Oh, What A Lovely Defecit!

[brendywendy]

if youve been good enough to get an england call up, you deserve to play at a higher level, and deserve your chance if it comes.dont begrudge him that at all.
and im not even saying his drop in form was intentional, or out of sulking.
but it did piss me off, no dowt.

[Royal Rother]

You'd certainly hope he is, especially with his relationship with McDermott being so strong.

Would you have said the same about Hunt before he seemed to throw his toys out? He owed the club a lot for his rags to riches tale and supposedly had a really good relationship with Coppell (hence his signing for us).

Long seems pretty level headed most of the time but he has shown his petulant side at times, and he did have his little moment basically being critical of the stick he was getting before Christmas. It might not be a case of throwing his toys out, more just a 5/10% drop in motivation which can have a massive impact at this level (I don't think Hunt really meant to go out and be as shit as he was but when he didn't have a point to prove or a contract/transfer to win he slacked off).

Hunt was always an arrogant, gullible, stupid little shite. You can't blame him as much as Shorey, for being played by his agent. Shorey on the other hand never came across as particularly thick or gullible and I don't get the feeling he was being played by his agent.

I don't think Long's as stupid, gullible or arrogant as Hunt.

I'm sure it's fair to say Hunt was distracted by the rumours (more specifically probably by his agent) but as I said at the time, I never detected a drop in his energy / effort levels when he played during that time, he was just bang out of form.

Pretty much everything about a footballer's life these days is about getting the most money out of the game. He may not be the most intelligent bloke in the game but since arriving at RFC he put in a huge amount of effort to improve and did so dramatically whilst wearing the hoops. Fair play to him for that and, as a result of that hard graft and relatively limited natural talent, he has done bloody well for himself.

He always struck me as a naturally shy and understated character off the pitch who rarely got involved in any "Big-I-Am" rubbish so it feels to me like you are being more than somewhat harsh on SHunt. I suspect he was badly advised and in the "offending" interviews he had been encouraged to come right out of his normal shy comfort zone which just didn't work so he put people's backs up good and proper.

Anyway, I still have a lot of time for him as a player.

[Svlad Cjelli]

if youve been good enough to get an england call up, you deserve to play at a higher level, and deserve your chance if it comes.dont begrudge him that at all.
and im not even saying his drop in form was intentional, or out of sulking.
but it did piss me off, no dowt.

But it was sulking - pure and simple.

The real irony is that it wasn't sulking that he'd been denied a move by us - but that no offers were received about the value agreed by him and the club. The window after Leighton Baines had gone to Everton for £6M, we received a derisory offer of a couple of million only from West Ham (I think it was....).

As both SC & NS agreed he was much better than Baines, and the offer received was much less than the "value" agreed in his contract, the offer was declined by the club without being put to NS (as per his contract.) At that point toys came out of his pram and he sulked the rest of the season.

I think the club still remember that episode well.

[brendywendy]

you know better than i.thats for sure.

but at his age- if i try to step away from the natural hostility that engendered when one of our own, a player who we made, makes it clear he doesnt want to be here anymore, you can sort of see why he wanted out. he wouldnt have long left before his pace went any further, and this was his last real opportunity to get not only a bumper pay deal in the prem, but also a real chance of winning something, or at least furthering his england career.

that said, im not forgiving him at all, no siree

[Northern Git]

I'm telling you that just about everyone in the club doesn't want him to leave, includinbg those who hold the purse-strings. But they're reconciled to the fact that he will be leaving, because there is on significant person at the club who does want him to leave - his initials are SL and he has the decisive vote.

Well nice to see you have gone 'definative' on this. I am so happy to take your post as gospel, however such a strong statement as ' I am telling you' does actually deserve a little authenticity, I take it you can confirm that you have spoken to, and confirmed with, all the relevant parties that what you state is true?

Just interested.

[Northern Git]

I can't see any possible way that that Long will stay with us. The club would love him to, but it just ain't gonna happen!

McDermott yes, his fellow players yes, us the fans yes, probably even Long himself, but I rather suspect others at the top of the club just see £ signs along side his name now

Oh come on. The club would love Long to sign a new contract and stay. Any notion we'd be selling players to top division clubs against their will is ridiculous.

Er, not sure if my memory serves me well, , dim and distant past and all that, but.............. Gylfi Sigurdsson, the man who (quote Brain McDermott) we were building a team around. And before you ask, yes, I did have the pleasure of having a chat with Gylfi after his transfer.

[Northern Git]

You dont have to be polite mate, its just the way I feel it is. Are you really telling me an offer (at or about his value) will be turned down? Wish I had your faith, and will be happy to hold my hands up and say I was wrong if (when) any such offer is turned down and the club issue a statement he is not for sale as we are building the team round him.

