Mills to Leicester 5 Million

[under the tin]

But one player for 2000000 profit is the entire East Stand

Which means the annual operating deficit eats that all up, and in 12 months time, you're back in the same boat.
Is it a business plan, or just a sticky plaster?

[Uke]

But one player for 2000000 profit is the entire East Stand

Which means the annual operating deficit eats that all up, and in 12 months time, you're back in the same boat.
Is it a business plan, or just a sticky plaster?

It is a business plan in football

[Royal Rother]

But one player for 2000000 profit is the entire East Stand

Which means the annual operating deficit eats that all up, and in 12 months time, you're back in the same boat.
Is it a business plan, or just a sticky plaster?

We know that, without drastic surgery, the club will continue to make an operating loss. If we try to change that be reducing wages and support staff / academy / scouting staff then the on-pitch performances will suffer short and long term.

So we appear to have struck a balance that allows us to continue with all the ongoing good work, remain very competitive in the Championship, whilst making a loss that will always be recoverable by selling a player or 2.

It works beautifully and there is no reason to suppose that it won't continue that way. Other clubs in our area are having to cut back on their scouting and academy work so we will get a bigger crop to choose from. We have a good record in the last decade of academy players coming through to the professional ranks, which appeals to Mums and Dads whilst choosing the right place for their son to train and develop.

It seems reasonable to assume it is largely self-perpetuating now but it will only remain that way until some daft sod comes in and gambles on a failed promotion bid that undoes a decade of great vision and meticulous planning and ultimately results in huge cutbacks....

[Elm Park Forever]

Interesting piece in the Wolverhampton paper about missing out on Mills and how Reading pushed the price up in a 'phoney bidding war.'

Wolves’ offer to Reading for the centre-half was actually less than £3million.

Despite only two clubs chasing his signature, Leicester continued to up the bidding on the misunderstanding that the price was being cranked up by rival offers.

In fact, they were only bidding against themselves for a Championship player who could have walked away for nothing when his contract expired in a year’s time.

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/wol ... att-mills/

[Sarah Star]

^
Look like sore losers to me.

[under the tin]

But one player for 2000000 profit is the entire East Stand

Which means the annual operating deficit eats that all up, and in 12 months time, you're back in the same boat.
Is it a business plan, or just a sticky plaster?

We know that, without drastic surgery, the club will continue to make an operating loss. If we try to change that be reducing wages and support staff / academy / scouting staff then the on-pitch performances will suffer short and long term.

So we appear to have struck a balance that allows us to continue with all the ongoing good work, remain very competitive in the Championship, whilst making a loss that will always be recoverable by selling a player or 2.

It works beautifully and there is no reason to suppose that it won't continue that way. Other clubs in our area are having to cut back on their scouting and academy work so we will get a bigger crop to choose from. We have a good record in the last decade of academy players coming through to the professional ranks, which appeals to Mums and Dads whilst choosing the right place for their son to train and develop.

It seems reasonable to assume it is largely self-perpetuating now but it will only remain that way until some daft sod comes in and gambles on a failed promotion bid that undoes a decade of great vision and meticulous planning and ultimately results in huge cutbacks....

All very plausible, but the other side of the argument is that if you increase your income, it minimises the need for cutbacks.

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

i for one am more upset about not being able to see matts missus at games, than i am about matt himself

Brendy just watch Hollyoaks in private

[tee peg]

Interesting piece in the Wolverhampton paper about missing out on Mills and how Reading pushed the price up in a 'phoney bidding war.'

Wolves’ offer to Reading for the centre-half was actually less than £3million.

Despite only two clubs chasing his signature, Leicester continued to up the bidding on the misunderstanding that the price was being cranked up by rival offers.

In fact, they were only bidding against themselves for a Championship player who could have walked away for nothing when his contract expired in a year’s time.

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/wol ... att-mills/

A fool and his money etc etc....

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

^
Look like sore losers to me.

Exactly Sarah....stinks of face-saving by the Midlands press who were so convinced that Wolves had the deal in bag..they were being as arrogant as Moxey and their chairman, and are now having to backtrack...

...wonder if they realise Paul McShane's available...he's Irish...right up McCarthys street ...he's sh*te as well but so are many of the Wolves squad, so he'd fit in quite nicely

[Wimb]

I woke up this morning realising how little I cared about Mills going.

Call it instinct or intuition, but it doesn't feel bad at all.

He just (from my perspective) "wasn't a Reading player"

I feel sure we will find 1-2 decent FBs and probably a LB soon
and I sincerely believe we won't miss Mills.

I'm not expressing myself very well, but of all the RFC players he's the least
I "relate to". He scores a goal, I'm please for the club, not him, whereas Kebe,
Long, Hunt, HRK, Elwood (already) feel "part of Reading FC". It's a family thing.

'greed Snowy

[CayeneMatt]

He's getting 25-30K a week according to the express ?

I thought he'd have gone for more than that. He couldn't have been on much less at our place.

[wolsey]

Interesting piece in the Wolverhampton paper about missing out on Mills and how Reading pushed the price up in a 'phoney bidding war.'

Wolves’ offer to Reading for the centre-half was actually less than £3million.

Despite only two clubs chasing his signature, Leicester continued to up the bidding on the misunderstanding that the price was being cranked up by rival offers.

In fact, they were only bidding against themselves for a Championship player who could have walked away for nothing when his contract expired in a year’s time.

