What Are Your Wants/Expectations For RFC?

[Vision]

I don't necessarily mean this as in "Where will we finish this season" but more as in what do you expect/want or be happy with for the club we all (No Keso) support.

I'm thinking that perhaps what I want to see or am happy to see differs massively from most on here.

I've been happy with what I've seen since relegation for the most part. Academy players settling into and playing significant roles in the side has always been a priority of mine. Staving off the financial pitfalls of relegation from the Premiership whilst making the play-offs in 2 of the last 3 seasons and embarking on consecutive FA Cup runs to the quarter-final stage and picking off notable scalps along the way for me signifies a good season.

There are other considerations for me as well which dont necessarily involve our actual finishing position. Whilst I wouldnt argue that persuading Coppell to stay probably gave us our best chance of promotion in 08/09 and that if we'd kept kept Rodgers we wouldn't have finished as high as 9th in 09/10, I didnt actually want either of those things to happen.
I liked the idea of Rodgers starting a brand new chapter at RFC and bringing perhaps a new style of football to the club. That for a couple of seasons at least would have been good enough for me (as long as we weren't relegated of course) regardless of where we finished as long as I could see some plan taking shape. On the flip side of that I much prefer the Coppell/McDermott understated style to the more brash Pardew/Rodgers demeanour. Again does this even matter to you?

Also having a group of players who dont appear on the face of it at least to be a complete bunch of oxf*rd is a consideration for me. An extreme example but would you want someone like Marlon King at Reading if it guaranteed us promotion?. I wouldn't but do others on here feel the same.

So what do you think constitutes a good season for a club like ours?
What as a supporter of Reading FC do you feel you should expect from the club.

[Hoop Blah]

I don't really expect anything apart from a significant effort to be the best we can be and to constantly strive to improve. That could be in the Premier League or the Conference, I'm not too fussed either way.

I don't expect us to win every game, I don't expect us to keep our best players or spend silly amounts of money on replacements but I do expect us to do our level best to stay competitive and make the right decisions (where possible) with the right intentions in mind.

Most of the time I'm pretty happy with the general running of the club but it doesn't mean we won't make mistakes or have areas to strengthen and improve at all times.

My biggest disappointments of recent years have been when I think the club have sat back and rested on their collective laurels and not looked to improve when possible. I'm getting a sense of that slipping back in now unfortunately.

[cmonurz]

Without an answer to my question 'would we be bankrupt had we not sold Long and Mills?'/, I see your post as contradictory, HB. You don't expect us to keep our best players, or buy quality replacements, but you don't want the club to sit on its laurels? The management has to make a decision as to whether it is a club striving for promotion, or a club happy to dot around the lower divisions forever and a day.

We've had a taste of the big time - I've seen the club change from a bits and pieces local club with no money and a shit ground in a Reading housing estate into what in many respects represented the model developing club, a real force to be reckoned with in the lower divisions, a club going somewhere with a terrific infrastructure, ground, academy and growing support base.

But we've been resting on our laurels for four years. We have pissed this all away since we came 8th in the Premier League, our chairman lost his will and bottle to keep us up, and since we nearly qualified for Europe and it has been a slow decline since. And yes, I'll inlcude last season in that. Brian McDermott should be knighted for what he did with that squad last year, it was ill-prepared for the big time, and we'd have been at serious risk of 'doing a Derby' had we beaten Swansea, without some serious money being spent. There's been some smirking at Swansea on the GF board, but their current squad is light years ahead of what we might have gone up with.

For years I have wanted and expected the club to build on the fantastic leaps forward it made and become an established Premier League side, nevermind 'the new Arsenal', but the amount of hot air that we get from the club is choking. Make your mind up, state what our goals are, and show us how you are going to achieve them. No more 'we want promotion' bullshit.

[cmonurz]

^^Random rant.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

SO we do not want promotion then?

[Tilehurst Mike]

---to show a bit more ambition than sign a third choice left back from Southampton and for Madjeski to stop spouting about cutting the cloth accordingly.

[Vision]

Is being in the top half/play off spots in the Championship considered "dotting around the lower divisions"?

This is part of the reason for the thread though. Do we really see the Championship as beneath us because we once finished 8th in the Premiership?

[Hoop Blah]

Without an answer to my question 'would we be bankrupt had we not sold Long and Mills?'/, I see your post as contradictory, HB. You don't expect us to keep our best players, or buy quality replacements, but you don't want the club to sit on its laurels? The management has to make a decision as to whether it is a club striving for promotion, or a club happy to dot around the lower divisions forever and a day.

Just to respond to this bit with my point of view (and I agreed with most of the rest of your post), I don't think it's feasible for a club to keep hold of it's best players in the majority of cases. We probably couldn't once a few had their heads turned after performing so well from 2005 to Christmas 2007.

I maintain that if the club hadn't sat back and just patted itself on the back and not pushed on (including entering Europe) after finishing 8th we may well have kept the Doyle's and Shorey's interested and motivated but only if we could offer them competitive wages at the same time.

In terms of replacing the better players we lose with quality, what I mean is I don't expect us to sign a player of equivalent ability but I do expect us to buy in players to compete at the level we're at. Currently we're doing too much of the replacing from within and hoping it works. It's not about spending all the money but some of it.

