Where has £3.95 million gone?

[andrew1957]

I am fed up.

This link says it all. We are too poor to buy a £1M player that could just make all the difference to our promotion challenge.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... r_interest

But as I have said elsewhere at the start of the summer we were told that the club faced a £4M shortfall for the 2010-11 season. We then sold our best player (who the manager had built the team round) for £7M plus other player sales totalling £8.35M. We have since bought players for 400K - making a player trading surplus of £3.95M after allowing for the £4M shortfall.

The wage bill has been cut significantly as we lost many more senior professionals than have joined the club - so if anything the £4M shortfall would not have been so big.

Now we have no money to reinvest in players. Surely it is not to much to ask for the club to reinvest say half the £3.95M surplus in securing the services of Austin and Leigertwood. I think that is the minimum we should expect.

SO WHERE HAS THE £3.95M GONE?

If the club continues to expect us to pay our hard earned cash to support the team - then we deserve to know. No wonder the crowds are dropping - many fans are clearly frustrated by the lack of reinvestment.

[Silver Fox]

Has Sir John still not provided you with his receipts for the last 3 tax years? What does he think our season ticket money pays for?!

[Bucks Dave]

Have you never haggled for anything in an arab market? The first price quoted you laugh at and loudly denounce it. You tell everyone prices are simply too high, you don't have enough money, your children will suffer and so on.

By all means keep the pressure on the club to bring in a proven goal scorer but the window is far from closed.

And do you really believe it would have been a good move last year to bring in Tommy Smith for £1.8 Mill? We don't even know the price Swindon have first quoted.

Silver Fox, you can get the annual accounts for Reading to see where the money goes. I have done so myself.

[Toon Toon Blue army]

I know this topic has been done to death but this is getting ridiculas now. Surely we can afford to invest in at least one 'expensive' player after selling the Sig?

This is either a tactic by the club so we are not held to ransom by Swindon (but its not like they are desperate to sell is it?), or we really are financially f*cked (not sure how), or SJM is running one of the most sensible clubs in the country which will guarentee the long and stable future of the club (It is reassuring to think it is the later, but it isn't half boring!).

Im off to get Championship manager and sign loads of random players to liven things up!

[Focher]

even if we did have £3.95m to spend why the hell would we want to spend it??????????? We have the foundations of a promotion winning team that is improving as every week goes by, be happy with that, we don't need to sign anyone.

[Silver Fox]

Silver Fox, you can get the annual accounts for Reading to see where the money goes. I have done so myself.

Yeah, but everyone knows they are a pack of lies covering up Sir John Madejski's pocketing of all the cash

[muddyfeet]

To be honest I am not sure what to think at the moment - it was obv at the start of the season the club was in a bit of a financial pickle as when we had so many defensive injuries McD said we could bring anyone in on loan or even afford Harte presumably. We must have cleared some of the overheads by getting rasiak etc off the books. We then sell Gylfi which I did understand we had to do and I do understand that we would not get all the money upfront. We spend a minimal amount and then got Leigertwood on loan. The club then came out and said they would look into getting someone in Jan and they had the money to do so - this was a few weeks ago. They are now saying we dont have hardly any money - it cant have dispappeared in a few weeks so someone has decided that purse strings must be tightened.
What does worry me, is that we dont have a "Gylfi" to sell every year, so how an earth is our financial state going to get any better, when attendances are probably going to keep falling? At the moment besides Mills, our squad cost sod all to put together so why can we not compete with some of the other sides to sign players? (obv exc Cardiff etc)

[Toon Toon Blue army]

even if we did have £3.95m to spend why the hell would we want to spend it??????????? We have the foundations of a promotion winning team that is improving as every week goes by, be happy with that, we don't need to sign anyone.

True, we have the foundations of a promotion winning side. But you cannot disagree that with the investment of one or two quality players we would be in a very strong position to be candidates for promotion come the end of the season. At the moment we are 3 points away from 14th, 2 points from 6th. We are lurking around the play off positions with about 8 other clubs. With the addition of 1 or 2 players we really could push into that top 6 and stamp our authority. I cannot see this side getting promoted without a few new faces.

And what happens if we don't go up this season? You just know a few of the likes of Long, Federici, Kebe, McAnuff will be sold to fill some 'deficit', and then our foundation will have been lost and it’s back to square 1.

