CONFIMRED - Glenn Murray on loan

[GH Royal]

Is it time to start talking down his contribution?

He's been ok... Pog offers more.

I've been doing that for a while now.
His last 37 shots have resulted in 3 goals.
£25K a week on a striker that, since debut, has required over 12 shots for each goal.

As if Derby have valued him at £3.5million... Absolute nonsense story.


Signing Murray for the supposedly agreed fee of £1.5 million, would be a poor move for Reading. He's 31. He'll probably want a contract until 2016. He'll probably want wages very similar to what he's on now. The guy is Pog MkII. And we've not even shifted Pog MkI yet.

Let Murray clear off in January. Sign a striker with a bit of oxf*rd pace, who's not in their thirties, and might possibly be worth more than we bought him for in a few years time.

Agree with this part.

But Murray's goal to game ratio is decent. No one gives an oxf*rd about whether he misses 11 shots for each goal aslong as his goal return per game is still alright.

[Royalwaster]

Think Church's goal per shot ratio was probably better - shame was that he rarely had any shots per game. So maybe we should buy Church back instead?

[Ian Royal]

We shouldn't have to pay anywhere near that. Fee and wages should already have been agreed. If not, everyone should be sacked/resign.

This.
This is what the RFC tubthumpers have been yelling at anyone who dared suggest loaning Murray was a cop-out. If it's not the case I want to see heads rolling, including Ian Royal's.

I'll wait until something actually happens rather than worry about more unreliable speculation ta.

[Royal Ginger]

Is it time to start talking down his contribution?

He's been ok... Pog offers more.

I've been doing that for a while now.
His last 37 shots have resulted in 3 goals.
£25K a week on a striker that, since debut, has required over 12 shots for each goal.

As if Derby have valued him at £3.5million... Absolute nonsense story.


Signing Murray for the supposedly agreed fee of £1.5 million, would be a poor move for Reading. He's 31. He'll probably want a contract until 2016. He'll probably want wages very similar to what he's on now. The guy is Pog MkII. And we've not even shifted Pog MkI yet.

Let Murray clear off in January. Sign a striker with a bit of oxf*rd pace, who's not in their thirties, and might possibly be worth more than we bought him for in a few years time.

Because there's plenty of young quick strikers knocking around that haven't already been noticed by other clubs. We can just go to the young quick and cheap striker farm and pick one up, why not get a multi-pack?. Someone should really tell Hammond because it's clearly not occurred to him that a young quick and cheap striker might be a good thing.

[P!ssed Off]

Is it time to start talking down his contribution?

He's been ok... Pog offers more.

I've been doing that for a while now.
His last 37 shots have resulted in 3 goals.
£25K a week on a striker that, since debut, has required over 12 shots for each goal.

As if Derby have valued him at £3.5million... Absolute nonsense story.


Signing Murray for the supposedly agreed fee of £1.5 million, would be a poor move for Reading. He's 31. He'll probably want a contract until 2016. He'll probably want wages very similar to what he's on now. The guy is Pog MkII. And we've not even shifted Pog MkI yet.

Let Murray clear off in January. Sign a striker with a bit of oxf*rd pace, who's not in their thirties, and might possibly be worth more than we bought him for in a few years time.

Because there's plenty of young quick strikers knocking around that haven't already been noticed by other clubs. We can just go to the young quick and cheap striker farm and pick one up, why not get a multi-pack?. Someone should really tell Hammond because it's clearly not occurred to him that a young quick and cheap striker might be a good thing.

Yes, you're quite right actually. After a bit of research I've been unable to find any strikers under 30, that don't move like a oxf*rd pensioner. They clearly do not exist. Therefore we may as well sign Glenn Murray.

at you, ya daft pcunt.

[P!ssed Off]

It really does beggar belief that every time I suggest buying a quick, young striker you get clowns like RG coming out with the old "they don't grow on trees' line or words equally as pointless.

Quick strikers under 30 will be changing hands in the January transfer window.
Reading, likely won't be acquiring one.
We've set our hearts on an elderly gent, with the movement of a pensioner. In two years time our rivals will sell-on their acquisitions for a profit, whilst we'll be counting down the days until we're finally free from paying a lucrative contract to a player with a resale value of £0. (See Jason Roberts, See Pavel Pogrebnyak).

