Deniss Rakels Transfer Goes Through

29 January 2016
By Hob Nob Anyone?

Deniss Rakels has completed his move to Reading, signing a two and a half year contract. Twenty three year old Rakels is a Latvian International striker who arrives at Reading from the Polish top flight side Caracovia. He has 15 caps for his country. Rakels is in top form right now having already scored 15 goals so far this season in Polish football. Reading will be hoping he is a better fit than Orlando Sa who arrived in the summer for a short stay before departing this week.

Meanwhile Paolo Hurtado, another failed summer signing, has departed Reading to Portugal on a six month loan. Hurtado joins Vitoria Guimares until the end of the season. The Peru International player made just a single league cup start for the Royals. In the league he appeared off the bench five times but hasn't appeared for the Royals in any competition since November 2015.

Deniss Rakels has completed his move to Reading, signing a two and a half year contract. Twenty three year old Rakels is a Latvian International striker who arrives at Reading from the Polish top flight side Caracovia. He has 15 caps for his country. Rakels is in top form right now having already scored 15 goals so far this season in Polish football. Reading will be hoping he is a better fit than Orlando Sa who arrived in the summer for a short stay before departing this week.

<br/><br/>
Meanwhile Paolo Hurtado, another failed summer signing, has departed Reading to Portugal on a six month loan. Hurtado joins Vitoria Guimares until the end of the season. The Peru International player made just a single league cup start for the Royals. In the league he appeared off the bench five times but hasn't appeared for the Royals in any competition since November 2015.

Discussion On This Story:

RustyRoyal

» 19 Jan 2016 16:16

Apparently we pulled out of the Washingston deal to sign this guy. 23, 26 in 61 for Cracovia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5M7iJsMbLA

bluerinse

» 19 Jan 2016 16:30

He is Latvian but plays in the Polish League. I would have thought with a question mark against the last player we signed from the Polish League (Orlando Sa ) we should be wary of the standard of players coming out of that league.

PistolPete

» 19 Jan 2016 16:42

Makes absolutely no sense at all.

Tommio

» 19 Jan 2016 17:16

Fee is only €500,000 perhaps we'll get him and someone else rather than Washington for £3m

LWJ

» 19 Jan 2016 17:36

Looks a bit :| on the video

Oilroyal

» 19 Jan 2016 17:39

I think the Thais can do one. Not impressed by us pulling out of the Wickham deal for this guy. The tweet from the Posh chairman says all I need to know. This is gonna end ugly with the Thais.
http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/latvian-striker-deniss-rakels-linked-10758909

CholseyRoyal

» 19 Jan 2016 17:40

Going by comments on Twitter, this seems like an owner's choice, not Brian's :(

RoyalJames101

» 19 Jan 2016 17:41

Oilroyal

» 19 Jan 2016 17:43

Royal Bison

» 19 Jan 2016 17:49

What exactly has Sa done wrong?

andrew1957

» 19 Jan 2016 18:19

To be fair to the owners if I were them and as the chance of promotion is now so remote, I would favour a 500K risk over a 3M pound risk. Save the rest from the Blackman sale to help the summer overhaul.
Washington is not proven and so is just as much a risk at Championship level as Rakels and who knows Rakels might turn out to be better. So if true I am in for this signing.
As for Sa it is all very mysterious. He looked ok to start with, but it sounds like for whatever reason he is unhappy and wants to go. Rather sad but most of SC's signings are beginning to look like a car crash (Quinn and McShane excepted).

bluerinse

» 19 Jan 2016 19:19

Have a Polish friend in Reading who supports Legia Warsaw. He says according to Legias website they have agreed a fee of 500 euros with Cracovia for Rakels and he has agreed terms with them. Either Reading have come in very late on this one, or it is not going to happen.

Royal_jimmy

» 19 Jan 2016 19:36

Wish people would stop moaning about this :roll:

Royal Ginger

» 19 Jan 2016 20:19

Wickham? :roll:
What's to say McDermott wasn't in agreement with the Thais that we should waste all of our budget on an unproven League 1 strikers who has had one decent run?
No one had even heard of the kid last week :lol:

Sorry Washington.. Just a bit FuKced off right now.

Why's that? Is Washington better? What aspects of his game have you seen that have impressed you? Get to many Posh games?

Top Flight

» 19 Jan 2016 20:57

This guy Rakels doesn't look very convincing on YouTube....
Orlando looks a better player to me. Rather than take risks on guys like Washington and this guy Rakels. Why can't we keep Orlando?

Maguire

» 19 Jan 2016 22:14

:lol:
Well, shit, better fold the club then

loyalroyal4life

» 19 Jan 2016 22:20

500 euros is a bargain, I would hurry up and better that offer and go 600, no brainer!!!

