The State Of The Team In February 2011 & Going Forward

[jollyjiminy]

Bearing in mind we're top half of the Championship going forward means trying to get promoted and trying to stay up there for at least three seasons this time.

Who's capable of doing this for us?

- Feds
- Cummings - maybe
- Pearce - maybe
- Mills
- Kebe
- Mcanuff
- Long - maybe

Too early to say about the boys who came in ion January, but the others are worrying, either because they'll be too old or because they haven't shown enough. We've made it a lot more difficult for ourselves by selling Sig - we're truly world class at selling players at prices that we'd never be prepared to spend ourselves.

I think Legs is good enough but I think QPR would prefer to have him back on his current form and I think he'll go back: if we get promoted this year and he had any choice in the matter it might be difficult for him as QPR have more chance of staying up.

We have to buy a young left back (Bertrand if possible) find/improve a young attacking central midfielder that no-one else has noticed (!) and pray for two more things:
1. That Legs ends up with us
2. That at least one of our strikers can cut it at the top (Long or one of the others).

If we don't get up this year we'll probably lose Kebe and Mcanuff and maybe others too and we've suddenly got a lot more work to do. Very different to 2004/5 where we could build but we weren't so decimated by transfers out.

[andrew1957]

Prediction for Reading squad for the start of the 2011-12 season

Andersen – McCarthy

Griffin/ Cummings/ Kelly
Mills/ Pearce/ Ingi/ Morrison
Harte/ M.Williams

Leigertwood (bought for 250K)/ Karacan/ Tabb/ Gunnarsson
Taylor

Antonio/ R-K/ Obita/ Walcott

Church/ Manset/ B.Williams/ ANO (1M striker purchase to keep RTG fans happy)

Number is squad number equals 24

Sold Federici – 3M
Sold McAnuff 1M
Sold Kebe 4M
Sold Long 4M
Released Armstrong/ Khiz/ Hunt + Howard (if we can find a taker)

Total received 12M plus considerable saving on wages – spent 1.25M

Result –
Happy RTG’s who will say how much the squad has improved from 2010-11
Happy Chairman – profit £10.75 plus wages saved

Any thoughts?

[Row Z Royal]

Any thoughts?

Nope.

[Ian Royal]

No chance what-so-ever will we sell all of McAnuff, Kebe, Long & Federici in the summer. Totally unrealistic.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Any thoughts?

Yep. My only thoughts are "Here he goes again on a RFC not throwing enough money at new players theme."

[Zammo]

Prediction for Reading squad for the start of the 2011-12 season

Andersen – McCarthy

Griffin/ Cummings/ Kelly
Mills/ Pearce/ Ingi/ Morrison
Harte/ M.Williams

Leigertwood (bought for 250K)/ Karacan/ Tabb/ Gunnarsson
Taylor

Antonio/ R-K/ Obita/ Walcott

Church/ Manset/ B.Williams/ ANO (1M striker purchase to keep RTG fans happy)

So, in a nutshell, relegation looming.

[Ian Royal]

No chance what-so-ever will we sell all of McAnuff, Kebe, Long & Federici in the summer. Totally unrealistic.

You also seem to be confused about releasing players. You can't release a player who's loan has finished and you do not need other clubs to be interested to release Hunt or Howard.

Basically your whole post is full of gaping holes and poor attempts at point scoring.

[andrew1957]

No chance what-so-ever will we sell all of McAnuff, Kebe, Long & Federici in the summer. Totally unrealistic.

You also seem to be confused about releasing players. You can't release a player who's loan has finished and you do not need other clubs to be interested to release Hunt or Howard.

Basically your whole post is full of gaping holes and poor attempts at point scoring.

Hunt and Armstrong are at the end of their contracted terms at the end of the season so we can release them without offering a new contract. I think it is very reasonable to use the term released at the end of a loan period - Khiz - you are bing nitpicking as usual. Howard will still have a year to go so we cannot release him and we would have to sell or agree termination of the contract by mutual consent.

[Kitson12]

Hunt is close to signing a new 2 and a half year contract. HTH

[specialjon]

Sold Federici – 3M
Sold McAnuff 1M
Sold Kebe 4M
Sold Long 4M

I was thinking this could happen just the other day. BUT I reckon McAnuff won't move the other 3 I can see happening.

[Tails]

Couldn't this be done on Wimb's thread?

[RoyalJames101]

Since when has the 10/11 season been finished...

[Scarface]

Prediction for Reading squad for the start of the 2011-12 season

Andersen – McCarthy

Griffin/ Cummings/ Kelly
Mills/ Pearce/ Ingi/ Morrison
Harte/ M.Williams

Leigertwood (bought for 250K)/ Karacan/ Tabb/ Gunnarsson
Taylor

Antonio/ R-K/ Obita/ Walcott

Church/ Manset/ B.Williams/ ANO (1M striker purchase to keep RTG fans happy)

So, in a nutshell, relegation looming.

Look at Watford, it's possible to challenge with cheap squad, you just need to be wise in the transfer market.

[Z175]

Well yet again we have to cut our cloth this summer.

The coats full of holes already I know, so the good news is theres not much cloth. The high earners will have to go however. Jobi McAnuff is a pricey luxury we will make a business decision. Long, Kebe and Federici too maybe. This would be a good 3.5m off the wagebill, and added to losing Gylfi, Marek and Cisse means we would be a roughly break even club and would no longer have to sell our players to survive.

Going for a Watford could also mean going for a Blackpool. As the likes of free spending QPR, Forest and Leicester home in on the Premierleague, reality will bite for those championship sides who have been racking up the debts and the Championship is opening up to the likes of Blackpool, Doncaster and Swansea.

If we can keep Pearce, Robson-Kanu, Church, Antonio, Karacan, Cummings and Andersen in our side we will remain in the top half of this league at least for a long time. Even their detractors must admit they are 7 players who are very young but are rapidly gaining experience. Put them in the same side for 10 years and see?

I admit if anyone becomes a world beater they will get sold. But the way we are offloading the high earners will mean we can keep our academy boys for a long time.

Better Blackpool than Plymouth.

[RoyalJames101]

I would rather watch us compete somewhere in mid-table of the Championship, than watch us go into debt and go down the same route as someone like Luton.

Debt Free Club > Debt Riddled Club.

[loyalroyal4life]

Any thoughts?

Mills wont be here in the summer, he wants to leave if we dont go up.

[Ian Royal]

shame.

[Wimb]

Don't see how this thread is any different from the one I started last week

[Ian Royal]

Don't see how this thread is any different from the one I started last week

It's negative and not as good?

[S09Royal]

Too many of our players are now saying, or have been alleged to have said, they'll leave the club if we don't get promoted this year. Well, tbh it's in their hands, or rather in their boots, so whether they stay at the club or not is actually down to what they all want to/will achieve this season. A part of me thinks they couldn't care less if we don't go up or they're hoping we don't because then they can leave
IMHO I only want to watch players who actually want to PLAY for Reading.