Congratulations Sunderland

[Platypuss]

Having spent something like £20 million more than we did, we will probably be in a better position than them next season.

Just curious - what do you base that on?

[Schards#2]

If we stay up (and it increasingly looks like we will) on the money we've spent, maybe if Sunderland had Coppell as manager they would have stayed up without spending the money they did. Having spent something like £20 million more than we did, we will probably be in a better position than them next season.

Why? We can have £100 million more than them, it won't make the slightest difference unless we invest it on the pich, which is unlikely.

IMHO despite the expenditure, Sunderland are poor side and the first team i've felt embarrassed to finish below (assuming we do) for several seasons.

[mini _dariusz]

If we stay up (and it increasingly looks like we will) on the money we've spent, maybe if Sunderland had Coppell as manager they would have stayed up without spending the money they did. Having spent something like £20 million more than we did, we will probably be in a better position than them next season.

Why? We can have £100 million more than them, it won't make the slightest difference unless we invest it on the pich, which is unlikely.

IMHO despite the expenditure, Sunderland are poor side and the first team i've felt embarrassed to finish below (assuming we do) for several seasons.

The table doesn't lie.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Slices of humble pie required for Reading fans if Sunderland stay up >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all the slices of pie in the world.

Yes alright you have been proven right BUT what about all the dosh Fulham spent?? Where did it get them?

not to mention the millions spent by Bolton that would guarantee they stayed up.

There's no doubt though that we will need to spend in the summer. If we have the money, and aren't expanding the stadium, there can be no excuse for not doing so. Brick-by-brick is good, but the time has come to start buying a few bigger bricks.

Now that Seol's gone, we are unlikely to be invited to any "prestigous" pre-season tournaments either, so we can have a proper pre-season, rather than having the players come back knackered because it was too hot & humid to train properly in the period when they were meant to be building up their fitness.

[Tails]

Reading's first season considering budget >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sunderlands first season considering budget

Relevancy to 2008/9 season >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> your post.

Of course its relevant We are discussing the achievement of Sunderland in their fight to stave of relegation in their 1st year....I merely offered, albeit basic, comparison to other very recent 'feats'. So, in retort, yes it does have some relevancy to their achievement I didnt mention anything else did i? did i have to?

[Hampshire Royal]

I really don't know how much Sunderland have spent, although I'm pretty sure that it's more than us, but somebody said on an earlier post that wonders what life would be like if Coppell had spent £20 million, so I just assumed.......

However much more than us they've spent, they will not have that amount to 'improve' the squad next season.

[Platypuss]

Slices of humble pie required for Reading fans if Sunderland stay up >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all the slices of pie in the world.

Yes alright you have been proven right BUT what about all the dosh Fulham spent?? Where did it get them?

not to mention the millions spent by Bolton that would guarantee they stayed up.

Bolton did have the money to spend though - be very surprised if they haven't got a net profit to spend in the Championship.

[Platypuss]

Reading's first season considering budget >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sunderlands first season considering budget

Relevancy to 2008/9 season >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> your post.

Of course its relevant We are discussing the achievement of Sunderland in their fight to stave of relegation in their 1st year....I merely offered, albeit basic, comparison to other very recent 'feats'. So, in retort, yes it does have some relevancy to their achievement I didnt mention anything else did i? did i have to?

Strange - who would have thought that such an obviously throwaway statement would need to be subjected to such deep cryptoanalysis. <shrugs>

[Tails]

[Hampshire Royal]

I've just checked the amount spent by Reading and Sunderland for transfers:

January:
Reading
Malian midfielder Jimmy Kebe from Boulogne; Polish goalkeeper Voiceh Kovalevski from Spartak Moscow; Czech midfielder Marek Matejovsky from Mlada Boleslav for a fee of €1.9m; Bulgarian forward Radoslav Vasilev from Slavia Sofia.

Sunderland
Irish midfielder Andy Reid from Charlton Athletic; Swedish forward Rade Prica from Aalborg for a fee of €2.7m; Defender Phillip Bardsley from Manchester United; French defender Jean-Yves M'voto on loan from Paris St. Germain; North Ireland defender Jonathan Evans on loan from Manchester United.

Summer:
Reading
Defender Liam Rosenior from Fulham; Ivory Coast midfielder Emerse Fae from Nantes for a fee of €3.5m; French midfielder Kalifa Cisse from Boavista for a fee of €1m; Cameroonian defender Andre Bikey (permanent signing) from Lokomotiv Moscow for a fee of €1.5m.