[paultheroyal]

Whilst I agree with you that we are in desperate need of a pact striker or someone of the Wells ilk your examples are poor.

Pavel was a poor signing acquired by Anton and Roberts was a massive success no matter what way you want to look at it.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I think PO's point is, for an initial bit of extra bucks we would save money in the long term either through resale or by not having to pay someone through semi-retirement.

A bit of vision and investment instead of playing safe all the time, which doesn't particularly justify itself financially.

[ZacNaloen]

To be fair, according to Samrit* if Crystal Palace wanted more than 1.5million we couldn't pay the fee because FFP. Would explain the haggling and then the loan until January when we have more options. Apparently.




*pinches salt

[P!ssed Off]

To be fair, according to Samrit* if Crystal Palace wanted more than 1.5million we couldn't pay the fee because FFP. Would explain the haggling and then the loan until January when we have more options. Apparently.




*pinches salt

I think you've interpreted Samrit's bad English slightly wrong tbf.
"We can spent only 1.5 million pounds until the 1st of Jan, 2015" reads to me that only £1.5 million could be spent before January. i.e. Summer Transfer Budget was £1.5M.

Which fits as I believe Cox and Norwood, our only permanent transfers, were each around £750K.

[ZacNaloen]

To be fair, according to Samrit* if Crystal Palace wanted more than 1.5million we couldn't pay the fee because FFP. Would explain the haggling and then the loan until January when we have more options. Apparently.




*pinches salt

I think you've interpreted Samrit's bad English slightly wrong tbf.
"We can spent only 1.5 million pounds until the 1st of Jan, 2015" reads to me that only £1.5 million could be spent before January. i.e. Summer Transfer Budget was £1.5M.

Which fits as I believe Cox and Norwood, our only permanent transfers, were each around £750K.

Yeah I didn't rule out that we had already spent the 1.5 million budget.

[Ian Royal]

I really don't get why PO has got his knickers in such a twist over Murray, who's been a very good signing so far and is doing a good job.

Strikers are signed to score goals. If they're scoring goals they're doing their job. Murray has an excellent goal to game record. Whether he achieves that with 5 shots or 105 shots is largely immaterial.

Although if it comes down to it, I'd prefer a striker shooting a lot, to a striker not shooting much but with the same number of goals. Frankly it's a bit pathetic to whine about a player who's scoring, just because they're missing a few and don't fit match your really specific desires for the sort of striker we should have.

We've gone from having a line leader who barely shot and had a mediocre scoring record, combined with an occasionally deadly poacher who couldn't hold down a starting place, to having a partnership who are holding down their places and are halfway to the same goal totals in about a quarter of the time. We should be fooking delighted with our striker partnership.

[Royalwaster]

I really don't get why PO has got his knickers in such a twist over Murray, who's been a very good signing so far and is doing a good job.

Strikers are signed to score goals. If they're scoring goals they're doing their job. Murray has an excellent goal to game record. Whether he achieves that with 5 shots or 105 shots is largely immaterial.

Although if it comes down to it, I'd prefer a striker shooting a lot, to a striker not shooting much but with the same number of goals. Frankly it's a bit pathetic to whine about a player who's scoring, just because they're missing a few and don't fit match your really specific desires for the sort of striker we should have.

We've gone from having a line leader who barely shot and had a mediocre scoring record, combined with an occasionally deadly poacher who couldn't hold down a starting place, to having a partnership who are holding down their places and are halfway to the same goal totals in about a quarter of the time. We should be fooking delighted with our striker partnership.

+1

[P!ssed Off]

I really don't get why PO has got his knickers in such a twist over Murray, who's been a very good signing so far and is doing a good job.

Strikers are signed to score goals. If they're scoring goals they're doing their job. Murray has an excellent goal to game record. Whether he achieves that with 5 shots or 105 shots is largely immaterial.

