How much will we spend?

[Dirk Gently]

You're all ignoring the fact that transfer fees are pretty irrelevant.

It's wages that are the really substantial outlay - especially as the club commits to them for 3 years at a time.

[Behindu]

If we pay someone £25,000 a week then that's £1.3million a year or £3.9 million over a 3 year deal.

Add in loads of extras (signing on fee, loyalty bonus, playing bonuses, sundry expenses) and add in employers costs like insurance, NI, health care etc etc etc and it becomes obvious that even if we smashed our transfer record the cost of employing the player is much more than the cost of acquiring him.

No idea how those figures stack up against published accounts, but they are a bit scary...

[Dirk Gently]

Even more scary when you know that we have no guarantees of what our income levels will be in 3 years' time.

[2.8 lita injection]

If on January the 1st we dont sign any players i will not be impressed, if Reading are serious about being active in the transfer market then we should have already bid for the targeted players and they should be ready to join as early as possible.

But i predict they will just end up being caught up in silly bidding wars and Reading dont do that.

[Oi Oi Saveloy]

If on January the 1st we dont sign any players i will not be impressed, if Reading are serious about being active in the transfer market then we should have already bid for the targeted players and they should be ready to join as early as possible.

But i predict they will just end up being caught up in silly bidding wars and Reading dont do that.

You miss the point. Reading do want to sign players, but if the players do not want to play for us, or we will not pay the wages, they will not come to us.

[cmonurz]

If on January the 1st we dont sign any players i will not be impressed, if Reading are serious about being active in the transfer market then we should have already bid for the targeted players and they should be ready to join as early as possible.

But i predict they will just end up being caught up in silly bidding wars and Reading dont do that.

You miss the point. Reading do want to sign players, but if the players do not want to play for us, or we will not pay the wages, they will not come to us.

I think Coppell has already made it clear that in the summer that he made a decision that the squad was pretty much strong enough, something he said he regrets.

Unfortunately I believe the club is less attractive to players now than it was in July.

[TFF]

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/readi ... es?rss=yes

"several multi-million-pound bids"

"four or five top-quality players"

[Alan Partridge]

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/readingfc/2017/2017985/coppells_cash_for_january_sales?rss=yes

"several multi-million-pound bids"

"four or five top-quality players"

Reading sign Kevin O'Connor from Brentford for £80,000 then.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Yes that may well be true they will make several multi million pound bids for top quality players but the problem will be persuading those players to come to this club especially, given the run of games we have through until the end of January, with the crap nature of our league position.

If we can get one 'name' though then getting others to join the cause would become easier but that is easier said then done.

So when it comes to the end of January and all we have signed is one player off of a Championship club or a Premiership has-been try to remember not to fill thos board with too many messages about no ambition etc.

[79Royal]

Two things about the atricle in the EP.

1) Is it wise to let other clubs know that we are willing to spend substantially in January? Will other clubs look to drive the transfer fee up? Is it worth the risk in order to let potential transfer targets know that we are doing all we can to progress?

2) More importantly in my view, will the club think that 'making a mark on the January transfer market' means spending a lot of money on transfer fees, even if the quality of player that we are able to attract isn't really worth it? I'd like to think that we would be sensible with our money, but the pressure is really on this January and it's possibly the first time that Nicky Hammond would have been tested in this way.

[Oi Oi Saveloy]

Two things about the atricle in the EP.

1) Is it wise to let other clubs know that we are willing to spend substantially in January? Will other clubs look to drive the transfer fee up? Is it worth the risk in order to let potential transfer targets know that we are doing all we can to progress?

2) More importantly in my view, will the club think that 'making a mark on the January transfer market' means spending a lot of money on transfer fees, even if the quality of player that we are able to attract isn't really worth it? I'd like to think that we would be sensible with our money, but the pressure is really on this January and it's possibly the first time that Nicky Hammond would have been tested in this way.

It could be a tactic to give the players a kick up the arse.

Unless reading to what Fulham did a few seasons back, then I can;t see us making major improvements in the squad in Jan. There were also a number of expectation management statements taht will allow them to say "we made bids, but the players did not want to come/clubs did not want to sell"

I still think we will spend about £4million, but I doubt this will be enough to satisfy many of supporters.

[brendywendy]

Two things about the atricle in the EP.

1) Is it wise to let other clubs know that we are willing to spend substantially in January? Will other clubs look to drive the transfer fee up? Is it worth the risk in order to let potential transfer targets know that we are doing all we can to progress?

2) More importantly in my view, will the club think that 'making a mark on the January transfer market' means spending a lot of money on transfer fees, even if the quality of player that we are able to attract isn't really worth it? I'd like to think that we would be sensible with our money, but the pressure is really on this January and it's possibly the first time that Nicky Hammond would have been tested in this way.

It could be a tactic to give the players a kick up the arse.

Unless reading to what Fulham did a few seasons back, then I can;t see us making major improvements in the squad in Jan. There were also a number of expectation management statements taht will allow them to say "we made bids, but the players did not want to come/clubs did not want to sell"

I still think we will spend about £4million, but I doubt this will be enough to satisfy many of supporters.

sounds like 4-5 players being tried for
and at least a couple of those being over 2 million pounds.
that is a step up for us, and if we get one or two of our first choices ill be well chuffed with it.

if players dont want to come to reading, even if wages are met(like th escott brown attempt),
i can understand that
i probably wouldnt want to come here either, and it wouldnt really matter whether we were 20th, 17th, 12th, or 8th in the league
almost everyone in the league is currently a better prospect than we are, except derby, and possibly wigan

we just have to deal with that,and pitch our bids at the right players/clubs.
cos if someone else is interested in the prem, we have less than a 50/50 chance of getting them

FACT

[andrew1957]

I doubt very much we will buy 4 or 5 big names - we may bid for a few but I would expect no more than 2 significant additions and perhaps a couple of younger lower league players.

In reality it would be pointless buying players in the below £4M or so category as they are unlikely to be much better than what we have. Instead expect one or two £5M plus signings to spice things up a little.

I would not be surprised to see us spend £15M but also expect to see a few departures so the overall spend unlikely to be much more than £10M which will be easily affordable if we survive.