Colours to the mast, pick your relegation candidates

[WeAreReadingFc]

18 Villa
19 Norwich
20 Reading

By the time the Jan transfer window opens I think we'll already be struggling and will find it very hard to attract any quality signings to help stave off the inevitable.

( BTW I hope that I'm completely wrong but I'm a realist !!!)

agreed

[Reading4eva]

Villa, Norwich, West Ham to drop. Us, Stoke, Saints, Wigan, West Brom and Everton involved in a mighty scrap but us consigning relegation and Championship football back to Upton Park

[windermere_royal]

Villa, Norwich, West Ham to drop. Us, Stoke, Saints, Wigan, West Brom and Everton

This was where i stopped reading

[Reading4eva]

Villa, Norwich, West Ham to drop. Us, Stoke, Saints, Wigan, West Brom and Everton

This was where i stopped reading

Why explain yourself

[Royal Ginger]

Villa, Norwich, West Ham to drop. Us, Stoke, Saints, Wigan, West Brom and Everton involved in a mighty scrap but us consigning relegation and Championship football back to Upton Park

West Brom and Everton will be well clear of a relegation battle this year

[Optimist]

18 Villa
19 Norwich
20 Reading

By the time the Jan transfer window opens I think we'll already be struggling and will find it very hard to attract any quality signings to help stave off the inevitable.

( BTW I hope that I'm completely wrong but I'm a realist !!!)

As a realist you'll get deep sh*t from a lot of people on this site! My pick for the three were the same as yours. Other clubs have realised what they need to do to stay in the division - one or two, of course, know but cannot financially compete anyway. RFC's signings have been good to strengthen our squad but the policy appears totally flawed, in that, we don't appear to be comparing our squad to our competitors! What is important is not that we have strengthened - which we have, but that others have strengthened more!

By realist you mean pessimist. Anyway, I'd take our squad over Norwich's, Wigan's and Southampton's any day, which is why I think they'll go down and we'll get at least 17th.

[Stuboo]

Pessimistic people often claim to be "a realist." It's their standard defense.

Anyone who looks at our squad and says that it can't compete favourably with the likes of Southampton, Fulham, West Ham, Norwich, Wigan, Aston Villa, etc is definitelly NOT a realist. They are doom mongers who delight in whinging and spreading negativity. Just my opinion, of course.

Optimist, you took the words right out of my mouth.

[Reading4eva]

West Ham, unfortunately, have already loaned the man who will keep them up. Norwich and Aston Villa look like sacrificial lambs but, I would guess, at last one of those two will escape through luck or good sense in the January window. Southampton could end up anywhere in the bottom 10. In terms of playing strength, RFC are currently 18th or below - the fans who ignore reality are depending on luck or BMcD. Lets hope that, against all commonsense, they know better than the sensible people on the site!

Today they were decent against a very poor Fulham team. And West Ham will need to get the service to Carroll and that's where they'll fall short.

On the topic of West Brom and Everton, they have both had cracking starts but I can see both collapsing if they get too many injuries. When was it that Everton slipped from 6th to finish 17th? It was down to injuries and if they were 8th they would have Definately ended up in the Championship

[Royal Ginger]

West Ham, unfortunately, have already loaned the man who will keep them up. Norwich and Aston Villa look like sacrificial lambs but, I would guess, at last one of those two will escape through luck or good sense in the January window. Southampton could end up anywhere in the bottom 10. In terms of playing strength, RFC are currently 18th or below - the fans who ignore reality are depending on luck or BMcD. Lets hope that, against all commonsense, they know better than the sensible people on the site!

"RFC are 18th or below." That's a sweeping statement without any kind of backup. I would dispute that strongly, there's no reason at all why we wouldn't be in the same bracket as Southampton who were league 1 2 seasons ago.

[Royal Ginger]

On the topic of West Brom and Everton, they have both had cracking starts but I can see both collapsing if they get too many injuries. When was it that Everton slipped from 6th to finish 17th? It was down to injuries and if they were 8th they would have Definately ended up in the Championship

West Brom showed glimmers of this sort of form at the beginning of last season against United and Chelsea. With a decent start, they could be on for a massive season. Everton done it before of the back of a bad season, and all of the pieces have come together at once for them. Injuries could of course cause a problem, can't rule that out, but they've got off on the right foot, and I'd be surprised if either finished below 12th, worst case.

[Optimist]

West Ham, unfortunately, have already loaned the man who will keep them up. Norwich and Aston Villa look like sacrificial lambs but, I would guess, at last one of those two will escape through luck or good sense in the January window. Southampton could end up anywhere in the bottom 10. In terms of playing strength, RFC are currently 18th or below - the fans who ignore reality are depending on luck or BMcD. Lets hope that, against all commonsense, they know better than the sensible people on the site!

