Don't blame Rogers blame Madejski

[Ian Royal]

He hasn't bought badly at all.

Mills at £1.1m (as it stands) is good buisness for a very highly rated defender that just needs games, time and decent players around him.
McAnuff is a proven winger at this level, and for the estimated £500k, a good bit of buisiness but he needs to get fit.
Rasiak is proven at this level. His goalscoring record as mentioned on numerous other threads matches Doyles for about the last 150 games or something like that. Give or take 3-4 goals.

Why again are these bad signings?

It's the system that sucks. Give us a 4-4-2 and some width, two strikers and we would be a much improved side imo.

We have three wingers at the club, one who goes from abysmal to pretty good, but tends to spend a lot of his time at abysmal. One who had never played a game at this level before this season and one who was injured and has been pretty mixed throughout his career.

We had one striker who has proven anything at this level and he bought Rasiak, who is proving a total turkey.

Mills and O'Dea were good signings. Did we need both? I'm not sure and neither address the real weaknesses in the squad. Did we need Cummings? Much as I hate Rosenior he wasn't that bad, and now we're left with no cover for a young player who is very definitely yet to prove himself.
Howard, yet another semi attacking midfielder, when we don't actually have a proper quality defensive midfielder. Gunnar is too old, Cisse is too shit and Karacan is far better employed elsewhere and is really too small to sit and help the defence, in our generally small team.

And they don't actually fit his fricking system. So yes, that's buying badly. The players themselves on the whole aren't awful. The buying was shit.

[RoyalBlue]

If your not given anything to work with what do you expect. As far as I am concerned Madejski has what he wants now high earners going and kids taking their place.
I expect bottom 6 this year and nothing more.

Wake up everyone all that is happening here is Madejski lining his pockets before he goes. Where has all the money gone? Back in Mr Mads pockets

SEVEN players in.

Seven cheap players in on low wages.

Now remind me how many expensive & high earning players have been shipped out?

You get what you pay for - unless, of course, you are a supporter!

[Ian Royal]

If your not given anything to work with what do you expect. As far as I am concerned Madejski has what he wants now high earners going and kids taking their place.
I expect bottom 6 this year and nothing more.

Wake up everyone all that is happening here is Madejski lining his pockets before he goes. Where has all the money gone? Back in Mr Mads pockets

SEVEN players in.

Seven cheap players in on low wages.

Now remind me how many expensive & high earning players have been shipped out?

You get what you pay for - unless, of course, you are a supporter!

Mills was not cheap and is unlikely to be on low wages. Same goes for Howard in all liklihood.

We sold three iirc

[RoyalBlue]

[

SEVEN players in.

Seven cheap players in on low wages.

Now remind me how many expensive & high earning players have been shipped out?

You get what you pay for - unless, of course, you are a supporter!

Mills was not cheap and is unlikely to be on low wages. Same goes for Howard in all liklihood.

We sold three iirc

Very selective argument there! What about all the expensive and high earning players that we released or loan out?

I very much doubt Mills was being paid big bucks by Doncaster. Howard might well have been on good wages but might well have moved for the same to get back South and to play first team football.

I wonder how much the likes of Howe and Hammond have suffered from cloth cutting. It would be nice to think their pay was linked to not only 'balancing the books' but also how well the team perform.

[Ian Royal]

Only as selective as your argument.

[rhroyal]

Rodgers has had at least as much resources to work with as 75% of teams in this division, and he started off with some half decent players such as Tabb, Matejovsky, Hunt, Kebe on his day, Armstrong, Long, Harper, Rosenior (never as good as Doyle, but still useful) and Ivar when fit. Even Cisse has Premiership experience and had a purple patch last season, he is capable at this level. Bryn has experience and is also proven down here, even if his legs are beginning to go.

These players were all at the club upon Rodgers' arrival - before you consider the development of Sigurdsson and Karacan. 2 of our last 3 opponents (Posh and Doncaster) would have happily been in our circumstances in over the summer, in terms of playing staff and resources. yet they're above us in the table. You could also say the same about the likes of Scunthorpe, Blackpool and Watford.

I still think it's too early to play the blame game, we've only played 8 matches. However, if you're going to do so then Rodgers has to be the prime culprit. I haven't even discussed the formation and tactics.

[facaldaqui]

First of all, a similar sort of clear out would have happened under Coppell, though he would have been more careful in his replacements. Coppell brought in players like Tabb and Harding at Christmas, who were of similar level to most of Rodgers' signings. So lets not pretend Rodgers has been played false by Madejski.

