Hob Nob Anyone?

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

It's probably the easiest way for him to explain going from being 3rd in the league to relegation candidates in the space of 4 months.

One good season and since then has found his level ... was hopeless at his last job.

If buts and maybes I know...

But if we spent that money wisely that summer we really could have kicked on.

Really crippled us.

URZZZZ wrote:

Snowflake Royal wrote:Yep, if he's off then it's Richards and Obita ahead of him thanks.

Didn't think Obita was very involved against Cardiff though.

You play your best full back until we’re mathematically safe. So Blackett it is. And then once we are safe, give Richards a go IMO, see if he can regain his earlier form

There's so little between the it doesn't matter.

Obita currently has the shirt anyway.

URZZZZ wrote:

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

+ Ilori earlier in the year

Know a chap who did some work for Stam when he was here and apparently he whinged massively to him about the lack of spending. Also there was 2 players who he really wanted to sign but didn’t have the finances, and that’s what he blamed everything on

The spending that summer was hefty and could easily have crippled us - if we’d gone down that year we’d have been utterly ruined. Some dreadful waste of money as well - Mannone and Aluko the obvious

Would have loved a striker this window if available, but I'm also relieved that the club didn't panic buy one in their widely known pursuit. Hopefully we've learned the lessons of recent times.

Hound wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

+ Ilori earlier in the year

Know a chap who did some work for Stam when he was here and apparently he whinged massively to him about the lack of spending. Also there was 2 players who he really wanted to sign but didn’t have the finances, and that’s what he blamed everything on

The spending that summer was hefty and could easily have crippled us - if we’d gone down that year we’d have been utterly ruined. Some dreadful waste of money as well - Mannone and Aluko the obvious

The thing that set Stam apart from other Reading managers was his sheer arrogance, self entitlement and inability to accept responsibility. The owners, the fans, everybody but him. No wonder we were all so happy when he got the sack; spent big money on dress off the pitch, produced dross off it. On paper his reign was probably more successful than that of Gomes, but there's no question on who is looked back upon more favourably.

Hound wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

+ Ilori earlier in the year

Know a chap who did some work for Stam when he was here and apparently he whinged massively to him about the lack of spending. Also there was 2 players who he really wanted to sign but didn’t have the finances, and that’s what he blamed everything on

The spending that summer was hefty and could easily have crippled us - if we’d gone down that year we’d have been utterly ruined. Some dreadful waste of money as well - Mannone and Aluko the obvious

What an absolute cockgoblin.

URZZZZ wrote:

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

Plus we spent serious money on Ilori in the January before. Stam is clueless. We spent so much in 2017 it nearly bancrupted the club. Nothing but contempt for him making such stupid comments.

Zip wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

Plus we spent serious money on Ilori in the January before. Stam is clueless. We spent so much in 2017 it nearly bancrupted the club. Nothing but contempt for him making such stupid comments.

And that's why he's a shit manager. If you can't recognise fault in yourself, you can't learn or improve. And that's how he managed us, everything was someone else's fault, he didn't learn and he kept making the same mistakes.

Bye bye and good riddance.

Zip wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:

hughsies no.1 wrote:On the topic of transfers

Jaap Stam is on soccer am and just said the Chinese owners didn’t spend enough in the summer after the PO final?!

Aluko - Mannone - Bacuna - Barrow

They spent a lot of money and big wages that we are still trying to get off the books, but the signings were ultimately his downfall as the money wasn’t spent well. Not sure he can say we didn’t spend...

Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

Plus we spent serious money on Ilori in the January before. Stam is clueless. We spent so much in 2017 it nearly bancrupted the club. Nothing but contempt for him making such stupid comments.

Which is sort of ironic considering his best signings were the ones on the cheap/little money. None of JVDB, Blackett, Moore, Swift, Beerens etc could have been expensive whereas when he spent a bit more, e.g. Mannone, Bacuna, Bodvarsson, Ilori, Aluko, none of those really worked out

Plenty of managers speak absolute rubbish in interviews but he was one of the worst culprits for it, there were some games indescribably bad yet he'd come out and say we played well. He was really odd

URZZZZ wrote:

Zip wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:
Add Bodvarsson to that list too and even Edwards was a bit

Stam is known by us for talking absolute rubbish so it isn’t surprising

Plus we spent serious money on Ilori in the January before. Stam is clueless. We spent so much in 2017 it nearly bancrupted the club. Nothing but contempt for him making such stupid comments.

Which is sort of ironic considering his best signings were the ones on the cheap/little money. None of JVDB, Blackett, Moore, Swift, Beerens etc could have been expensive whereas when he spent a bit more, e.g. Mannone, Bacuna, Bodvarsson, Ilori, Aluko, none of those really worked out

Plenty of managers speak absolute rubbish in interviews but he was one of the worst culprits for it, there were some games indescribably bad yet he'd come out and say we played well. He was really odd

Yep definitely a strange character overall. Very thin skinned as well at times.

