The Gylfi thread.

[Royal Lady]

DOOM!



*wrings hands*

I'll be wringing your bloody neck if I have much more of this, young man!

[mr_number]

DOOM!



*wrings hands*

I'll be wringing your bloody neck if I have much more of this, young man!

Surely Brendy can give you something to help with the stress? (nudge nudge, wink wnk, say no more etc)

[Cypry]

To be fair, given the choice of spending £7M on Gylfi, or £2-3M each on three players who can strengthen what we have, I'd go with the latter anyway....

I still struggle to comprehend what some people find so hard to understand about SJM saying "we'll still do things the Reading way" - one sniff of the Russian money and it seems that some expect us to blow our transfer record out of the water.......get your heads around it, it ain't going to happen.....

It would be lovely to see Gylfi come back, but you're in cloud cuckoo land if you think it's going to happen.....perhaps Brendan thinks the rest of his squad needs little tinkering and intends to only make one or two additions this year? In that case spending £7M on one player is reasonable, it's probably most of his budget.....in our case, we need cover at the back, cover on the wings, cover in midfield, a new striker, new contracts for existing players......spending a significant sum on one player is unlikely....

[urz13]

IMO - Current squad + new full back + Gylfi + striker who can play on their own (possibly Rhodes) = decent team. FB - £2m Gylfi - £7m - ST - £4-£5m. £13-£14m total, hardly going to destroy us.

[melonhead]

DOOM!



*wrings hands*

I'll be wringing your bloody neck if I have much more of this, young man!

sorry mum

[Archie's penalty]

Meh,

Would have been nice to sign him but not gutted by it.

Likewise. Stops all the people creaming themselves over him.

Mccy D knows what he's doing...

[winchester_royal]

Lol, it doesn't work because we've always called it the Gylfi formation and Brian tried numerous players in the role once he left and eventually gave up and brought Ledge in to play 4-4-2. The reason we haven't be able to play it is because we haven't had Gylfi or a like for like replacement, not because the rest of the team can't play the other roles, which aren't much different tbh

Okay, let me ask you this.

Were we more successful playing 4-5-1 with Gylfi, or 4-4-2 with Roberts?

And ignore the brilliant CB partnership, Gorkss in for the liability Mills, big step up from Pearce
improvement in Federici, the second coming of Harte, the effect of Elwood etc

I'm not ignoring anything, I'm just asking which system has been more successful for us.

Feel free to pull out some stats Snowy.

[winchester_royal]

Look, Tabb and Howard were playing as holding mids. Jem and Legs ARE holding mids, playing as holding mids. I can’t recall any examples of the former being better passers than the latter. In my mind, the latter are the better pairing, and it would seem McD agrees with me, hence them being selected practically every game this season while Pirlo1 and Pirlo2 rot on the bench if they are lucky. If you are saying Gylfi would play better with Tabb and Howard, two players who couldn’t suck a game from McD’s cock, then I think you are mental.

Secondly, irrespective of our 4-4-2 winning the league, in a 4-5-1 the previous season, Gylfi worked. Therefore I see no reason to suggest Gylfi wouldn’t work again, and the few changes in personnel I believe would enhance rather than degrade that.

Happy to be corrected, but in terms of ability I really don’t see enough difference between Gorkss and Mills to validate your point that 4-5-1 is out of reach because Matt Mills is a slightly better passer.

Again, the difference between Griffin and Cummings doesn’t really eliminate an entire formation.

You don’t believe Reading are already on the look out for a LB and striker?

You think comparing this season with the previous one is a fair measure of which system may work best in the Premier League?

I'm saying I think Gylfi needs a certain type of player in midfield to play with him. Surely you can see the difference between Britton/Allen and Ledge/Karacan? Both partnerships play as holding midfielders, but with completely different styles. It's like trying to compare Pirlo with Makelele. I believe Sig neends ball playing midfielders behind him, who can get the ball to him in space. Howard wasn't perfect by any means, but he had a better eye for a pass than either of our current (who don't get me wrong, are fantastic) stars. And it's all very well playing the 'McD agrees with me' card, but it appears McD also agrees with me that Gylfi isn't worth spunking a large proportion of our budget on.

I'm not arguing with you that 4-5-1 COULD work, and if McD had unlimited backing then he could probably get us playing fantastic football. But we don't have unlimited backing, and I believe that the only way we could play an effective 4-5-1 is by bringing in 5 or 6 quality (not just squad) players. I don't think we have the budget for that. I also don't see the point when we won the league last season playing, in the immortal words of Mike Bassett, 4-4-fucking-2.

