The dreaded vote of confidence

[clauski]

Not a huge difference seeing as Bullard spent most of the season injured and we had a defence, attack and midfield out of form most of the season.

And he certainly wouldn't have stayed after relegation. Unlike Bikey, Rosenior and Cisse.

And was then probably the biggest influence on their revival which saw them stay up whilst we only won 4 games in 2008. I'm willing to bet either he, McFadden or someone of a similar stature could have made 3 goals over the season that would have kept us up and contributed a lot more than our mediocre standard of signings.

Of course we should now be looking for League One standard players on the basis they will stay if we get relegated then?

[Cookie]

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

I really don't know. I think it depends on what I'm being asked to have faith in them doing.

If it's run the club sensibly, then the answer is yes.

The problem is I still think we are being run as a championship club, with everything geared to being a well-run championship club. I'm full of confidence we can achieve that and don't feel at all that we are on some inevitible slide back to the lower divisions.

On the other hand, I don't think the club have adjusted to having money available and will try and build by following the same signing policy that's worked so well since 2002. We have £5 million available (or thereabouts depending on how the fee is structured) but I don't expect the club to deviate from thinking that anything above £500,000 is a huge signing. Unlike some, I'm not in favour of going for broke to go back up again, but we are failing as a club if we don't make an effort to put out the best team we can afford, and so we need to realise we can afford more than we could in the past.

[Madstad to Nadderud]

I can not understand why SOME Reading fans still keep talking about big name signings or other similiar possibilities when John Madejski has said on several occasions that the premiership is far too expensive a place to be for himself and for the wages a lot of the football players are after. Therefore, I do not think that there is going to be this great scramble to get back to the premiership this season because if we get there it will be business as usual whereby Reading simply will not, and can not afford to pay for certain big names, etc.

Reading FC has a histroy of selling their best players so what is happening (e.g. Kitson) or may happen with several other players is nothing new.

[Roger the Rabbit]

Reading FC has a histroy of selling their best players so what is happening (e.g. Kitson) or may happen with several other players is nothing new.

It's nothing new to 95% of the teams in the league.

Actually, it's nothing new to 100% of the teams !

[Dr Hfuhruhurr]

Yes and No.

Yes, because, unlike many football clubs, we actually have a future plan, but no, because, there is no-one at the club who is going to stop next year being a thorough disappointment. The problem is, is that future security is all a bit dull when it counts - Saturday 3pm - 4.50pm.

This season is a "transition" season, where we hope for the best, gradually shed our high earners and replace them with players with more 'realistic' wage demands. There will be no 5.5 million player, there will be no 5, 1 million pound signings. If that is your definition of failure than vote 'No'. Instead our transfer policy will more of the same, and that, more than anything, is why Coppell is, and needs to be, in charge. In terms of "hoping for the best and breaking the team up", I have full confidence in all of Coppell, Hammond and Madejski, and, you know, in the real world of player expectation and wage, its probably the best policy. At least we get a 25% ST cut out of it.

I think what concerns me is that our team seems a little young to be breaking up - it had a few (premiership) years left in it, but the board's anti-ego stance and refusal to share the TV money around had got us to the transition phase earlier than it should have done.

As I say, what is good for the board is not necessarily good for the fans, and for that reason I vote 'No'.

[Ian Royal]

Not a huge difference seeing as Bullard spent most of the season injured and we had a defence, attack and midfield out of form most of the season.

And he certainly wouldn't have stayed after relegation. Unlike Bikey, Rosenior and Cisse.

And was then probably the biggest influence on their revival which saw them stay up whilst we only won 4 games in 2008. I'm willing to bet either he, McFadden or someone of a similar stature could have made 3 goals over the season that would have kept us up and contributed a lot more than our mediocre standard of signings.

Of course we should now be looking for League One standard players on the basis they will stay if we get relegated then?

Yes, of course that last bit is exactly what I was trying to say.

[Ian Royal]

I can not understand why SOME Reading fans still keep talking about big name signings or other similiar possibilities when John Madejski has said on several occasions that the premiership is far too expensive a place to be for himself and for the wages a lot of the football players are after. Therefore, I do not think that there is going to be this great scramble to get back to the premiership this season because if we get there it will be business as usual whereby Reading simply will not, and can not afford to pay for certain big names, etc.

