The ITK thread sponsered by Friday's Legacy and Big Mike

[Maguire]

For my 2 pennies worth - firstly, at the very beginning, big Mike didn't originally say the "meltdown" was Gylfi - but when pushed (mainly by me) he gave enough clues for it to be quite clear he was talking about Gylfi without actually saying so.

FL also told us about Gylfi - anyone who believes Jonny Fordham over those two, needs their heads testing imo.

Finally, for all the stick I got about being a WUM and not being ITK on anything, I would point out that I haven't said ANYTHING at all about Gylfi or Pog or any other signings - because I haven't been told. Had I been a WUM I'd have joined in - instead I've been asking questions and getting thoroughly over excited about the prospect of Gylfi coming back.

My ITK was about TSI - and the delays - and there were delays - whether it was solely the PL/FL causing the delays due to work load or whether there were some legs in the info I was given, we may never know. But you shouldn't just label everyone as a WUM because they certainly aren't all WUM and some really are ITK. You risk never hearing anything in the future and taking what Jonny says as gospel! Good luck with that!

Nobody cares about you love, and BigMike is just a bullshitter. Please stop posting.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

I've got a tremendous amount of respect for the work that posters like IS and FL do but I get the feeling that some posters on here are looking at the positive news they bring and then attaching more 'truth' to it than the stark colder story that Jonny tends to write.

Bear in mind that Jonny and any professional journo, especially local ones who rely heavily on co-operation from the club, will be given far less speculation, and printable off the record news than somebody who is a friend of a poster on HNA? or on Twitter.

If you were a Reading club official, you'd be far happier slipping something to a friend that's going to be hard to trace and hard for national outlets/other clubs etc to take seriously. However if you slip that info to Jonny and it's printed then it can be far more damaging for yourself and the club, especially if something goes awry.

Also as other posters have suggested there could be a great number of different interpretations to events that happen during a transfer. Reading can legitimately say there's been no official club meeting with Sigurdsson or Hoffenheim when perhaps there was an informal chat at a bar between McDermott and Gylfi etc. In those circumstances both the 'ITK' group and Jonny can be right. The difference is that fans get far more riled up when a journo keeps throwing in transfer target names only for the moves to not materialise than when the journo downplays the move and suddenly the club sign them.

Maybe it's a personal preference but I'm much happier with papers towing the official line and only reporting stories when they have something more concrete to report. What good has it done this board knowing there was a whisper of us maybe possibly being in discussions with Gylfi? It's led to some being hyped, others frustrated we've missed out and expectations soaring. I much prefer the pleasant surprise of a signing being confirmed then a long drawn out Tommy Smith-esque saga.

Again not suggesting Fordham is perfect or that the ITK brigade have got anything wrong, just questioning why some people are getting so wound up about it.

This...

there is an element of the emporers new clothes about those ITK. We found out about mccleary because of camberly royal being in the right place at the right time, pog rumours came via the papers (and there is no clear steer about whether this is off or on by those supposedly itk) which leaves us with tsi where there was some knowledge but ultimately no one actually mentioned this before tsi first did the January deal. Sig has not been picked up at all so totally taking on trust..mariappa abs Rhodes can be filed in players reading may or may not be interested in

the breathless speculation would lead us to think that sone people have got a tap on Hammonds phone but the reality is very different... And I have to say even today stuff has come out that further undermines some other sTuff.

Ultimately does any of this stuff actually change who is on the pitch on 18 august... If some who are itk take offence then fine as ultimately its difficult to ser what advantage people are getting other than raised expectation..

[Royal Lady]

For my 2 pennies worth - firstly, at the very beginning, big Mike didn't originally say the "meltdown" was Gylfi - but when pushed (mainly by me) he gave enough clues for it to be quite clear he was talking about Gylfi without actually saying so.

FL also told us about Gylfi - anyone who believes Jonny Fordham over those two, needs their heads testing imo.

Finally, for all the stick I got about being a WUM and not being ITK on anything, I would point out that I haven't said ANYTHING at all about Gylfi or Pog or any other signings - because I haven't been told. Had I been a WUM I'd have joined in - instead I've been asking questions and getting thoroughly over excited about the prospect of Gylfi coming back.

My ITK was about TSI - and the delays - and there were delays - whether it was solely the PL/FL causing the delays due to work load or whether there were some legs in the info I was given, we may never know. But you shouldn't just label everyone as a WUM because they certainly aren't all WUM and some really are ITK. You risk never hearing anything in the future and taking what Jonny says as gospel! Good luck with that!

Nobody cares about you love, and BigMike is just a bullshitter. Please stop posting.

We'll see.

[Elm Park Pasty]

The trouble with the Gylfi sceanrio is that the site was always going to go potty with excitement at the first mention of any communication between club and player. I don't think anyone ever actually said he would definitely be returning but such a frenzy of excitement was whipped up, that once things started to go awry (seemingly with THFC) intervention, bloodletting started. However, if you go back to the start it only ever mentioned discussions, nothing concrete, and even then LFC were in the hotseat. In Pog's case there seemed a number of people who were a position to feed titbits into the mix but as the announcement was delayed, the mud slinging has again begun.

Our trouble seems to be that we are having a bit of an identity crisis. We are not used to spending HUGE and the mere fact that we are even considering doing that seems to have fed into the frenzy the board is currently experiencing. Every titbit or bit of gossip is seized upon and dissected minutely for possible sources and how truthful the poster must be. You then have two sets of readers, one sucks the stories up as certainties, the other wants to decry them because they can't be proved.

There is also the 'little Reading' element. Even when we were leading the Championship we were off the radar, we still are now to a degree, no journos are really interested in us so there probably aren't that many stories circulating about us as they figure no one is interested. This probably feeds into the mix that it gives more prominence to the titbits some of the readers of the board are getting because it is pretty much the only info we are getting. I am guessing until we make a couple of large signings, this is going to continue to be the way things are.

