by Snowball »
01 Feb 2011 17:17
Royals rejected interest in Long
Posted on: Tue 01 Feb 2011
Director of Football Nick Hammond has confirmed that the Royals stood firm in the face of strong Premier League interest for leading scorer Shane Long during the January transfer window, and also rebuffed advances for a number of other players.
The window proved to be very positive for the club, as we brought in five promising young players, extended Mikele Leigertwood's loan, committed Adam Federici to a long term contract, and crucially kept all of our key players for the vital run-in.
With 15 goals to his name already this season, 24-year-old Long is one of the hottest prospects outside the top flight, but the club managed to fend off any suitors, and just as importantly the Irishman remained exceptionally loyal to Reading FC.
In an in-depth interview with our online TV station Reading FC Player, Nick said, "There's been a lot of interest in Shane in this window, as you would expect.
"When that level of interest arises in the modern game you always have problems, it's as simple as that. You get agents in the player's ear, other clubs in the player's ear, but we haven't had a single problem like that with Shane Long, and that tells you an enormous amount about the individual."
There is no doubt that a player of his quality will continue to generate interest, and Nick had nothing but praise for the frontman's quality on the pitch and maturity off it.
He said, "He's an outstanding individual. We sat with him and spoke about the situation, how important he is to us and how integral he is to spearheading our campaign going forward. His relationship with the manager is very, very good, and he nodded, smiled, said OK and just got on with his job. That just doesn't happen in modern football with so many outside influences around the players.
"He's a Premiership player, we've all seen him develop into that player now. Top strikers in the Premiership require pace, power and athleticism and he has all of those in abundance.
"His game is growing, he's playing regular football, which he'd never done previously.
He wants to play in the Premiership, I understand that, and he will play in the top division. But he has a loyalty and affinity to the club, and in this window, for us to have no issues with him, no comments in newspapers, no transfer request, it tells you a lot about the boy and his character.
"He's an example of what we try to do here, the type of player we try to bring to the club, players who want to be here. Of course there may come a time when if we don't get to the Premier League he may move, but the greatest compliment I can pay him is that we haven't had a single issue with him, where other clubs certainly do with players. That type of player in the modern game is priceless to a football club.
"There's been interest in other players as well, and we're delighted to have the group together. We're in a good position, we've a tough run of games coming, but the spirit and the focus is good, the staff are tight and that gives me hope going forward in what is a very tough division.
"We've kept the core together and we've strengthened for the future with forward planning. The Chairman and the board are happy as we've managed to do this within the financial parameters set for the current season."
Keeping our key players is a major boost for everyone connected with the club, and Nick continued, "Keeping everyone was very important.
"Brian and I had been very strong with our recommendations to the board with regard to keeping players. In the summer we had to do a deal with Gylfi to balance the books, and that has allowed us to be strong in this window. That was of paramount importance.
"There has been interest in players and we've been able to fend that off. We're very pleased to have done so, because the group is together, it's strong, it's playing well in a very difficult division. We're right in the mix and it was crucial to keep that group together at this point in time."
Not every club is able to keep its best players and fend off interest, and Nick believes we are benefiting from previous decisions. "In some ways the business we've done before and the financial strength of the club allows us to do that in this window.
"If you're a club in millions of pounds' worth of debt and with the threat of administration around the corner, the type of interest that came at us this window, we wouldn't have been able to fend it off. It's one of our strengths and it's important for us to have been able to do that.
"Of course there are other factors as well, and you can see from this window that even if you're financially strong, it doesn't automatically mean you can keep a player, if he and his representative decide they want to be somewhere else. We haven't had that here."