Reading FC has a histroy of selling their best players so what is happening (e.g. Kitson) or may happen with several other players is nothing new.

I disagree. We've moved on massively as a club in the last 10 years. In '95 we sold all our best players because none of them wanted to stay and we were unlikely to be able to sustain any sort of promotion push.

Since then we have very very rarely sold our best players. Kitson in fact being the only example I can think of since Grant Brebner! Prior to that Asaba maybe?

We simply are not a selling club. However, when we do sell, we usually get a pretty good deal.

Cox, Kitson, Hughes, Seol, Halford.

It is inevitable upon relegation from the premier league that some players will be sold. So far we've lost a player that had run out of contract and played a handful of premier league games and sold a quality striker who hasn't played a full season since he joined us and apparently didn't get on particularly well with the rest of the squad. Hardly makes us a selling club this season.

Of course should we sell Harper, Hunt, Shorey, Doyle, Bikey and Sonko you may have a point and I'll be wrong. But I can't see that many more leaving. We'll have to see.

[Big Ern]

We simply are not a selling club. However, when we do sell, we usually get a pretty good deal.

I don;t buy this 'we are not a selling club bollox's

To be fair, with the exception of a few players such as Shaka, up until recently we have not had players that teams on our level of above us would want to buy.

If the offer is right, the player will be sold. Much bigger clubs then us have had to sell their better players when they didn't want to, for example when Spurs sold Carrick to Man UTD. They are not immune from it and neither are we, anyone thinking otherwise is another plank looking at life through blue tinted glasses.

[Stranded]

I voted yes, I have faith that the club is being well run, that may mean that this season is not brilliant, it may be another 106 style season - I don't know.

Madjeski has done wonders for this club whether you like it or not, without him we'd most likely be watching us at Elm Park looking forward to an opening weekend trip to Rochdale but as I said on another thread re players, if he doesn't want to be here anymore then it is probably best for all involved that he moves on.

Having said that, he needs a buyer to do that and my fear is that somebody else coming in could have a more negative effect on the club than a positive one. Sometimes it's better to stick with the devil you know....

[SteveRoyal]

Voting...
yes

Simply because if I don't have the faith in our management team, then this coming season will be horrific.

[Skyline]

I'm afraid to say that I lost my faith in Coppell last season when, after we'd lost eight games on the trot, he came out and said that he now felt justified in changing the team, the implication being that to do so any sooner would have upset the people left out.

You're the bloody manager, Coppell, you can change the team any time you want to, and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. If you don't feel you can make changes after 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 losses, then you need to seriously consider whether this is what you should be doing.

I realise this probably sounds more bitter than I intended, but sometimes you just have to get things off your chest. Let's be honest, Coppell will always be a legend for the 2005/6 season, but the past, as they say, is a different country, and we don't live there.

[Seal]

I am prepared to reserve judgement until August 9th, when apparently (according to Coppell), we will have had all our transfer business resolved.

If the squad looks remarkably similar to the current one, then my answer will be a categoric NO.

[papereyes]

May I suggest this becomes a regular feature. Have the poll set as a sticky and close after a set period (2 weeks?) and then do one on a monthly (?) basis.

Just as a confidence tracker?

Maybe?

[Alan Partridge]

I am prepared to reserve judgement until August 9th, when apparently (according to Coppell), we will have had all our transfer business resolved.

If the squad looks remarkably similar to the current one, then my answer will be a categoric NO.

Agreed tbh. I can understand why there has been little activity in terms of getting players in so far. Now we are a right midfielder light and also a striker light. So those should be 2 areas we are seriously looking at. If and when Shorey finally leaves then we'll need a left back, ditto Hunt. Even if Harper goes, got pretty good hopes for Karacan, it's time we gave some (not all) of the young lads a go. Karacan did well at B'Mouth and Millwall, Pearce did ok at this level last season, Robson Kanu had a pretty decent loan spell and of course there is Henry and Golbourne, we need to find out sooner rather than later if these lads are good enough and worth keeping on.