Sutekh

» 20 Jan 2016 09:51

I cannot believe that we would have pulled the plug on a deal for a player the manager wanted to sign a player the owner(s) wants instead.
If this was the case then Brian has to be on board and backing the decision otherwise he might as well leave the club now.
Perhaps there's more to the Washington thing e.g. unreasonable agent demands that caused Reading to rethink.
For the record what are the Thais ties to Poland. There must be some for them to want to go back there again (or perhaps JM saw the cheap option again and persuaded them otherwise).

tidus_mi2

» 20 Jan 2016 09:58

If QPR were involved in the Washington deal before we could agree terms, there would be no doubt in my mind Washington's agent would have made large salary demands, knowing full well QPR would pay them.

Nameless

» 20 Jan 2016 10:13

It simply beggars belief that anyone can suggest with a straight face that the Thais are going to come up with a completely obscure player from a backwater of Europe and insist our manager signs him ! In the same way I doubt SJM ever walked into a managers office and told them they had to sign a Latvian left back he liked the look of there is just no logic to suggesting the Thais are going to waste their time researching hundreds of players and then imposing a random choice on McDermott.

They may veto a player on the basis of cost but none of them are football geeks, their priorities are to have a successful football club and to explore ways of making money and neither of these involve meddling in the transfer market at such a micro level.

Given McD has just spent a couple of years doing extensive scouting work for a club that has one of the best networks around it would seem a much more likely scenario that he's brought his files with him, or been speaking to everyone he knows round Europe to find value players (hopefully this means players available for whatever reason at a fraction of their potential value). This may be because that is what the Thais ha e asked him to do, but that is very different to Sasima calling Brian into her office and showing him a player of FIFA with good stats and telling him to go get him.

TBM

» 20 Jan 2016 10:16

500 Euros?!
Thats, what, £380 :shock:

Sutekh

» 20 Jan 2016 10:21

500 Euros?!
Thats, what, £380 :shock:

Someone's lost track of a decimal point somewhere. Its about £385,000 that we're supposedly bidding for him.

Pepe the Horseman

» 20 Jan 2016 10:28

My Posh supporting m8's girlfriend lives in Krakow, so he tends to be out there every other weekend to watch Cracovia. Reckons Rakels is much better than Washington.

Sutekh

» 20 Jan 2016 10:28

Goalscoring record for Rakels according to Wiki is
Years Team Apps (Gls)

2007–2009 FK Liepājas Metalurgs-2

2009–2010 FK Liepājas Metalurgs 40 (27)

2011–2014 Zagłębie Lubin 9 (0)

2011–2013 → GKS Katowice (loan) 47 (16)

2014– Cracovia 61 (26)
So that's 69 goals in 159 games or an average of .43 goals game which is about 1 goal every 2.5 games. Not too shabby.

genome

» 20 Jan 2016 10:30

rofl
Why is everyone worked up about missing out on a player they hadn't even heard of this time last week?

Only one Trevor Morley

» 20 Jan 2016 10:34

His names sounds like he should be a pensioner from Staffordshire....

trebornam

» 20 Jan 2016 10:36

a friend of mine who is a westham supporter has heard they are interested in Jake cooper.

Norfolk Royal

» 20 Jan 2016 10:43

That has put everyone's minds at rest.

Snowball136

» 20 Jan 2016 11:37

How can anyone say he looks meh?
Very tidy player but clearly likes to play wide and in a fast-breaking side
Not sure he'd suit us when we are playing tippy-tappy, but a decent player
and cheap.

genome

» 20 Jan 2016 11:40

It annoys me that his parents misspelled the name Dennis.
Wasn't Cracovia the name of the war-torn country Tom Hanks was from in The Terminal?

[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file /www/sites/hobnob.royals.org/newsamp.php on line 138: Trying to access array offset on false
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file /www/sites/hobnob.royals.org/newsamp.php on line 138: Trying to access array offset on false
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file /www/sites/hobnob.royals.org/newsamp.php on line 143: Trying to access array offset on false
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file /www/sites/hobnob.royals.org/newsamp.php on line 143: Trying to access array offset on false

Recent News

02 May 2026
Gloomy End Of Season As Royals Finish With Defeat

20 April 2026
Summer Changes Are Afoot For Reading After Promotion Disappointment

18 April 2026
Another Team Promoted At Reading

11 April 2026
Season Over After Defeat At Doncaster

09 April 2026
Vote For Player Of The Season

News By Month / Year

May 2026
April 2026
March 2026
February 2026

Hob Nob Anyone? - Home (Non-AMP)