Striker PRIORITY

[Forbury Lion]

I struggle to see why we need a striker as the style of play we are opting for does not bring a striker into play other than tracking back to the the half way line to pass it it back.

You could see the frustration last night when Yann Kermorgan continually made runs last night against Plymouth off the last defender for the ball go backwards.

'

Could we do away with a strikers and play another midfielder instead? - Seemed to work for Spain IIRC.

[LumpWarden]

If Bamford for all accounts is available for 3 million that has to be considered!! He has great proven record at this level and the potential to get better,

That's a bloody good call and would be perfect. What's your source for the £3m availability?

[kwik-silva]

Watford have a handy striker, proven champ record... what's his name? Vydra or something....


But I agree. Especially now it seems we have service into the box and better wingers, a striker to finish the chances is key

Actually wonder how Vydra would do with this team rather than last season's mess. Shame we'll never know.

Well considering some of the chances he missed last season, I doubt he'd do much better. The issue with Vydra was that the times he actually was played in he missed almost every time.

[mikey0406]

3 million is what a few of the national papers are quoting today

[Top Flight]

Are we the club that have unsettled Forestieri?

[DOYLERSAROYALER]

Are we the club that have unsettled Forestieri?

Thought it was Derby..

[Royal_jimmy]

If Bamford for all accounts is available for 3 million that has to be considered!! He has great proven record at this level and the potential to get better,

That's a bloody good call and would be perfect. What's your source for the £3m availability?

pfft if its £3m we have no chance. We never spent £3m on a player in the premier league so what makes you think that we will do it in the championship? even then, Burnley and Bournemouth who are no bigger than us could even before they got promoted.

Would only part with so much money if we are 100% confident that he will be a success though

[Sutekh]

3m? We'll be looking at players from abroad in some county's second division who we've never heard of and who once scored a hatrick for their youth team. But they will have potential..... (and only cost nearer £300k)

Bamford to Reading is just so not going to happen

[taipairoyal]

Should have kept Jamie Mackie, is he available?.

[windermere_royal]

Should have kept Jamie Mackie, is he available?.

Injured. out for 2 months.

[Ian Royal]

Should have kept Jamie Mackie, is he available?.

Injured. out for 2 months.

Also, he wanted to go back to QPR.

[From Despair To Where?]

Should have kept Jamie Mackie, is he available?.

Injured. out for 2 months.

Also, he wanted to go back to QPR.

Not to mention he's in his 30's, wants in excess of £20,000 a week and throughout his career has only managed 10 league goals in a season once and that was 9 years ago in the Conference.

29 goals in 207 appearances in the Championship, a goal every 7 games, which equates to 7 goals a season, which he won't achieve because he's so injury prone, he'll never play a full season. Just the sort of striker we need.

If chasing the ball into the corners was a major requirement, we could buy a Jack Russell off Gumtree for £200.

[SCIAG]

Don't feed the troll guys.

Mackie isn't even a striker so he was really reaching to bring him up again. Good winger but frankly we've got enough of those.

If we were going to go after a recent loanee then Glenn Murray was the best option. I also wonder whether Stam could have got the best out of Vydra.

Kermogant's just coming back from injury and probably hasn't got back to his best yet. He's not a 20 goal striker but he might grow into the role and chip in with enough. We also haven't seen Mendes at all, and Samuel can't stay injured forever... I'd be more confident if we signed someone like Bamford (we paid £2.5m for Vydra so £3m for Bamford seems realistic) but it's not like all hope is lost if we don't sign Jordan Rhodes next week.

[Ian Royal]

Don't feed the troll guys.

Mackie isn't even a striker so he was really reaching to bring him up again. Good winger but frankly we've got enough of those.

If we were going to go after a recent loanee then Glenn Murray was the best option. I also wonder whether Stam could have got the best out of Vydra.

