unhappy about the players being pursued (Sissoko) or being sold (mapps), but he doesn't actually say anything that could be deemed inflammatory...

It's like House of Cards- "you may well think that, I couldn't possibly comment"....


Not sure if it's better or worse that the blandspeak we normally hear from managers

Thought the same thing & reckon he'd be a great politician!

I didn't get the vibe he was frustrated with the club/DOF/owner to be honest. I definitely got the vibe that they'd worked collectively on targets & for whatever reasons they hadn't come off. If Sissoko failed a medical, you can hardly blame the club for not following through and then having a sicknote on big money on the treatment table.

And if Anton is blocking the money, then why has he worked hard to try & get Sissoko in? Adkins said himself Anton was heavily involved. If it wasn't for Anton, we'd never have got Drenthe here.

We are all a bit disappointed I guess but so many things can happen with transfers. Players are greedy b@stards after all & might say they'll sign & then go looking elsewhere for more cash.

Cheer up guys - we'll be ok! We ought to make more use of the loan market anyway IMO - we need players who will fight to earn a contract rather than just getting it.

[winchester_royal]

By the sounds of it they were aiming for guys who would improve on what we already have, and obviously any strikers better than the likes of Alf and Pog will be strikers that will attract prem interest. When you aim high you're more likely to fail. No point bringing in average strikers to make up the numbers when you're also looking to promote youth.

Honestly, given the state that some football clubs are in atm, we must come across as the mongiest fanbase in history...whining away because our Russian owner didn't buy us a couple of nice players that Jim White could shout about on SSN while eye-fcuking Natalie Sawyer.

[P!ssed Off]

By the sounds of it they were aiming for guys who would improve on what we already have, and obviously any strikers better than the likes of Alf and Pog will be strikers that will attract prem interest. When you aim high you're more likely to fail. No point bringing in average strikers to make up the numbers when you're also looking to promote youth.

Honestly, given the state that some football clubs are in atm, we must come across as the mongiest fanbase in history...whining away because our Russian owner didn't buy us a couple of nice players that Jim White could shout about on SSN while eye-fcuking Natalie Sawyer.

Except obviously we're not happy with the strikers we've got.
Adkins and Hammond have made it pretty clear that we still want to sign a striker.
Two months down the line, with the transfer window closed and now with only those players unwanted by their own clubs, and unwanted by others in the transfer window, available to us, have our chances of finding a decent striker improved or rapidly diminished?

And where are these youth team strikers we're looking to promote? Five league games in and I've not seen Ugwu or Samuel on the bench once. They could definitely have been useful on the bench what with Adkins desperate not to play Pogrebnyak.
Apparently they've trained with the first team this week and will play in a friendly at the weekend. Is this the kind of valuable 'first team experience' that might be denied to them if we had brought in a new striker?

If the logic behind not signing a new striker is to give the youth a chance then i expect (and hope) to see Ugwu and Samuel given game time over the coming games.

[working class hero]

The current stats suggest we are more likely to concede 100...

[winchester_royal]

By the sounds of it they were aiming for guys who would improve on what we already have, and obviously any strikers better than the likes of Alf and Pog will be strikers that will attract prem interest. When you aim high you're more likely to fail. No point bringing in average strikers to make up the numbers when you're also looking to promote youth.

Honestly, given the state that some football clubs are in atm, we must come across as the mongiest fanbase in history...whining away because our Russian owner didn't buy us a couple of nice players that Jim White could shout about on SSN while eye-fcuking Natalie Sawyer.

Except obviously we're not happy with the strikers we've got.
Adkins and Hammond have made it pretty clear that we still want to sign a striker.
Two months down the line, with the transfer window closed and now with only those players unwanted by their own clubs, and unwanted by others in the transfer window, available to us, have our chances of finding a decent striker improved or rapidly diminished?

