Mcd says we haven't got any cash....

[glass half full]

Having read carefully through the arguments, I am surprised that no-one has mentioned the 'hidden investment' of the Academy, which is beginning to bear fruit and, by reputation , attract some very 'tasty' young players. I can't help thinking that many clubs will be looking enviously at this structure.
I wish, however, that we had a young CB who could walk with confidence into the first team.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Another really surprising comment in the press What's he meant so say? "Yes we have loads of dosh sloshing about just looking for a defender and a striker".

This club has naff all money and nothing will be spent to aid our supposed promotion bid unless players go and we have no choice.

Oh and LOL to anyone who thinks we're going to be going up this year, despite the comedy comments from the chairman. Top 10 if we're very lucky and have a wind behind us....

Overall just goes to show what a total disaster Premiership football is for anyone who doesn't survive more than 2/3 seasons there and isn't a so called "big club".

[Hoop Blah]

Another really surprising comment in the press What's he meant so say? "Yes we have loads of dosh sloshing about just looking for a defender and a striker".

This club has naff all money and nothing will be spent to aid our supposed promotion bid unless players go and we have no choice.

Oh and LOL to anyone who thinks we're going to be going up this year, despite the comedy comments from the chairman. Top 10 if we're very lucky and have a wind behind us....

Overall just goes to show what a total disaster Premiership football is for anyone who doesn't survive more than 2/3 seasons there and isn't a so called "big club".

I just don't buy the idea that comments in the press have any effect on our perceived wealth and budget in the minds of those involved in transfers.


How about a bit of honesty (if he is just playing down our budget) to say we're looking to add to the squad but we have a tight budget and will only do the business we can afford to...a bit like Holloway did just the other day.

[Sharpy]

o dear

anyone want to help me run a supporters kitty, perhaps we could buy a players and pay for wages?!

20quid from 20,000 (although i'm sure some would do more) = £400,000

[Once were Biscuitmen]

Every single year......

As Pompey, Hull, Cardiff et al flirt with oblivion Reading are once again implored to "gamble" on Premiership millions. We are a well run club, even if we are relegated there will still be a Reading FC to watch.

I don’t really buy this, “suckered into buying a Season Ticket argument,” either. The number of people who seem to say that they fall for this cunning ruse annually seems to cast significant doubt on Pavlov’s theories on learning and conditioning.

The, “just sell up” plea is also tiresome. Do you know of any indulgent Billionaires willing to subsidize a loss making Berkshire business so we can all take pictures of, ‘Stevie G’ on our camera phones?

[Wycombe Royal]

So Hull can potentially find the money to sign Robert Koren (his wages won't be that cheap and nor will the signing on fee) but they can't afford to pay us for Hunt.

THe sooner the FL place immediate transfer embargoes (loans and frees included) on clubs who default on transfer payments to other clubs the better.

[Royal Rother]

...other clubs who have had far less income than our's in the last 5 years are doing fine.

Who are you thinking of?

I know there are many different ways of looking at this but there won't be many / any clubs who have been / are in the Premier League, had less income than we have, and be in a more stable position financially than we are right now.

The fact is that we ARE doing fine - we just won't gamble with the club's / chairman's money. And remember some gambles pay off (Birmingham) and others don't (Hull). Personally, I'm happy the club doesn't flirt too closely with danger.

The fact that 6 or 7 of the club's Academy players are likely to be comparitive regulars this season, and at least another 6 or 7 are likely to feature at some stage indicates that the club is being extraordinarily well run in some respects. I actually don't have knowledge of how other clubs (who you might consider "are doing fine") are doing with their player / youth development programmes but there won't be many / any clubs of similar size who have invested as successfully in their Academy as we have over the last decade or so (and stuck with it).

We have so much to be grateful for, and optimistic about.

[Hugo Boss]

I haven't even got the energy to LOL at the idiots moaning about the Chairmen. Again.