Opps sorry just re read your post - did you mean that the bit about McDermott, fellow players (OK perhaps not Church), us fans or Long himself was incorrect?

Thing is it's not about RFC deciding to sell, it's about clubs wanting to buy and making offers at, or above, a value that the club will have in their heads for the player....
Put yourself in the clubs shoes for a moment. Let's say a club, perhaps Newcastle, comes along and offers £8M for Long - for a striker that's done the business for only the last six months or so that's very strong money - so what do the club do?
Long's made no secret of the fact he'd love to play in the PL, and it's not like he won't be aware of the offer - all that has to happen is someone from NUFC drop his agent a text, the message will get through.
So what do you propose the club do? Turn down the offer out of hand? Given that he wants to play in the PL that could lead to a very unhappy player, and I suspect an unhappy Long would be unlikely to produce the goods on the pitch given that one of his key strengths is his work rate.
The only other option is to put the offer to the player, at which point the matter is pretty much out of the clubs hands - it's Longs decision to make, does he want to play in the PL, or stick with Reading for a while and take a chance on us?

A lot of people on here seem to think that Reading treat players as commodities, to be bought and sold at will - I don't believe that's the way it works at all, the players definitely have a say in what happens, at least they do while they're under contract....


Has anyone considered that the reason that McD seemed so pissed off after the Mills transfer might have been because Mills himself took the decision to go? Despite interest from other clubs Mills had verbally indicated that he intended to stay at Reading, Ingi and Kish were allowed to go (I guess with McD assuming he'd have Mills in the squad) then McD gets the news that Mills is off..... If Mills had indicated to me that he planned to stay, and I'd made some key decisions based on that, then he upped and left, I'd probably be a bit miffed.....

At the end of the day, most of what you see on here is hearsay and supposition - very few, if any on here have any idea what goes on behind closed doors at the club, however, one thing is certain; RFC is a business and is governed by business law - that means that the annual accounts have to be accurate, and they show that SJM hasn't taken any money out of the club whatsoever recently - anyone adopting a "where's the money gone" or "SJM is asset stripping the club" attitude really needs to grow up and live in the real World......

So the RFC business plan that most people on here would agree about, including the magnificant leader of the RTG brigade, Brendy, of filling any shortfall between income and expenditure (wont say the B**** H*** word as it upsets RR's sensibilites) by selling players is not treating them as commodities? (English dictonary definition; an article or raw material that can be bought and sold)

Would agree with the last paragraph, governed by business law etc. The real world also includes inter company trading, purchase of goods and materials etc. As I have said previously I would love to spend a few hours perusing the management accounts. And before anyone starts I am not suggesting in any way shape or form that there is anything underhanded, illegal, or otherwise dodgy about RFC's accounts, their accountants, or anybody involved in RFC limited, MM hotels limited or RFC PLC. Its simply an interest about how the day to day 'nuts and bolts' way the Madejski empire works

[SpaceCruiser]

Long's made no secret of the fact he'd love to play in the PL, and it's not like he won't be aware of the offer - all that has to happen is someone from NUFC drop his agent a text, the message will get through.

There's a name for that sort of thing and it's called "Tapping up".

[Cypry]

So the RFC business plan that most people on here would agree about, including the magnificant leader of the RTG brigade, Brendy, of filling any shortfall between income and expenditure (wont say the B**** H*** word as it upsets RR's sensibilites) by selling players is not treating them as commodities? (English dictonary definition; an article or raw material that can be bought and sold)

OK - poor choice of phrase - what I was getting at is that a few seem to believe that the club sells players at will like sheep in a market, and the players themselves have no choice in the matter. I don't believe this to be true for one minute...granted, it seems that we need to sell players each year to break even, but I doubt very much that the process is quite as simple as the club deciding who they're going to sell and forcing the player out (as some would suggest is the case)....

There's a name for that sort of thing and it's called "Tapping up".

.....and you're saying it doesn't go on I suppose?

[Big Foot]

The club forced Gylfi to leave last summer, he wanted to stay

[SpaceCruiser]

There's a name for that sort of thing and it's called "Tapping up".

.....and you're saying it doesn't go on I suppose?

No, simply that it's wrong and should not be part of football.

[Svlad Cjelli]

There's a name for that sort of thing and it's called "Tapping up".

.....and you're saying it doesn't go on I suppose?

No, simply that it's wrong and should not be part of football.

It's inevitable and unstoppable, though. In an ideal world maybe - but this is a long way from being an ideal world.

[brendywendy]

You dont have to be polite mate, its just the way I feel it is. Are you really telling me an offer (at or about his value) will be turned down? Wish I had your faith, and will be happy to hold my hands up and say I was wrong if (when) any such offer is turned down and the club issue a statement he is not for sale as we are building the team round him.

Opps sorry just re read your post - did you mean that the bit about McDermott, fellow players (OK perhaps not Church), us fans or Long himself was incorrect?

