Transfer Policy and Squad Size - what do you read into it?

[working class hero]

Just for the record, I'm firmly in the "Where has the money gone" camp. Even if we assembled a squad of 25 all on 25K per week the wage bill would be 32m per year. I would be stunned if our wage bill came anywhere near that figure.

You need to allow for National Insurance costs which I believe would be 12.8% in that year, so 32.5m would become £36m, if that figure were accurate, which I'm sure it's not.

However, were you aware that the accounts show the club having nearly 450 employees? Take out the playing and coaching squad that still leaves 400 staff; I have absolutely no clue what the average wage of those 400 people would be but it's a fair guess to assume that their combined cost (incl NI costs) would be in excess of £10m.

If you really believe that all those staff are full time you are deluding yourself. I would also suggest many will be much nearer to minimum wage than 20k per annum....

[Ian Royal]

I have very little time for Shorey now.

He has been one of our best players for a long time and has been at the club through thick and thin. But confirmation that he has wanted away for a while and that it has impacted on his performances, which have been rather lack lustre. Along with not having the good grace to come over to the fans after Derby and acknowledge us, let alone bid us goodbye, means he has had his head turned by the prima-donna culture in the prem, that we are better off without him and with a few £m more in our account and that he deserves a load of stick on his first return visit to the Mad stad.

I bet he has very little time for you as well give you have all the brain capacity of a chicken kebab.

Probably he doesn't given the only time we met I ignored him because I thought he was a random small boy. I spent my time talking to Hahnemann and Hughes.

[papereyes]

I would LOL @ anyone who would dare argue that we didn't buy our way out of third tier

[Ian Royal]

Just for the record, I'm firmly in the "Where has the money gone" camp. Even if we assembled a squad of 25 all on 25K per week the wage bill would be 32m per year. I would be stunned if our wage bill came anywhere near that figure.

You need to allow for National Insurance costs which I believe would be 12.8% in that year, so 32.5m would become £36m, if that figure were accurate, which I'm sure it's not.

However, were you aware that the accounts show the club having nearly 450 employees? Take out the playing and coaching squad that still leaves 400 staff; I have absolutely no clue what the average wage of those 400 people would be but it's a fair guess to assume that their combined cost (incl NI costs) would be in excess of £10m.

If you really believe that all those staff are full time you are deluding yourself. I would also suggest many will be much nearer to minimum wage than 20k per annum....

Even assuming that our wage bill for all staff is going to be over £20m. People also forget all of the running costs for clubs as well, Police, maintenance, etc etc etc, then of course there is the previous 10 years losses.

You can't just look at basic wages either, most of th eplayers will have bonuses tied into their contracts.... not that they'll have got a lot this season, but last season they'd have done pretty darn well!

Oh my God we may have taken in something close to £100m over two seasons with sponsorship, TV money, Merchandising and Gate money.

Well I can easily see us having spent £40m+ on wages £10m-£15m on transfer fees and signing on fees at least. Another £20m on facilities maintenance. That doesn't leave you far short of £100m when last years profit is taken into account along with something similar this season.

Players salaries virtually doubled if not more when we got promoted, they have gone up since then. I bet the players arn't taking a 50% reduction in wages after relegation.

People shouting "where's the money gone" might want to take a look at the accounts and have a little think first. It's not rocket science, it's basic adding and subtracting.

[Royalee]

I have very little time for Shorey now.

He has been one of our best players for a long time and has been at the club through thick and thin. But confirmation that he has wanted away for a while and that it has impacted on his performances, which have been rather lack lustre. Along with not having the good grace to come over to the fans after Derby and acknowledge us, let alone bid us goodbye, means he has had his head turned by the prima-donna culture in the prem, that we are better off without him and with a few £m more in our account and that he deserves a load of stick on his first return visit to the Mad stad.

I bet he has very little time for you as well give you have all the brain capacity of a chicken kebab.

Probably he doesn't given the only time we met I ignored him because I thought he was a random small boy. I spent my time talking to Hahnemann and Hughes.

Hahahaha, good on him.

[Millsy]

To me it says Madejski is a tight c*nt. The reason why Parj left, the reason why Burns didn't have half the chance to be what he could be, the reason why we're back down.

Congratulations. You are the first person to suggest Tommy Burns was hindered by a below average transfer budget.

I think that 2WW is taking this relegation particularly badly, judging from some of the nonsense - unusually for him - he has spoken on this and other threads of late

Perhaps. I'll take that as a compliment!

