New Signings ?

[loyalroyal4life]

i think smith will be in the squad by saturday

[Hoop Blah]

I do vaguely remember the fuss at the time , i assumed it would be a fair bit. I think the fact that we had a 14m wage bill as a championship club that season which surprised me.

It was a bit of a jump from the previous couple of years (£11.2m and £9.4m) but not much different to others around us or out of line with the silly rises in football salaries.

Wolves wages for the same three years were £15.3m, £14.1m and £19.3.
Sheff United's £15.2, £8.7 and £8.2 (looks like they paid a lot in bonus' for promotion!).
Stoke's were surprisingly low at £6.7, £5.2 and £5.

[tomrfcurz]

i think smith will be in the squad by saturday

'Greed. And i'll be happy if that happens, think he's a brill player

[Archies Volley II]

i think smith will be in the squad by saturday

Does that mean Kebe will finally be out of the starting XI???? THERE IS A GOD!!!

Have you not seen this yet

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/page/NewsDet ... 24,00.html

[clauski]

Assuming we agree a fee do you think Tommy Smith will definitely come? Or is there a risk the protracted saga of transfer fee negotiations/refusal to match Sheff Utd's offer could make him wonder just how highly we really do rate him? And as he sees us failing to get shots on target let alone score, could this leave him wondering if he's really making a forward step? I hope not, our delay could prove very costly.

[loyalroyal4life]

Assuming we agree a fee do you think Tommy Smith will definitely come? Or is there a risk the protracted saga of transfer fee negotiations/refusal to match Sheff Utd's offer could make him wonder just how highly we really do rate him? And as he sees us failing to get shots on target let alone score, could this leave him wondering if he's really making a forward step? I hope not, our delay could prove very costly.

tbh i am not sure he will come to us now until next week i mean if they had accepted the price for smith wh would he be playing tonight?

gives him more time to see our results and maybe say no to us anyway

[loyalroyal4life]

tommy smith just scored

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Not until Reading pay the going rate for players both in fees and salaries and under this current board Reading will never ever do that. Not a terrible thing but that's just the way it is, football has gone mad and while people don't think the Kieron Richardson's of this world are worth £6million and Gary Cahill at £5million that is simply the going rate for players even for teams at the bottom end of the table, whereas Reading might take a £800,000 or £1million 'gamble' on a player, in Premiership terms that is absolute chicken feed, a gamble might be £5million and you have to be able to take it if it doesn't pay off.

But wasn't it Coppell who said there was money to spend but he chose not to spend it? Certainly the fact that his most expensive signings were his worst doesn't help his case.

I think you are being a bit naieve if you think there was a spare wad of cash floating around for players and COppell simply didn't want to spend it. There probably was some money, but the wage structure is well documented and Reading wouldn't break that for anyone. So while there may have been some money around (certainly not a £40million like a Sunderland or a Portsmouth might have) it's going to be nigh on impossible to attract any semi decent established players.

Coppell said at a fans forum re Scott Brown that they bid £4million for him, Hibs accepted, his agent phoned straight away and asked for £x amount a week. Way outside of Reading's wage structure. They tried to get him down first and foremost just to have a look around and maybe negotiate, but he wouldn't even get on a plane unless he was guaranteed a certain amount.

That's a club policy, nothing to do with Coppell, some would say it's good some would say it's doing things on the cheap. But that's the way the Premiership works, you have to be a big payer to be a big player. There may well have been around £10million of a budget remaining for players but if even guys playing at Hibernian want more than Reading are prepared to pay then it leaves the manager's hands severely tied.

So while the arguement has always been Coppell chose not to spend it,technically that is true, but in practical terms Coppell couldn't spend it on anyone half decent. Hence why we ended up with a load of cheap foreign signings/a load of cack.[/quote]

Now a £10m target for Spurs, so perhaps the club could have backed Coppell at the time a tad more, we seem to be raking the money in from Coppells signings, mcghee said that Aberdeen could not compete with what Norwich can pay, all seems a tad odd.

[Franchise FC]

And the most annoying thing, transfer window closes in 2 weeks, and we're stuck til January.

Thanks for everything John, but do us a favor, and sell up!

We're not stuck until January at all - Championship clubs can loan players at any time (subject to a few limits) then sign then permanently in the next window.

[madmickb]

According to tonights Watford observer Tommy Smith has been given permision to talk to a unamed club and it's not Reading looks like we might have missed out Hammond farting about trying to penny pinch

[Royal Lady]

As per the tommy smith thread on UR&G - Portsmouth are in for him. Hmmm - be interesting if he doesn't come to us now, seeing as he allegedly really really wanted to play under Rodgers again...

[Gordons Cumming]

Let's hope we have a Plan B then, eh, RL?

[Royal Lady]

LOL

Yeah right!

[Son of Len]

Let's hope we have a Plan B then, eh, RL?

Plan B: Noel and Bignall returning to full fitness - like having new signings!

[wolsey]

Let's hope we have a Plan B then, eh, RL?

Plan B: Noel and Bignall returning to full fitness - like having new signings!

Think you are being a bit unfair there - apparently the Under 15's have a wealth of talent.

Sorry, obviously a cheap shot there, but what has happened to our our scouting network?

Why entrust our future plans on a player who has not proven himself anywhere outside Vicarage Road, and whose employers have been quoted as saying they "Wouldn't sell us a virus"

Smacks of naivity to me - although that does appear to be the favoured approach at the moment.

[Southbank Old Boy]

Let's hope we have a Plan B then, eh, RL?

Plan B: Noel and Bignall returning to full fitness - like having new signings!

Have you not learnt anything from seeing the likes of Chuch and Long struggle?

Bignall has done alright against the likes of Burton, but he isnt really any than the others, thats why he has always been behind them in the queue for a start

Give him a couple of years of being a bit part

[Royalwaster]

Let's hope we have a Plan B then, eh, RL?

Plan B: Noel and Bignall returning to full fitness - like having new signings!

Have you not learnt anything from seeing the likes of Chuch and Long struggle?

Bignall has done alright against the likes of Burton, but he isnt really any than the others, thats why he has always been behind them in the queue for a start

Give him a couple of years of being a bit part

Plan C - Kebe back in the team! Will be nice to see Royalee losing his rag ...

[Terminal Boardom]

Plan C - Kebe back in the team! Will be nice to see Royalee losing his rag ...

I have heard that Steve Coppell is returning on a part time consultancy basis. I know someone within the same legal fraternity as Wood-Smith and suffice to say were on the golf course this morning.

[lovetoscore]

Its all very well for BR to say we are going to sign some new players but I think we will struggle to attract anyone with quality now. Would you sign if you were Tommy Smith as we look far more likely to be relegated than Watford after scoring a pathetic 1 goal in 4 games and that came from a cb! He must be thankful we only offered 0.9m for him.

If we were going to sign anyone we should have done it before this season started

Lets hope we can get some players on loan at least otherwise league 1 here we come

[Avon Royal]

Its all very well for BR to say we are going to sign some new players but I think we will struggle to attract anyone with quality now. Would you sign if you were Tommy Smith as we look far more likely to be relegated than Watford after scoring a pathetic 1 goal in 4 games and that came from a cb! He must be thankful we only offered 0.9m for him.

If we were going to sign anyone we should have done it before this season started

Lets hope we can get some players on loan at least otherwise league 1 here we come

Ah yes, but you see Tommy Smith probably knows something about football..........

So us and Ipswich are going down eh?