Rival Watch

[tmesis]

What would be the point of our owner putting the club into administration if the debt is to himself?

[Orion1871]

For next season, we'll only have one of the high earners left - Ejaria. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a stronger squad next season than we had this season, as we'll have more freedom in the transfer market than we've had in the previous couple of seasons. Players like Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas (assuming Genoa get promoted) leaving the club would free up a huge amount of wages, which would allow the club to get some players in. Selling Ince for £1m (and we could probably get more) would provide us more room to do that.

We could be going into next season with a base squad of (players in [square brackets] are players I could see us extending the contracts of):
GKs: Bouzanis, Andresson, Boyce-Clarke (U21)
DFs: Holmes, McIntyre, Sarr, Yiadom, Abrefa (U21), Abbey (U21), [NGW], [Mbengue]
MFs: Hutchinson, Ejaria, Camara (U21), [Tetek (U21)]
FWs: Azeez, Carroll, Clarke (U21), Ehibhatiomhan (U21), [Long], [Hoilett]

We're allowed five loanees in a matchday squad (eight in total) and twenty-two over 21 players to be in our squad (including all loanees regardless of age), with eight being home-grown (at an English or Welsh club for a total of 36 months prior to the end of the season during which he turns 21).

We'll have around ten players of our maximum twenty-two - allowing us to sign up to twelve players. We'll obviously need to bring in some central midfielders, but the core of the defence and attack is in place. We'd maybe need three central midfielders, perhaps a couple of defenders, maybe a winger or two and another striker - some of these could be on loan.

I think that squad (plus a couple more from the academy), before any signings, would be good enough for a top half finish at least. Once we've brought in some loanees and a couple of free signings, I can see us in a similar position to Derby this season. Any players from that squad we sell, such as Holmes or McIntyre, we'd get a fee for - which could allow us to bring in another couple of free transfers.

The point is, I think we'll be mid-table at the worst next season and maybe get into the play-offs with a good year.

I’m sorry and I hope am wrong but you are in cuckoo land. For a start we need a decent driven manager who knows the bottom two divisions inside out. At best he is likely to be here in June assuming he’s not on holiday. He then has July to somehow sort the mess out of who to keep who is available on free transfers. That takes till the end of July pre season. And the season starts in August with virtually 11 players who have never played together before and till the end of September till the transfer window closes. And that is assuming the owners haven’t pulled the plug left us in administration and a transfer embargo.

Spot on, administration beckons

This

[Sutekh]

How many of our starting 11 / squad of players with game time on Saturday are still under contract for next season. I fear that may be our downfall.

Players only fight to survive relegation if they themselves don't want to play in the league below. Good proportion of our side literally have nothing riding on Saturday's game

Four of them - Yiadom, Holmes, Sarr, McIntyre. I can see us renewing the contracts of NGW, Hoilett and Long if we get relegated (if the club wants to); Lumley's contract at Middlesbrough expires in the summer, so I can see us signing him on a free too. It's not unrealistic most of that starting XI will still be with us next season.

Fantastic, the club will hang onto it’s entire defence

[Winston Biscuit]

Why is everyone assuming we are going to win loads of games and it will be great fun going to Fleetwood?

don't think anyone is saying this are they? seen people saying it will take a few years to come back, we can hope to see more wins in L1 than we do each season in the Champ, and that there are grounds to visit that people haven't been to before which definately adds an interesting factor to being relegated. Just people being positive about the disappointing situation we appear to be in (but still could avoid)

rather that than be all doom & gloom

[Royal_jimmy]

In addition to this - the club has to operate according to the financial rules of League One. Going from what I've quickly googled - it looks like our wage bill would have to be limited to 60% of our turnover [Edit - after further Googling I see this is 75% for relegated clubs].

The club's turnover last season was about £16.5m. I believe that our tv rights money will drop by around 6 million. It's likely we'll see drops in match day income and some sponsorship revenue. But let's be optimistic and say that we'll have £10m of revenue (I believe there is some 'parachute' money for relegated teams. That means we can spend a maximum of £6m [Edit - 7.5m] on our wage budget.

I reckon that our current wage bill is around the £16-17m mark. Just going on last seasons finances and our dealings. Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas are probably accountable for like £4-5m of that. Maybe a bit more. So, with those 4 gone we are still at around double of what we're allowed to spend [Edit - like 150% of what we're allowed to spend].