I'm not going to stick up too much for Madejski, because as chairman he must take some blame for the present mess. But lets be quite clear: he has given Rodgers more to spend than ANY OTHER READING MANAGER AT THIS LEVEL. Any thought that he doesn't want us to do well is contradicted by the fact that he allowed us to buy a player for 2 million, a colossal amount at this level. He was also prepared to buy Smith, which would have been another 2 million. So that was 4 million available! I don't think we should blame Madejskifor failing to sign Smith, because as soon as Portsmouth came in, we obviously didn't have a hope of signing him.

What I would blame Madejski for is gambling on Rodgers. I don't know if Curbishley was a real possibility, but if we had signed him the club would have gone into this season expecting to challenge for promotion. No way would Curbishley have agreed to any other scenario.

[facaldaqui]

First of all, a similar sort of clear out would have happened under Coppell, though he would have been more careful in his replacements. Coppell brought in players like Tabb and Harding at Christmas, who were of similar level to most of Rodgers' signings. So lets not pretend Rodgers has been played false by Madejski.

I'm not going to stick up too much for Madejski, because as chairman he must take some blame for the present mess. But lets be quite clear: he has given Rodgers more to spend than ANY OTHER READING MANAGER AT THIS LEVEL. Any thought that he doesn't want us to do well is contradicted by the fact that he allowed us to buy a player for 2 million, a colossal amount at this level. He was also prepared to buy Smith, which would have been another 2 million. So that was 4 million available! I don't think we should blame Madejski for failing to sign Smith, because as soon as Portsmouth came in, we obviously didn't have a hope of signing him.

What I would blame Madejski for is gambling on Rodgers. I don't know if Curbishley was a real possibility, but if we had signed him the club would have gone into this season expecting to challenge for promotion. No way would Curbishley have agreed to any other scenario.

[RoyalBlue]

First of all, a similar sort of clear out would have happened under Coppell, though he would have been more careful in his replacements. Coppell brought in players like Tabb and Harding at Christmas, who were of similar level to most of Rodgers' signings. So lets not pretend Rodgers has been played false by Madejski.

I'm not going to stick up too much for Madejski, because as chairman he must take some blame for the present mess. But lets be quite clear: he has given Rodgers more to spend than ANY OTHER READING MANAGER AT THIS LEVEL. Any thought that he doesn't want us to do well is contradicted by the fact that he allowed us to buy a player for 2 million, a colossal amount at this level. He was also prepared to buy Smith, which would have been another 2 million. .

No he wasn't prepared to buy Smith - not at that price anyway- that's why Portsmouth were able to steal him at the very last moment. Had he shelled out even £1.8M earlier on, Smith would now be a Reading player.

As for allowing Rodgers to spend more that ANY OTHER READING MANAGER AT THIS LEVEL, even if true, this only happened after RFC had raked in more from selling players than we have ever done before in our history.

Only as selective as your argument.

Funny that. I thought I had added the balance to the argument. Someone else referred to players in, so little point in mentioning that number again. As for reducing the wage bill, Hammond himself is celebrating that, so mentioning it is hardly selective.

[AthleticoSpizz]

The manager did not want those players.

The Manager wasn't our manager when the many of the 11 were shown the door.

[Ian Royal]

First of all, a similar sort of clear out would have happened under Coppell, though he would have been more careful in his replacements. Coppell brought in players like Tabb and Harding at Christmas, who were of similar level to most of Rodgers' signings. So lets not pretend Rodgers has been played false by Madejski.

I'm not going to stick up too much for Madejski, because as chairman he must take some blame for the present mess. But lets be quite clear: he has given Rodgers more to spend than ANY OTHER READING MANAGER AT THIS LEVEL. Any thought that he doesn't want us to do well is contradicted by the fact that he allowed us to buy a player for 2 million, a colossal amount at this level. He was also prepared to buy Smith, which would have been another 2 million. .

No he wasn't prepared to buy Smith - not at that price anyway- that's why Portsmouth were able to steal him at the very last moment. Had he shelled out even £1.8M earlier on, Smith would now be a Reading player.

As for allowing Rodgers to spend more that ANY OTHER READING MANAGER AT THIS LEVEL, even if true, this only happened after RFC had raked in more from selling players than we have ever done before in our history.

Only as selective as your argument.

Funny that. I thought I had added the balance to the argument. Someone else referred to players in, so little point in mentioning that number again. As for reducing the wage bill, Hammond himself is celebrating that, so mentioning it is hardly selective.

