How Long Will BM Last at this rate?????

[melonhead]

Lets just buy six shit players then.

[Extended-Phenotype]

said 40 million actually
but thats not the point at all.



surely you all want us to at least spend what QPR, saints have spent
or else how ill we stay up against them.



we had a budget.
the budget was spent.

moaning we should have spent more is irrelevant and pointless

You are right, it isn’t the point.

The point is we operate within constraints which make a transfer success story extremely difficult, especially at this level.

Those arguing that this is a doomed policy are not advocating the abandoning of sense and regard for the club.

It’s rather irritating that this can’t be discussed without carrying the opponents proposition beyond its natural limit, creating a straw man or reframing the argument entirely, and I don’t see what is irrelevant or pointless in questioning the clubs approach, especially when it feels like a lesson we should have already learnt.

I appreciate that there will always be examples of high investment not showing a return and disastrous overspending leading to club instability, but when you have a foundation like ours, I don’t think a bit more ambition in the market would have resulted in either of these pessimistic prophecies.

Rather than searching for exceptions to support our current ineffective policy, we should be looking at our own examples and noticing that at this level, our policy has resulted in relegation.

You may have confidence in the rumour we spent our budget, but it doesn’t seem to hold water. And whatever twist and turn the argument takes it cannot avoid the simple fact that we were once again thrifty, and once again left wanting in quality.

It slips peoples minds that spending actually got us out of the championship in the first place. It doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to admit spending again might keep us from returning to it. We have an excellent base to build on, a team of grafters – adding a touch of class to this would surely have seen us bettering our current position. Sadly we cut corners and are faced with the reality that our new additions can barely break into the team we were supposed to be improving.

If that isn’t a relevant observation I’m not sure what is.

[melonhead]

daily express, chronicle, and sky sports

Fair enough, it was a genuine question, I'd not seen that story rehashed all over the place. Do we trust McDermott's version of the truth knowing how he's been a little economical with the truth in the past?

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a bit more scope to play with though, but that's me being cynical about the things I hear from those involved in football.

As with previous windows, if his hands were tied, I'd like to have seen us be a bit more proactive in moving players on to free up space on the wage bill. If we'd got rid of the likes of Church or Tabb then perhaps we'd have been able to bring in a Keith Andrews or Danny Murphy type player to add more Premier League experience to the side.

no problem, glad to help!


i believe brian-think hed just come out and say it if he had more but chose not to spend it, hes that kind of bloke


im not having criticism of jay tabb though!

the mistake is buying guthrie, and partly as a result, pog.
but i dont think many people would look at their previous prem games and think that before they came here
these things happen-even alex ferguson buys a djemba djemba every now and then

[melonhead]

said 40 million actually
but thats not the point at all.



surely you all want us to at least spend what QPR, saints have spent
or else how ill we stay up against them.



we had a budget.
the budget was spent.

moaning we should have spent more is irrelevant and pointless

You are right, it isn’t the point.

The point is we operate within constraints which make a transfer success story extremely difficult, especially at this level.

Those arguing that this is a doomed policy are not advocating the abandoning of sense and regard for the club.

It’s rather irritating that this can’t be discussed without carrying the opponents proposition beyond its natural limit, creating a straw man or reframing the argument entirely, and I don’t see what is irrelevant or pointless in questioning the clubs approach, especially when it feels like a lesson we should have already learnt.

I appreciate that there will always be examples of high investment not showing a return and disastrous overspending leading to club instability, but when you have a foundation like ours, I don’t think a bit more ambition in the market would have resulted in either of these pessimistic prophecies.

Rather than searching for exceptions to support our current ineffective policy, we should be looking at our own examples and noticing that at this level, our policy has resulted in relegation.

You may have confidence in the rumour we spent our budget, but it doesn’t seem to hold water. And whatever twist and turn the argument takes it cannot avoid the simple fact that we were once again thrifty, and once again left wanting in quality.

It slips peoples minds that spending actually got us out of the championship in the first place. It doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to admit spending again might keep us from returning to it. We have an excellent base to build on, a team of grafters – adding a touch of class to this would surely have seen us bettering our current position. Sadly we cut corners and are faced with the reality that our new additions can barely break into the team we were supposed to be improving.