If some of these young lads come in and do well then that's a cause for optimism. I hope Coppell learnt from his shocking mistakes last season, things like playing Sodje at Swansea instead of the likes of Pearce and then loaning him out a day later was absolute nonsense. His dithering in the transfer market cost us our place in the Premiership along with his sheer definace in taking out some of his favourites from the side (Doyle, Murty, Harper etc)

I've never been or will ever be a fan of the DOF role at this club, it seems to me to be completely pointless, likewise Nigel howe is another one who seems to do sod all apart from embarass the club in the national media. I wouldn't mind a bit of a shake up in the coaching staff or boardroom.

I think ultimately the 'feel good' factor around the club has been on the decline severely over the last year, not just because of the final league position but from what SEEMS to be a huge lack of ambition and a failure to pay the going rate for good players. When you see the numbers banded around in the press and what other clubs of similar standing to us are throwing at new players and improving their teams, it's hard not to be jealous and a bit annoyed at it. RFC didn't throughout their entire 2 year stay in the Premiership buy a single Premiership player that really came in and nailed down a first team spot and improve us from 2005/06. That's unforgiveable for me.

Last season was just saddening really, they had ample opportunites to put it right, 2 transfer windows, plenty of warning over Little's fitness, Sidwell's departure, can't even blame it on a really bad run of results. The warning signs were there early on (Bolton 3 Reading 0, Reading 0 West Ham 3, Sunderland 2 Reading 1, Fulham 3 Reading 1) Really poor results against teams we should have done better against...still Coppell failed to react.

After such a season and a lack of investment in the playing staff, the last things fans (well most fans) want to hear is the chief executive telling the world 'we can be bigger than Arsenal' as we sign someone from the French 2nd division, £2million new media centre built as the team goes down and new stadium expansion....now not happening.

It just seemed like one boob after another. Terrible PR sending out the wrong message at the wrong time. I didn't want to hear Nigel Howe say we are the next Arsenal, I wanted to hear that we were scouring the market to bring in good players and we would pay the right money to get players in to make sure we stay in the league.

It's easy to see why people are losing heart, it's now the 21st July, the big kick off is a few weeks away, we are now the only club in the CCC who haven't signed a single player. With the club heading out to Sweden in the next day or two, that's another week gone pretty much.

If Coppell decides to go in with no new recruits, maybe 1 or 2 more gone he is walking a tightrope, and more and more people will be happy to see him fall off it and be replaced if we start this season poorly.

Do I have faith in them? Not really anymore, i've heard it for the last 3 years about us 'spending money' and it's failed to happen every time. I'll still go because it's still Reading at the end of the day but it's why I wasn't iverly bothered if Coppell stayed or went. Stay - OK then learn from last season, don't just sweep it away and close your eyes and hope the exact same team will turn it around. IF he went then it would have meant almost certainly more change, change isn't always a bad thing and in RFC's playing staff it's a neccesity.

[brendywendy]

reading have spent millions on wages and new players over the last three years though
and not all of them were rubbish either.

[Kes]

Is the club being run well?

NO. From the simplest of things, Reading football can't get it right. The catering, releasing the new kit, investment in the team.

USELESS.

[Alan Partridge]

reading have spent millions on wages and new players over the last three years though
and not all of them were rubbish either.

But none of them were guaranteed starters, definitely better than what we had. Bikey - bit part, Matejovsky - bit part. Probably the two best players we bought over that timeframe, neither were considered (like Little and Sidwell were) as guaranteed starters.

Premiership clubs bringing players in need to be bringing in really good players that improve the side and command first team places.

[Alan Partridge]

Is the club being run well?

NO. From the simplest of things, Reading football can't get it right. The catering, releasing the new kit, investment in the team.

USELESS.

Whilst you re on another dull fishing trip, I do find the release date of the new kits to the fans absolutely ridiculous...again.

[brendywendy]

reading have spent millions on wages and new players over the last three years though
and not all of them were rubbish either.

But none of them were guaranteed starters, definitely better than what we had. Bikey - bit part, Matejovsky - bit part. Probably the two best players we bought over that timeframe, neither were considered (like Little and Sidwell were) as guaranteed starters.

Premiership clubs bringing players in need to be bringing in really good players that improve the side and command first team places.

not being good enough to demand a starting place, and not getting a starting place are two different things though

bikey should have been in all season IMO
coppells fault he wasnt, not bikeys