And I added balance to yours by pointing out Mills was not cheap and neither he nor Howard would be on particularly cheap wages. Rasiak either come to think of it. or in fact McAnuff

I don't actually know how much Howard cost, but I expect it was the equivalent of something like £500k. Along with the circa £300k each for Rasiak and Cummings and the £700k odd that we probably spent on McAunff and it all adds up.

We were willing to spend £2m on Smith in the end. We left it too late though. Doesn't mean we weren't willing to spend it.

Rodgers has had financial backing.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

I still think the delay in the Smith deal was as much down to Rodgers telling JM we were the only club Smith would sign for us much as JM being tight.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

I still think the delay in the Smith deal was as much down to Rodgers telling JM we were the only club Smith would sign for us much as JM being tight.

Smith would have made no difference to this shambolic mess Brenda has created.

[Millsy]

If your not given anything to work with what do you expect. As far as I am concerned Madejski has what he wants now high earners going and kids taking their place.
I expect bottom 6 this year and nothing more.

Wake up everyone all that is happening here is Madejski lining his pockets before he goes. Where has all the money gone? Back in Mr Mads pockets

This is stating the obvious but sometimes it needs to be stated.

Brick by brick only works if you're going to stick around.

If Sir John was staying around he'd have risked a bit more for us to stay up.

It's obvious he just wants to go so is sucking money out and taking the safe option.

Not BR's fault at all.

But then I don't blame Sir John either as I'd probably do the same.

[Bath Hoops]

If your not given anything to work with what do you expect. As far as I am concerned Madejski has what he wants now high earners going and kids taking their place.
I expect bottom 6 this year and nothing more.

Wake up everyone all that is happening here is Madejski lining his pockets before he goes. Where has all the money gone? Back in Mr Mads pockets

This is stating the obvious but sometimes it needs to be stated.

Brick by brick only works if you're going to stick around.

If Sir John was staying around he'd have risked a bit more for us to stay up.

It's obvious he just wants to go so is sucking money out and taking the safe option.

Not BR's fault at all.

But then I don't blame Sir John either as I'd probably do the same.

At the end of the day Mr Mad is a business man, he has stretched himself with other business commitments and has to manage cash across all of those. If anyone watched the tv show the other day with him on it would realise that was the case. He would love to sell the club to someone who could take it on to the next step, but there are not a queue of millionaires waiting at the door wanting to take Reading on. So he's trying to do the best he can in difficult times for him and the club, but at the end of the day he has backed up Rodgers to the hilt. He has been given alot of money and lets not forget the compensation which was spent to get him in the first place. The football side is down to Rodgers the tactics the team play are down to Rodgers, this is his team and not Mr Mad picking the team. Maybe you can blame Mr Mad for many things, but the crap thats going on at the moment is down to one person and its not the chairman. Maybe his biggest mistake will have been appointing Rodgers, its certainly not been his support for the guy or the club.

[Madstad to Nadderud]

But why do people keep harping on about a return to the Premiership this season when quite clearly this is not going to happen because the aforementioned league is far too expensive for RFC and JM's wallet. Some of the players signed before the transfer window closed were panic buys and a means to keep the fans quiet due to unrest regarding the millions recently raked in by the club and not being used to recruit some decent players. JM has even mentioned on several occasions in the past that he likes the idea of yo-yo clubs i.e. WBA, Bolton (from before), Birmingham, etc, but the problem is you have to spend some kind of money and attract at least some players that can score goals. Unfortunately RFC seem to be heading in the wrong direction but again this is nothing new because everything is about doing it on the cheap.

[sawyers left arm]

Rogers knows his stuff- he is leaving Kebe out now that can't be bad

[Wycombe Royal]

You get what you pay for

Remind me of how Watford are getting on this season........

[Tilehurst End]

On the subject of all these players we shipped out:

Doyle, Hunt, Bikey, Lita wanted to leave.

Murty had become injury prone ( which he's proved again )

Duberry would never have got into a team that wants to pass the ball.

Hanneman could maybe have been offered a years extension but is passed his best.

Would Harper and Rosenior have resigned contracts in the summer for another year in the championship.

OK the bottom line was a wage cutting exercise but other factors played their part.

[Ryn]

But why do people keep harping on about a return to the Premiership this season when quite clearly this is not going to happen because the aforementioned league is far too expensive for RFC and JM's wallet.

IIRC the two seasons we had in the Prem were the first two seasons we have turned a profit in recent history. £7mill each season I think compared to a £6/7 mill loss each year whilst in the Championship the years before.

Now how can turning a profit be too expensive?