And where are these youth team strikers we're looking to promote? Five league games in and I've not seen Ugwu or Samuel on the bench once. They could definitely have been useful on the bench what with Adkins desperate not to play Pogrebnyak.
Apparently they've trained with the first team this week and will play in a friendly at the weekend. Is this the kind of valuable 'first team experience' that might be denied to them if we had brought in a new striker?

If the logic behind not signing a new striker is to give the youth a chance then i expect (and hope) to see Ugwu and Samuel given game time over the coming games.

I don't know which post that was in response to because it certainly isn't mine.

[paddy20]

The full transcript in the EP recently posted is very illuminating.

1/ He confirms yet again that he wanted 3 new players.

2/ He implies that Sissoko was not one of his targets - is Anton playing "football manager"? NA does not sound overwhelmingly sorry that this potential deal broke down. Again there is an implication that he would have preferred the money to be spent on a striker. ("CW - We've spoken all summer and the priority has been a striker, then people look at the wages we presume Sissoko is going to be on and think why we can't those wages go on the forward? Can you understand why people are thinking that?

NA - I share the empathy with everybody. But as I've highlighted as the manager of the club it's my responsibility to keep everybody focused and everybody on board.

I share the empathy. I've highlighted what I wanted to do but the reality is this is what we've got.

What we've got to do now is keep working very hard to keep pushing on to what we want to achieve.")

3/ It is implied that one target was as suspected Cameron Jerome but to be fair to the club a player like him would always prefer to stay in the PL.

Mapps and Kebe went because they didnt think they were in his plans.

4/ Selling Mariappa was a business decision (too good an offer to refuse) and he would have preferred to keep the player. ("There was no desire to let him go but obviously a bid came in that the board deemed a good offer business wise and they've gone and accepted it.")

5/ We kept other players that were subject to bids - implied as Alex McCarthy and Adam Le Fondre - but there were probably bids for McCleary and HRK as well. Kebe clearly wanted out but as far as we are aware Mariappa was not pressuring to go so it does beg the question why the club let Mariappa go and yet retained others. It might imply that perhaps the owner did not rate Mariappa??

Again it is refreshing how open NA has been.

[sandman]

SHIT! I really thought we were going to do it.

[TBM]

Adkins: 'I don't think Reading can reach 100 goal target with the players we have now'

Discuss

But he didn't say that did he?

Copy and paste from Getreading so don't neutral face me

[St. Brynjar]

It's like House of Cards- "you may well think that, I couldn't possibly comment"....

Bring in Kevin Spacey.

[FridaysGhost]

New target is apparently 20 goals - although it will rise next season when we're in Div 1.

[SapperBRoyal]

won't be far down the road before the honeymoon period between Adkins and Squeaky hits the buffers...question is who will blink first and be packing their bags...?....Manager / DoF working relationships are rarely a success....something will give ...

Not really, the issue is the amount of money the club is willing to pay and that's set by Anton not Nicky.

Absolutely right. If NA gets disenfranchised, it won't be with NH. Fact.

[SapperBRoyal]

Adkins: 'I don't think Reading can reach 100 goal target with the players we have now'

Discuss

I think he's a total moron for even saying it in the first place. You don't need to score anywhere near 100 goals to get promoted - it's rare that a title-winning team will even get 90.

We won the league with 69. Birmingham have been promoted with 54. I'd say 80 goals would be a tough yet realistic target that also gives you a great chance of getting auto.

Why you'd walk into a new job and start banging on about scoring 100 goals is beyond me.

A total moron? He didn't say anything about needing to score 100 goals to promote; just that he'd set an objective to score 100 goals. You're entitled to your opinion of course, but maybe calm down slightly?

[Ian Royal]

It was stupid positive spin in exactly the sort of style we were told to expect from Adkins.

[leon]

No shit Adkins

[Pseud O'Nym]

Absolutely right. If NA gets disenfranchised, it won't be with NH. Fact.

Dunno, if he murdered him and got a life stretch? Failing that I think the only other way would be to renounce his UK citizenship.