Although if it comes down to it, I'd prefer a striker shooting a lot, to a striker not shooting much but with the same number of goals. Frankly it's a bit pathetic to whine about a player who's scoring, just because they're missing a few and don't fit match your really specific desires for the sort of striker we should have.

We've gone from having a line leader who barely shot and had a mediocre scoring record, combined with an occasionally deadly poacher who couldn't hold down a starting place, to having a partnership who are holding down their places and are halfway to the same goal totals in about a quarter of the time. We should be fooking delighted with our striker partnership.

You've said a lot of nonsense over the years but this ranks quite high up.
Why the oxf*rd would you prefer strikers to be less clinical? How on earth does that make any sense.

There is no 'striking partnership' either. Cox is playing AM and doing a fine job of it. His good form has little to do with Murray, who is playing the role of lone striker. Murray was the 5th last player to touch it for one of Cox's goals against Rotherham. He's played zero role in any of Cox's other 6 goals.

As for Pogrebnyak's 'mediocre' scoring record. Last season he scored 13 goals from 34 starts. Murray is currently on 5 goals from 11 starts. The difference is 0.38 goals per start to 0.45 goals per start. Not hugely dissimilar and Murray's goals per game is currently being propped up by a debut performance he's not repeated since. If Murray doesn't score against Cardiff or Norwich (I'd wager he won't) then his goals per start will fall down to 0.38, which you yourself have just described as a "mediocre scoring record". So I assume you're happy to admit that if Murray does not score over the next two games his goal to game record will be reduced from "excellent" to "mediocre"?

I'd point out that Pogrebnyak only needed 68 shots to score 13 goals and currently Murray has needed 41 shots to score 5 goals. But according to you the more shots per goal the merrier.

Keep banging on about goals per game all you like, but anyone with the mental capacity to do so, should feel free to judge a striker based on how capable they are of converting each chance presented to them. It's not 'immaterial' whether a striker scores 5 goals from 5, or 100 shots. Because the striker that scores 5 goals from 5 shots is likely to have scored more goals if presented with an extra 95 opportunities. Is that so difficult to comprehend?

What about penalties? Is the player that scores 3 out of 7 penalties as good as the player that scores 3 out of 3? Obviously not.
So why would that logic not pass over to shots in open play?

As it happens, based on the intended resources Reading intend to spend on this player, I think we can find better. It would be a poor signing in the short term, and a terrible signing in the long term.

[RoyallyFcuked]

I think Murray has done fairly well so far and I dont think he's at his best yet. I think signing him on a short term deal would be good business, as long as we dont over pay. For example in Jan, get him on a 1 and half year deal with the option of extending that deal depending on how well he does.

I think we'd be looking at at least a £1m transfer as they rate him pretty highly at Palace for obvious reasons, his goals got them promoted. That said, I dont think Derby will be signing him at all, let alone for £3.5m. They have the divisions top scorer in Chris Martin and if they need someone else they could look elsewhere for someone younger. On that subject, I do also think we need a younger, quicker striker but to be signed as well as Murray, not instead of. Might not happen until we offload Pogrebnyak though.

Really surprised to see a couple of decent posters saying Pog is better than Murray. That is a clueLOLess view. Murray is miles infront of him. If you've been to any Reading games this season you would have seen that.

[RoyalBlue]

Shock! Horror!

Club put out carefully worded statement in an attempt to deflect criticism for failure to make any decent permament signings during last transfer window.

The usual culprits, who take everything fed to them by the club, swallow it hook, line and sinker and then have a go at anyone who dares question what the statement really means.

Likely scenario:

Yes, Palace told RFC the minimum fee that they would release Murray for in January. RFC tell fans that we have the option to buy Murray for the agreed fee in January.

Reality (as predicted by some on here). The 'agreement' does not commit RFC to buy Murray. Nor does it commit Murray to join RFC even if they offer the agreed fee to Palace. Furthermore, Palace only have to sell Murray to RFC (assuming Murray agrees to move) if RFC offer the agreed fee and no other club offers more. If another club bids higher than fee agreed with RFC, both Palace and Murray are perfectly free and able to strike a deal with that club, rather than RFC.