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/wol ... att-mills/

A fool and his money etc etc....

Helped, no doubt, by a certain member of the RFC hierarchy who is sadly (stupidly) misunderstood by a number of posters.

[brendywendy]

He's getting 25-30K a week according to the express ?

I thought he'd have gone for more than that. He couldn't have been on much less at our place.

he was on more like half that tops

[sandman]

I woke up this morning realising how little I cared about Mills going.

Call it instinct or intuition, but it doesn't feel bad at all.

He just (from my perspective) "wasn't a Reading player"

I feel sure we will find 1-2 decent FBs and probably a LB soon
and I sincerely believe we won't miss Mills.

I'm not expressing myself very well, but of all the RFC players he's the least
I "relate to". He scores a goal, I'm please for the club, not him, whereas Kebe,
Long, Hunt, HRK, Elwood (already) feel "part of Reading FC". It's a family thing.

We only have two CB's, one of those hasn't played in this league before, our (obviously annoyed) manager confirmed that none of the money we received yesterday will be used to buy in players which means we will have to sell Shane as well.

Woop de doo break out the bunting.

[BR2]

This sort of topic crops up every time we sell a player for a decent amount of money.
Other than Hunt I can't remember a more unpopular player being sold and well done to Hammond for getting such a good deal.

I have read with interest the accountant's (RR)view on all of this plus John Gaunt's (Woodcote)praising the club fully for having a business model similar to nearly all of the clubs in Divs 1 and 2 ,i.e balance the books by selling the best players because external income streams can never be enough.
Let's not pretend that this is something new,Southampton did the same for years but eventually fell away because you cannot unearth gems every year.
We have had a very good run with the 106 lot plus a good buy and sell deal for Mills but can it be maintained as a business model and still retain Championship status and even get promoted back to the top level after our very brief stay?

I think it is asking a lot of Brian McD ,Hammond et al to keep this fine balance going and I'm not sure that the latest Academy products such as Pearce,HRK,Church and Karacan will bring in big bucks when sold and there does seem to be a big gap between that group and the Academy products of the past 4 years so has that supply line dried up?
Will the cheap buys,Morrison,Williams,The Americans,Antonio etc be non-saleable like Mooney and Bennett who were of similar ilk?

Time will tell of course and I see the business model keeping us in The Championship but we may also do a Southampton and end up back in Div 1-as of today with McD saying that he can't spend any of the Mills money I feel that in the immediate future following the business model we are possibly more likely to slip into Div 1 than get back up to the Premier League.

It appears that there are quite a few on here who wouldn't be too upset by lack of success as long as the club stays in business,as if it is this business model or nothing.
An accountant like RR will take that view but (possibly because the likes of him and Woodcote don't go to games much)regular fans like Avon Royal and Under the tin speak like emotional fans,i.e they see supporting a club as wanting to see the best players and the best level of football and go to watch Reading for that reason and aren't happy just going to see Maidenhead or Windsor or some other small-time set-up where players are hardly any better than we are.

As I see it the current business model works up to a point but it is asking a lot for it to be maintained.
I'm not sure what the alternative is (in my reasonably successful business we don't keep on losing good members of staff and hope that we can replace them with younger models with very little training) and like everybody else here can do nothing about it apart from renewing our season ticket .
I do know that I want to see us back in the Premier League again watching the best players in the country-was it just over 3 years ago that we were watching Henry,Ronaldo and Drogba?-and I feel that with this current business model we won't make it .

Some days I think that the two year stay at the top level was rather pointless as our expectations were raised so much by our chairman and so quickly crushed by that same chairman after such a short period.
People say it is better to have loved and lost rather than never to have loved at all but as fans our love is dictated by others rather than by ourselves and that is so frustrating as seen here by genuine fans having this feeling of helplessness with our love lives being run by other people.
Perhaps I'll just play golf where everything is down to me as an individual and forget about all that travelling and angst associated with the club that I have loved and committed so much time to over the years.
On the other hand having renewed my season ticket......................................................
How ridiculous we football fans are.

[Avon Royal]

A fool and his money etc etc....

Helped, no doubt, by a certain member of the RFC hierarchy who is sadly (stupidly) misunderstood by a number of posters.

If true, it's good work by NH.

Unfortunately it's the kind of trick that will only work once...........

[Uke]

our (obviously annoyed) manager confirmed that none of the money we received yesterday will be used to buy in players

In no way was he pissed off at being asked that question a million times?

He would have been aware of his budgets months ago and agreed who he could let go

[ZacNaloen]

^ Budgets were discussed ages ago.

He knew how much needed to be generated then, and besides some of this "we can't afford to reinvest it in the team" stuff is so that the clubs we are planning deals with don't start asking ridiculous prices because we just came into 5 million quid.

[Sarah Star]

our (obviously annoyed) manager confirmed that none of the money we received yesterday will be used to buy in players

In no way was he pissed off at being asked that question a million times?

He would have been aware of his budgets months ago and agreed who he could let go

I'm not convinced that anyone at the club really wanted to let Matt Mills go. McD might have to change his plans now.

[Agent Balti]

I'm not convinced that anyone at the club really wanted to let Matt Mills go. McD might have to change his plans now.

No, but he was among a small group of players who they knew could attract attention from other clubs...and obviously they knew what he was worth.

As with all deals, players either have clauses or the club informs the player if they want to/are interested in talking to the buying club or not (if the price is right.)