It's not reality! If something is real it's definite, we aren't definetely going down! If we were, why would we be having this vote?

Well I'll happily depend on BMcD, he hasn't let us down yet.

[Stuboo]

Pessimistic people often claim to be "a realist." It's their standard defense.

Anyone who looks at our squad and says that it can't compete favourably with the likes of Southampton, Fulham, West Ham, Norwich, Wigan, Aston Villa, etc is definitelly NOT a realist. They are doom mongers who delight in whinging and spreading negativity. Just my opinion, of course.

Optimist, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Realists don't need a defence. They say it like it is! When the fans with rose-tinted glasses object - it is little more than turkeys objecting to Xmas!

Seriously, The Siege, and all the other pessimists, come back from the dark side! It's much better over here! Where we don't naturally expect everything to f**k up all the time.

No rose tinted glasses here chap, I have looked at our performance in the Championship, where we finished above Southampton and West ham, and looked at our squad compared to the other squads we are competing with. And we match up with them, maybe even better them.

It is crying out for a Reading Squad vs Southampton squad, etc thread.

[Optimist]

West Ham, unfortunately, have already loaned the man who will keep them up. Norwich and Aston Villa look like sacrificial lambs but, I would guess, at last one of those two will escape through luck or good sense in the January window. Southampton could end up anywhere in the bottom 10. In terms of playing strength, RFC are currently 18th or below - the fans who ignore reality are depending on luck or BMcD. Lets hope that, against all commonsense, they know better than the sensible people on the site!

It's not reality! If something is real it's definite, we aren't definetely going down! If we were, why would we be having this vote?

Well I'll happily depend on BMcD, he hasn't let us down yet.

Until it happened, Coppell had never let us down! That's if relegation is always completely and utterly to do with the Manager!

No, it's not. And I don't believe Coppell let us down when we got relegated.

[Cripple Creek]

Southampton, Norwich, Villa or Reading - it'll be a close one but I'm afraid I'll go Reading.

[Handsome Man]

Villa Norwich Wigan

It's not just pessimism, it's the certainty with which the shit-tinted ones predict our doom that seems so odd. As a football fan, you are meant to think your team is the best in the world if you win a few, and the worst in the world if you lose a few. Those are the rules. You are not meant to just wildly predict doom and gloom whatever. The ones who do on this board are probably very nice, intelligent people in real life, but here they just come across as retards or wind-up merchants.

[Snowball]

Woah!

Let's look through the team and be SENSIBLE.

Our keeper is a very good Championship keeper. MAY be a half-decent Premier keeper but he rarely comes for crosses, and (allegedly) has bad positioning which means he has to make saves look better than they need be. He has also started the season with a number of serious errors.

At left back we have an aging, ultra-slow player, who has sometimes been ripped to shreds by Championship wingers. It's true that the team has learned to cover Harte's speed-weakness but clearly that must be at some cost to central defence.

The cover (or possibly our eventual first-choice) left back is a LB who couldn't get games for a mid-table Prem side.

At right back we have a very decent Championship right back, Gunter, who began very nervously. His understudy, Cummings, is a youngster who MAY one day be very good but no-one on the planet would think of him as a solid, ukltra-reliablePremiership RB

At centre-back we have Gorkss and Pearce. Gorkss was let go by QPR as not good enough for the Prem, and he's now 15 months older.

Pearce is a very promising youngster renowned for not being quick. Both have to meet last year's standards AND step up at least 10-20%

Back up to these is another promising Championship CB in Marriappa, and behind him, a kid who came from Swindon and played some League 1 last year


In midfield we have Elwood, another player who QPR let go as not good enough. I happen to admire him greatly but he is most certainly unproven at the top level.

With him/or an alternative is Karacan. A buzz-saw, disruptive player, who many did not rate that highly. He has had a broken ankle, looks heavy and so far, off the pace.

The third MF is Guthrie, genuine class who could probably get on the books of most sides from 5th-10th in the Prem, but wasn't getting games for Newcastle

Then there's Tabby, who I love to bits but hardly got games in the Championship.



Wide left we have McAnuff, solid, and capable, a good worker, but very, very rarely "brilliant", even in the Championship

Widelright, Kebe or McCleary. I love Kebe but no-one knows what he'll do on any day. He isn't a player you could RELY on, even in the Championship. Why should we believe he will rip open even-better defences in the Prem?

McCleary has, mostly, non-league experience and finally came good IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP for half a season. He is VERY exciting and ATM looking more useful than Kebe
but he's hardly (yet) in the class of many, many prem wingers and will have to improve on last season to get there.