I generally think him and BT were massively more comfortable with the cheap deals and lesser players. To achieve what he did up to January that year with some pretty dodgy players on paper (ie Samuel, VDB, Evans) was outstanding, but couldn't seem to cope when the excuses were taken away

Interesting to see that a lot of Stams signing's still aren't at the club and I think that says a lot about the scatter gun transfer policy we had at the time. A couple of quality players rather than the huge squad we had would have made it far better. Stam certainly had more cash than Clarke, McDermott and Adkins.

In regards to the January window, its now pretty clear we aren't going to get the play offs then unless the right player becomes available then we don't need to buy like we did last January. We have some players on big contracts coming to end: Aluko, Mannone, McCleary, Blackett, Obita, Gunter which should free up a good amount of wages for the summer.

Moore needs an operation and as soon as we are clear of relegation and can't make the play offs he will have the op to be ready for the start of next season.

gazzer, loyal royal wrote:Interesting to see that a lot of Stams signing's still aren't at the club and I think that says a lot about the scatter gun transfer policy we had at the time. A couple of quality players rather than the huge squad we had would have made it far better. Stam certainly had more cash than Clarke, McDermott and Adkins.

In regards to the January window, its now pretty clear we aren't going to get the play offs then unless the right player becomes available then we don't need to buy like we did last January. We have some players on big contracts coming to end: Aluko, Mannone, McCleary, Blackett, Obita, Gunter which should free up a good amount of wages for the summer.

Moore needs an operation and as soon as we are clear of relegation and can't make the play offs he will have the op to be ready for the start of next season.

Unfortunately Aluko’s deal doesn’t end until June 2021.

Hound wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:

Zip wrote:

Plus we spent serious money on Ilori in the January before. Stam is clueless. We spent so much in 2017 it nearly bancrupted the club. Nothing but contempt for him making such stupid comments.

Which is sort of ironic considering his best signings were the ones on the cheap/little money. None of JVDB, Blackett, Moore, Swift, Beerens etc could have been expensive whereas when he spent a bit more, e.g. Mannone, Bacuna, Bodvarsson, Ilori, Aluko, none of those really worked out

Plenty of managers speak absolute rubbish in interviews but he was one of the worst culprits for it, there were some games indescribably bad yet he'd come out and say we played well. He was really odd

Yep definitely a strange character overall. Very thin skinned as well at times.

I generally think him and BT were massively more comfortable with the cheap deals and lesser players. To achieve what he did up to January that year with some pretty dodgy players on paper (ie Samuel, VDB, Evans) was outstanding, but couldn't seem to cope when the excuses were taken away

It takes skill and precision to identify cheaper players IMO that can be used in a certain way in a particular style

Whereas with more expensive signings, you often buy them because of the “name” rather than their style and how well they actually suit the managers ideas

That’s not to say some of our cheaper punts weren’t poor, Mendes, Danzell, Weiser, arguably Jaakkola, Pelle, Popa etc. But on the whole, as a club, we’ve always been more astute with “bargains”

URZZZZ wrote:

Hound wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:
Which is sort of ironic considering his best signings were the ones on the cheap/little money. None of JVDB, Blackett, Moore, Swift, Beerens etc could have been expensive whereas when he spent a bit more, e.g. Mannone, Bacuna, Bodvarsson, Ilori, Aluko, none of those really worked out

Plenty of managers speak absolute rubbish in interviews but he was one of the worst culprits for it, there were some games indescribably bad yet he'd come out and say we played well. He was really odd

Yep definitely a strange character overall. Very thin skinned as well at times.

I generally think him and BT were massively more comfortable with the cheap deals and lesser players. To achieve what he did up to January that year with some pretty dodgy players on paper (ie Samuel, VDB, Evans) was outstanding, but couldn't seem to cope when the excuses were taken away

It takes skill and precision to identify cheaper players IMO that can be used in a certain way in a particular style

Whereas with more expensive signings, you often buy them because of the “name” rather than their style and how well they actually suit the managers ideas

That’s not to say some of our cheaper punts weren’t poor, Mendes, Danzell, Weiser, arguably Jaakkola, Pelle, Popa etc. But on the whole, as a club, we’ve always been more astute with “bargains”

Yeah, agree with that. Jaakkola was a good player who was just a total misfit for how we played though.

It's expectations too, you pay a lot and you expect a high hit rate. You take punts and people expect a fair failure rate. Even amongst the success you expect more success from the expensive ones. At £10k-£15k a week Pog is a reasonable success. At £60k he's an abject failure.

Our bargain hit rate is probably no better than about 1 in 3, maybe 1 in 5 depending on how you define success.

But I reckon our big money success rate is at least as bad if not worse and it really should be considerably better.

Looks like Dickie is off in the summer

https://www.footballinsider247.com/excl ... -colossus/

toppy wrote:Looks like Dickie is off in the summer

https://www.footballinsider247.com/excl ... -colossus/

Do Reading have any sell on clause on him ?

Sutekh wrote:

toppy wrote:Looks like Dickie is off in the summer

https://www.footballinsider247.com/excl ... -colossus/

Do Reading have any sell on clause on him ?

It wouldn't surprise me, tends to be the sort of thing we do when we sell/let go one of our younger players.