Loan players

[morganb]

This season we only have two players on loan with us, Mukairu and Ballard, but they've hardly played.

Why would you loan a player in and not play them? Is our cash-strapped club paying good money for them to sit on the bench?

Surely the player's parent club won't be happy with the situation (could they be recalled in the January window/can we send them back?)

Compare this to last season where Baba play every game he was available for (as he was rumoured to have a must-play clause in his loan agreement).

Are these two no better than the players who are currently playing?

[Orion1871]

Ballard has something, but just like the rest of our strikers apart from Smith, he is very raw.

He's also taking a spot in the matchday squad away from Vickers, who has also looked raw, but is one of our players and looks like a saleable asset. Which given our financial situation, we could probably do with trying to develop him instead of a player that won't be here next season.

[Sutekh]

This season we only have two players on loan with us, Mukairu and Ballard, but they've hardly played.

Why would you loan a player in and not play them? Is our cash-strapped club paying good money for them to sit on the bench?

Surely the player's parent club won't be happy with the situation (could they be recalled in the January window/can we send them back?)

Compare this to last season where Baba play every game he was available for (as he was rumoured to have a must-play clause in his loan agreement).

Are these two no better than the players who are currently playing?

[morganb]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

Also how come we only have two loans when in other years we've been overloaded with them - is it because other clubs wouldn't deal with us due to our dire financial situation? Heck, we've not even got our traditional Chelsea loanee in this season.

Surely we could have brought some experience (which we're clearly lacking) in via this loan route. Unfortunately we know the squad is full so bringing some in during the January window is a non-starter.

[Orion1871]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

By the sounds of what Dave Kitson said, in his Reading Chronicle column, Ballard was part of a deal for one of our top academy prospects who signed for Southampton. We probably saw that we had a space for a striker so took Ballard on loan as part of that deal.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

It would be nice to bring a couple of loanees in Janaury providing we ship a couple out permanently of course, we could certainly trim our CB situation and hope that some unlucky soul takes a punt on Ejaria, but then that's a pipedream.

We've got options so it's tough, I'd like to see Mukairu start more often as I'm not sure what impact Knibbs is really having on the team at the moment, I wasn't convinced he was ever that good when he signed, he just fit the "profile" of what we wanted. Seems to me we've had a few of those this season. Ballard has a lot of competition and should be behind Smith in the pecking order.

[72 bus]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

Also how come we only have two loans when in other years we've been overloaded with them - is it because other clubs wouldn't deal with us due to our dire financial situation? Heck, we've not even got our traditional Chelsea loanee in this season.

Surely we could have brought some experience (which we're clearly lacking) in via this loan route. Unfortunately we know the squad is full so bringing some in during the January window is a non-starter.

We only have two loans because we are at the top of our spending cap imposed by the EFL, same reason Selles is still here.

[Snowflake Royal]

This season we only have two players on loan with us, Mukairu and Ballard, but they've hardly played.

Why would you loan a player in and not play them? Is our cash-strapped club paying good money for them to sit on the bench?

Surely the player's parent club won't be happy with the situation (could they be recalled in the January window/can we send them back?)

Compare this to last season where Baba play every game he was available for (as he was rumoured to have a must-play clause in his loan agreement).

Are these two no better than the players who are currently playing?

Ballard is pretty clearly not as good as Smith or Ehibhatiomhan.

And Mukairu the same compared to Knibbs.

[Snowflake Royal]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

Also how come we only have two loans when in other years we've been overloaded with them - is it because other clubs wouldn't deal with us due to our dire financial situation? Heck, we've not even got our traditional Chelsea loanee in this season.

Surely we could have brought some experience (which we're clearly lacking) in via this loan route. Unfortunately we know the squad is full so bringing some in during the January window is a non-starter.

Experienced players out on loan are like Hendrick. Shit.

We don't have more loanees because our squad is full.

We had loads of loanees last year because we couldn't offer contracts over 1 year.

[Hound]

Ballard one of those players who will prob score loads in a team winning games. As it is he isn’t what we need and we should have got a big physical lump rather than a young small kid

Knibbs is and never was much more than a solid L1 player. Still think he looks most likely to score or assist than pretty much anyone else

[Snowflake Royal]

Ballard one of those players who will prob score loads in a team winning games. As it is he isn’t what we need and we should have got a big physical lump rather than a young small kid

Knibbs is and never was much more than a solid L1 player. Still think he looks most likely to score or assist than pretty much anyone else

It's easy to forget that the plan was go into the season with Smith and Carroll first choice.

Then Smith got injured.
Carroll couldn't keep his dick in his pants, missed a crucial pen and fell out with Selles.

And we're playing a strike force with less than 5 professional starts between them.

Carroll left only about 12 league games ago.

Feels like a lifetime doesn't it.

[blythspartan]

Ballard one of those players who will prob score loads in a team winning games. As it is he isn’t what we need and we should have got a big physical lump rather than a young small kid

Knibbs is and never was much more than a solid L1 player. Still think he looks most likely to score or assist than pretty much anyone else

I think we should have got a big physical striker who has scored goals in the lower divisions. I just hope that come January we have a new owner and manager and we’ll be able to tweak the squad a little.

If we can close the gap to safety over the next 2 months we might stand a chance of avoiding relegation, but not if Selles remains in charge.