I don't know about you but I don't feel that optimistic here about how we're going to build a squad better than our current one with these restrictions? I mean, maybe League One isn't 'policed' as tightly as the Championship. Maybe there are less strict rules for relegated teams [Edit - There are]?

Injections of equity and donations from the owner count towards revenue in League One and Two (loans from the owner do not), as do recieved transfer fees. The both facts are important here. Players under the age of 20 don't count towards the salary cap either; nor does salaries to general staff.

Say we use the £10m revenue above, the sale of Puscas (for ~€3m) would increase our revenue to £12.6m (giving us £9.5m for the wage budget). Additionally, it's normal for a Championship club to have 40% relegation wage drop clauses in their contracts (so assuming we haven't ballsed that up, which may be a bold assumption, that's another important factor to consider). If our current wage bill is around £16m and we release/sell £4m worth of wages, then applying a 40% wage drop means £7.2m on wages (within the League One salary cap). You sell Ince for £1m, as in my example, that's revenue to £13.6m (giving us a £10.2m wage budget) and another salary off the wage bill.

Apparently a typical high League One salary is ~£5k p/w (I believe the average is around ~£2.5k). Using the figure after selling Puscas (£9.5m budget, with £7.2m wages), we could afford 8-9 high League One salaries on these estimates.

Incidently, the only possible penalty from breaching the FFP rules in League One and Two is a transfer embargo.

This is it. We should not have issues passing FFP regulations next season. Athough a transfer fee is a one off thing unless we get it in installments. I hope Dai doesn't just roll the dice because it shows he's not learned his lesson. I feel as though he will gamble us again. Will be interesting to see if he does donate us money, I still worry his money is drying up (speculated) or lose interest

[Royal_jimmy]

Four of them - Yiadom, Holmes, Sarr, McIntyre. I can see us renewing the contracts of NGW, Hoilett and Long if we get relegated (if the club wants to); Lumley's contract at Middlesbrough expires in the summer, so I can see us signing him on a free too. It's not unrealistic most of that starting XI will still be with us next season.

Not sure I'd want Lumley unless he drops his wage demands. He's not exactly an amazing keeper and probably not one of the best in league one.

I don't know what his wage demands are, but obviously signing him would be dependant on reasonable wages for a player of his ability.

If the club believe Andresson and/or Boyce-Clarke are good enough to be back-ups behind Bouzanis (or good enough to start in League One), then we might not even need to sign a keeper anyway.

This is what I think. Bouzanis is perfectly capable playing week in week out. It's whether Andressen and CBC are good enough/ready to be on the bench. I feel like we should just use the academy here instead of spaffing £5k a week on Lumley. He's been a solid keeper for us, not made many mistakes but do we really need him? With the good season he's had I'd be surprised if another championship club doesn't come in for him.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

In addition to this - the club has to operate according to the financial rules of League One. Going from what I've quickly googled - it looks like our wage bill would have to be limited to 60% of our turnover [Edit - after further Googling I see this is 75% for relegated clubs].

The club's turnover last season was about £16.5m. I believe that our tv rights money will drop by around 6 million. It's likely we'll see drops in match day income and some sponsorship revenue. But let's be optimistic and say that we'll have £10m of revenue (I believe there is some 'parachute' money for relegated teams. That means we can spend a maximum of £6m [Edit - 7.5m] on our wage budget.

I reckon that our current wage bill is around the £16-17m mark. Just going on last seasons finances and our dealings. Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas are probably accountable for like £4-5m of that. Maybe a bit more. So, with those 4 gone we are still at around double of what we're allowed to spend [Edit - like 150% of what we're allowed to spend].

I don't know about you but I don't feel that optimistic here about how we're going to build a squad better than our current one with these restrictions? I mean, maybe League One isn't 'policed' as tightly as the Championship. Maybe there are less strict rules for relegated teams [Edit - There are]?

Injections of equity and donations from the owner count towards revenue in League One and Two (loans from the owner do not), as do recieved transfer fees. The both facts are important here. Players under the age of 20 don't count towards the salary cap either; nor does salaries to general staff.

