Sutekh However given the investment and spiel coming out of the board an management this week it seems all at odds so does anyone know what actually is going on there and whether we do need to be worried or not.
Royal Rother I missed the extracts of interview with Stam on BBCRB yesterday but thought the chats with Tiger and Tevreden indicated a change in philosophy and that the young players will be the focus from now on.
The philosophy going forward is to bring those players through, develop them, sell them and invest in the next generation - NOT to spend big and certainly not to bring loan players in. (The Ajax model was cited.)
Nothing particularly surprising there but I was delighted to hear it confirmed.
When asked what his ambition for the season ahead was, Tiger said to get this club into the PL (what else would you expect?) but Tevreden was at pains to talk about the long-term plan rather than short-term.
Very pleased with what I heard.
Royal1988Royal Rother I missed the extracts of interview with Stam on BBCRB yesterday but thought the chats with Tiger and Tevreden indicated a change in philosophy and that the young players will be the focus from now on.
The philosophy going forward is to bring those players through, develop them, sell them and invest in the next generation - NOT to spend big and certainly not to bring loan players in. (The Ajax model was cited.)
Nothing particularly surprising there but I was delighted to hear it confirmed.
When asked what his ambition for the season ahead was, Tiger said to get this club into the PL (what else would you expect?) but Tevreden was at pains to talk about the long-term plan rather than short-term.
Very pleased with what I heard.
I have to agree, I am quite pleased with most of what I have heard from Stam, Tevreden and Tiger in the last week (nice to have decent communication at last) and and I hope that Tiger and Tevredem are truly genuine and not just saying what they think the fans want to hear. I should say though, that they did come across as genuine to me.
The only thing that I am slightly concerned about is Stam saying he would like to play possession football - not surprising, but it didn't really work under Nigel Adkins. Hopefully if it does not work out though, hopefully Jaap will have the nous to adapt and work with what what he has (providing he is given the time to) - something that NA seemed to be reluctant and took his time to do.
paddy20 Not sure if its been said before but happy with Stam but very worried about lack of experienced coaching staff. One has only just stopped playing and the other didn't play football. If Reid stays he is almost equally inexeperienced. Bit of a worry??
Royal Rother I missed the extracts of interview with Stam on BBCRB yesterday but thought the chats with Tiger and Tevreden indicated a change in philosophy and that the young players will be the focus from now on.
The philosophy going forward is to bring those players through, develop them, sell them and invest in the next generation - NOT to spend big and certainly not to bring loan players in. (The Ajax model was cited.)
Nothing particularly surprising there but I was delighted to hear it confirmed.
When asked what his ambition for the season ahead was, Tiger said to get this club into the PL (what else would you expect?) but Tevreden was at pains to talk about the long-term plan rather than short-term.
Very pleased with what I heard.
The Royal Forester Sorry to the fly in the ointment, but will they be given time to make a difference in the first team, after being developed before being sold?
He's not being given the £10m clout this squad needs.
Show the money Thais! Even smaller clubs like Brentford look like they will spend far more than us.
Maneki Neko wrote:
Show the money Thais! Even smaller clubs like Brentford look like they will spend far more than us.
Reading manager Jaap Stam admits he does not yet know his strongest side as he continues preparations for his first season in charge of the club.
Former Manchester United and Netherlands defender Stam, 44, succeeded Brian McDermott in June.
He saw a young Royals side beat Swindon 2-1 in a pre-season friendly on Tuesday after coming from a goal down.
"We need to have a big squad this season with quality, experience and young talent," he told BBC Sport.
"We have to look at everyone. We need to know the strongest XI, but also those who are going to give us depth in the squad.
Reading start their Championship campaign at home to Preston on 6 August and Stam is still undecided about who will line-up in the Madejski Stadium opener.
"We've a good idea, but we're still working on it," he told BBC Radio Berkshire.
"I'm not the type of manager who is going to pick 11 players and they will be the team for the season.
"I look at the opponent too and their qualities and what qualities we need on the pitch at the time.
"We're still working on a new system and how everyone knows how to implement it at the right moment."
Jaap Stam’s credentials are impeccable. There is, as the 44-year-old acknowledges, no exact science in trying to identify which players might thrive in management, no golden rule. But if the template of a sure thing exists, Stam would come pretty close to fitting it.
He had the gilded playing career, for a start: he breathed the rarefied air of the elite at Manchester United, Lazio and AC Milan, his years there garlanded with trophies and titles. He had the flawless formative influences, as well. When asked to name those who taught him most, he name-checks Sir Alex Ferguson and Guus Hiddink; he might also have mentioned Carlo Ancelotti and Louis van Gaal.
When he decided to make the step into coaching himself, he completed his education at Ajax, that great crucible of talent and hive of ideas. There, together with Frank de Boer, Wim Jonk, Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars, he honed his skills, exchanged knowledge. He would snatch conversations with Johan Cruyff, too, whenever he could. “He always had two solutions for everything,” he says. “You would be talking and after an hour, he would be the only one talking.”