Sunderland
Defender Danny Higginbotham from Stoke City for a fee of €4.5m; Irish defender Ian Harte on a free transfer from Levante; Trinidad and Tobago forward Kenwyne Jones from Southampton for a fee of €9m; Forward Andy Cole on a free transfer from Portsmouth; Scottish goalkeeper Craig Gordon from Hearts for a fee of €13.3m; Irish defender Paul McShane from West Bromwich Albion for a fee of €3.8m; Nigerian midfielder Dickson Etuhu from Manchester United for a fee of €2.2m; Midfielder Kieran Richardson from Manchester United for a fee of €8m; Forward Michael Chopra from Cardiff City for a fee of €7.5m; Scottish defender Russell Anderson from Aberdeen for a fee of €1.9m; Defender Greg Halford from Reading for a fee of €4.4m.


Source: http://www.betinf.com/england_transfer.htm

[From Despair To Where?]

I really don't know how much Sunderland have spent, although I'm pretty sure that it's more than us, but somebody said on an earlier post that wonders what life would be like if Coppell had spent £20 million, so I just assumed.......

However much more than us they've spent, they will not have that amount to 'improve' the squad next season.

I presume you are referring to my post. What I was aluding to was that if Coppell had spent £20million+ in the summer (looking at the figures in the previous post, it's actually closer to £40m, not including th eJanuary transfer window) and taken us to 13th, especially if he had spent £12m on 2 forwards who have contributed 12 goals in the league, people would be criticising him for pissing the money away on over-priced players. What of Birmingham, a bigger club than us, more glorious history, higher profile ("name" manager, loadmouthed dildo salesman in the boardroom and a dodgy Far Eastern businessman wanting to buy the club, in other words, the classic Pantomime club) spent millions on players that people were clamouring for us to sign at various times (Larsson, Muamba, McFadden) and still 2 points behind us.

Last season was a massive over-achievement for us, achieved by most of the squad playing at the absolute top of their game the majority of the time, but an achievement that expecations are set against, whether realistic or not. In the long run, it may have been better for us to have this sort of season last year and let's be honest, at the start of last season, who wouldn't have been delighted to be in this position with 5 games to go? As supporters, we are far too used to an incremental improvement year on year. We are long overdue a plateauing out or a dip. The experiences of the likes of Charlton, Fulham, Birmingham, Sunderland, Leicester, Wigan even Bolton, have shown that the sort of season we are having is entirely to be expected, a decent first season followed by a perennial struggle as you find your true level. Anyone who genuinely expects us to be challenging for Europe year in, year out, have to acccept that this can only be achieved with a seismic shift in the natural footballing order. Portsmouth are the only club who seemed to have achieved this in the past few seasons and it amazes me how they square up their finances.

For my money, Sunderland were the worst team to come to the Madejski this season. their defence in particular looking a huge weak link in the team. Funny that of their summer signings, 3 have already been shipped out to the Championship. Only Jones and Gordon have been an unqualified success. £10-12m on an average Championship defence (Anderson, McShane, Higginbottom and Halford). As is the wont of football fans, they will be expecting even bigger investment and a challenge for European places next season. Maybe a fairer comparision between them and ourselves can be made this time next year.

[PEARCEY]

I really don't know how much Sunderland have spent, although I'm pretty sure that it's more than us, but somebody said on an earlier post that wonders what life would be like if Coppell had spent £20 million, so I just assumed.......

However much more than us they've spent, they will not have that amount to 'improve' the squad next season.

I presume you are referring to my post. What I was aluding to was that if Coppell had spent £20million+ in the summer and taken us to 13th, especially if he had spent £12m on 2 forwards who have contributed 12 goals in the league, people would be criticising him for pissing the money away on over-priced players. What of Birmingham, a bigger club than us, more glorious history, higher profile ("name" manager, loadmouthed dildo salesman in the boardroom and a dodgy Far Eastern businessman wanting to buy the club, in other words, the classic Pantomime club) spent millions on players that people were clamouring for us to sign at various times (Larsson, Muamba, McFadden) and still 2 points behind us.