If that isn’t a relevant observation I’m not sure what is.

not a rumour. its a cast iron quote, on three seperate occasions, from three seperate sources/interviews
pretty clear imo.



doesnt make a blind bit of differece if that money isnt there and available, you can go on about the idea being doomed to fail, but t is what it is,


maybe theyre willing to risk relegation rather than the financial bother that saw us focedto sell half our squad last time we went down, take the parachute money, continue to build slowly and sustainably, and keep doing so,


i like the idea.

you dont

i agree to disagree

[Royalclapper]

Lets just buy six shit players then.

We have.

[Lacoste]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

[melonhead]

how are shorey, mcleary, marriappa, guthrie gunter and pog shit exactly?


shoreys probably player of the season
mcleary is decent, looks dangerous when he plays, has played a fair few games
marriappa has looked decent enough in an unsettled back 4 alongside calamity gorkss
gunter hasnt covered himself in glory in the same dodgy back line, but is miles away from shit
everyone creamed over guthire and pog when bought,




maybe theyre not working as a team currently, maybe the quaity isnt quite what is required to stay up in the final analysis, but theres no doubt the squad is much better now than it was at the end of last year, and thats all you can ask for if you dont have unlimited piles of cash

[melonhead]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

stopped reading there

[andrew1957]

I also get very angry about the Brain failed in the transfer window rubbish. A year ago everyone was saying he was a wonder worker on a low budget.

It looks like we spent about 10M in the summer - including wages on new players (it was only a net 2.4M - purchases 4.8M less sales and Gylfi sell on fee - totalling 2.4M). This is a tiny budget by PL standards when you have the likes of Southampton spending about 40/50M on transfers plus wages for new players - yes 4/5 times as much.

So Brian brought in:

Shorey - free - good decision
Pog - free - seemed like a good decision but jury out as he does not seem as good at holding the ball up as Roberts.
McCleary - free - good decision IMO. He looks lively and adds to the squad.
Guthrie - free - looked like a good decision. PL player but one who does not seem to have fitted in yet. May or may not have been injured for most of the season anyway.
Gunter - 2.3M - not a lot for a highly rated Championship RB. Jury out - certainly needs to improve but we hardly broke the bank. A top young PL RB would have cost 5M plus.
Mariappa - 2.5M - as above. Could yet be a key player in the future. A proven PL CB would cost at least 7-8M.
Taylor - free - back up keeper so we could let Andersen out on loan. Good decision but unlikely to ever play.

So Brian addressed the main weaknesses in the squad despite only spending a fraction of what our competitors spent.

Could he have got any more value for a total spend of 10M. I really don't see it.

[windermere_royal]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

you`ve given them the ammo.

[Lacoste]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

stopped reading there

You're a joke.

[Hoop Blah]

not a rumour. its a cast iron quote, on three seperate occasions, from three seperate sources/interviews
pretty clear imo.

You do realise that it's just one quote, re-used by a number of outlets?

As for Tabb, and Guthrie/Pog being the mistakes, I don't agree. They're not bad players so I don't think they're mistakes as such. If the manager bought them I'm assuming he had intentions to use them, and so I'd fathom from that that he knew we needed to change our style of play somewhat in order to be competitive in this division.

The mistake is not being able to change that style and not being able to integrate them into the squad. If they're just bad eggs then yes I'd agree their signings would be mistakes.

As for Tabb, he's put in a good shift, but he's not as good a player as Leigertwood or Karacan (hence being behind them in the pecking order since the latter signed) and ideally he should've been moved on over the summer and another better player added. When he's played he's done ok up to a point, but he isn't good enough to be playing week in week out at this level and that's the kind of player we need.

[Lacoste]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

you`ve given them the ammo.

I trust what I have been told.

[melonhead]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

stopped reading there

You're a joke.

excellent argument asual

i cannot take this intellectual pummelling any longer

please, spare me.
your arguments are just too strong

[Hoop Blah]

I also get very angry about the Brain failed in the transfer window rubbish. A year ago everyone was saying he was a wonder worker on a low budget.