Thing is it's not about RFC deciding to sell, it's about clubs wanting to buy and making offers at, or above, a value that the club will have in their heads for the player....
Put yourself in the clubs shoes for a moment. Let's say a club, perhaps Newcastle, comes along and offers £8M for Long - for a striker that's done the business for only the last six months or so that's very strong money - so what do the club do?
Long's made no secret of the fact he'd love to play in the PL, and it's not like he won't be aware of the offer - all that has to happen is someone from NUFC drop his agent a text, the message will get through.
So what do you propose the club do? Turn down the offer out of hand? Given that he wants to play in the PL that could lead to a very unhappy player, and I suspect an unhappy Long would be unlikely to produce the goods on the pitch given that one of his key strengths is his work rate.
The only other option is to put the offer to the player, at which point the matter is pretty much out of the clubs hands - it's Longs decision to make, does he want to play in the PL, or stick with Reading for a while and take a chance on us?

A lot of people on here seem to think that Reading treat players as commodities, to be bought and sold at will - I don't believe that's the way it works at all, the players definitely have a say in what happens, at least they do while they're under contract....


Has anyone considered that the reason that McD seemed so pissed off after the Mills transfer might have been because Mills himself took the decision to go? Despite interest from other clubs Mills had verbally indicated that he intended to stay at Reading, Ingi and Kish were allowed to go (I guess with McD assuming he'd have Mills in the squad) then McD gets the news that Mills is off..... If Mills had indicated to me that he planned to stay, and I'd made some key decisions based on that, then he upped and left, I'd probably be a bit miffed.....

At the end of the day, most of what you see on here is hearsay and supposition - very few, if any on here have any idea what goes on behind closed doors at the club, however, one thing is certain; RFC is a business and is governed by business law - that means that the annual accounts have to be accurate, and they show that SJM hasn't taken any money out of the club whatsoever recently - anyone adopting a "where's the money gone" or "SJM is asset stripping the club" attitude really needs to grow up and live in the real World......

So the RFC business plan that most people on here would agree about, including the magnificant leader of the RTG brigade, Brendy, of filling any shortfall between income and expenditure (wont say the B**** H*** word as it upsets RR's sensibilites) by selling players is not treating them as commodities? (English dictonary definition; an article or raw material that can be bought and sold)

Would agree with the last paragraph, governed by business law etc. The real world also includes inter company trading, purchase of goods and materials etc. As I have said previously I would love to spend a few hours perusing the management accounts. And before anyone starts I am not suggesting in any way shape or form that there is anything underhanded, illegal, or otherwise dodgy about RFC's accounts, their accountants, or anybody involved in RFC limited, MM hotels limited or RFC PLC. Its simply an interest about how the day to day 'nuts and bolts' way the Madejski empire works

do try and keep on subject.no need to mention my name in that post at all really.

[Royal Rother]

Or mine. My senIsbiliteis have been upset.

[Wimb]

The club forced Gylfi to leave last summer, he wanted to stay

Sauce?

[brendywendy]

Or mine. My senIsbiliteis have been upset.

mine too.

i go out of my way to help stop these people labouring under their misapprehensions, and this is the thanks i get.
i dont know why i bother sometimes

[Cypry]

The club forced Gylfi to leave last summer, he wanted to stay

Sauce?

Me too - I keep hearing this, but I've never seen anything from Gylfi to that effect....

Forced is a strong word, I agree that it's possible that Gylfi said in conversation that he "didn't want to leave", but that's a World apart from being forced to go....

It's all about the context in which it's said - I didn't want to drive 3-4 hours and do a meeting at 4pm in Manchester last week, but for my career, it was the right thing to do, so I did it....

There's loads of things in life that we don't want to do, but we believe it's the right thing to do at the time - I strongly suspect that on occasions that Gylfi has said he didn't want to go, then that was the kind of context he was talking in....

[brendywendy]

dont have to assume anything tbf- thats exactly what he said in the interviews

[Svlad Cjelli]

The club forced Gylfi to leave last summer, he wanted to stay

Sauce?

Me too - I keep hearing this, but I've never seen anything from Gylfi to that effect....

Forced is a strong word, I agree that it's possible that Gylfi said in conversation that he "didn't want to leave", but that's a World apart from being forced to go....

It's all about the context in which it's said - I didn't want to drive 3-4 hours and do a meeting at 4pm in Manchester last week, but for my career, it was the right thing to do, so I did it....

There's loads of things in life that we don't want to do, but we believe it's the right thing to do at the time - I strongly suspect that on occasions that Gylfi has said he didn't want to go, then that was the kind of context he was talking in....

Plus, of course, would you expect him to say anything else when talking to a supporter?

[brendywendy]

yes, i hated your club and couldnt wait to leave m8