Kermogant's just coming back from injury and probably hasn't got back to his best yet. He's not a 20 goal striker but he might grow into the role and chip in with enough. We also haven't seen Mendes at all, and Samuel can't stay injured forever... I'd be more confident if we signed someone like Bamford (we paid £2.5m for Vydra so £3m for Bamford seems realistic) but it's not like all hope is lost if we don't sign Jordan Rhodes next week.

I'd love to see Samuel get a go, but whilst he certainly won't stay injured for ever, history suggests he won't stay fit for more than a couple of months or so either. Whilst obviously you can rarely properly judge before seeing someone get a run out across half a dozen games or so, there seems to be virtually nothing to recommend Mendes. Kermorgant is the closest to what we want IMO, and he's just not shown himself to be anything but mediocre.

But if Swift, Beerens, McCleary, Meite, Harriott and Williams can all regularly chip in with goals (obviously some from the bench or covering injuries), we may not need one. Yet to catch any highlights from Wolves, but I guess it depends which team turns up... the dynamic positive one that just needs to work on finishing that was there against Preston and Plymouth, or the tentative, cautious one that seems to have shown up against Wolves (and much of last season).

At least to achieve an improvement on last year and finish 12/13/14/15

[Lower West]

Offer HRK a short term contract. Doesn't seem in huge demand at the moment.

[yappy]

Have to say it still frustrates me that we sold Sa and bought in Kermorgant. Can somebody please explain what Yann has to done to prove he is the better striker? Aside from one performance at Charlton I barely remember what else he has contributed. What I find most frustrating is that Yann only has 1 or 2 years left in him; we could've got a lot more out of Sa.

Just for the record I'm not trying to say Sa would be the solution to all our striker problems, but for me he'd still be first choice. I am keeping faith in Rakels though, think he might surprise a few people this season.

[CountryRoyal]

Have to say it still frustrates me that we sold Sa and bought in Kermorgant. Can somebody please explain what Yann has to done to prove he is the better striker? Aside from one performance at Charlton I barely remember what else he has contributed. What I find most frustrating is that Yann only has 1 or 2 years left in him; we could've got a lot more out of Sa.

Just for the record I'm not trying to say Sa would be the solution to all our striker problems, but for me he'd still be first choice. I am keeping faith in Rakels though, think he might surprise a few people this season.

Sa didn't want to be here and was pretty average anyway.

[maffff]

Should have kept Jamie Mackie, is he available?.

More injured than Samuel....

[Top Flight]

Have to say it still frustrates me that we sold Sa and bought in Kermorgant. Can somebody please explain what Yann has to done to prove he is the better striker? Aside from one performance at Charlton I barely remember what else he has contributed. What I find most frustrating is that Yann only has 1 or 2 years left in him; we could've got a lot more out of Sa.

Just for the record I'm not trying to say Sa would be the solution to all our striker problems, but for me he'd still be first choice. I am keeping faith in Rakels though, think he might surprise a few people this season.

I share your frustration regarding Orlando. But as Country Royal says, the fact is he didn't want to be with us. Therefore, he had to go.

In my opinion he was poorly recruited in the first place. The club recruiters can't have asked the right questions or investigated his motivations, personal circumstances, character well enough. And they did that throughout last season with all of the signings.
That's why we ended up with so many players that didn't really want to play for us and didn't give the effort.

The clubs best period of recruitment was during the Coppell era where players joined for the right reasons and their character, motivations and personalities were properly investigated. There was a good fit between themselves and Reading Football Club. These issues were as important as a players technical ability.

Recently, it seems that the club have recruited based on technical skill alone and have ended up with players like Hurtado who couldn't settle, Orlando who also couldn't settle and others like Piazon and Ola John who weren't hungry enough to progress their careers.

This seasons transfer business has all the hallmarks of last years. This hit and miss approach which seems to miss a lot more often than it hits isn't very astute. I just hope they get a bit more lucky this time around.

When the players are recruited properly though, you don't need so much luck to get success.

Hopefully like Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams we will Get Lucky this season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I

[From Despair To Where?]

You could at least posted the Red Army Choir version from Sophi. The most unintentionally camp performance ever.