The Summer clearout / Coming in thread. Updated 27/8

[No Hoops]

Johnny Fordham knows nothing.

I expect he knows something about something

[Avon Royal]

Roll on 31/8

Yeah, transfer deadline day last August was great

[brendywendy]

erm, i think he means roll on that date cos it will mean we can stop worrying about losing our best players, rather than because of any influx of multimillion pound superstar players.

[andrew1957]

If Mills goes then I really fear it could open the flood gates. I thought he would want to stay - especially as he could have made the Club Captain role his own.

You cannot help but feel that if he goes several others will follow.

[NR_Royal]

erm, i think he means roll on that date cos it will mean we can stop worrying about losing our best players, rather than because of any influx of multimillion pound superstar players.

Except I believe Siggy was sold on the 31st August 2010.

[No Hoops]

erm, i think he means roll on that date cos it will mean we can stop worrying about losing our best players, rather than because of any influx of multimillion pound superstar players.

Thanks Brendy. I thought he meant Sig going.

Some people eh!

(fecking newbies)

[Ian Royal]

If Mills goes then I really fear it could open the flood gates. I thought he would want to stay - especially as he could have made the Club Captain role his own.

You cannot help but feel that if he goes several others will follow.

Like? Federici leaving isn't a big blow. Long and to a certain extent Kebe are both expected to go irrespective of whether Mills does.

I think your worrying far too much.

[Avon Royal]

erm, i think he means roll on that date cos it will mean we can stop worrying about losing our best players, rather than because of any influx of multimillion pound superstar players.

Yer think?

[Wimb]

If Mills goes then I really fear it could open the flood gates. I thought he would want to stay - especially as he could have made the Club Captain role his own.

You cannot help but feel that if he goes several others will follow.

Like? Federici leaving isn't a big blow. Long and to a certain extent Kebe are both expected to go irrespective of whether Mills does.

I think your worrying far too much.

^^^ this.

Even if Mills goes it's going to be on terms very favourable to Reading and that money we recieve, plus any funds we'd set aside for his contract extension, could be used to find a replacement and have some left over to strengthen other areas.

[Sarah Star]

Even if Mills goes it's going to be on terms very favourable to Reading and that money we recieve, plus any funds we'd set aside for his contract extension, could be used to find a replacement and have some left over to strengthen other areas.

I don't know, they all seem to be going for silly money these days... £13m for Wickham

[Victor Meldrew]

Even if Mills goes it's going to be on terms very favourable to Reading and that money we recieve, plus any funds we'd set aside for his contract extension, could be used to find a replacement and have some left over to strengthen other areas.

I don't know, they all seem to be going for silly money these days... £13m for Wickham

I think you will find that Wickham went for around £8 million.
He played for England at U21 level when just 17 I believe so he clearly has great potential whereas Mills is a player who could only command a regular place at Doncaster and Reading and didn't break through at Southampton or City.
Also forwards tend to cost much more than defenders so on that basis anywhere near £4 million for Mills sounds like a good deal for Reading and we know that good player that he can be on his day he does have a lot of faults even playing at Championship level.

[brendywendy]

if we are talking about the value on the player alone, then maybe. but the value of him for the team, and us not having to rebuild our whole defence from scratch, putting us a year back at least may not be worth it

[under the tin]

if we are talking about the value on the player alone, then maybe. but the value of him for the team, and us not having to rebuild our whole defence from scratch, putting us a year back at least may not be worth it

You went to Wembley, yes?
You hoped for a win to take us up. Yes?
Some of us might just be of the opinion that with Sigurdsson in the side, we might not have needed to participate in that game at all.
OK, we'd have missed out on a day out at the national stadium, but hey ho.

I'm glad that you have seen that there is sometimes a longer term view.

[ZacNaloen]

With sigurdsson in the side we'd have struggled defensively as we'd not have been able to sign all three of Harte, Leigertwood and Khizanizvili

[Snowball]

With sigurdsson in the side we'd have struggled defensively as we'd not have been able to sign all three of Harte, Leigertwood and Khizanizvili

And say we HAD played him and he'd got his 20 goals playing 451 behind Long

Cancel out 10 goals from Hunt, cancel all Harte's penalties/free-kick's (10) and Long's penalties (7)

So plus 20 goals, but minus 27 goals. Clearly we scored more goals OVERALL when he DIDN'T play

[Hoop Blah]

Why would you need to cancel all Harte's penalties and free kicks?