You're missing my point, I'm saying that to make 4-5-1 with Gylfi work we'd need players all across the pitch who can pass it along the floor, rather than just resorting to HOOOF (admittedly Mills probably wasn't the best example for that). Back in 2010 we had a defence of Griff/Mills/Zurab/Bertrand. I believe there is more 'footballing' quality in that 4 than we currently have now. Our defence now is probably better, but that's partly because they don't have to keep the ball, they just aim long.

I'm sure they are, and they'll have targets in mind. But lets assume we have a budget of c.10m. Don't you think that if we spend 70% of that on one player, it will limit our options for the rest of the summer? And don't you think to change our system completely significant investment would be needed? And don't you thinkg we'd need more than 3m to do that?

Yes, I do.

[Mike Hunt]

For me it is not a case that we would be a better fit for him than Swansea, cause we aint. Swansea and Sig fits like a glove, and that is what fcking gets me going.

Its like the bird you are interested in being interested in your best friend. Well Swansea, as I said to my old best mate, "you can go and get fcked!"

oh, and Big Watch BR McCunt-head can go do one also.

[sandman]

For me it is not a case that we would be a better fit for him than Swansea, cause we aint. Swansea and Sig fits like a glove, and that is what fcking gets me going.

Its like the bird you are interested in being interested in your best friend. Well Swansea, as I said to my old best mate, "you can go and get fcked!"

oh, and Big Watch BR McC[b]unt-head can go do one also[/b].

Uh-oh Royalee's lurking. Get ready for the hissy fit.

[blueroyals]

If there was one player I'd have been happy for us to spunk £7m or £8m on it would have been Gylfi. If there was one signing we could have made it would have been him for me.

Very miffed we didn't sign him. But good luck to him at Swansea, I can't see him staying there more than a year or two. He's way too good for the likes of them and us long term.

This. I am shocked that we didn't even enquire about him. Buy him and build the team around him I don't give a f*ck. We need to change our style of play or we will get absolutely shat on next season when things stop going our way.

IMO - Current squad + new full back + Gylfi + striker who can play on their own (possibly Rhodes) = decent team. FB - £2m Gylfi - £7m - ST - £4-£5m. £13-£14m total, hardly going to destroy us.

I'd jizz if we ever spent that much in a single transfer window

[Friday's Legacy]

Rumours tonight that Swansea have agreed a fee for Gylfi.

[RockheadRumple]

Only 7M apparently. That's a steal.

[blueroyals]

Only 7M apparently. That's a steal.

If 7m is the figure that means we could have got him for around 5.5m if the 20% sell on clause is accurate. Gutted. Funnily enough if we were to spend the sell on clause we will receive from Gylfi on a player, we'd almost break our transfer record. Once this TSI deal goes through, we receive the Gylfi sell on clause, sell Antonio to Sheff Wed and work out how much we've saved from releasing players I want our transfer record broken

[clauski]

Would be nice to see Gylfi in a Reading shirt again but can't see it happening. However, it would really only be reinvesting the money we got when we sold him, and he will sell on again to a bigger club in the future for more money so a good deal if we wanted it!

[chilipepper91]

Only 7M apparently. That's a steal.

If 7m is the figure that means we could have got him for around 5.5m if the 20% sell on clause is accurate.

I always wonder with this. What's against Hoffenheim demanding ~£8.5m for him from us so they still make the same amount from his transfer?

[SCIAG]

Only 7M apparently. That's a steal.

If 7m is the figure that means we could have got him for around 5.5m if the 20% sell on clause is accurate.

I always wonder with this. What's against Hoffenheim demanding ~£8.5m for him from us so they still make the same amount from his transfer?

Basic maths. 80% of £7m is the same regardless of whether it comes from Reading or Swansea or Man United.

[urz13]

IMO - Current squad + new full back + Gylfi + striker who can play on their own (possibly Rhodes) = decent team. FB - £2m Gylfi - £7m - ST - £4-£5m. £13-£14m total, hardly going to destroy us.

I'd jizz if we ever spent that much in a single transfer window

I think we'll spend £9-£10m this window. A few £m to get Gykdi wouldn't be too disastrous.

[sandman]

Is this Gykdi guy any good?

[chilipepper91]

Yeah, something went wrong there... carry on everyone...