Well done McDermott and Hammond - Positive transfer window

[Cypry]

Yes, I'm sure it is likely that Ince or Sig would have given us a better chance of staying up.

But they might not have fitted in. They might not have wanted to come, whatever the money. They might have been disruptive to the team ethic through breaking the wage structure. They might have insisted on having no relegation clause. They might have got injured and barely played a game. Etc. Etc.

All these things are considerations which the boo-hoo boys on here completely ignore. Other clubs, with gamblers at the helm, probably consider these issues as well, then think, "fcuk it, let's do it anyway" and enjoy the worship and accolades that come their way for a few days until it becomes apparent that the signings have made bugger-all difference to the team, just emptied the club's pockets of any contingencies required in the event of failure.

Our club do not, ever, say "fcuk it, let's do it anyway" and that is why we are so stable, not reliant on one man's sugar-daddy generosity, and others are unstable.

What about the vast majority of clubs, who don't take the attitude "fcuk it, let's do it anyway", but make a rational judgement of the risks you've listed and come to the conclusion that they are worth taking?

Sorry to post the same thing again, but if like brendy you constantly ignore the middle ground and talk only of cutting our cloth or financial armageddon, you'll keep getting it.

But the thing is, we are taking the middle ground....net spend this Window was in excess of £3M, which puts us somewhere around 10th in the spending table for Premier League clubs. Had the Gylfi deal come off, we'd probably have been third!!!!

It's interesting seeing what Brian said this morning that the deal for Gylfi had been going on for some time and we put three different offers in.....makes me think that although we probably enquired about Ince, and even put an offer in, it might have been orchestrated to try to force Spurs to move more quickly on the proposed deal....

I'm pretty happy with what we've done - right back was an obvious weakness and Kelly is an improvement there, adding experience to our back four. Akpan seems to have something about him, he's young and I'm sure he will make mistakes, but he's a good buy IMO. Carrico obviously has pedigree, and it's unfortunate that his fitness is not quite there, but if Leigertwood can keep up his recent performances then we don't have an urgent need for him right now. Blackman is an unknown at the moment, but has been pitched as one for the future by the club and that's the way I see it.

Yes, it would have been nice to have got a decent CAM in, and we obviously tried to get Sig with this in mind. Guthrie will do a job there and so can Jobi, if needed. You never know, if Akpan keeps it up, he could even do a job there for us.....

We've turned a corner recently, started to learn how to win games at this level, and given Brians consistent ability to pull together decent runs in the second half of a season, I'm starting to actually think we could stay up.....confidence around the side must be massive at the moment, and we really have some momentum....no, we're not dominating teams, but then we didn't really do that much last year and ended up winning the league!!!

[melonhead]

you have become a terrible poster

im ashamed to have laughed at your stuff in the past

Your transformation into an RFC propaganda machine has brought you down in my estimations brendy. I don't think I could possibly man-hug you any more, but would probably still accept you as my commune leader.

youre no longer welcome

the barbarian hoardes can have you as far as i care.


ive always been positive about the club. always broadly agreed with their business dealings and general ethos.
but thats simply because i like our approach, and think its the right one.

nowt to do with propaganda, or toeing party lines. ill happily criticise the club when i think its warranted.

it just so happens that almsot every decision they make, that i attempt to reason through from their point of view, seems reasonable.

just cos you hate the club and everything they do, doesnt mean i have to.

[melonhead]

I am glad that we didn't sign Ince, as I think he wants to return to Liverpool and £8m is a lot to spend on an unproven premiership player. In saying that there is no doubting his ability but I just don't see that he would have been the difference as to whether we go down or stay up this season.

So from that perspective, what would your grand plan be?

Buy enough Inces to make the difference as to whether we go down or stay up?

Or not buy anyone and hope we do it on the cheap?

Why does one player have to make the absolute difference? What's wrong with saying 'this guy would improve our team, let's go for him'?

there are a multitude of other options between the two sides youve presented.


weve bought ten new players since the summer. and spent alot of money by our standards. every problem position has been adressed(other than ACM) which we tried to do with mutiple mega millions bids.
im happy with that

[cmonurz]

just cos you hate the club and everything they do, doesnt mean i have to.

[cmonurz]

But the thing is, we are taking the middle ground....net spend this Window was in excess of £3M, which puts us somewhere around 10th in the spending table for Premier League clubs. Had the Gylfi deal come off, we'd probably have been third!!!!

Pretty meaningless stat, but other clubs have spent more at different times - Villa and West Ham for example spent a lot of money in the summer.

[melonhead]

They are the ones who won't be there next year if we are relegated.

That's not about making up stories about bids though, is it?

That's a reason the club doesn't want to get relegated. Why would they sit around thinking "oh, those fukkwits on HNA will notch a 12 page moan if we don't look like we've done something. I know, let's say we bid on Thomas Ince"

I'm not saying they put in bids they knew would fail to appease the fans. I'm saying that once they knew that those bids were destined to fail they should

have had other options

.

two options i know about-

two players we knew about, had scouted, tracked,liked, wanted, assessed, valued, and bid for
ince and Sig.

didnt get plan A. tried for plan B, didnt get either
would you plan C be to for someone who wasnt as good, you werent really interested in, didnt think was worth it?

