How impressed are you with BMcD's return to the club?

[sandman]

I've don't recall ever seeing a successful team that doesn't have at least one in the side.

05/06?

Sidwell was better defensively than either Norwood or Williams. Ran box to box as well. Harper also covered the ground well. Not a great tackler but got between ball and goal.

Time to break out that Xabi Alonso quote again.

[Vision]

If you were looking at it objectively and it was any other club;-

A club sells their top goal scorer (and one of the league's Top goal scorers) plus their next best goal scorer and replaces them with a 34 year old who's barely kicked a ball all season combined with a relatively unknown Latvian from the Polish League who hasn't played for a month due to the winter break.

If it was anyone other than Reading , would you expect an instant "improvement"?

If it was anyone other than Reading you'd expect the opposite really wouldn't you? Certainly short term.

It also strikes me as a little odd that it's those sceptical about McDermott's abilities who conversely seem the most disappointed that he hasn't been instantly pulling up trees.

[Nameless]

Good assessment Vision.
But we are the sort of club who go out to build a team using the criteria of getting cast offs, has beens and nobodies and produce 106 points ! It's not surprising we sometimes don't think we're the same as other clubs....
And of course the players we sold were a career long under achiever and an unknown Portugese from the same Polish league as our Latvian (but with a worse scoring record ) with a previous failure in this league !

[stealthpapes]

Even League only form for the last 6 W1 D3 L2 isn't as desperate as some are making out. League form in total is W2 D3 L4, which given the complete collapse in form from some period that encompasses the Fulham swing and Clarke looking at their job, isn't dire. It's not great, but its *enough*.

Whatever happened with Clarke happened. It had deep and long term effects on the morale of the club and that's what we're suffering from and sorting through at the moment.

I don't really get the "league only" thing - it seems an easy way out for people to have a dig at the side. You can't just disregard the cup games... two of them were against a Championship side no less.

Just trying to compare apples with apples.

Cup games are different, no doubt.

[Nameless]

Always hard to be 'fair' with these comparisons. One managers gets a run of games against teams in form, another strikes lucky by getting Blackpool, Charlton, Derby and Wigan type sides....

[Vision]

Good assessment Vision.
But we are the sort of club who go out to build a team using the criteria of getting cast offs, has beens and nobodies and produce 106 points ! It's not surprising we sometimes don't think we're the same as other clubs....
And of course the players we sold were a career long under achiever and an unknown Portugese from the same Polish league as our Latvian (but with a worse scoring record ) with a previous failure in this league !

Actually that's an interesting point.. I think there are differences in Coppell's situation for promotion and McDermott's. Coppell was never in a position where he had to sell players that were pivotal to his team. That 106 team was built up over his time here (and long before in truth) and Doyle/Long aside there weren't really any cast offs, has beens or nobodies that I can think of that he brought in who were a significant part of that 106 team.

McDermott on the other hand had to reshape and find a winning formula each season after losing a key player in the August Transfer Window. It wasn't quite as seamless a path. It also took a little while for those changes to have the desired effect, which is my point really rather than the merits of the recent signings as individuals. I've said earlier on this thread that I see all 3 of McDermott's signings as a return to the way we've been successful in the past.

I think the key though is that we had a pretty clear version of how we were operating as a club in the transfer market. In Coppell's case a slow build on what we already had over time with significant investment in the summer of 05 (Lita, Gunnarsson etc). In McDermott's case it was to pay good wages for this level but in the knowledge we'd have to cash in on a key player each season to partly cover the deficit that inevitably brings.

I think that's been lacking in the last few seasons and I'm hoping that appointing Brian and with the signings (and sales) we've just made that it's the start of a clearer policy going forward. I certainly hope so.

As an aside I'm also not sure I buy this notion that McDermott's success was built on knowing the players that were already here. I know it's a bit of an erroneous stat but as a comparison Coppell's first match in charge for us contained 4 players (Marcus,Shorey,Sidwell,Harper) who would be considered 1st team regulars in the promotion season 2 seasons later. McDermott's team on his first game had just 3 (Feds,Pearce and Jobi)

[RoyalJames101]

Good assessment Vision.
But we are the sort of club who go out to build a team using the criteria of getting cast offs, has beens and nobodies and produce 106 points ! It's not surprising we sometimes don't think we're the same as other clubs....
And of course the players we sold were a career long under achiever and an unknown Portugese from the same Polish league as our Latvian (but with a worse scoring record ) with a previous failure in this league !