HRK was not seen as a regular championship starter last year. Why should we think he's going to be a good Prem player?

Roberts is a solid-worker Prem striker with a not-great goal return, AND he is aging, now 34.

Hunt is an excellent back-up Championship striker, forms great championship pairings (Doyle, Long etc) but has never threatened to be a 20 goal player even in the championship.

Church, currently, looks behind that standard

Le Fondre has promise, and MAY step up, but that's a long way from a certainty

The POG did well for Fulham (but started with a rush and then faded). So far he looks VG for us and has had one game
where the ball wouldn't sick, one game where he was great and scored a superb goal.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Woah!

Let's look through the team and be SENSIBLE.

Our keeper is a very good Championship keeper. MAY be a half-decent Premier keeper but he rarely comes for crosses, and (allegedly) has bad positioning which means he has to make saves look better than they need be. He has also started the season with a number of serious errors.

At left back we have an aging, ultra-slow player, who has sometimes been ripped to shreds by Championship wingers. It's true that the team has learned to cover Harte's speed-weakness but clearly that must be at some cost to central defence.

The cover (or possibly our eventual first-choice) left back is a LB who couldn't get games for a mid-table Prem side.

At right back we have a very decent Championship right back, Gunter, who began very nervously. His understudy, Cummings, is a youngster who MAY one day be very good but no-one on the planet would think of him as a solid, ukltra-reliablePremiership RB

At centre-back we have Gorkss and Pearce. Gorkss was let go by QPR as not good enough for the Prem, and he's now 15 months older.

Pearce is a very promising youngster renowned for not being quick. Both have to meet last year's standards AND step up at least 10-20%

Back up to these is another promising Championship CB in Marriappa, and behind him, a kid who came from Swindon and played some League 1 last year


In midfield we have Elwood, another player who QPR let go as not good enough. I happen to admire him greatly but he is most certainly unproven at the top level.

With him/or an alternative is Karacan. A buzz-saw, disruptive player, who many did not rate that highly. He has had a broken ankle, looks heavy and so far, off the pace.

The third MF is Guthrie, genuine class who could probably get on the books of most sides from 5th-10th in the Prem, but wasn't getting games for Newcastle

Then there's Tabby, who I love to bits but hardly got games in the Championship.



Wide we have McAnuff, solid, and capable, a good worker, but very, very rarely "brilliant", even in the Championship

Wide left, Kebe or Marriappa. I love Kebe but no-one knows what he'll do on any day. He isn't a player you could RELY on, even in the Championship. Why should we believe he will rip open even-better defences in the Prem?

McCleary has, mostly, non-league experience and finally came good IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP for half a season. He is VERY exciting and ATM looking more useful than Kebe
but he's hardly (yet) in the class of many, many prem wingers and will have to improve on last season to get there.

HRK was not seen as a regular championship starter last year. Why should we think he's going to be a good Prem player?

Roberts is a solid-worker Prem striker with a not-great goal return, AND he is aging, now 34.

Hunt is an excellent back-up Championship striker, forms great championship pairings (Doyle, Long etc) but has never threatened to be a 20 goal player even in the championship.

Church, currently, looks behind that standard

Le Fondre has promise, and MAY step up, but that's a long way from a certainty

The POG did well for Fulham (but started with a rush and then faded). So far he looks VG for us and has had one game
where the ball wouldn't sick, one game where he was great and scored a superb goal.

and who could argue?

But (with the inclusion of MaccyD) that is our team...and the emphasis is on the word TEAM....something that some other Prem clubs don't have

(just) Two games in


We have enough to see us through

[ManchesterRoyals]

18 Villa
19 Norwich
20 Reading

By the time the Jan transfer window opens I think we'll already be struggling and will find it very hard to attract any quality signings to help stave off the inevitable.

( BTW I hope that I'm completely wrong but I'm a realist !!!)

I agree with "very hard to attract any quality signings" in the Jan window

[cmonurz]

Reading
Norwich
Stoke

[Snowball]

Premiership Top 8 Players

1 Pog
2 Guthrie

Maybe OK mid-table players

3 McCleary
4 Federici
5 McAnuff
6 Pearce

Unproven or at best low-end Prem in all probability

7 Roberts (because of his age)
8 Hunt
9 Harte
10 Shorey
11 Gorkss
12 Elwood*
13 Karacan*

Unproven-Unknown

14 Gunter
15 Cummings
16 McCarthy
17 Mariappa
18 ALF

Not currently Prem standard?

19 Church
20 Tabb
21 Morrison

Unknown/Unpredictable

22 Kebe