Contract situation at end of 2020/21 season.

[Hound]

It's hardly a new thing Nameless. There's no setting of precedent.

And no, you almost never see players arguing about penalties. And the ones you do, possibly not the sort of players you should be keeping in your squad.

I'd suggest the players are probably arguing over penalties because they back themselves most to get the team their goal. Very much doubt it ever has anything to do with them earning themselves a few more quid

[Notts Royal]

OF course he doesn’t care about it being profitable because football clubs aren’t profitable. If he decided he was going to try and run it at a profit there’s would be uproar from the fans as ticket prices rocketed, players were shipped out on a regular basis etc etc etc. He chooses to fund the running of the club, it’s his pocket which carries the losses to date and if he wants to stick a few million in the kitty and keep Liam Moore then as owner that’s his call. Under Gourlay we made some shocking decisions financially but thankfully those days are long gone and the evidence is he seems pretty keen on getting the club back into some kind of sensible shape.
Those who routinely slate him off (like those who slated Madejski) fail to acknowledge the many good things they both did and continue to do. The quip about paying a short sponsor just doesn’t make sense.

I don’t think Dai is guilt-free when it comes to shocking decisions either though. Loader springs to mind

What do you know about the Loader situation ?

The well known fact that the owner pulled the plug on his £5m transfer to Wolves (despite the fact he rarely played & was not considered a key player at the time) and then let him go for free the following summer

[Snowflake Royal]

Nameless is Yongge's publicist so he's not going to leave that unchallenged.

[Hound]

very much doubt it was £5m to be fair

I don't think anyone would defend keeping hold of Loader. And few keeping Moore in retrospect.

Keeping Swift rather than selling for £3m. Purchasing Ejaria, Joao and Puscas weren't necessarily poor decisions. To be honest if the EFL allowed us to bring those 3 in then fine, we did the right thing.. Both Ejaria and Joao fell away (like everyone else) at the end of the season, but they were 2 of the best players in the champ for 3/4 of the season, and both will have added to their value. Laurent I imagine well overachieved on our expectations of him, and its clearly not easy to know who can make the step up. McNulty for example certainly didn't. Fill the squad of McNulty's and we go down.

Swift - obviously he was injured for most of the year - but he is quality and had he been fit and on the form of the previous season, 3m was well under value.

[Stranded]

very much doubt it was £5m to be fair

I don't think anyone would defend keeping hold of Loader. And few keeping Moore in retrospect.

Keeping Swift rather than selling for £3m. Purchasing Ejaria, Joao and Puscas weren't necessarily poor decisions. To be honest if the EFL allowed us to bring those 3 in then fine, we did the right thing.. Both Ejaria and Joao fell away (like everyone else) at the end of the season, but they were 2 of the best players in the champ for 3/4 of the season, and both will have added to their value. Laurent I imagine well overachieved on our expectations of him, and its clearly not easy to know who can make the step up. McNulty for example certainly didn't. Fill the squad of McNulty's and we go down.

Swift - obviously he was injured for most of the year - but he is quality and had he been fit and on the form of the previous season, 3m was well under value.

McNulty will always be a strange one for me - I think he had a bit of a sliding doors moment at WBA. He was unplayable in the first half there when we lost 4-1, was truly excellent and created a really good chance for himself and nearly put the ball on a plate for Swift to make it 2-0. If that performance had got the goal it deserved, I believe he would have gone on to be decent.

Sadly, his confidence drifted and was pretty much done by the time he missed that pen at Leeds.

[Hound]

maybe, he had some quality. But the fact he hasn't really shone in scotland or at sunderland suggests he probably wouldn't have been too hot in the champ.

[Nameless]

I don’t think Dai is guilt-free when it comes to shocking decisions either though. Loader springs to mind

What do you know about the Loader situation ?

The well known fact that the owner pulled the plug on his £5m transfer to Wolves (despite the fact he rarely played & was not considered a key player at the time) and then let him go for free the following summer

Interesting how something that is not correct becomes a well known fact !
From a person I know who was on the other side of the deal the reason it was pulled was not the headline figure but the structure of the deal. It was massively weighted towards Wolves in terms of it being a low up front payment with lots of addons. That means we would take all the risk and Wolves would be getting a player of some potential for very little outlay. They were essentially wanting to do what Chelsea do, pick up a young player cheap, hang on to him and look to resell him for a profit in a couple of years without triggering the add ons. Whether it made sense to walk away from some money and let him go for next to nothing rather than be taken advantage of in that way is debatable, but to say we walked away from £5 million is not the case, in the same way most figures bandied about around transfer gloss over the actual nature of these deals.
So the only example we have of us actually refusing to sell a player where there was cash on the table is Moore, Swift and Meite were rumours where we said we were not going to sell but the money talked about corn Swift was never his value and AFAIK No one actually tabled a bid for Meite
I actually think we should be a lot more active in terms of looking to make money from transfers, while it can be tough emotionally to move players on it’s got to be part of the business of running a successful club and I don’t see the logic in not being smart about when you cash in on players, losing players for nothing makes little sense most of the time.