[melonhead]

Don't think a bit more investment would have crippled us and think we were silly not to sign a creative mid, but we shall see.

.

it might not have crippled us. it might have even made a difference, we did try to sign two very expensive attacking midfielders.

like with everything its not about picking 1 extreme side and sticking to it, its about steering the best course between the two extremes as you can, while ensuring that if the worst happens and we go down we are not forced to struggle and sell players we dont want to like last time we went down.


like this man has summed up vvvvvvv its about balance, and i think weve struck it well

On the whole I think we've done a good job of balancing the signings we've made for not being crippling if we go down, but still improving our squad for this season and being likely to hang around.

[Archie's penalty]

Even signing a player for 5million may have made a difference.

By that logic are you happier with the Blackman deal than Akpan? As I'm a little by Nick, but the cameos from Hope have shown some class.

Because Chris Samba cost £12m+ or whatever does that make him better than the £6m or so price tag that he would justify in a normal market?

Would you rather we had re-signed Mills for the price we shifted him on to Leicester for than bringing back Mariappa for less than half that? Is Gunter twice the player Stephen Kelly is? Would you rather have ALF or Torres?

I don't get the obsession with fees. Although it does feel like we are possibly that one player short and Gylfi would have been a sublime signing.

This x a million. End of thread...

[melonhead]

Just got up and finding it quite amusing reading all this.

Despite melonheads club rectum kissing, have we really dramatically improved the squad this transfer window? Of the starting 11 before Jan, there is only 1 change and that was to replace the RB we bought in the summer with an upgraded version. The rest appear very much for next season so buying for the future. Although a sound policy, not what we need now. We have signed 1 player of proven Premiership experience in Kelly, and by no coincidence, he looks the part, but where are the others with the Prem experience the clus stated we so desperateky needed? This is the key and for that I would say in premiership terms this window has been a abject failure. If we go down, it will be for the same reasons as last time, lacking 1 quality player.

always personal. so, so hurtful
dont see whats different from me consistently supporting the clubs attitude and you consistently h8ing it tbf. but if you want to be gay about it, please continue.

at no point have i said these 4 signings have "dramatically" improved the squad.
but they have improved it.

[The Beardy Man]

Just quickly skimmed Twitter and came across this nugget retweeted by the club

Premier League ‏@premierleague
New #FPL players (3/3): DEF Samba (QPR) £5.0m; DEF Yun (QPR) £4.0m; FWD Blackman (RDG) £4.5m; MID Shea (STK) £5.0m; DEF Scharner (WIG) £4.5m
Retweeted by Reading FC

The underlining is mine btw.

That seems to show a fee of 4.5 Million for Blackman. Eyebrow raising if accurate.

edit- looking back at that I am wondering if that represents fantasy football values or some such...In which case I have merely been a bit of a prat....

[melonhead]

No mate, you don't understand. Spending money means administration. Looking at the window ins and outs, that's a hell of a lot of teams going bust!

We can sleep soundly knowing we have avoided relegation by the fact 19 other teams in the league will be bulldozed wastelands by the summer.

strawman


no one said that. youre the only one going on about it. again.

[melonhead]

You seem to be forgetting that Brian McDermott was Chief Scout before he took the manager's reigns.

Therefore, he has more transfer and player knowledge than every single poster on here. I trust the manager to make the right decisions for our beloved football club.

Shame he hasn't got any money to buy them and has no option to resort to looking in the bargain buckett.

We could do a QPR and spend millions on over rated players and still get nowhere.

Just like Melonhead, you are taking the argument to the extreme to prove a point. .

obsessed!
i havent damn you!
i just said im happy we spend what we can afford, what is in line with our incomings, and try to build teams the right way. imo.
i like it, its the way i would run the club if it were mine.
running like this will ensure that regardless of where we finish, the club will not take too much of a hit, and wont require a big rebuild for the championship, while at the same time making at least a fist of trying to stay up.

armaggeddon shmarmageddon.

[melonhead]

I don't think the fee is the problem. It's not being willing to pay a higher fee for a better player.

But don't let rational get in the way of crushing an argument.

says the man who ignores multiple massive bids for better players who would have improved us massively in a position we are lacking in.

[Scutterbucketz]

That's not about making up stories about bids though, is it?

That's a reason the club doesn't want to get relegated. Why would they sit around thinking "oh, those fukkwits on HNA will notch a 12 page moan if we don't look like we've done something. I know, let's say we bid on Thomas Ince"

I'm not saying they put in bids they knew would fail to appease the fans. I'm saying that once they knew that those bids were destined to fail they should have had other options.

Just sign anyone, yeah?

What?!

Because there are no other attacking midfielders around in the World of football?

[Royal Rother]

Interesting point mentioned on the radio yesterday...

In American football, when clubs are looking at potential players they will spend huge amounts of money with private investigators looking into their background, interviewing family, friends, college staff, coaches etc. before they make a decision because they recognise the importance of the personality and how it fits in with the team as a whole.