Likely outcome:

We will get gazumped by another club and will fail to sign Murray in January. The 'club can never get things wrong brigade' leap to the club's defence and find some reason to excuse the failing - probably that the club never actually said that we had a deal to sign Murray and that those who read it that way should have realised that the 'deal' was never enforceable i.e. the exact line that they criticised others for coming out with when Murray was first signed on loan!

[P!ssed Off]

I think Murray has done fairly well so far and I dont think he's at his best yet. I think signing him on a short term deal would be good business, as long as we dont over pay. For example in Jan, get him on a 1 and half year deal with the option of extending that deal depending on how well he does.

I think we'd be looking at at least a £1m transfer as they rate him pretty highly at Palace for obvious reasons, his goals got them promoted. That said, I dont think Derby will be signing him at all, let alone for £3.5m. They have the divisions top scorer in Chris Martin and if they need someone else they could look elsewhere for someone younger. On that subject, I do also think we need a younger, quicker striker but to be signed as well as Murray, not instead of. Might not happen until we offload Pogrebnyak though.

Really surprised to see a couple of decent posters saying Pog is better than Murray. That is a clueLOLess view. Murray is miles infront of him. If you've been to any Reading games this season you would have seen that.

He's 31, he wouldn't sign an 18 month contract. He'd want 30 months.
The agreed fee is apparently £1.5million.
Agreed that Derby will not be offering £3.5million.
We won't be signing two strikers in January, it will be Murray or other.
If you're saying I said Pog is better than Murray, then that would be incorrect. I was merely pointing out that if 13 goals from 34 starts is 'mediocre', then 5 goals from 11 starts is not 'excellent'.
I've attended 7 of Murray's 11 games, and seen little to justify £25k per week and a £1.5M price tag.

[Ian Royal]

You've said a lot of nonsense over the years but this ranks quite high up.
Why the oxf*rd would you prefer strikers to be less clinical? How on earth does that make any sense.

You have to shoot to be able to score. You're more likely for a striker to convert a few more of the chances he's getting than you are for a striker to get more chances and convert them as well. Either way they're both scoring the same, so it's hardly a big deal.

There is no 'striking partnership' either. Cox is playing AM and doing a fine job of it. His good form has little to do with Murray, who is playing the role of lone striker. Murray was the 5th last player to touch it for one of Cox's goals against Rotherham. He's played zero role in any of Cox's other 6 goals.

They're linking well together and both scoring, that's my definition of a good partnership. I don't care if they're officially assisting each other or not. I also don't care whether Cox is playing in the hole, in midfield, wide or upfront, other than that he's playing where he's effective, which he is. He's working well with Murray.

As for Pogrebnyak's 'mediocre' scoring record. Last season he scored 13 goals from 34 starts. Murray is currently on 5 goals from 11 starts. The difference is 0.38 goals per start to 0.45 goals per start. Not hugely dissimilar and Murray's goals per game is currently being propped up by a debut performance he's not repeated since.

And this season he's scored none, significantly reducing his scoring record. And his scoring record in the PL wasn't great. And he costs more. And we bought him to perform in the Premier League, so he should be tearing up the Championship, not just doing sort of ok.

If you can't see Murray is superior in almost every way, there's no hope for you.

If Murray doesn't score against Cardiff or Norwich (I'd wager he won't) then his goals per start will fall down to 0.38, which you yourself have just described as a "mediocre scoring record". So I assume you're happy to admit that if Murray does not score over the next two games his goal to game record will be reduced from "excellent" to "mediocre"?

He'll still have scored more goals and looked a far better player than Pog this season. And of course you're picking the most favourable set of stats you can to beef up Pog's performance.

I'd point out that Pogrebnyak only needed 68 shots to score 13 goals and currently Murray has needed 41 shots to score 5 goals. But according to you the more shots per goal the merrier.

Absolute number of goals is all that matters.

Keep banging on about goals per game all you like, but anyone with the mental capacity to do so, should feel free to judge a striker based on how capable they are of converting each chance presented to them. It's not 'immaterial' whether a striker scores 5 goals from 5, or 100 shots. Because the striker that scores 5 goals from 5 shots is likely to have scored more goals if presented with an extra 95 opportunities. Is that so difficult to comprehend?