As an aside I'm also not sure I buy this notion that McDermott's success was built on knowing the players that were already here. I know it's a bit of an erroneous stat but as a comparison Coppell's first match in charge for us contained 4 players (Marcus,Shorey,Sidwell,Harper) who would be considered 1st team regulars in the promotion season 2 seasons later. McDermott's team on his first game had just 3 (Feds,Pearce and Jobi)

Agreed on this.

I would say he knew the club, but a lot of the players he probably didn't know that well. In his two full seasons with us he brought in a lot of players that were first team regulars:

Griffin, Zurab, Roberts, Connolly, Gorkss, Le Fondre, Leigertwood, Mullins & Harte.

The majority of these, like you say, were part of the team that got us up. He knew the likes of Federici, Pearce and Karacan form the academy but not many others that season.

Going on previous years, McDermott's massive strength is that he knows which areas of the pitch we need to strengthen. We've seen that to an extent in January this year as well, bringing in 2 strikers and a more defensive midfielder. I imagine he'll have more freedom in the summer to address the other areas. The club are probably being realistic with their ambitions for the rest of the season so there's no point paying well over the odds for players in January.

I'm confident that McDermott will turn us into a more 'competitive' side next season. He's starting to get the players working for each other, the reaction to the penalty against Burnley showed how much the players care. I don't remember any examples of this under Adkins or Clarke. In my opinion, the Championship isn't just about having good players, its about having a good team that fight for everything.

[stealthpapes]

Always hard to be 'fair' with these comparisons. One managers gets a run of games against teams in form, another strikes lucky by getting Blackpool, Charlton, Derby and Wigan type sides....

Thanks.

[Hoop Blah]

Actually that's an interesting point.. I think there are differences in Coppell's situation for promotion and McDermott's. Coppell was never in a position where he had to sell players that were pivotal to his team. That 106 team was built up over his time here (and long before in truth) and Doyle/Long aside there weren't really any cast offs, has beens or nobodies that I can think of that he brought in who were a significant part of that 106 team.

Ingimarsson, Sonko, Convey and Hunt were all cast offs/nobodies weren't they? Even Hahnemann and Gunnarsson could be said to be cast offs in some way couldn't they? Neither were getting a game before they came to us and both had pretty poor spells at their previous clubs before coming to Reading.

As an aside I'm also not sure I buy this notion that McDermott's success was built on knowing the players that were already here. I know it's a bit of an erroneous stat but as a comparison Coppell's first match in charge for us contained 4 players (Marcus,Shorey,Sidwell,Harper) who would be considered 1st team regulars in the promotion season 2 seasons later. McDermott's team on his first game had just 3 (Feds,Pearce and Jobi)

From McDermott's squad for the promotion season Federici, Pearce, Gorkss, Cummings, Karacan, Hunt, Kebe, Church and Robson-Kanu were all players McDermott would've known very well from their time at the club before he took over. Add in the likes of Long, Sigurdsson and Gunnarsson as players who played quite a key role on or off the pitch in McDermott's success and I think the theory stands up pretty well.

[RoyalJames101]

As an aside I'm also not sure I buy this notion that McDermott's success was built on knowing the players that were already here. I know it's a bit of an erroneous stat but as a comparison Coppell's first match in charge for us contained 4 players (Marcus,Shorey,Sidwell,Harper) who would be considered 1st team regulars in the promotion season 2 seasons later. McDermott's team on his first game had just 3 (Feds,Pearce and Jobi)

From McDermott's squad for the promotion season Federici, Pearce, Gorkss, Cummings, Karacan, Hunt, Kebe, Church and Robson-Kanu were all players McDermott would've known very well from their time at the club before he took over. Add in the likes of Long, Sigurdsson and Gunnarsson as players who played quite a key role on or off the pitch in McDermott's success and I think the theory stands up pretty well.

You could say that he knows just as many of the players now really.

Gunter, Cooper, Obita, McCleary, Tish, Hector, HRK and Cox were all at the club in McDermott's first spell and all of these, with the exception of Cox, have played a lot of games this season.