[rob the royal]

Well the way i see it is even if alex pearce was as good as we are always told he is (or at least has the potential to be) we still need another centre back. But IMHO Pearce is not up to much which makes the need for another centre back even more pressing. The injury to Mills only highlights the problem. Gunnarsson and Ingimarsson both could easily be in an out all season with various ailments and that only leaves us with Cummings and Kelly as extra defensive options.

So - what would I have liked to see McDermott say:

"We'd still like to add one more face to the squad. Obviously last season we had Darren O'Dea and then Zurab Khizanishvili on loan and we've lost Khalifa Cisse as back up. Unfortunately we don't really have any ready-made solutions from the Academy that are ready for first team action just yet so we really need to look at doing something there. The money is tight so it'll probably have to be another loan but I've talked to the Chairman and he said if we can find the right deal for the right money then we might be able to make something happen and he understands why we need to try and get something done. We know from experience how tough this division can be and how easily you can get yourself stuck at the bottom of the table - so we want to go into the season with a complete squad if we can and have cover in all the right areas."

But I guess despite the fact that we are told the club's finances are in a stable condition compared to other clubs - something we've seen first hand from those standard and poor's ratings of club finances - actually the club must be in a real mess if we can't afford one more player even on loan when it's vital.

As i've said before getting relegated because of having a thin squad would not IMHO be a good business plan.

[Royalwaster]

Clubs like Scunthorpe always amaze me - they are said to have no money, but seem to manage to sign some cracking players; maybe it was a one-off but their two centre-backs played really well against us on Saturday .... and their LB looked good too (i.e. they managed to replace Williams with not too much fuss). Where do they sign their players from?

[Wycombe Royal]

Clubs like Scunthorpe always amaze me - they are said to have no money, but seem to manage to sign some cracking players; maybe it was a one-off but their two centre-backs played really well against us on Saturday .... and their LB looked good too (i.e. they managed to replace Williams with not too much fuss). Where do they sign their players from?

Left back McNulty is on loan from Brighton.

Mirfin cost £150k from Huddersfield 2 seasons ago and Rob Jone was a free transfer from Hibs last summer.

If we signed these players there would be even more outcry than there is over us having no money.

[clauski]

It's not just a CB we need, we will continue to struggle up front where we need a regular, free scoring, clinical finisher that would enable us to play 4-4-2 when required. Long and Church are both half decent players but goals was a problem last season on the whole and we haven't exactly started well on that front now. Specific, considered investment in 2 players that could make the return to the Premier League a real possibility, or continue to play it safe - I've never known a millionaire businessman to be so risk averse!!

[brendywendy]

Perhaps we should all have refused to pay less for our season tickets

agreed


reverse the price slash!

[brendywendy]

The thing that pisses me off the most is we (both the club and some idiots on here) say we're a 'well-run' club. How can you spend as little as we did when we went up, sell the amount of players we did without replacing them and have a squad full of players on low contracts having come through the youth system, get rid of 3 coaching staff's wages and not replace them in December last year and STILL not be able to afford to bring in a centre back on a free and have to sell MORE players. Madejski's bleeding the club dry and needs to leave, he's undoing all the excellent work he did in his previous years at the club with absolute short-sightedness verging on complete stupidity since we went up in 2006.

what a surprise- things dont start well and royalee starts up his anti club diatribe again.

bleeding th eclub dry is lolworthy.


before we went up to thepromised land we were making a 6 million pound loss every frickin year.
when we went up he doubled the wage bill, and payed alot out in building up our infrastructure( the kind of stuff that consolidates your position as a club)
JM cant afford that any more, so we have to spend what we get in, to do that we must reduce our outgoings.he has payed a million a year to run the academy, and is now demanding that we get something back. and to be fair thats worked, as many of the yoof coming through look pretty special indeed.

a well run club is one thast does not spend more than it can afford, and that uses its academy well.
thats us imo.

wait till the loan market fires up before slagging what we are doing.

[rob the royal]

Left back McNulty is on loan from Brighton.