Say we use the £10m revenue above, the sale of Puscas (for ~€3m) would increase our revenue to £12.6m (giving us £9.5m for the wage budget). Additionally, it's normal for a Championship club to have 40% relegation wage drop clauses in their contracts (so assuming we haven't ballsed that up, which may be a bold assumption, that's another important factor to consider). If our current wage bill is around £16m and we release/sell £4m worth of wages, then applying a 40% wage drop means £7.2m on wages (within the League One salary cap). You sell Ince for £1m, as in my example, that's revenue to £13.6m (giving us a £10.2m wage budget) and another salary off the wage bill.

Apparently a typical high League One salary is ~£5k p/w (I believe the average is around ~£2.5k). Using the figure after selling Puscas (£9.5m budget, with £7.2m wages), we could afford 8-9 high League One salaries on these estimates.

Incidently, the only possible penalty from breaching the FFP rules in League One and Two is a transfer embargo.

Thanks for the info.

I do think we will probably sell a few players in the summer. Puscas will be on his way and I can see us wanting to move Ejaria on and then there will probably be higher division interest in both Holmes and Ince. It may even be that clubs will move for someone like McIntyre or maybe gamble on Azeez. So not unreasonable to believe that we will generate a few million from sales this summer which will help with our revenue.

Selling players has been our biggest issue for years though. That's the revenue stream we have lacked since the Dai's came to the club, we really need to be looking to develop our players from the academy and then accepting that we will need to move them on if a bigger club in a higher division comes calling. Literally if we'd have just sold Moore (and possibly Swift), we could have avoided a lot of our problems.

[NathStPaul]

Sell anyone we can get a fee for, fairly straightforward. Get the sales done early though. A complete reset is needed and I can honestly say I wouldn't be sorry to see anyone leave the club.

[tidus_mi2]

I don't know if the feeling of fans filters through to the club and players, but looking at the Sheffield United forum, they want to win this game. Hopefully they do.

[Stranded]

Worth pointing out that L1 FFP caters for the fee as and when it is paid, it is not included as a lump sum.

So for example, Genoa buy Puscas for £3m - if that is paid in 3 instalments of £1m then 1m will be added to the turnover for next season and the rest in the following years. So whilst selling boosts us in terms of turnover it is not quite as straightforward as mentioned previously.

Naturally, in reverse, purchases are handled the same way.

[Stranded]

I don't know if the feeling of fans filters through to the club and players, but looking at the Sheffield United forum, they want to win this game. Hopefully they do.

The SU manager has been very clear that he wants to win out as he sees it as positive momentum for the next season. They will have zero pressure, Huddersfield will really want to avoid having anything on our game.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

They are professional players, they will want to win every game. Of course there is nothing riding on it, but no player ever thinks they aren't going to be bothered with a game. If they weren't to win they'd look at it after and say that it wasn't damaging, but they will want to win every game.

One thing I read (I think it was the BBC) that didn't make sense was that, if Huddersfield lose to Sheffield United, then that gives Reading a "glimmer" of hope. Well, I'd like to think it was a bit more than that considering we just have to win one game of football. A glimmer of hope is something I'd attach with having to win by 2/3 goals and/or needing a couple of results go your way etc.

[Hound]

They are professional players, they will want to win every game. Of course there is nothing riding on it, but no player ever thinks they aren't going to be bothered with a game. If they weren't to win they'd look at it after and say that it wasn't damaging, but they will want to win every game.

One thing I read (I think it was the BBC) that didn't make sense was that, if Huddersfield lose to Sheffield United, then that gives Reading a "glimmer" of hope. Well, I'd like to think it was a bit more than that considering we just have to win one game of football. A glimmer of hope is something I'd attach with having to win by 2/3 goals and/or needing a couple of results go your way etc.

Winning 1 game, esp away, is no more than a glimmer nowadays

[YorkshireRoyal99]

They are professional players, they will want to win every game. Of course there is nothing riding on it, but no player ever thinks they aren't going to be bothered with a game. If they weren't to win they'd look at it after and say that it wasn't damaging, but they will want to win every game.

One thing I read (I think it was the BBC) that didn't make sense was that, if Huddersfield lose to Sheffield United, then that gives Reading a "glimmer" of hope. Well, I'd like to think it was a bit more than that considering we just have to win one game of football. A glimmer of hope is something I'd attach with having to win by 2/3 goals and/or needing a couple of results go your way etc.

Winning 1 game, esp away, is no more than a glimmer nowadays

I was waiting for that response as it's exactly what I thought when typing it!

