by Woodcote Royal »
07 Jul 2011 14:14
Svlad Cjelli Schards#2 Svlad Cjelli But all our successful signings have been cheapish ones where we've spotted the potential and built on it.
All our crap signings have been expensive ones where we thought we were getting a "finished product" and got a liability instead.
So long may value buys continue.
This is true and the club has done spectacularly well in buying cheap players that have progressed into quality players. However, in the long term the house always wins, you cannot defy gravity and you cannot keep selling players for millions and replacing them with players for thousands without it having a long term drag on performance.
I'd rather we sought to keep the players we've made into the finished article rather than buy the finished article elsewhere.
In an ideal world so would I, but this isn't an ideal world. The financial muscle of Reading FC is so slight that we can't keep the players we've improved - whilst the same is true of just about every club in the world, it seems to hurt us more because we're so good at finding and improving players.
I'd put this another way. The rank stupidity within our fan base just beggars belief and clearly stretches well into middle age and beyond.
If we had a financial hole in our accounts, it's now gone up in smoke and whilst their are clubs who are willing to engage vastly over rated managers like SGE, who must be one of the biggest money pits the game is has ever known, there's no reason why clubs like RFC can't continue to make millions out of buying and selling the likes Doyle, Kitson, Long and (amazingly) Matt Mills.
Furthermore, I would take issue regarding our financial clout. Where did Leicester finish last season? Where were they a few seasons ago? In division 1. I'm a Mills fan but if he's worth £5 million it's time to flog my old wellies on EBAY and take a month off
Everytime this happens we get richer and they will probably end up the poorer.
We should all be doing cartwheels for the rest of today and our serial wrist slitters (rather than crying into their beer because we will, quite rightly, be spending fraction of the proceeds on a replacement) should ponder the fact that it appears we TURNED DOWN £3.75m for Mills before accepting a higher offer. How does this equate with the percieved money grapping qualities of our Chairman and how many financially weak clubs could contemplate such financial
brinkmanship? If anyone still thinks we're busting a gut to sell Long for anything other than the very best price Nick Hammond can squeeze out of potential suitors, it's time to give your self up to someone wearing a white coat.
From this day forward, Squeeky walks on water and Brian should have the very capable Ian Harte, along with those vital free kicks, pencilled in for central defence and I'd be amazed if our search for an accomplished left back hasn't been under way for weeks...............................the net result being that both our defence and current account should start the new campaign in better shape than they finished the last whilst there's more chance of hell freezing over than the same applying to Leicester.
QED