As I said, easier to convert more chances you're already getting to try, than to both get into the position to get more chances and convert them as well. I understand perfectly, I'm not stupid, I just disagree with your bizarre snowballesque stat obssession when all that matters is how many scored.

What about penalties? Is the player that scores 3 out of 7 penalties as good as the player that scores 3 out of 3? Obviously not.
So why would that logic not pass over to shots in open play?

Trying to compare penalty success in this way is just stupid. It's a far less common situation and it's far more easily controlled where you can pick the best person on the pitch to get the best conversion rate. It's a tiny part of working out who to play and you'd need to factor in who's winning the pens as well.

As it happens, based on the intended resources Reading intend to spend on this player, I think we can find better. It would be a poor signing in the short term, and a terrible signing in the long term.

Bully for you. I think that's bollocks. The fact is we've spent the money, we've got him and he's doing a good job. We've got far more important problems to deal with, so I'd suggest getting some perspective, focus your complaints somewhere relevant and get behind the best striker we've had since Long.

[P!ssed Off]

As it happens, based on the intended resources Reading intend to spend on this player, I think we can find better. It would be a poor signing in the short term, and a terrible signing in the long term.

Bully for you. I think that's bollocks. The fact is we've spent the money, we've got him and he's doing a good job. We've got far more important problems to deal with, so I'd suggest getting some perspective, focus your complaints somewhere relevant and get behind the best striker we've had since Long.

In what sense have we spent the money? He's on loan, Ian Keep up...

The best striker since Long? That's a nonsense statement to make after 11 games, many of which he's done oxf*rd all.
Also, I don't recall claiming Pogrebnyak was a better option than Murray. Can't wait for the day when Pogrebnyak's off the books. It's imperative that we don't give a permanent contract to Pog Mk II.

[RoyallyFcuked]

I think Murray has done fairly well so far and I dont think he's at his best yet. I think signing him on a short term deal would be good business, as long as we dont over pay. For example in Jan, get him on a 1 and half year deal with the option of extending that deal depending on how well he does.

I think we'd be looking at at least a £1m transfer as they rate him pretty highly at Palace for obvious reasons, his goals got them promoted. That said, I dont think Derby will be signing him at all, let alone for £3.5m. They have the divisions top scorer in Chris Martin and if they need someone else they could look elsewhere for someone younger. On that subject, I do also think we need a younger, quicker striker but to be signed as well as Murray, not instead of. Might not happen until we offload Pogrebnyak though.

Really surprised to see a couple of decent posters saying Pog is better than Murray. That is a clueLOLess view. Murray is miles infront of him. If you've been to any Reading games this season you would have seen that.

He's 31, he wouldn't sign an 18 month contract. He'd want 30 months.
The agreed fee is apparently £1.5million.
Agreed that Derby will not be offering £3.5million.
We won't be signing two strikers in January, it will be Murray or other.
If you're saying I said Pog is better than Murray, then that would be incorrect. I was merely pointing out that if 13 goals from 34 starts is 'mediocre', then 5 goals from 11 starts is not 'excellent'.
I've attended 7 of Murray's 11 games, and seen little to justify £25k per week and a £1.5M price tag.

I think he would want 30 months, or as many as he could get in other words. It depends on a number of things, but I still think an 18 month deal is possible.

I agree we wont sign 2 stikers in January, I was actually thinking next summer (sorry, I didnt make it very clear) I meant sign Murray in Jan and sign another in the summer, especially if we can get Pog off the books a year early that would free up more funds.

Fair point about the goals to games. I think if the fee agreed is definitely £1.5m then maybe we are overpaying slightly but we could do a lot worse. When you consider Dogrebnyak's signing on fee and wages of between £30-40k per week, it's not that bad seeing as Dog had proven nothing when we signed him, whereas Murray is proven at this level. We also signed an unproven Nick Blackman for around £1.2m, albeit Blackman is far younger. At 31, Murray could be past his best but he could also still have at least another 3 decent years left in him.

Don't forget, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is 33 and was signed by PSG as a proven goalscorer at 30 years old in 2012 for around £20m. Age isnt everything