We Need a Striker!!

[Hendo]

They are certainly more clickb8 focused since the move from print to all-digital. Shame really, as I like Charles Watts.

There is a lot of clickb8 going on at GR. Their twitter feed its just a shambles of it.

If they actually put out a story with a headline that wasn't clickb8, but actually related to the story, people would still read it, as they are interested in whats going on with the team, and one of my biggest gripes with GR, they constantly run stories about ex-Reading players. Why? Unless they have said something about the club, or a re-joining the club, I don't care. Like the Tishbola story, yes he is ex-Reading and is probably going to be leaving Villa soon, but is he going to be coming back to Reading? No, Rangers have been linked, they aren't even in the same oxf*rd country. They ran loads of stories about HRK during the summer, when he wasn't our player anymore.

Yes, I am aware that to keep the paper going, there needs to be stories so people go onto the website and advertisers will pay more money for space that is getting viewed more, but the actual quality of the content has gone down so much. I cleaned out a load of stuff the other day and found papers from various Reading games and the actual content in them was pretty damn good, extensive match reports with ratings and reports by a couple of journalists.

oxf*rd winds me up!

[Dick Habbin's hairdo]

There might be more to the story of the Icelandic chappy from Nantes if he is former Ajax.....

And I see that Berbatov is keen "on a move back to the Premiership".... well, he could certainly help get us there. If he's 80 percent of the player he was five years or so ago he might just be the sort of forward we need.

Having said that, Rakels is due for a return, isn't he? Will be interesting to see how he fits in with the total football.

[bobby1413]

GR are a joke. I started reading online regularly a few months ago. I've stopped now as it's mostly just pointless.

Usual daily stories are:

- things you'd know if you grew up in Reading in the 70s

- REVEALED: the top item delivered by deliveroo

- ikea car park was busy last Saturday

- Fat face is closed on Boxing Day

[Victor Meldrew]

I may have mentioned him elsewhere but the more I think of it Lewis Grabban strikes me as the perfect fit for us.
He is now behind Callum Wilson, Josh King and Benik Afobe at Bournemouth and has helped both Bournemouth and Norwich to achieve promotion from this level.
He has the nous that Samuel does not yet have and is just as quick, something that Kermorgant badly lacks and seems to be what is needed in the way we now play,i.e. pace on the break.
I am not convinced by Rekkels nor by the 2 signed this Summer.
Hogan has done well this season but really only this season and has a poor injury history.

We didn't go to Bournemouth to get Glenn Murray and look how successful he has been this season but this could well be the player that we need-Yann has done o.k. in small doses but, apart from his aerial defending at set-pieces, I don't think he does enough (cue a hat-trick at Bristol City this afternoon ) and is not ideal for our current system which relies much on speed on the break.
So let's just grab Grabban and then, with a couple more additions who knows where we might end up.

Signed
Lewis Grabban's agent.

[K9hassel]

How about a cheeky bid for Shane Long ? Not getting much game time at Southampton and would be a good fit with the squad in a non ego way. If the Chinese take over soon it would be a major statement in their intentions to achieve PL status. West Ham sniffing around him and Brentfords Hogan.

[RichTea94]

Boro have signed Gestede, which means that a move for Jordan Rhodes will be on the radar of most teams in the top half of the championship. Can't argue with his scoring record.

[sandman]

Boro have signed Gestede, which means that a move for Jordan Rhodes will be on the radar of most teams in the top half of the championship. Can't argue with his scoring record.

Hope we do sign Rhodes, bloke at work won't stop moaning about us signing him.

[Hound]

I don't think we've the cash for Rhodes

Notice Patrick Bamford may be available. Not seen a lot of him actually playing, but his scoring record in this division is good. Not done anything in the prem for a couple of years now though

[RichTea94]

Funny I was wondering about Bamford as well. Had a great season for Boro but obviously can't cut it in the Prem yet. Don't know if his loan to Burnley can be cut short though, so something to consider for next season perhaps.

[Hendo]

Bamford needs to follow Swift's lead and get out of Chelsea, for the sake of his career.

[royalp-we]

Bamford needs to follow Swift's lead and get out of Chelsea, for the sake of his career.

So do Loftus-Cheek & Solanke & Chalobah tbh

[Hound]

some rumours that Middlesboro were looking at him again, but surely a Champ club would be a better bet for him

Expect he will join someone in the top 8 - be interesting to see who.

Seen Nugent's name thrown about a bit as well.