But ultimately, everything else we've done in the previous 45 games would be meaningless, it's just a one off game, a cup final etc.

[windermereROYAL]

Colin as been bigging up this game on twatter, telling fans to fill the stadium and make themselves heard, well it`s a local derby so I would expect that anyway.
I`m cautiously optimistic that SU can go there and get a result, I was encouraged by the performance Luton put in yesterday while already securely in the play-offs.

[Stranded]

They are professional players, they will want to win every game. Of course there is nothing riding on it, but no player ever thinks they aren't going to be bothered with a game. If they weren't to win they'd look at it after and say that it wasn't damaging, but they will want to win every game.

One thing I read (I think it was the BBC) that didn't make sense was that, if Huddersfield lose to Sheffield United, then that gives Reading a "glimmer" of hope. Well, I'd like to think it was a bit more than that considering we just have to win one game of football. A glimmer of hope is something I'd attach with having to win by 2/3 goals and/or needing a couple of results go your way etc.

Winning 1 game, esp away, is no more than a glimmer nowadays

I was waiting for that response as it's exactly what I thought when typing it!

But ultimately, everything else we've done in the previous 45 games would be meaningless, it's just a one off game, a cup final etc.

Which is why I am already accepting of a midweek trip to Fleetwood in February - would love to be surprised though.

[tidus_mi2]

Bear in mind that nothing to play for Sheffield United utterly dismantled Preston who still had an outside hope of the play-offs. So I'll remain cautiously optimistic they can do us a favour on Thursday.

[tidus_mi2]

Not that I think we'd get a final day win even if Sheffield United do us a favour.

[Sutekh]

Worth pointing out that L1 FFP caters for the fee as and when it is paid, it is not included as a lump sum.

So for example, Genoa buy Puscas for £3m - if that is paid in 3 instalments of £1m then 1m will be added to the turnover for next season and the rest in the following years. So whilst selling boosts us in terms of turnover it is not quite as straightforward as mentioned previously.

Naturally, in reverse, purchases are handled the same way.

Looks like there maybe different ffp rules in divisions 3 & 4 to the rest of the FL (why don’t stupid inconsistencies like this surprise anyone any more). In Division 3 (League 1) clubs have to obey SCMP (SALARY COST MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL) which limits spending on player wages to a percentage of club Turnover. In League 1 clubs can spend a maximum of 60% of their turnover on wages - in League 2, the limit is 55%. There are no restrictions (in themselves) on the amount a club can lose or spend on transfer fees.

I wonder how screwed will Reading be next season? Really could do with the local media getting a decent interview with Mark Bowen, after the season ends, and getting him to explain exactly where the club sit with all these things at the moment and set clear expectations as to what the future actually looks like for the club and it’s staff and fans.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Worth pointing out that L1 FFP caters for the fee as and when it is paid, it is not included as a lump sum.

So for example, Genoa buy Puscas for £3m - if that is paid in 3 instalments of £1m then 1m will be added to the turnover for next season and the rest in the following years. So whilst selling boosts us in terms of turnover it is not quite as straightforward as mentioned previously.

Naturally, in reverse, purchases are handled the same way.

Looks like there maybe different ffp rules in divisions 3 & 4 to the rest of the FL (why don’t stupid inconsistencies like this surprise anyone any more). In Division 3 (League 1) clubs have to obey SCMP (SALARY COST MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL) which limits spending on player wages to a percentage of club Turnover. In League 1 clubs can spend a maximum of 60% of their turnover on wages - in League 2, the limit is 55%. There are no restrictions (in themselves) on the amount a club can lose or spend on transfer fees.

I wonder how screwed will Reading be next season? Really could do with the local media getting a decent interview with Mark Bowen, after the season ends, and getting him to explain exactly where the club sit with all these things at the moment and set clear expectations as to what the future actually looks like for the club and it’s staff and fans.

Financially? With footballing matters, we will probably be more than ok to begin with. The only player we will actively want to move would be Ejaria due to his wages, but we could still probably afford to keep him. Although our wage bill is small for the Championship, with several big earners leaving, all the loanees leaving and likely plenty of people we've signed in the last couple of seasons (Dann, Hoilett, Long etc), I think our wage bill will be ok.

A couple of sales over the summer which will probably happen will increase revenue as well over whatever timescale as well. I think we will be in better shape in terms of footballing finances, but on the field we will be worse.