Last season was a massive over-achievement for us, achieved by most of the squad playing at the absolute top of their game the majority of the time, but an achievement that expecations are set against, whether realistic or not. In the long run, it may have been better for us to have this sort of season last year and let's be honest, at the start of last season, who wouldn't have been delighted to be in this position with 5 games to go? As supporters, we are far too used to an incremental improvement year on year. We are long overdue a plateauing out or a dip. The experiences of the likes of Charlton, Fulham, Birmingham, Sunderland, Leicester, Wigan even Bolton, have shown that the sort of season we are having is entirely to be expected, a decent first season followed by a perennial struggle as you find your true level. Anyone who genuinely expects us to be challenging for Europe year in, year out, have to acccept that this can only be achieved with a seismic shift in the natural footballing order. Portsmouth are the only club who seemed to have achieved this in the past few seasons and it amazes me how they square up their finances.

For my money, Sunderland were the worst team to come to the Madejski this season. their defence in particular looking a huge weak link in the team. Funny that of their summer signings, 3 have already been shipped out to the Championship. Only Jones and Gordon have been an unqualified success. £10-12m on an average Championship defence (Anderson, McShane, Higginbottom and Halford). As is the wont of football fans, they will be expecting even bigger investment and a challenge for European places next season. Maybe a fairer comparision between them and ourselves can be made this time next year.

Good post

[cmonurz]

No-one seems to have considered the fact that Sunderland didn't start this season how we started last - as a 106 point Championship side promoted in March.

[cmonurz]

Slices of humble pie required for Reading fans if Sunderland stay up >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all the slices of pie in the world.

I'm really sorry - but you're an utter tw*t.

[From Despair To Where?]

No-one seems to have considered the fact that Sunderland didn't start this season how we started last - as a 106 point Championship side promoted in March.

Maybe because no one seems to have considered it particularly relevant. Keane spent the best part of £10m the season before in the Championship which is still a huge sum by that league's standards. Carlos Edwards is a good player who they have missed but £2.5m on Anthony Stokes on the basis of 3 months on loan to Falkirk? And a big proportion of their key players were loanees.

Keane has made a couple of key signings that have had a huge impact (Gordon, Jones). There a couple who may come good but have been curtailed because of injury (Chopra, Richardson). The rest still cost the best part of £15m and wouldn't get in our team ahead of our collection of journeymen, foreign unknowns and big club cast offs (Higginbottom, McShane, Anderson, Halford, Cole, Etuhu etc).

[cmonurz]

Nevertheless, Sunderland were not as good a side when they came up as we were, ergo Keane had to spend a lot of money to turn them into a side safe (seemingly) from relegation.

[From Despair To Where?]

By spending £40m on a couple of good players, a couple of ok players and a lot of shite. We will achieve similar results by spending £5m on a couple of good players (Marek, Rosenior), a couple of ok players (Bikey and Cisse)and a handful of shite ones. I suspect the real story lies in their willingness to offer higher wages. That is the one area where I feel we need to re-assess our approach, not the spending of lavish transfer fees but that has to be done putting ourselves in the market to sign players who warrant £40,000 a week by being prepared to offer them £40,000 a week, not by offering £20,000 a week to a player who only warrants £10,000 a week just to beat off the competition. Good players can be signed on reasonable fees if you are prepared to pay them the going rate. And, no, i'm not advocating letting the wage bill spiral out of control just not allowing the current wage structure to knacker us signing one or two key players who can really make a difference.

I also wonder that if, as speculated, Strachan leaves Celtic in the summer, Keane would be in the running for the job at Parkhead. Without the lure of a name manager and the ability to call in a couple of favours from Sir Alex, would Sunderland be able to attract better players? They moaned enough about it last summer.

IIRC, most of the pisstaking at Sunderland earlier in the season was more rooted in the prices they were coughing out rather than the players they were buying, a point still completely valid, doubly so considering they had the cheek to moan about other clubs inflating the transfer market when it was only really them going mental with the cheque book. If you publicise the size of your warchest, what else do you expect. They'd do exactly the same if the boot was on the other foot.

[papereyes]

Portsmouth are the only club who seemed to have achieved this in the past few seasons and it amazes me how they square up their finances.

A REALLY rich owner. Since Mandaric and then Gaydamak took over, Portsmouth have spent a shit load of money. they stayed up in a side that had players like Sheringham, Stone and Berger. Since then they have played the cost little, big wages market like pros.

or like Harry "Buys 20 players a season and hopes 5 work" Redknapp has always worked.

[The whole year inn]

Lots of talk in the kiwi press abou Roy Keane training with the All Blacks this summer...Helping with his coaching licenses or something

[Platypuss]

Portsmouth are the only club who seemed to have achieved this in the past few seasons and it amazes me how they square up their finances.

Prior to this season I'd have also included Bolton.

Shows how important it is to have the right manager when your team is set up to play a certain way.