[Vision]

Actually that's an interesting point.. I think there are differences in Coppell's situation for promotion and McDermott's. Coppell was never in a position where he had to sell players that were pivotal to his team. That 106 team was built up over his time here (and long before in truth) and Doyle/Long aside there weren't really any cast offs, has beens or nobodies that I can think of that he brought in who were a significant part of that 106 team.

Ingimarsson, Sonko, Convey and Hunt were all cast offs/nobodies weren't they? Even Hahnemann and Gunnarsson could be said to be cast offs in some way couldn't they? Neither were getting a game before they came to us and both had pretty poor spells at their previous clubs before coming to Reading.

Ingimarsson was highly sought after at this level, Convey cost us 800k. You might have a point with Sonko but as with Hunt Coppell knew him very well (certainly as well as McDermott would have known the players you name below) and we poached Hunt from under the noses of Bradford at the last minute. He was a good squad player that promotion season but I'd say its pushing it to describe him as a "significant part of the 106 team"

Hahnemann was already here when Coppell arrived and Gunnarsson cost us over 500k from Stoke so no I don't count them in the category of Doyle/Long.

As an aside I'm also not sure I buy this notion that McDermott's success was built on knowing the players that were already here. I know it's a bit of an erroneous stat but as a comparison Coppell's first match in charge for us contained 4 players (Marcus,Shorey,Sidwell,Harper) who would be considered 1st team regulars in the promotion season 2 seasons later. McDermott's team on his first game had just 3 (Feds,Pearce and Jobi)

From McDermott's squad for the promotion season Federici, Pearce, Gorkss, Cummings, Karacan, Hunt, Kebe, Church and Robson-Kanu were all players McDermott would've known very well from their time at the club before he took over. Add in the likes of Long, Sigurdsson and Gunnarsson as players who played quite a key role on or off the pitch in McDermott's success and I think the theory stands up pretty well.

I've already mentioned Feds and Pearce. He bought Gorkss, Cummings was bought in by Rodgers so wasn't here that long at all and Im not sure how much influence he or Church had on the promotion season which I specifically referred to, ditto Glylfi and Long who were gone by then.

I don't think there's any doubt that part of his success was in developing the talent we had coming from the Academy although whether that was due to "knowing them" or his ability as a coach is definitely open to debate. Certainly suggesting that simply his knowledge of what he inherited was more of a factor than his ability to identify a team/squad's weaknesses and address them in the transfer market is overplayed in my opinion.

[Hoop Blah]

Yeah, that's a fair comment I guess James but it kind of overlooks the point that it was his best buddy to everyone position in the club that had the players on side straight away.

From the off he had the kind of relationship with some of the squad that the first team manager is very unlikely to have and so I'd say it's a bit different this time around. I'm not how much Hector, Tshibola or Cooper would've come into contact with McDermott back then as he would've been first team manager by the time they were close to the Reserve Team (perhaps Hector when he first joined) as they'd have been too young.

You'd hope they all have respect for him, but I doubt it's quite the same as those lads he had with him the first time around.

[Nameless]

Hahnemann had decided to go back to the States and quit the game before we took him on, so he was absolutely a cast off and a nobody who suddenly found he could play a bit !

[Hoop Blah]

Actually that's an interesting point.. I think there are differences in Coppell's situation for promotion and McDermott's. Coppell was never in a position where he had to sell players that were pivotal to his team. That 106 team was built up over his time here (and long before in truth) and Doyle/Long aside there weren't really any cast offs, has beens or nobodies that I can think of that he brought in who were a significant part of that 106 team.

Ingimarsson, Sonko, Convey and Hunt were all cast offs/nobodies weren't they? Even Hahnemann and Gunnarsson could be said to be cast offs in some way couldn't they? Neither were getting a game before they came to us and both had pretty poor spells at their previous clubs before coming to Reading.

Ingimarsson was highly sought after at this level, Convey cost us 800k. You might have a point with Sonko but as with Hunt Coppell knew him very well (certainly as well as McDermott would have known the players you name below) and we poached Hunt from under the noses of Bradford at the last minute. He was a good squad player that promotion season but I'd say its pushing it to describe him as a "significant part of the 106 team"

Hahnemann was already here when Coppell arrived and Gunnarsson cost us over 500k from Stoke so no I don't count them in the category of Doyle/Long.