Between them Sigurdsson and Long have pretty good penalty records (I'm sure you haven't forgotten that 7 or 8 of your hero's goals from his 20+ this season came from the penalty spot) and Sigurdsson on the free kicks might've been more productive than Harte.

With Sigurdsson in the side I think we may well have seen more goals from McAnuff and Kebe too (not to mention Long) as they'd have benefited from his creativity and the extra space a player of his quality could've created by mainting possession a bit more and attracting opposition defences attention away from them.

Would we really have failed to bring in a left back without the Sigurdsson money? Not sure, I still think that was possibly a bit of spin by the club. Could Williams or Cummings have provided something more with their extra pace if given a chance? Maybe.

[Snowball]

Why would you need to cancel all Harte's penalties and free kicks?

Siggurdson's twenty goals were largely penalties and free=kicks.

Either HE takes them, or Harte takes them or Long takes them (pens).

So obviously, If Siggy had played and taken the free's Harte would have scored less.
Or, if Harte had taken them, Siggy would have scored less.

Same issue with penalties.
You can't have three guys scoring the same penalties.

Between them Sigurdsson and Long have pretty good penalty records (I'm sure you haven't forgotten that 7 or 8 of your hero's goals from his 25 this
season came from the penalty spot) and Sigurdsson on the free kicks might've been more productive than Harte.

I think you'll see I mentioned (7)

As for Gylfi's frees, you're kidding, right? Harte has a better shot-conversion record than Gylfi, Gylfi was wasteful

131 Shots = 71 On Target 53 Off Target 7 Hit Woodwork, 20 Goals, 1 every 6.55 shots 2009-10 Gylfi
060 Shots = 30 On Target 21 Off Target 9 Hit Woodwork, 11 Goals, 1 every 5.45 shots 2010-11 Harte

With Sigurdsson in the side I think we may well have seen more goals from McAnuff and Kebe too (not to mention Long)
as they'd have benefited from his creativity and the extra space a player of his quality could've created by mainting
possession a bit more and attracting opposition defences attention away from them.

You THINK. Yet we scored more goals without Siggy (and conceded a lot less) 84+5 versus 82.

So presumably you're saying we'd've scored 90+ this season with Gylfi in?

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

So presumably you're saying we'd've scored 90+ this season with Gylfi in?

Not sure that was said by anyone except you. As ever in football just a few goals can get the points difference, depending on which games they come in. No need to score more in games we won , but had a few extra come in games we didnt win it COULD have been different

[Hoop Blah]

Snowball, I mis-read the first bit and didn't get the point where you were including Sigurdssons goals as well as discounting Harte's.

Personally I don't think we'd have scored less with the same attack plus Sigurdsson no. Would we have conceded more? Totally hypothetical but I don't think we'd have failed to purchase reinforcements to an under quality defence and midfield.

[Millsy]

If Siggy was with us we could be very likely be talking about visitin Man United, LIverpool, Everton etc right now. But then would we have bought Legs, who to my mind made all the difference?

One thing is for sure though - we were never going to keep hold of Siggy and buy someone like Legs.

Because we're a nearly club as I pointed out and predicted months ago, much to the pram-emptying of the Rectum Crew.

We are a small club with a chairman who is interested in his other businesses and who has little interest in our club *at the moment*. [Nothing wrong with that - his choice and his right. And I am grateful for what he's done so far if he just leaves now and takes the well-deserved plaudits/statue/deification.] But it means this club is not going to be doing anything exciting except for if by some luck we happen to do it on the cheap. [Again nothing necessarily wrong with that - thanks to Madeski we are extremely financially sound I believe.]. More likely, we're being held in that financial sweet-spot of not having to break the bank but reaping in the rewards and excitement of being a club with an affordable but real outide chance of making it to the Promised Land. As things stand therefore we are designed to be a nearly-club. [Again nothing wrong with this except it's annoying for the likes of us who want more. But it ain't my money so it's easy for me to say. And yep I'm greedy. Actually it is my very hard earned money every week... but still] Getting rid of Sig but getting a loan player instead managed exactly that - nearly get us promoted. Holding onto our star and maybe making a decent purchase (eg Legs) or two would mean Prem footy now without a doubt.

It was shocking that either we lost Siggy - or - we had really no choice in which case the unexpected surprise lottery windfall of £7.5million (plus saved wages, but minus taxes etc) was not immediately ploughed straight into the squad. Welcome to Reading NC. [Again nothing wrong with this but it's so plain to see that the only having ones head up Madeski's Rectum stops anyone from seeing it.]