[Snowflake Royal]

Ballard one of those players who will prob score loads in a team winning games. As it is he isn’t what we need and we should have got a big physical lump rather than a young small kid

Knibbs is and never was much more than a solid L1 player. Still think he looks most likely to score or assist than pretty much anyone else

I think we should have got a big physical striker who has scored goals in the lower divisions. I just hope that come January we have a new owner and manager and we’ll be able to tweak the squad a little.

If we can close the gap to safety over the next 2 months we might stand a chance of avoiding relegation, but not if Selles remains in charge.

I believe I was poo pooed when I said we should signing a player from conference and up with experience and a goalscoring record instead of a more talented kid with potential but no experience.

[Brogue]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

Also how come we only have two loans when in other years we've been overloaded with them - is it because other clubs wouldn't deal with us due to our dire financial situation? Heck, we've not even got our traditional Chelsea loanee in this season.

Surely we could have brought some experience (which we're clearly lacking) in via this loan route. Unfortunately we know the squad is full so bringing some in during the January window is a non-starter.

We only have two loans because we are at the top of our spending cap imposed by the EFL, same reason Selles is still here.

Are we? Are we still under these sort of restrictions from the efl? I thought we had a punishment and we were no longer under a wage cap? When selles was asked after TDD passed whether we would be in for any free agents he replied no we are at our limit. But what does that mean? A limit imposed by the EFL or Dai not wanting to spend anymore on wages? . I’m not disagreeing with you btw, we might still have restrictions on wages by the efl; I don’t know the ins and outs…

[Snowflake Royal]

I believe L1 clubs have a wage cap based on income.

[Stranded]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

Also how come we only have two loans when in other years we've been overloaded with them - is it because other clubs wouldn't deal with us due to our dire financial situation? Heck, we've not even got our traditional Chelsea loanee in this season.

Surely we could have brought some experience (which we're clearly lacking) in via this loan route. Unfortunately we know the squad is full so bringing some in during the January window is a non-starter.

We only have two loans because we are at the top of our spending cap imposed by the EFL, same reason Selles is still here.

Are we? Are we still under these sort of restrictions from the efl? I thought we had a punishment and we were no longer under a wage cap? When selles was asked after TDD passed whether we would be in for any free agents he replied no we are at our limit. But what does that mean? A limit imposed by the EFL or Dai not wanting to spend anymore on wages? . I’m not disagreeing with you btw, we might still have restrictions on wages by the efl; I don’t know the ins and outs…

We definitely have an agreed budget with the EFL that we have to stick to and as mentioned there is also a limit in terms of % of turnover that can be spent on wages in L1.

[Clyde1998]

Ballard one of those players who will prob score loads in a team winning games. As it is he isn’t what we need and we should have got a big physical lump rather than a young small kid

I think Ballard is in the Adam Le Fondre mould - will score goals when given chances, but won't do a huge amount else. Being only 18, he's got plenty of time to round out his game - it just won't benefit us.

[Clyde1998]

I believe L1 clubs have a wage cap based on income.

Yeah - 60% of turnover (which I believe includes outgoing transfer fees and owner injections).

U21 home-grown players are excluded from the calculation, as are wages of players with 3+ years remaining on their contracts from a club relegated from the Championship in the previous season. The former means contracts for players like Abbey, Vickers, Camara, Ehib won't count towards our wage allocation; the latter is irrelevant for us, as we'd've had no players on contracts that long left.

[Clyde1998]

So, if these two are no better than the players who are currently playing, why did we get them in the first place?

Also how come we only have two loans when in other years we've been overloaded with them - is it because other clubs wouldn't deal with us due to our dire financial situation? Heck, we've not even got our traditional Chelsea loanee in this season.

Surely we could have brought some experience (which we're clearly lacking) in via this loan route. Unfortunately we know the squad is full so bringing some in during the January window is a non-starter.

On the first point, I think Ballard was a depth signing more than anything. We had Ehib and Vickers, with Smith out for a few months when he signed. I think you need four strikers over the course of a season anyway. Mukairu is probably worse than expected; his touch is really what lets him down.

We may well be limited to players where we don't have to pay a loan fee and pay a very small percentage of their wages - which will greatly reduce the pool of potential loan players. Most clubs would want some sort of fee for loan players that are of League One quality.

I could only really see much movement on the loan front if some like Holmes leaves in January. Even then, I'm not sure we'd need to get another CB in - with Bindon, Abbey, Dorsett, Dean, McIntyre, Mbengue and Mola all being at the club.

[Snowflake Royal]

Loan players would have been a disaster for us. The one's we attracted in the Champ were often not good enough. And we wouldn't attract that calibre in L1. Loanees at this level are even more often inexperienced youngsters.

Rahman, Hendrick, Drinkwater, Halelivic, Sims, Dele-Bashiru, Semedo, Fornah, Piazon, Loum, Virginia, etc etc

And we saw how they often stopped trying when the season wasn't going well.

We are far far better off playing our own young players who aren’t there yet to give them the experience they need to be better next season, than we are playing loanees who'll still leave us in the shit but vanish, good riddance, at the end of the season.

I maintain the likes of Ehibhatiomhan, Azeez, Craig, Abbey, Abrefa, Camara etc would have been better prepared for this season if they'd got just an extra 10 appearances each last season.