[Ian Royal]

I bet he has very little time for you as well give you have all the brain capacity of a chicken kebab.

Probably he doesn't given the only time we met I ignored him because I thought he was a random small boy. I spent my time talking to Hahnemann and Hughes.

Hahahaha, good on him.

Good on him for looking like an out of place teenager when he was supposed to be promoting our new shop in town?

[Denver Royal]

A big LOL at those who have no time for Shorey.

Yeah, we'll show him, huh?

People said the same about Sids, and look where that got us.

Nah, we wouldn't miss Sids at all. And in a sad way, we pretended we didn't.

Little ole Reading...when will we ever learn...maybe never.

[Sydneyroyal]

Nigel Howe has said that we have "very highly paid players." Does this demonstrate our ambition - surley the wages can't be high compared with Man Utd or Sunderland or even Bolton. I thought that JM had a strict wage policy. Is it strictly high - is it strictly above our means - is it strictly a complete cokc up from a business point of view? Also stating that we are open for offers on Shorey automatically means that we are now in a buyer's market with Shorey and not going to get the best price. What are these people's business credentials? Transfer policy or Bargain basement?

[Royal Rother]

Just for the record, I'm firmly in the "Where has the money gone" camp. Even if we assembled a squad of 25 all on 25K per week the wage bill would be 32m per year. I would be stunned if our wage bill came anywhere near that figure.

You need to allow for National Insurance costs which I believe would be 12.8% in that year, so 32.5m would become £36m, if that figure were accurate, which I'm sure it's not.

However, were you aware that the accounts show the club having nearly 450 employees? Take out the playing and coaching squad that still leaves 400 staff; I have absolutely no clue what the average wage of those 400 people would be but it's a fair guess to assume that their combined cost (incl NI costs) would be in excess of £10m.

If you really believe that all those staff are full time you are deluding yourself. I would also suggest many will be much nearer to minimum wage than 20k per annum....

I'm sure you'll be glad to know that I am not deluding myself then - there will be some highly paid individuals in there, amongst the cheap shop assistants etc. who would push the average up. Up to what figure I wouldn't know, can only only idly speculate.

[ellpryjon]

Just for the record, I'm firmly in the "Where has the money gone" camp. Even if we assembled a squad of 25 all on 25K per week the wage bill would be 32m per year. I would be stunned if our wage bill came anywhere near that figure.

You need to allow for National Insurance costs which I believe would be 12.8% in that year, so 32.5m would become £36m, if that figure were accurate, which I'm sure it's not.

However, were you aware that the accounts show the club having nearly 450 employees? Take out the playing and coaching squad that still leaves 400 staff; I have absolutely no clue what the average wage of those 400 people would be but it's a fair guess to assume that their combined cost (incl NI costs) would be in excess of £10m.

If you really believe that all those staff are full time you are deluding yourself. I would also suggest many will be much nearer to minimum wage than 20k per annum....

just like deluding yourself into thinking that there are piles of spare cash.

[Vision]

There's a lot of dead wood floating around our club and some of it handsomely paid. What the hell were we doing with twelve players out on loan this Spring. That suggests too much squad inflation. I think the policy is run a tighter ship, smaller more unified squad, use some of our talented youngsters more readily for back-up, and then we can afford to pay competetive wages for the kinds of players we need. To be honest, I can't see how anyone can argue with that.

Thank f*ck for that. 4 lines to explain what i couldn't in 4 paragraphs.

I'm not convinced at the wisdom of Howe's public firesale outburst mind, but the reality is that we need to significantly cut the size of the playing squad and the responsibility for who goes and stays still appears to be with Coppell.

[brendywendy]

not sure it made any difference when newcastle, west ham and the like are all talking top nickys agent about him wanting a move anyway-his contract is up, so its either another year of perhaps substandardperformances, and lose him for free, or get around 5 million quid for the 3/4 best left back in the country
id be upset if we didnt sell him to be fair

and from now on can people just stop with the where has the money gone stuff
its not even that hard, just need to engage the old brain

and as for blaming mr mad? for what? for running us as a business ? for ensuring that no matter what happens we will be financially viable.

and yes we were low payers in the prem, but in case no one had noticed we have just been relegated to the championship where we will now be one of the higher payers

[Platypuss]

There's a lot of dead wood floating around our club and some of it handsomely paid. What the hell were we doing with twelve players out on loan this Spring. That suggests too much squad inflation. I think the policy is run a tighter ship, smaller more unified squad, use some of our talented youngsters more readily for back-up, and then we can afford to pay competetive wages for the kinds of players we need. To be honest, I can't see how anyone can argue with that.