I was more coming at it from the point that those players were cast-offs/unknowns (unproven) that Coppell got the most out of, not from a perspective of him bringing them in.

We might've paid a fee for Gunnarson, but he was out of favour at Watford (not Stoke, he'd left them a couple of years before) and not really wanted. Before that he'd been released by Forest. That's two Championship sides that didn't want him as far as I can tell. I'd count that as a castoff (luckily for us).

As for Ingimarsson, I'm sure he had other offers but he was hardly a big name signing. Not quite a nobody admittedly, but he couldn't get in Wolves' side and so found himself moved on.

Convey was of course someone we paid a decent fee for and with some fanfare. Again though, it's not like he was a known entity and a big name. Less so than signing someone like Scott Murray or McAnuf.

I think we may be talking at cross purposes here. My point was more that yes Coppell (and Pardew) built that side over time but it was made up of lots of unproven nobodies and cast-offs.

As an aside I'm also not sure I buy this notion that McDermott's success was built on knowing the players that were already here. I know it's a bit of an erroneous stat but as a comparison Coppell's first match in charge for us contained 4 players (Marcus,Shorey,Sidwell,Harper) who would be considered 1st team regulars in the promotion season 2 seasons later. McDermott's team on his first game had just 3 (Feds,Pearce and Jobi)

From McDermott's squad for the promotion season Federici, Pearce, Gorkss, Cummings, Karacan, Hunt, Kebe, Church and Robson-Kanu were all players McDermott would've known very well from their time at the club before he took over. Add in the likes of Long, Sigurdsson and Gunnarsson as players who played quite a key role on or off the pitch in McDermott's success and I think the theory stands up pretty well.

I've already mentioned Feds and Pearce. He bought Gorkss, Cummings was bought in by Rodgers so wasn't here that long at all and Im not sure how much influence he or Church had on the promotion season which I specifically referred to, ditto Glylfi and Long who were gone by then.

I don't think there's any doubt that part of his success was in developing the talent we had coming from the Academy although whether that was due to "knowing them" or his ability as a coach is definitely open to debate. Certainly suggesting that simply his knowledge of what he inherited was more of a factor than his ability to identify a team/squad's weaknesses and address them in the transfer market is overplayed in my opinion.

Sorry yeah, of course he signed Gorks. My thought with Cummings was that McDermott would've had quite a bit of time with him after he was bombed out of the first team and been his shoulder to cry on with the Ressies. I doubt that's the case thinking about it as it was more McDermott that bombed him out in the first place!

Having checked, Cummings and Church played 36 and 33 games in that Championship winning season (32 starts for Cummings apparently!).

Gylfi, Long and Gunnarsson's impact was more, IMO, about getting off to the start he did when he took over. That gave him the momentum to launch the Championship winning side.

[floyd__streete]

It also strikes me as a little odd that it's those sceptical about McDermott's abilities who conversely seem the most disappointed that he hasn't been instantly pulling up trees.

Well, quite.

[Vision]

Hahnemann had decided to go back to the States and quit the game before we took him on, so he was absolutely a cast off and a nobody who suddenly found he could play a bit !

He wasn't signed by Coppell. he'd been here over a season as a permanent player after a previous loan spell.

[Nameless]

Hahnemann had decided to go back to the States and quit the game before we took him on, so he was absolutely a cast off and a nobody who suddenly found he could play a bit !

He wasn't signed by Coppell. he'd been here over a season as a permanent player after a previous loan spell.

The comment related to how we as a club have built sides rather than trying to focus on one manager. The 106 side was almost entirely a team of misfits, out of the box signings and players enjoying unprecedented success which Coppell forged into a great side.

[Lower West]

05/06?

Sidwell was better defensively than either Norwood or Williams. Ran box to box as well. Harper also covered the ground well. Not a great tackler but got between ball and goal.

Precisely. Good alround midfielders, neither a defensive specialist. Neither concerned primarily with defence.

Thanks for proving my point.

Having good defensive qualities as a midfielder doesn't automatically make you a defensive midfielder.