[Top Flight]

In my opinion, I don't think we need to sign a new striker anymore. When you compare our attacking options with the rest of the championship we are quite competitive. Kermorgant has been in brilliant form lately and is in my opinion playing his best football in a Reading shirt since he returned from his short injury lay off.

Unless we can significantly improve our attack with one masterful signing at a reasonable cost, I believe signing an expensive £8 or £9million striker could actually do us more harm than good. If it doesn't result in immediate promotion then we could end up suffering for it next season and the following years. Especially if Stam gets poached and another manager comes in and changes direction once again.

The fact is we probably have only a 20% chance of promotion even with a top striker signing. It will be difficult to catch the top two who look streets ahead of everyone else. The team around us in the play off picture all look strong and will be very difficult to beat in the play offs. Leeds are extremely strong and will probably overtake us. Huddersfield are good, Wednesday and Derby are strong and Fulham look like they will overtake us as well.

I think we should stick with Yann Kermorgant and Dominic Samuel. Kermorgant has been absolutely brilliant in recent weeks. I think he should be the man to lead the line and we should build our challenge around Kermorgant.

[Norfolk Royal]

In my opinion, I don't think we need to sign a new striker anymore. When you compare our attacking options with the rest of the championship we are quite competitive. Kermorgant has been in brilliant form lately and is in my opinion playing his best football in a Reading shirt since he returned from his short injury lay off.

Unless we can significantly improve our attack with one masterful signing at a reasonable cost, I believe signing an expensive £8 or £9million striker could actually do us more harm than good. If it doesn't result in immediate promotion then we could end up suffering for it next season and the following years. Especially if Stam gets poached and another manager comes in and changes direction once again.

The fact is we probably have only a 20% chance of promotion even with a top striker signing. It will be difficult to catch the top two who look streets ahead of everyone else. The team around us in the play off picture all look strong and will be very difficult to beat in the play offs. Leeds are extremely strong and will probably overtake us. Huddersfield are good, Wednesday and Derby are strong and Fulham look like they will overtake us as well.

I think we should stick with Yann Kermorgant and Dominic Samuel. Kermorgant has been absolutely brilliant in recent weeks. I think he should be the man to lead the line and we should build our challenge around Kermorgant.

Your summation of our play off prospects is overly pessimistic. All or none of those things may happen but on current results we seem to be sustaining our challenge.

[Stranded]

If the right striker is there then of course we should get another one, even just to add to the options, though Rakkels coming back shortly gives us a different option.

We are scoring plenty of goals at the moment. In fact bar the defeats to Fulham and Leeds we have scored at least 2 goals in each of the other of the last 10 games and 3 in 5 of those 10. We either seem to not score and lose and score 2 or 3 and win. So going forward things look good at the moment.

Question marks over the defence away from home at the moment.

[urz13]

It's all well and good saying we can rely on Kermogant, but he's 35 - we'll have to sign a backup/replacement sooner or later (probably in the summer) - so why not get one now who can help with the promotion push off the bench and learn Stam's style of play whilst still second fiddle to Yann?

[Top Flight]

It's all well and good saying we can rely on Kermogant, but he's 35 - we'll have to sign a backup/replacement sooner or later (probably in the summer) - so why not get one now who can help with the promotion push off the bench and learn Stam's style of play whilst still second fiddle to Yann?

I think it's a risk. If we buy someone now and don't go up, then it will affect us next season.

I think Kermorgant is good enough to fire us up to the Prem. Let's stick with Kermie until the end of the season. If we go up we can spend more money and get a really good striker that can massively improve the team. If we try to do that now and fail to go up we'll have financial problems that will weaken us in the years ahead and we may be unable to challenge again for 5 or 6 years. If we are more cautious with our spending right now then probably we won't be able to get a striker that is better than our current options and it will all be a pointless waste of money. I think we should stick with what we've got. Let's see where it takes us. Let's not ruin the future.

[CountryRoyal]

Top Flight's changed his tune. Thought he said anything above relegation would be a successful season?

Now all of a sudden our aged unprolific striker is enough to get us promoted?

Brilliant.

[KC Royal]

I don't think we need a striker now as such, but I suspect Kermorgant may go in the summer so in the medium-long term he will need replacing. We may be forced to buy in this window to stop the striker we want going elsewhere if there's other interest. I'd hope we'd only buy a striker now if he's right for us though. Don't want another Les Ferdinand situation.

[Top Flight]

Top Flight's changed his tune. Thought he said anything above relegation would be a successful season?

Now all of a sudden our aged unprolific striker is enough to get us promoted?

Brilliant.

I think the Russians must have hacked my account in an effort to influence the US general election.