RUMOUR: Rafael

[Franchise FC]

Martinez or Rafael who would you rather have now?

Rafael because Martinez is a 20 million keeper, Rafael was written off and a free transfer. Has a point to prove still is now probably worth 5 million in my opinion. Martinez got his move is world class and will never ever play for Reading again so the argument is mute.
Is Rafael potentially the best free transfer in recent years?

Morrison would certainly run him close.

Both of them have been excellent acquisitions by the club.

Was Laurent free ?
It's early days but he looks another

Just demonstrates that you don't have to spend a fortune to get diamonds

[Hendo]

Rafael because Martinez is a 20 million keeper, Rafael was written off and a free transfer. Has a point to prove still is now probably worth 5 million in my opinion. Martinez got his move is world class and will never ever play for Reading again so the argument is mute.
Is Rafael potentially the best free transfer in recent years?

Morrison would certainly run him close.

Both of them have been excellent acquisitions by the club.

Was Laurent free ?
It's early days but he looks another

Just demonstrates that you don't have to spend a fortune to get diamonds

He was, good shout! Early days, like you said, but he is certainly on the right track.

[Chameleon]

Since Gourlay left our record at bringing people in, in the transfer market has been excellent.

Winter 18/19 (all loans): Ovie, Miazga, Martinez, Baker, Oliveria

Oliveira is the closest you could get to a 'failure' out of those five, and he scored 3 goals in 10 games.

19/20: Puscas (£6.75m), Joao (£4.86m), Rafael (free), Morrison (free), Adam (free), then loan wise Ejaria, Miazga, Boye, Pele, Virginia

Virginia will have cost almost nothing, Pele and Boye were acceptable. Joao looks to be very decent value with 19 goals/assists in 1,700 minutes. Puscas got 14 goals and 3 assists in his first season of English football, can't expect masses more than that.

20/21: Ejaria (£3.5m), Laurent (free), Esteves, Semedo, Gibson (all loans)

Laurents and Ejaria are excellent pieces of business, tbc on the others.

So for £15m we've bought:

Puscas Joao

Ejaria Laurent Adam

Morrison Rafael

At Championship level £15m for 5 high quality starters and a strong second striker is excellent business. Not a single miss in our permanent transfers for 2 years/4 windows. While having an agent basically control our transfers is suboptimal, it's paying off handsomely for us.

[Hound]

Yep good review

And a stark contrast to the awful Gourlay era where virtually every signing was a failure to some degree. Yiadom maybe the sole exception off the top of my head

[Sutekh]

Were Swift and Moore Gourlay era?

[tidus_mi2]

Were Swift and Moore Gourlay era?

They were signed pre-Gourlay

[Hound]

Bacuna arguably a success actually - played ok for us and seems like we made a profit on him

[Snowflake Royal]

Bacuna arguably a success actually - played ok for us and seems like we made a profit on him

I'd put him down as ok or a qualified success rather than a definite clear success. He did fine, but we were looking for more than that from him.

[Hendo]

Bacuna arguably a success actually - played ok for us and seems like we made a profit on him

I'd put him down as ok or a qualified success rather than a definite clear success. He did fine, but we were looking for more than that from him.

I thought Bacuna was fine for us, like you say Ian. Not a huge success but not an unmitigated failure by any means.

[Old Man Andrews]

Bacuna arguably a success actually - played ok for us and seems like we made a profit on him

I'd put him down as ok or a qualified success rather than a definite clear success. He did fine, but we were looking for more than that from him.

I thought Bacuna was fine for us, like you say Ian. Not a huge success but not an unmitigated failure by any means.

I think he is a good player to have in your squad if you're a winning team near the top of the league. For us I think he played with his head down most of the time and lacked confidence and drive. He isn't the sort of player you need in the team when you're struggling, as we were a lot of the time when he was with us. Tended to go missing and was largely inaffective. He was similar at Villa in their relegation season too.

[hughsies no.1]

Bacuna arguably a success actually - played ok for us and seems like we made a profit on him

I'd put him down as ok or a qualified success rather than a definite clear success. He did fine, but we were looking for more than that from him.

I thought Bacuna was fine for us, like you say Ian. Not a huge success but not an unmitigated failure by any means.

Would say on his day when he played in the middle and drove forward he was the closest we have got to a Danny Williams since he left (could argue Rino but for me they're different players). Not sure if he did much for squad harmony in the difficult times we were having.

The 2017 summer transfer window will take some beating in terms of our worst ever transfer window, we had some serious money to spend to kick on after the PO final and signed absolute dross on ridiculous salaries.