Mirfin cost £150k from Huddersfield 2 seasons ago and Rob Jone was a free transfer from Hibs last summer.

If we signed these players there would be even more outcry than there is over us having no money.

What like the outcry when we signed some left back from Scunthorpe on a a free...

Anyway, in reply to the guy who said we could be aiming for promotion with 2 players - yes if we had an extra striker and a cracking centre back we'd be pushing for top spots in this division but personally I think that we NEED a centre back just to ensure that we don't struggle this season. Good teams are built on solid defences - if we have a makeshift defence you just watch our strikers dry up - remember when Church and Long couldn't score a goal between them.

I reckon with Long Rasiak Church Hunt and a few youngsters sniffing around we've got enough up front - it's more than we had last year anyway.

Ah for those days when we were making a 6 million loss every year but we could afford to buy players like Lita, Harper, Kitson and Sidwell AND we were still a so-called well run club.

[brendywendy]

But you can reach the Prem without spending money. Isn't that what Reading have done in the past and what Blackpool did last season? You can have ambition if you spend wisely...

though obviously if you have the money to buy in proven talent you would hope you stood a more solid chance of promotion but that's by no means guaranteed and risky if you fail and can't fund the fallout from it.

agreed

05/06 team cost <5 million to assemble, the most expensive of which was the 1 million pound gift of lita from JM

Shall we take back all the awards Madejski got for these 'gifts' then seeing as he's taking them back? He didn't benefit at all from celebrity status and all the honours he got when we went up? How naive some people are...

what in the name of jehovah are you prattling on about?

what do you think his celebrity status is worth exactly? in cash?
how naive are you if you think that compensates him for the years of 6 million outlays on RFC


and the point of the post you have quoted, is to inform people like you that investment/cash does not = success/promotion as we did it that year on less than 5 million in total. only 2 Cbs, and a load of free transfers.
so what you are saying doesnt even make sense.

again

[brendywendy]

Perhaps if the daft old coot stopped spouting BR style BS, like being determined to reach the Premier League, and instead preached caution and consolidation, he would not get the stick and abuse that he gets on here. If BMcD manages to keep us in the Championship, he will have done a brilliant job.

He does he talks about cutting the cloth and he gets crucified for it. He can't win.

100% true

[brendywendy]

If only we spent money the way Portsmouth did now there is a well run club. Damn you Madejski damn you to hell ya B@stard.

A.Mong, Reading

TBF, Portsmouth business model gave them a plethora of internationals, an F A Cup win, a second cup final and european football, after which they crashed and were left in he championship with a threadbare squad.

Reading's model brought relegation and a few years in the championship culminating this season with us still in the championship and with a threadbare squad.

A cynic could ask which is the more successful model.

the answer is still the same though. pompey are still on the verge of going under.
we are just a bit short of cash.

[rob the royal]

lack of investment however can equal the opposite of promotion...

[brendywendy]

Perhaps if the daft old coot stopped spouting BR style BS, like being determined to reach the Premier League, and instead preached caution and consolidation, he would not get the stick and abuse that he gets on here. If BMcD manages to keep us in the Championship, he will have done a brilliant job.

He does he talks about cutting the cloth and he gets crucified for it. He can't win.

He'd win a bit more if he spent any of the money when we got in the Premiership, hadn't prattled on about having to 'cut our cloth' when we spent f*ck all anyway and he pocketed it instead. Our wages will be amongst the lowest in the league with all the youngsters we have in our first team, yet we supposedly have nothing to spend despite raking in over £15 million in transfers since we went down, plus parachute payments, plus the money we saved by spending next to nothing when we went up...and that's before you even get to the amount of players we've released and savings we've made on coaching staff. People jumping to Madejski's defence are shit at maths.

that ssir is libellous.
he didnt take any money out of the club
and doubled the wage bill from 15- >30million quid.
you are an ignorant fool. the books are there to look at. why dont you just look at them before slagging off the club.