NO LONGER A RUMOUR - Bongani Khumalo

[Hoop Blah]

Svlad, you are just as guilty propagating the notion “all proven transfers end up sh/t”, as I am of all unknown ones.

On another thread I asked the question: who in our current side deemed a ‘success’ started out a cheap anonymous transfer?

I’ll tell you the answer: none of them. Only one fits the second part of that criteria, but is far from a success – ALF.

The best players? Proven players, brought in for decent money.

That's the reality, bud.

A total misrepresentation on there. My position is that instead of the knee-jerk assumption that because a player is cheap he must be shit, I'm happy to hold fire and see how he plays and what he does before making judgement.

I also subscribe to the view that when you buy a cheap player your taking minimal risk, so you only need one player in 50 to turn out to be a "nugget" - and they fund all of the others.

Above all, Reading's success in the last 10 years has been founded on the mantra of "young, hungry players with something to prove." That's directly in opposition to "proven players" - to them it's just another club, just another job, just another place to go along and pretend to kiss the badge.

We have also in the past bought good established players to bring out the best from those young and hungry players (Ingimarsson for example) and to help nurture them along.

Do you not accept that there is an opportunity cost to taking quite so many punts on find the next nugget? How many players can we afford to stockpile? How much do their wages total up to and then stop us bringing in one or two decent players (young and hungry in an ideal world) who will almost certainly cost more.

It's not easy to spot talent and then integrate it successfully but we seem to have signed some right duffers in the last 5 or 6 years. I know it's not the done thing to be critical of the clubs scouting but surely the likes of Baseya are extreme gambles and we've got very little chance of players like that coming good. I don't think our record is that great at it to be honest.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Svlad, you are just as guilty propagating the notion “all proven transfers end up sh/t”, as I am of all unknown ones.

On another thread I asked the question: who in our current side deemed a ‘success’ started out a cheap anonymous transfer?

I’ll tell you the answer: none of them. Only one fits the second part of that criteria, but is far from a success – ALF.

The best players? Proven players, brought in for decent money.

That's the reality, bud.

A total misrepresentation on there. My position is that instead of the knee-jerk assumption that because a player is cheap he must be shit, I'm happy to hold fire and see how he plays and what he does before making judgement.

I also subscribe to the view that when you buy a cheap player your taking minimal risk, so you only need one player in 50 to turn out to be a "nugget" - and they fund all of the others.

Above all, Reading's success in the last 10 years has been founded on the mantra of "young, hungry players with something to prove." That's directly in opposition to "proven players" - to them it's just another club, just another job, just another place to go along and pretend to kiss the badge.

We have also in the past bought good established players to bring out the best from those young and hungry players (Ingimarsson for example) and to help nurture them along.

Do you not accept that there is an opportunity cost to taking quite so many punts on find the next nugget? How many players can we afford to stockpile? How much do their wages total up to and then stop us bringing in one or two decent players (young and hungry in an ideal world) who will almost certainly cost more.

It's not easy to spot talent and then integrate it successfully but we seem to have signed some right duffers in the last 5 or 6 years. I know it's not the done thing to be critical of the clubs scouting but surely the likes of Baseya are extreme gambles and we've got very little chance of players like that coming good. I don't think our record is that great at it to be honest.

To take the first point, why is everyone assuming that there won't be more signings this window, and more experienced ones at that? I think there could quite easily be.

And again, we're talking about "efficiency" of spend rather than "total spend" - whilst we can loan players out and see how they devlope, and whilst Hogwood has the capacity and we have the number of coacghes we have, I don't think there is any significant opportunity cost - it's a team game so it's as easy to coach 15 players as it is 10 (plus you have more felxibility in what you can do training-wise). The wages we're talking about for fringe players is minimal - less than 10% a first-teamer. So if one gamble in 10 pays off we're in profit.

[loyalroyal4life]

I love the first page of this thread.

How pissed off must Redknapp be that Bongani got oxf*rd all experience in 5 months (so far)

He was only bought to increase Spurs exposure over in Africa, think fact he can't even come close to first team at Reading serves this theory well!

[FiNeRaIn]

excited by this.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

excited by this.

Cue him scoring a hat-trick on Saturday

[Hoop Blah]

To take the first point, why is everyone assuming that there won't be more signings this window, and more experienced ones at that? I think there could quite easily be.

I've not said for one minute that we won't possibly sign other 'proven' or immediate first team players, in fact a number of times I've said I hope that will follow. I was merely replying to your point that our success was built on young and hungry players when our successful sides have included a good proportion of older experienced pro's.

As for the lack of opportunity cost, I can't believe that the club don't have an upper limit on the players they'll take on. If they didn't I'm sure they'd keep more of the talented youth players for a start. I think they'd also find it more and more difficult to attract and keep (and keep happy) more than x number of players so that in itself creates a natural maximum.

[M-U-R-T-Y]

Sonko and Khumalo. Wouldn't be displeased with that to be fair.

Best post IMO.

[YateleyRoyal]

He does have a quite awesome name. Would look good on my new home shirt

How did that work out for you?

[Wimb]

Gone back to Tottenham, hardly surprising.

Didn't think he was quite as dire as some made out but wasn't ready to hit the ground running in a way we needed.

Best of luck back at Spurs but I'm sure we'll see him in the Championship/League One fairly soon....

[Z175]

Gone back to Tottenham, hardly surprising.

Didn't think he was quite as dire as some made out but wasn't ready to hit the ground running in a way we needed.

Best of luck back at Spurs but I'm sure we'll see him in the Championship/League One fairly soon....

On loan to AS Monaco

[Optimist]

Cue Pearce and Gorkss getting injured/suspended and we have to rely on a Connolly-Gunnarsson partnership. Cos it must be "part of the season where we having to rely on Brynjar" time soon...

[melonhead]

thanks bongani for playingin our win at leicester- just didnt ever seem good enough after that though

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

thanks bongani for playingin our win at leicester- just didnt ever seem good enough after that though

Do you have the stats to back that up?

[Maguire]

I don't know if I ever even saw this dude play - I was on holiday in August.

So long, Um Bongani

[pea]

To be fair I thought he looked better than O'Dea ever did for us, and the whole defence was a bit of a shambles at the time he was in the team. I wouldn't have been too upset if he had needed to come in once our back 5 was more settled as this season has progressed, but I think Connolly will be a far more seamless replacement for any of the back four.

[1871 Royal]

I don't know if I ever even saw this dude play - I was on holiday in August.

So long, Um Bongani

[floyd__streete]

Whatever happened to this absolute FAILURE of a signing then? Did he play in that epic reserve win against Reading University? Does he go back in Jan so we can sign someone else, providing the financiaLOL bLOLack hoLOLe allows.

amazing levels of LOL

Floyd > Brendy

[grey_squirrel]

Was on bench warming duties at Anfield last night.

[melonhead]

Whatever happened to this absolute FAILURE of a signing then? Did he play in that epic reserve win against Reading University? Does he go back in Jan so we can sign someone else, providing the financiaLOL bLOLack hoLOLe allows.

amazing levels of LOL

Floyd > Brendy

only ever cover for CB, played in a great win at LOLeicester


well done floyd

[moo]

Was on bench warming duties at Anfield last night.

Unbelievable really...

He will probably end up becoming a star.