[percy_freeman]

I'm pissed up, and I couldn't be arsed to read pages of crap. I'd just like to asay BOLLOCKS

[RoyalBlue]

I'm not sure why Adkins saying he thought the targets were realistic and us not being able to close the deals due to finances has to automatically mean he's been screwed on resources.

It could equally mean that we had the resources he thought were necessary to get them, but they wanted more and we couldn't / weren't prepared to go to the necessary level beyond our valuation.

I completely agree! I think it more likely the club were not willing to go to the price range we were being quoted rather than not having the funds to do so.

And that is the crux of the problem - Madejski's, Hamond's and now it seems Anton's valuation always seems to be lower than that of other clubs.

Then we have Sissoko supposedly failing a medical, only not failing so badly that we don't want to take him but just enough that Hammond thinks he can use it to try to screw the player on terms! Surprise, surprise, the player won't cave in and tells Hammond and RFC what they can do.

Seems to me that, ever since trying to turn over York on Murty's fee, RFC have tended to adopt a bit of a nasty edge in negotiations that perhaps doesn't go down to well with those they are dealing with and therefore can have a tendency to backfire.

[Cypry]

I'm not sure why Adkins saying he thought the targets were realistic and us not being able to close the deals due to finances has to automatically mean he's been screwed on resources.

It could equally mean that we had the resources he thought were necessary to get them, but they wanted more and we couldn't / weren't prepared to go to the necessary level beyond our valuation.

I completely agree! I think it more likely the club were not willing to go to the price range we were being quoted rather than not having the funds to do so.

And that is the crux of the problem - Madejski's, Hamond's and now it seems Anton's valuation always seems to be lower than that of other clubs.

Then we have Sissoko supposedly failing a medical, only not failing so badly that we don't want to take him but just enough that Hammond thinks he can use it to try to screw the player on terms! Surprise, surprise, the player won't cave in and tells Hammond and RFC what they can do.

Seems to me that, ever since trying to turn over York on Murty's fee, RFC have tended to adopt a bit of a nasty edge in negotiations that perhaps doesn't go down to well with those they are dealing with and therefore can have a tendency to backfire.

But it's not 'valuation' as such that's the problem - over the lest week there's been one constant in everything coming out of the club, and that is that where we've not got our targets, it's been because they've gone to Premier League clubs.

Regardless of what led to us getting relegated, that fact is that we are now a Championship side, and as such we have to work with Championship budgets. Name the sides in the Championship who have had a net spend this window of more than £5M - there are none whatsoever - Wigan and QPR spent a bit, but in both cases they sold players for in excess of £20M in Wigans case, and £13M for QPR (in fact Wigan made a net profit of some £15M this window). Forest, QPR and Bournemouth were the only clubs with spends in excess of £3M, and none of them spent more than £4M. 9 Championship clubs spent nothing at all on incoming players....

In fairness to TSI they have never promised to inject large sums of cash into the club - quite the opposite, we've been told since day 1 that prudence would prevail....I doubt it very much that Adkins was promised anything different....

We're walking a fine line, which at the moment isn't quite working out for us.

Let's look at the striker situation; we need a striker who is at a minimum top end Championship, or preferably Premier League standard. There's not much point in signing a decent League 1 striker, we did tha in January with Blackman, and that hasn't exactly solved our problem ip front has it?

The problem is, most, if not all players of the standard we're looking at would choose the Premier League over the Championship at the drop of a hat. So all a PL side needs to do is match th offer we make, and we will lose out, and with the new TV deal, they can afford to do that in spades. The new TV money makes this Summers window completely unprecedented in terms of the gulf in spending ability between the PL and Championshop. I find it completely unsurprising that we have struggled to attract the RIGHT players...

As for Adkins interview, yes, he sounds frustrated, but I read it more that the frustration is with the inability to compete with Premier League sides, rather than with NH or the Directors....

[Barry the bird boggler]

Well let's hope there's some good choices of strikers to be had in the loan window....