He has, unsurprisingly, developed formidable contacts: when he was seeking advice this summer, he found Hiddink, Dick Advocaat and Ronald Koeman at the other end of the phone. It is not only who he knows, though, but who he is, too: even nursing a cardboard cup of coffee in a rather rudimentary Portakabin, he cuts an imposing figure.
He talks, quietly and convincingly, of his ambitions, of his philosophy, of the pleasure he takes from improving players, of wanting to build something lasting. He uses the word “eventually” a lot. He thinks in the long-term.
He ticks all the boxes, in other words. A lengthy, fruitful career in management should await. And yet the odds are against him, simply because he has chosen to take his first steps on that journey at Reading, in the Championship, a league built on nothing but shifting sands, where there is no such thing as eventually, only here, now; where the aspirations of young managers come to die.
“It is probably quite hard, and maybe it is a bit risky,” he says, with a thin smile. “But if you’re afraid to work here, because there are a lot of people being sacked even after just a short spell, then maybe it’s not a good idea to go into management.”
That bravado should not be mistaken for recklessness. This is not some whim for Stam. He is serious about management just as, you sense, he is serious about pretty much everything. He could, of course, have retired on the proceeds of his playing days, taken the sinecure of a little television work to keep the bank balance ticking over. “I had lots of offers to do TV in Holland,” he says. “But I am not the sort of person who can sit around all day at the weekend waiting for the evening games, to give my opinion on them.”
That he turned them down, and that he has spent the past nine years learning his new trade, starting from the bottom up, not only speaks volumes for how seriously he takes this next phase of his career, but illustrates that he is not one of those players who might be accused — as Martin Glenn, chief executive of the Football Association, did last week — of preferring the easy life to giving something back to the game.
“When I finished playing, I thought I did not want to be a coach,” he says. “All of the stress, all of the things you have to think about [were un- appealing]. But after a couple of months, PEC Zwolle, my first professional club, called me up and said they had problems everywhere, and they asked if I could come in for a couple of days a week. Then it was four days a week [as an assistant manager] and in the end it was seven.
“As it goes on, you enjoy seeing the players improve, the things that you do [take effect], the team get better, and it grows on you, and then you start building your career. It is a totally different job. When I was a player, I started in a smaller team as a player, got better and improved myself. I wanted to do that as a coach as well.
“You need to grow into the business, get better. There is a lot of stuff to learn. I spent a few years at Zwolle, then went to Ajax, first as an individual coach, then as an assistant to Frank de Boer, then I took the under-21s. But you get to a point where you want to make your own decisions, make your own choices.”
It is at that point that Stam decided to come to England. “I did not mind if it was Premier League, Championship, League One,” he says. He is, without question, not in it for the glamour. He simply wanted to be in a country where he “knows the way of working, the style of play, where I feel comfortable, where people know me.”
He is not the only one. Walter Zenga, Roberto Di Matteo and Rafa Benítez are all braving the in-hospitable environment of the Championship this season, drawn by what Stam believes is the lure of “football in the UK in general; it is very appealing to managers all over the world.”
It is, though, an unforgiving place, not for the faint-hearted. Stam knows it is not a place where there are any guarantees, any respect for honours or inspirations. It is a place to be taken extremely seriously.
The best XI I played with
It has to be a 4-3-3 formation: that is the Dutch way. Dennis Bergkamp will play as a No 10, with two central midfielders. It is difficult to pick someone in every position, because I have played with so many great players: Peter Schmeichel would be a contender for goalkeeper, for example, but I can only choose one. He is not the only one I have left out: Kaká, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes — he is one of the most underestimated players of the past 20 years.
Stam’s XI: Edwin Van der Sar — Cafu, Alessandro Nesta, Paolo Maldini, Denis Irwin — Roy Keane, Clarence Seedorf — Dennis Bergkamp — Marc Overmars, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs
Hendo wrote:
I am really really hoping it succeeds for Stam at Reading. He seems like a very likeable guy with he feet on the ground. It is going to be hard for him, but I really think he understands that.
If we do get off to a tricky start, I hope the board give him the backing and not have a knee-jerk reaction to poor results.
I am liking him more and more every time I hear him speak/read an interview.
How many projects of this scale has Charles Watts project managed?SutekhNameless Does mean we need work at Bearwood to speed up
And that is the bit that I do not understand as, [b]according to Charles Watts, development at Bearwood is falling behind/completely stopped.
Forbury LionHow many projects of this scale has Charles Watts project managed?SutekhNameless Does mean we need work at Bearwood to speed up
And that is the bit that I do not understand as, [b]according to Charles Watts, development at Bearwood is falling behind/completely stopped.
Sometimes it's best to press the pause button, re-evaluate the plans and then continue. I imagine this has been the case with the change of manager, director of football and a new youth development model based on Ajax. It makes sense to look again at the plans and ensure the end result will be the best it can be to meet these changing requirements.
There may be financial reasons for delaying work that make sense to the investors and possibly the club - Perhaps there was a delay due to the Brexit vote, maybe they are waiting for things to stabilize - the £ is getting weaker, so that makes the cost of the training ground cheaper if you are funding it with overseas loans.
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