[Wycombe Royal]

But as I have said elsewhere at the start of the summer we were told that the club faced a £4M shortfall for the 2010-11 season. We then sold our best player (who the manager had built the team round) for £7M plus other player sales totalling £8.35M. We have since bought players for 400K - making a player trading surplus of £3.95M.

The wage bill has been cut significantly as we lost many more senior professionals than have joined the club - so if anything the £4M shortfall would not have been so big.

Now we have no money to reinvest in players.

SO WHERE HAS THE £3.95M GONE?

THat is just "one season thinking". Well run business plan for the long term, not the short term.

[brendywendy]

[Focher]

even if we did have £3.95m to spend why the hell would we want to spend it??????????? We have the foundations of a promotion winning team that is improving as every week goes by, be happy with that, we don't need to sign anyone.

True, we have the foundations of a promotion winning side. But you cannot disagree that with the investment of one or two quality players we would be in a very strong position to be candidates for promotion come the end of the season. At the moment we are 3 points away from 14th, 2 points from 6th. We are lurking around the play off positions with about 8 other clubs. With the addition of 1 or 2 players we really could push into that top 6 and stamp our authority. I cannot see this side getting promoted without a few new faces.

And what happens if we don't go up this season? You just know a few of the likes of Long, Federici, Kebe, McAnuff will be sold to fill some 'deficit', and then our foundation will have been lost and it’s back to square 1.

i personally dont think that any transfers in January will reflect any kind of value, and we won't get that 1 or 2 quality players for £3.95m in January. Leave it as it is, see if we go up, if not invest wisely in the summer.

[Royal Monk]

This is exactly why i didnt renew my season ticket , i was fed up of spending my hard earned backing the club/team when the owner only leant his money and took it back to the detriment of the club/team

[Wycombe Royal]

This is exactly why i didnt renew my season ticket , i was fed up of spending my hard earned backing the club/team when the owner only leant his money and took it back to the detriment of the club/team

[Focher]

This is exactly why i didnt renew my season ticket , i was fed up of spending my hard earned backing the club/team when the owner only leant his money and took it back to the detriment of the club/team

^^ why i cannot stand the attitude of modern day skysports loving football fans.

[Silver Fox]

This is exactly why i didnt renew my season ticket , i was fed up of spending my hard earned backing the club/team when the owner only leant his money and took it back to the detriment of the club/team

[Scarface]

I am fed up.

This link says it all. We are too poor to buy a £1M player that could just make all the difference to our promotion challenge.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... r_interest

But as I have said elsewhere at the start of the summer we were told that the club faced a £4M shortfall for the 2010-11 season. We then sold our best player (who the manager had built the team round) for £7M plus other player sales totalling £8.35M. We have since bought players for 400K - making a player trading surplus of £3.95M.

The wage bill has been cut significantly as we lost many more senior professionals than have joined the club - so if anything the £4M shortfall would not have been so big.

Now we have no money to reinvest in players.


SO WHERE HAS THE £3.95M GONE?

If the club continues to expect us to pay our hard earned cash to support the team - then we deserve to know. No wonder the crowds are dropping - many fans are clearly frustrated by the lack of reinvestment.

I agree, it will be very frustrating if we can't afford £1m after selling a prize asset in the Summer.

This is bizarre, Sky are reporting we've made a bid and Austin was definately at the stadium this week, yet McDermott totally denies all interest in that interview.

[brendywendy]

This is exactly why i didnt renew my season ticket , i was fed up of spending my hard earned backing the club/team when the owner only leant his money and took it back to the detriment of the club/team

[ankeny]

even if we did have £3.95m to spend why the hell would we want to spend it??????????? We have the foundations of a promotion winning team that is improving as every week goes by, be happy with that, we don't need to sign anyone.

Is this Fridays joke we used to get on off At eleven?

[Focher]

even if we did have £3.95m to spend why the hell would we want to spend it??????????? We have the foundations of a promotion winning team that is improving as every week goes by, be happy with that, we don't need to sign anyone.

Is this Fridays joke we used to get on off At eleven?

[muddyfeet]

This is exactly why i didnt renew my season ticket , i was fed up of spending my hard earned backing the club/team when the owner only leant his money and took it back to the detriment of the club/team

^^ why i cannot stand the attitude of modern day skysports loving football fans.

its hardly the team or the managers fault and its them I go and support more than the owner. It cant be good times all the way - otherwise it would be boring!