Steve Sidwell Characteristics
+ Strengths
Tackling Strong
Ball interception Strong
Blocking the ball Strong

Danny Williams Characteristics
+ Strengths
(Player has no significant strengths)

[Vision]

Hahnemann had decided to go back to the States and quit the game before we took him on, so he was absolutely a cast off and a nobody who suddenly found he could play a bit !

He wasn't signed by Coppell. he'd been here over a season as a permanent player after a previous loan spell.

The comment related to how we as a club have built sides rather than trying to focus on one manager. The 106 side was almost entirely a team of misfits, out of the box signings and players enjoying unprecedented success which Coppell forged into a great side.

Which in turn was a direct response response to my comment about McDermott's signings.

Apologies though but I was trying to expand the point into a wider issue relating to the OP and how we should look at McD's first dozen games or so rather than contradicting what you said. I did actually highlight myself that I thought the signings harked back more to the old successful way of working.

However, since we seem to be focusing on individuals in the 106 team, I do think the evolution of transfer policy under Coppell is an interesting one and the 106 team wasn't simply a rag tag collection of odds and ends that somehow he moulded into a great team. There was logic and/or investment made before and all the way up to that point. For the most part they were exactly the sort of signings you'd expect a side like us to make given the Division we were in and the size of us.

A lot of Coppell's early signings are also interesting (although only to me it would seem) when put into context alongside the perceived notion that the major reason behind McD's success was that he knew the players he was working with. Most of Coppell's signings in the first 18 months or so were players known to him. Brooker, Ingimarrsson, Sonko, Little etc. At the point of the 04/05 season entering the final few months it was clear we had a side that contained good/decent championship players (the nucleus of the 106 team) but there was something missing. Coppell thought that might be experience so brought in Keown and Ferdinand but that didn't do the trick. Actually I also have an alternative theory on that "failure" too but I suspect this one is boring enough for most on here for now

So knowing we weren't that far away despite a significant number of the fan base claiming that we'd never go up with a side containing players X,Y & Z(insert any name that went on to become 106 regulars). We invested significantly the following summer but just as importantly clearly targeted certain areas with good Championship calibre players Bryn, Oster, Makin plus a statement of intent with the highly rated Lita. Even Hunt (albeit one of Coppell's "Known" signings) wasn't exactly a player who was unknown or unrated. Obviously you're still trusting a little to luck with any signing but there was clear logic to all of those signings being made to directly improve things immediately. If you add the now settled Convey* to that mix and you can see that actually it's a squad that should certainly be challenging for promotion. Certainly puts the whole notion of our current squad being our "best ever" into perspective. Of course Doyle was the real "out of the box" signing that instantly came good when few could have expected it.

* Interesting to see how times have changed when you compare the time given for Convey to settle as opposed to someone like Hurtado who I'd say is a similar signing.

I could go through the whole of the 106 1st team squad and make a case that the notion that it was full of cast offs, has beens and nobodies isn't quite as clear cut as you make it and that as individual deals they were for the most part exactly what you'd expect a club of our size to sign given the division we were in when we purchased them.

We'll have to agree to disagree on Hahnemann and others I would imagine. He'd already had a very successful loan spell here so to say we signed him and then suddenly discovered he could play isn't correct in my view.

And in reply to Hoops re Gunnarsson (apologies my memory really isn't that great so I did look this up) He played almost twice as many games for Watford in 04/05 as he played for us in 05/06 and we paid 500k for him. If he's a cast off then you could describe 90% of all signings as cast offs. Thankfully we benefitted from the fact that Boothroyd took over at Watford that summer and he's an eejit.

Speaking of crap memory I am genuinely at the amount of games Cummings played in McD's promotion season.

Apologies for the length of this and the fact its gone off topic when my original intention was to try and get it back towards the original thread title. I would bore you with why I think the notion that McD 's success was mainly down to his familiarity with the players but anyone who's read this post up to this point has suffered enough.

[Hoop Blah]

The sad thing is that your post just re-emphasises the way the modern game is going (I think it was your original point before we went off on details and tangents) in terms of the short termism and cheque book mentality. Coppell, and Pardew before, made (largely) astute signings for specific reasons and you could usually see the logic behind them.

McDermott was the same, albeit with a few more dodgy cheap punts on randoms with little or no chance of success, but with the influx of more and more money the time needed to evolve and build a squad and a team just isn't afforded managers anymore.

It's just another aspect of football at this level going to pot.