It looks like we spent about 10M in the summer - including wages on new players (it was only a net 2.4M - purchases 4.8M less sales and Gylfi sell on fee - totalling 2.4M). This is a tiny budget by PL standards when you have the likes of Southampton spending about 40/50M on transfers plus wages for new players - yes 4/5 times as much.

So Brian brought in:

Shorey - free - good decision
Pog - free - seemed like a good decision but jury out as he does not seem as good at holding the ball up as Roberts.
McCleary - free - good decision IMO. He looks lively and adds to the squad.
Guthrie - free - looked like a good decision. PL player but one who does not seem to have fitted in yet. May or may not have been injured for most of the season anyway.
Gunter - 2.3M - not a lot for a highly rated Championship RB. Jury out - certainly needs to improve but we hardly broke the bank. A top young PL RB would have cost 5M plus.
Mariappa - 2.5M - as above. Could yet be a key player in the future. A proven PL CB would cost at least 7-8M.
Taylor - free - back up keeper so we could let Andersen out on loan. Good decision but unlikely to ever play.

So Brian addressed the main weaknesses in the squad despite only spending a fraction of what our competitors spent.

Could he have got any more value for a total spend of 10M. I really don't see it.

Not sure I agree on the review of the signings there. Gunter, although younger than I thought he was and so it's perhaps not quite as relevant, had already shown at Spurs that he wasn't up to Premier League standard. Furthermore he was just a like for like signing and too similar to Cummings in age, experience and quality.

Mariappa has looked suspect to me, and McDermott apparently, and he cost £2.5m. For a bit more we could've got a centre half with Premier League experience, it really doesn't take £7-8m to pick one up (the likes of Collins, Cueller, Bassong, Turner all moved over the summer and would've potentially been good, experienced additions - potentially freeing up Mariappa to play fullback if we really wanted him).

I thought the positions he bought in were about right, but we didn't strengthen the starting 11 enough for my liking.

It's picking holes a bit, and easier with a bit of hindisght of course, but if we didn't have more money to spend then I think a better use of free transfers and loans would've made sense instead of spending £5m on Mariappa and Gunter, neither of which were a big enough improvement on existing players.

[Extended-Phenotype]

said 40 million actually
but thats not the point at all.



surely you all want us to at least spend what QPR, saints have spent
or else how ill we stay up against them.



we had a budget.
the budget was spent.

moaning we should have spent more is irrelevant and pointless

You are right, it isn’t the point.

The point is we operate within constraints which make a transfer success story extremely difficult, especially at this level.

Those arguing that this is a doomed policy are not advocating the abandoning of sense and regard for the club.

It’s rather irritating that this can’t be discussed without carrying the opponents proposition beyond its natural limit, creating a straw man or reframing the argument entirely, and I don’t see what is irrelevant or pointless in questioning the clubs approach, especially when it feels like a lesson we should have already learnt.

I appreciate that there will always be examples of high investment not showing a return and disastrous overspending leading to club instability, but when you have a foundation like ours, I don’t think a bit more ambition in the market would have resulted in either of these pessimistic prophecies.

Rather than searching for exceptions to support our current ineffective policy, we should be looking at our own examples and noticing that at this level, our policy has resulted in relegation.

You may have confidence in the rumour we spent our budget, but it doesn’t seem to hold water. And whatever twist and turn the argument takes it cannot avoid the simple fact that we were once again thrifty, and once again left wanting in quality.

It slips peoples minds that spending actually got us out of the championship in the first place. It doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to admit spending again might keep us from returning to it. We have an excellent base to build on, a team of grafters – adding a touch of class to this would surely have seen us bettering our current position. Sadly we cut corners and are faced with the reality that our new additions can barely break into the team we were supposed to be improving.

If that isn’t a relevant observation I’m not sure what is.

not a rumour. its a cast iron quote, on three seperate occasions, from three seperate sources/interviews
pretty clear imo.



doesnt make a blind bit of differece if that money isnt there and available, you can go on about the idea being doomed to fail, but t is what it is,


maybe theyre willing to risk relegation rather than the financial bother that saw us focedto sell half our squad last time we went down, take the parachute money, continue to build slowly and sustainably, and keep doing so,


i like the idea.

you dont

i agree to disagree

1) A quote repeated by Brian is hardly fact.
2) More to the point, if a bigger budget ISN'T there, surely it IS relevant to discuss that it should be?
3) For someone who dislikes the idea of gambling, you seem quite easy about betting on us holding onto players and returning to the top flight so easily.