Thank f*ck for that. 4 lines to explain what i couldn't in 4 paragraphs.

I'm not convinced at the wisdom of Howe's public firesale outburst mind, but the reality is that we need to significantly cut the size of the playing squad and the responsibility for who goes and stays still appears to be with Coppell.

Surtely the reason the squad got so large (for no real benefit) was because of the salary structure? While money has always been avaible for transfer fees, the apparent cap on individuals' wages means that we could recruit oodles of mediocre palyters on "average" wages, but not offer enough to recruit the few quality individuals that would have made a genuine difference. That is why SC cannot take sole blame for last season's relagation.

Never has the quality >>> quantity adage been more amply demonstrated than Reading FC 07/08.

I hope we have truly learned the lesson.

[papereyes]

A big LOL at those who have no time for Shorey.

Yeah, we'll show him, huh?

People said the same about Sids, and look where that got us.

Nah, we wouldn't miss Sids at all. And in a sad way, we pretended we didn't.

Little ole Reading...when will we ever learn...maybe never.

It struck me as the attitude of a man who has lost the really pretty girl. You try to convince yourself that she's not all that but deep down, you know, she knows, everybody knows.

[rhroyal]

The trouble is, you say it's better to get 1 player on 25k than 2 players on 15k each, and from a simply money point of view you're right. However, if we were signing a few quality players and giving them big wages when they were yet to do anything for the club, I bet a few squad members who had won us promotion and then taken us to 8th would be wanting the same wages. We'd either have unrest or an entire squad on wages we couldn't afford. I reckon that's why we went for too many average players.

As for Shorey, we've said we want a decent price and by the sounds of things there will be a few bidding for him. If you've ever player Football Manager you'll know that when a few parties are involved you can continuously stall bids and negotiate until you get the price you want, and with JM being a businessman he'll be a pro at this.

[North Somerset Royal]

not sure it made any difference when newcastle, west ham and the like are all talking top nickys agent about him wanting a move anyway-his contract is up, so its either another year of perhaps substandardperformances, and lose him for free, or get around 5 million quid for the 3/4 best left back in the country
id be upset if we didnt sell him to be fair

and from now on can people just stop with the where has the money gone stuff
its not even that hard, just need to engage the old brain

and as for blaming mr mad? for what? for running us as a business ? for ensuring that no matter what happens we will be financially viable.

and yes we were low payers in the prem, but in case no one had noticed we have just been relegated to the championship where we will now be one of the higher payers

Not according to our Chairman.............................

Even though we get the £11million parachute, we have still got very highly paid players – even with the reduction in wages, so I think we will have to budget for a small loss.
“Salaries have to be at the middle range and some in the upper range for the Championship.”

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

[Royal Rother]

If some are in the middle range and some in the higher range that would still place us as "one of the higher payers".

[North Somerset Royal]

Yes but that is the current situation including the highest paid players who the club intends to sell. After that we will be middle range at best.

[Hoop Blah]

Just for the record, I'm firmly in the "Where has the money gone" camp. Even if we assembled a squad of 25 all on 25K per week the wage bill would be 32m per year. I would be stunned if our wage bill came anywhere near that figure.

You need to allow for National Insurance costs which I believe would be 12.8% in that year, so 32.5m would become £36m, if that figure were accurate, which I'm sure it's not.

However, were you aware that the accounts show the club having nearly 450 employees? Take out the playing and coaching squad that still leaves 400 staff; I have absolutely no clue what the average wage of those 400 people would be but it's a fair guess to assume that their combined cost (incl NI costs) would be in excess of £10m.

I'm sure someone has posted recently that the latest accounts show a wage bill of £26m.

I'm guessing that a decent amount of money will also have gone on loan repayments.

Personally I think we should've taken a longer term view of spending a bit more last season to give us the best chance of seeing the massive revenues from the Premier League coming into the club for a couple of seasons longer. Obviously I've made that point once or twice before, and it isn't just a case of spend £10m and survival is assured, but it would've helped.

I'm no accountant, but I'm sure the money is there someone, it's just well hidden in the clubs books.