[Snowflake Royal]

My anecdotal info is better than your anecdotal info ...

[Brogue]

getreading reporting tmac has signed a new deal. woohoo

[muirinho]

My anecdotal info is better than your anecdotal info ...

In fairness, in the battle between "£5m upfront for totally unproven player" and "£peanuts plus heavily-contingent-on-performance instalments for totally unproven player", the latter anecdote seems vastly more probable than the former

[Hendo]

getreading reporting tmac has signed a new deal. woohoo

That is good news

[Snowflake Royal]

My anecdotal info is better than your anecdotal info ...

In fairness, in the battle between "£5m upfront for totally unproven player" and "£peanuts plus heavily-contingent-on-performance instalments for totally unproven player", the latter anecdote seems vastly more probable than the former

That's fair. And 'I've got a mate who did the sarnies for the negotiations' is a bit more reliable than 'it was widely known'

[Mid Sussex Royal]

getreading reporting tmac has signed a new deal. woohoo

That is good news

Yep good news. Eddie on twitter said last week 3 year deal was sorted and the only delay was Tmac being on hols in Portugal. Low was saying as recently as Monday the situation was stalemate. He's useless, no contacts at all, and never says anything positive, why is a Portsmouth fan reporting on our club in our local media outlet?

[Hendo]

getreading reporting tmac has signed a new deal. woohoo

That is good news

Yep good news. Eddie on twitter said last week 3 year deal was sorted and the only delay was Tmac being on hols in Portugal. Low was saying as recently as Monday the situation was stalemate. He's useless, no contacts at all, and never says anything positive, why is a Portsmouth fan reporting on our club in our local media outlet?

Can’t use that brush to tarnish him, IMO. Charlie Watts, who I think everyone thought was pretty decent, is a massive Arsenal fan and no one seemed to point this out when he was covering us.

I am sure there are many local journalists covering teams they don’t support.

As to his lack of contacts, well yeah, that is an issue.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

That is good news

Yep good news. Eddie on twitter said last week 3 year deal was sorted and the only delay was Tmac being on hols in Portugal. Low was saying as recently as Monday the situation was stalemate. He's useless, no contacts at all, and never says anything positive, why is a Portsmouth fan reporting on our club in our local media outlet?

Can’t use that brush to tarnish him, IMO. Charlie Watts, who I think everyone thought was pretty decent, is a massive Arsenal fan and no one seemed to point this out when he was covering us.

I am sure there are many local journalists covering teams they don’t support.

As to his lack of contacts, well yeah, that is an issue.

Yes I know Watts is an Arsenal fan, in fact he reports on them now, but he was genuinely positive re us (and still is) which you expect from a local journo. I'm just saying Low's continuing negativity is awful. Whenever we lose, he prints loads of twitter feeds re fan's comments, when we win, nothing. I don't think he really understands tatics either but that's another issue.

[Hendo]

Yep good news. Eddie on twitter said last week 3 year deal was sorted and the only delay was Tmac being on hols in Portugal. Low was saying as recently as Monday the situation was stalemate. He's useless, no contacts at all, and never says anything positive, why is a Portsmouth fan reporting on our club in our local media outlet?

Can’t use that brush to tarnish him, IMO. Charlie Watts, who I think everyone thought was pretty decent, is a massive Arsenal fan and no one seemed to point this out when he was covering us.

I am sure there are many local journalists covering teams they don’t support.

As to his lack of contacts, well yeah, that is an issue.

Yes I know Watts is an Arsenal fan, in fact he reports on them now, but he was genuinely positive re us (and still is) which you expect from a local journo. I'm just saying Low's continuing negativity is awful. Whenever we lose, he prints loads of twitter feeds re fan's comments, when we win, nothing. I don't think he really understands tatics either but that's another issue.

Again, I don’t think that is necessarily his doing. Look at the Reading FC hashtag after we lose or a Twitter post after we concede. The amount of replies are sometimes 4x that of when we win/score.

[Snowflake Royal]

getreading reporting tmac has signed a new deal. woohoo

That is good news

Yep good news. Eddie on twitter said last week 3 year deal was sorted and the only delay was Tmac being on hols in Portugal. Low was saying as recently as Monday the situation was stalemate. He's useless, no contacts at all, and never says anything positive, why is a Portsmouth fan reporting on our club in our local media outlet?

Who he supports, if anyone, should be irrelevant. He has a job to do, and be professional about it.

[Hendo]

Yay!

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2021/june/-mcintyre-signs-new-deal-until-summer-of-2024

McIntyre signs new deal until summer of 2024!

[bcubed]

Beat me to it
Though I wouldn’t have added the pic!

Fantastic news!

[Snowflake Royal]

Hopefully people can chill out a bit more now