But yeah, we've never agreed on this to be fair. You think spending money on a player means the club explodes in a ball of flames, and that the minimum amount of players you buy in the transfer market is 20. Buying three or four good ones is ilegal and would result in the entire club and it's fans going to prison.

And you are right, I disagree with that.

[melonhead]

not a rumour. its a cast iron quote, on three seperate occasions, from three seperate sources/interviews
pretty clear imo.

You do realise that it's just one quote, re-used by a number of outlets?

As for Tabb, and Guthrie/Pog being the mistakes, I don't agree. They're not bad players so I don't think they're mistakes as such. If the manager bought them I'm assuming he had intentions to use them, and so I'd fathom from that that he knew we needed to change our style of play somewhat in order to be competitive in this division.

The mistake is not being able to change that style and not being able to integrate them into the squad. If they're just bad eggs then yes I'd agree their signings would be mistakes.

As for Tabb, he's put in a good shift, but he's not as good a player as Leigertwood or Karacan (hence being behind them in the pecking order since the latter signed) and ideally he should've been moved on over the summer and another better player added. When he's played he's done ok up to a point, but he isn't good enough to be playing week in week out at this level and that's the kind of player we need.

clearly three seperate quotes, worded totally differently. clearly taken from 3 different conversations.
its always the same with you, you ask for sources, i supply them, and theyre just never good enough!

theyre from a series of press interviews given in the run up to the QPR game.
yes hes repeating the same thing since hes being asked the same question. but its not one quote, its three

"With the budget I have got in comparison to the clubs around us, things are what they are. I've spent that budget already, but I know the players I have brought in will do it for me,"

“The money I had I spent,” he said. “Yes, our squad cost a fraction of everyone else’s in the division but that’s where we are"

"What I don't want is any mixed messages coming out. I knew what my budget was in the summer and my budget was spent. I'm waiting to see what my budget will be in January."

[MmmMonsterMunch]

I will stand by what I have been told and have no reason to lie, it comes from someone very senior at London Irish who has regular meetings with both boards and has been on social events with both boards. We had more cash to spend and if he loses to Villa, he is gone. Anton doesn't trust him with the cash we have available anymore.

I will stand by this and if it doesn't happen, feel free to laugh at me then.

stopped reading there

You're a joke.

Au contraire. You are the joke & so is your senior 'connection' at London irish who has sweet FA to do with Reading FC.

Why would anyone within RFC give out confidential information to essentially external parties like that?

You've had the knives out for Brian from the get go. I dearly hope he can get some points on the board & then I can stick a big 2 fingers up to all the cnuts on here wanting him out.

[melonhead]

not a rumour. its a cast iron quote, on three seperate occasions, from three seperate sources/interviews
pretty clear imo.

You do realise that it's just one quote, re-used by a number of outlets?

As for Tabb, and Guthrie/Pog being the mistakes, I don't agree. They're not bad players so I don't think they're mistakes as such. If the manager bought them I'm assuming he had intentions to use them, and so I'd fathom from that that he knew we needed to change our style of play somewhat in order to be competitive in this division.

The mistake is not being able to change that style and not being able to integrate them into the squad. If they're just bad eggs then yes I'd agree their signings would be mistakes.

As for Tabb, he's put in a good shift, but he's not as good a player as Leigertwood or Karacan (hence being behind them in the pecking order since the latter signed) and ideally he should've been moved on over the summer and another better player added. When he's played he's done ok up to a point, but he isn't good enough to be playing week in week out at this level and that's the kind of player we need.

i dont think they were mistakes either tbf, they were an attempt, with limited resource to give us a plan B, change our style when required, and they may still work out tbf. plus pog has scored 5 goals

tabb is good enough as back up for us, in this squad, and has shown more than that on occasion

[Lacoste]

excellent argument asual

i cannot take this intellectual pummelling any longer

please, spare me.
your arguments are just too strong[/quote]

As was your "stopped reading there" one.