From the profits the clubs been making in the last few years I think a sensible move is to reinvest a higher proportion of those profits in the 'product' as opposed to the balance sheet. Without maintain the product we're not going to protect the decent financial state we're in.

Therefore, I guess my expectation is that we use our resources a little bit better and continue to show we mean real business (this effects the players as well by the way, they need a lift and encouragment as much as the fans).

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Mc D has money to spend, same as SC did in the Prem years, sadly what is said and what the truth is might be two differnet things, what we need are a couple of £1m signings, but with wages these do not come cheap, they will want a 3 year deal at about 500k a season, so that could be £2.5m tied up over 3 years.

Coppell had the same problem, he would have been looking at £4m players, however they would want about £3mill in wages over the contract.

Tying the club in to this lengthy deal was difficult if not impossible, depiste finishing 8th the view was still that we would go down second season. Which we did, then the task of paying of moving on these stars would have cost the club dear.

[Hoop Blah]

Is being in the top half/play off spots in the Championship considered "dotting around the lower divisions"?

This is part of the reason for the thread though. Do we really see the Championship as beneath us because we once finished 8th in the Premiership?

Absolutely not, it's not beneath us at all.

I'm not a big fan of the Premier League but I do want us to be the best we can. I think there is the potential to hold down a place in the Premier League but at the same time I'm more than happy if we're looking like we're really trying to build a team to get there.

[Finch]

I wanna see a Sheikh come in, and take us to the premier league and win it year after year, then the champions league and turn the world into blue and white hoops. Madejski is a fool for not accepting their bids (of which there are many). Madejski is greedy for wanting too much.

Nicky Hammond says we can be as big as Arsenal with a huge catchment area and ability to grow the stadium. I agree.

Without a Sheikh, then i expect Madejski to blow his personal fortune on trying to get us there. It's better to try and fail than not to try at all. If we then go bust we can blame Madejski for not running the club properly.

[Silver Fox]

I want to see us at least in the top half of tier 2, preferably challenging for promotion

I expect to get 23 home games a year for my season ticket

[southbank1871]

So glad you're back Finch.

[roadrunner]

Wants:

* PA announcer to say as little as possible and stop the "back the boys and make some noise". It's cringeworthy.

* Reading FC to drop the Reading fans everywhere number 13 nonsense. It's embarrassing.

* Madejski to carry on as he is. Talk of him not spending on the team is bollocks. If Gorkas comes in for this reported £900k, that's about £1.8m spent on him and Leigertwood alone in the last few months. That's a greater level of spending than before we won promotion to the PL. Add in J.Mills and that's probably £2m in total for those three.

* Hoops that go all the way around.

Expectations

* PA announcer to continue being cringeworthy.

* No.13 Reading fans everywhere to continue.

* The Mad man to carry on BAU until that buyer comes along.

* Puma to continue defacing our kits.

[mr_number]

Wants:
* Reading FC to drop the Reading fans everywhere number 13 nonsense. It's embarrassing.

At the very least, change it to 12. I dislike the implication that we are unlucky for the team. It's a blight on our reputation.

[Hoop Blah]

Mc D has money to spend, same as SC did in the Prem years, sadly what is said and what the truth is might be two differnet things, what we need are a couple of £1m signings, but with wages these do not come cheap, they will want a 3 year deal at about 500k a season, so that could be £2.5m tied up over 3 years.

Coppell had the same problem, he would have been looking at £4m players, however they would want about £3mill in wages over the contract.

Tying the club in to this lengthy deal was difficult if not impossible, depiste finishing 8th the view was still that we would go down second season. Which we did, then the task of paying of moving on these stars would have cost the club dear.

The club had deals for these type of players lined up and ready to go. I don't think for one minute they were deals that would've crippled the long term future of the club because that wasn't how we work.

When we went down it was said that it would've resulted in a 40% reduction in the wage bill by virtue of contractual decreases in wages. I think it's safe to assume that any incoming players would've been subject to similar conditions.

We pulled out of deals at the time because Coppell decided, in his own words, that they wouldn't improve on what we had.

[Tails]

To be profitable and in the Championship.

[Hoop Blah]

Why do you want to be profitable?

[Spud Gun]

Wants:

* PA announcer to say as little as possible and stop the "back the boys and make some noise". It's cringeworthy.

* Reading FC to drop the Reading fans everywhere number 13 nonsense. It's embarrassing.

* Madejski to carry on as he is. Talk of him not spending on the team is bollocks. If Gorkas comes in for this reported £900k, that's about £1.8m spent on him and Leigertwood alone in the last few months. That's a greater level of spending than before we won promotion to the PL. Add in J.Mills and that's probably £2m in total for those three.

* Hoops that go all the way around.

Good to know I am not the only one who hates the PA b****cks we get at the Mad Stad

Agree with your point about Madejski too. But I can live with hoops that don't go all the way around

[Mr Angry]

My wants are for us to be competitive in this Division, playing good football on the deck, finishing top 10, bringing through players from the Academy and seeing local lads playing for the team as much as possible. The odd decent cup run is an added bonus.

As the Premier League stands at the moment (where it is ONLY about money) I'm not bothered if we never go up there again.