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

The trouble with the Gylfi sceanrio is that the site was always going to go potty with excitement at the first mention of any communication between club and player. I don't think anyone ever actually said he would definitely be returning but such a frenzy of excitement was whipped up, that once things started to go awry (seemingly with THFC) intervention, bloodletting started. However, if you go back to the start it only ever mentioned discussions, nothing concrete, and even then LFC were in the hotseat. In Pog's case there seemed a number of people who were a position to feed titbits into the mix but as the announcement was delayed, the mud slinging has again begun.

Our trouble seems to be that we are having a bit of an identity crisis. We are not used to spending HUGE and the mere fact that we are even considering doing that seems to have fed into the frenzy the board is currently experiencing. Every titbit or bit of gossip is seized upon and dissected minutely for possible sources and how truthful the poster must be. You then have two sets of readers, one sucks the stories up as certainties, the other wants to decry them because they can't be proved.

There is also the 'little Reading' element. Even when we were leading the Championship we were off the radar, we still are now to a degree, no journos are really interested in us so there probably aren't that many stories circulating about us as they figure no one is interested. This probably feeds into the mix that it gives more prominence to the titbits some of the readers of the board are getting because it is pretty much the only info we are getting. I am guessing until we make a couple of large signings, this is going to continue to be the way things are.

Absolutely no place on this board for sensible posts like that.

[Ian Royal]

I think it's largely down to two things. Everyone desperately wants Gylfi and has been saying we should give it a crack for ages. And Reading haven't played a game for over a month and won't be playing another for almost two months, so its the only thing to talk about.

[Vision]

The trouble with the Gylfi sceanrio is that the site was always going to go potty with excitement at the first mention of any communication between club and player. I don't think anyone ever actually said he would definitely be returning but such a frenzy of excitement was whipped up, that once things started to go awry (seemingly with THFC) intervention, bloodletting started. However, if you go back to the start it only ever mentioned discussions, nothing concrete, and even then LFC were in the hotseat. In Pog's case there seemed a number of people who were a position to feed titbits into the mix but as the announcement was delayed, the mud slinging has again begun.

Our trouble seems to be that we are having a bit of an identity crisis. We are not used to spending HUGE and the mere fact that we are even considering doing that seems to have fed into the frenzy the board is currently experiencing. Every titbit or bit of gossip is seized upon and dissected minutely for possible sources and how truthful the poster must be. You then have two sets of readers, one sucks the stories up as certainties, the other wants to decry them because they can't be proved.

There is also the 'little Reading' element. Even when we were leading the Championship we were off the radar, we still are now to a degree, no journos are really interested in us so there probably aren't that many stories circulating about us as they figure no one is interested. This probably feeds into the mix that it gives more prominence to the titbits some of the readers of the board are getting because it is pretty much the only info we are getting. I am guessing until we make a couple of large signings, this is going to continue to be the way things are.

Yes and the fact that it alleviates the usual off season boredom. Some people are taking it all far too seriously.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Can we rename this thread "standing on a box, shouting about myself".

[muddyfeet]

Can we rename this thread "standing on a box, shouting about myself".

+1

[TheLawnMowerMan]

Maybe it could be called "I'm ITK, and so is my wife"

[TheLawnMowerMan]

I think the big question for those ITK is why the sudden torrent of information...

All scurrying in a panic!! The game is up!!

It would appear that the journo who actually does work for the local paper and who we know does talk to Hammond may actually be > HNA? ITK's

[mr_number]

https://twitter.com/Signings_TDD/status ... 3443691520
1.31pm "Reading appear to have missed out on category 1 status"

https://twitter.com/JonnyFordham/status ... 4315708417
2.14pm "Royals Academy hasn't been inspected yet - AZ is keen to continue investing in youth. More coaches to be added soon"

[Pepe the Horseman]

Lulz. 2-0 Fordham.

[ZacNaloen]

That's a case of being given information and reading more into it than there is.

He saw that these clubs have been granted cat 1 status and Reading weren't on there. Then extrapolated from there (i reckon)

[Maguire]

https://twitter.com/Signings_TDD/status/217958443443691520
1.31pm "Reading appear to have missed out on category 1 status"

https://twitter.com/JonnyFordham/status ... 4315708417
2.14pm "Royals Academy hasn't been inspected yet - AZ is keen to continue investing in youth. More coaches to be added soon"

Oof, it's all falling apart for the internet heavyweights.

[Z175]

Signings TDD was a good secondary source to being with, collating info from mainstream media and wannabe ITKs and regurgitating it.

But then it went downhill pretending to be factual, with comments like "100% sure Tottenham have not bid for Gylfi" and the academy rubbish above etc.

Twitters great for gossip, but it needs to be admitted to be such. E.g. "My source in media/rfc/another club has no knowledge of a spurs bid"... or "I have seen the approved list, waiting for confirmation"

People give Jonny Fordham/EP a hard time, but he waits until he receives confirmation. This means you can at least trust his stories to be true, even if he only beats the OS by a day or two. Sure he feeds on what the club tell him, such as the Alf story that Brian denied on Radio, but in general when was he ever wrong about something anyone was "ITK" about?

[LoyalRoyalFan]

All going downhill for Signings_TDD

[Mike Hunt]

All going downhill for Signings_TDD

What does the TDD stand for?

[Bumblebee]

All going downhill for Signings_TDD

What does the TDD stand for?

Total Dog's Dinner

[Extended-Phenotype]

All going downhill for Signings_TDD

What does the TDD stand for?

Probably an "independent Ireland" or some sh/t, f/ckin' jokers.