Over here, despite the huge sums being splashed around clubs will spend millions on a player on the basis of a fcuking YouTube clip or a few games seen on TV.

It has been said on many occasions by Coppell and McDermott how RFC will only sign who we consider the right sort of character, and we do our research to establish exactly that - another example other clubs would do well to follow.

We don't bid for players without doing our research on them. So we can't just say on TDD, oh well, look like we're not going to get Ince, let's make a bid for another similar player. We don't operate like that. That game's for suckers and gamblers who are happy to be held over a barrel whilst being royally screwed for a player they don't even know properly!

Laughable really when you think it through.

[melonhead]

Yes, I'm sure it is likely that Ince or Sig would have given us a better chance of staying up.

But they might not have fitted in. They might not have wanted to come, whatever the money. They might have been disruptive to the team ethic through breaking the wage structure. They might have insisted on having no relegation clause. They might have got injured and barely played a game. Etc. Etc.

All these things are considerations which the boo-hoo boys on here completely ignore. Other clubs, with gamblers at the helm, probably consider these issues as well, then think, "fcuk it, let's do it anyway" and enjoy the worship and accolades that come their way for a few days until it becomes apparent that the signings have made bugger-all difference to the team, just emptied the club's pockets of any contingencies required in the event of failure.

Our club do not, ever, say "fcuk it, let's do it anyway" and that is why we are so stable, not reliant on one man's sugar-daddy generosity, and others are unstable.

What about the vast majority of clubs, who don't take the attitude "fcuk it, let's do it anyway", but make a rational judgement of the risks you've listed and come to the conclusion that they are worth taking?

Sorry to post the same thing again, but if like brendy you constantly ignore the middle ground and talk only of cutting our cloth or financial armageddon, you'll keep getting it.

oxf*rd off dragging me into it you oxf*rd! ive never said financial armaggeddon in my life!

managing risks is about identifying the hazards, the liklihood and probability of them occurring, and the consequences if they do.
each club will look at the risks from their own viewpoint, and for them perhaps the risk is worth it. not least cos theyve spent years overspending to stay in the prem, and if they go down they will have big rebuilding and restructuring jobs to do.
the assessment changes because the consequences of it going wrong for them is worse than for us. the budgets are different,their stadia and income bigger, their owners richer, or more happy to throw money around.all these things affect the risk assessment, shifting the balance of risk from their point of view.
we assess risk from our point of view.not theirs

[Scutterbucketz]

two options i know about-

two players we knew about, had scouted, tracked,liked, wanted, assessed, valued, and bid for
ince and Sig.

didnt get plan A. tried for plan B, didnt get either
would you plan C be to for someone who wasnt as good, you werent really interested in, didnt think was worth it?

What a great, extensive scouting network we have that we can only come up with one former player and a player everyone knows is decent. C should have been someone else of quality. I don't know why some people seem to think there is no one else availble who was better than what we currently have and wouldn't have cost the Earth.

[melonhead]

just cos you hate the club and everything they do, doesnt mean i have to.

glad you appreciated it.

[melonhead]

two options i know about-

two players we knew about, had scouted, tracked,liked, wanted, assessed, valued, and bid for
ince and Sig.

didnt get plan A. tried for plan B, didnt get either
would you plan C be to for someone who wasnt as good, you werent really interested in, didnt think was worth it?

What a great, extensive scouting network we have that we can only come up with one former player and a player everyone knows is decent. C should have been someone else of quality. I don't know why some people seem to think there is no one else availble who was better than what we currently have and wouldn't have cost the Earth.

how long do you want the list to be

what if plan C didnt work
how far down the list do you go?
into players you dont think will improve the squad as much, or at all, in areas we dont want, for money we havent got?

there are players we liked, we went for them, in a big way, it didnt work.
oh well.

[Cypry]

But the thing is, we are taking the middle ground....net spend this Window was in excess of £3M, which puts us somewhere around 10th in the spending table for Premier League clubs. Had the Gylfi deal come off, we'd probably have been third!!!!

Pretty meaningless stat, but other clubs have spent more at different times - Villa and West Ham for example spent a lot of money in the summer.

But not all - give or take a few "undisclosed" fees we're 14th in net spend this year according to the stats from http://www.transferleague.co.uk

Chelsea--------------£72,000,000
Liverpool------------£40,800,000
QPR------------------£38,050,000
Man United----------£36,100,000
Southampton--------£32,700,000
Aston Villa-----------£23,700,000
Stoke-----------------£20,100,000
Sunderland-----------£18,350,000
West Ham-----------£18,250,000
Man City-------------£14,000,000
Newcastle------------£13,300,000
Norwich--------------£9,000,000
Arsenal---------------£8,600,000
Reading--------------£6,700,000
WBA------------------£3,500,000
Spurs---------------- -£1,300,000
Everton------------- -£1,816,000
Wigan--------------- -£1,900,000
Swansea------------- -£3,950,000
Fulham-------------- -£10,500,000