Rumour - Rodrigo Riquelme

[MouldyRoyal]

I'd go as far as to say lovely hair

[Pepe the Horseman]

I was trying to play it cool, but yeh, you're absolutely right.

[Nameless]

Agreed and outside the top 4 or 5 teams, I'm pretty sure Spanish football has its fair share of cloggers. In fact, Spanish football has a long and proud history of psychotic hatchet men.

Whilst the number of hard nut psychos in the championship is probably at an all time low.
It’s a tough league because of the intensity and sheer number of games. The days of a wizened old pro kicking a talented youngster out of games are long gone. He’d take a few knocks but it’s not a violent league !

Which is absolutely no different to any of our own academy graduates.

I'm agreeing with you here. There's this notion that because he's young and coming from abroad that he'll be less able to cope with the rigours ot the Championship than a home grown talent.

We’re on the same page on this . We saw the lad from Saints we had on loan look far from ready to play first team football but that was not his nationality. Josh Barrett has the talent but not the application, Bobby Convey was physically frail but thrived.

[Nameless]

Agreed and outside the top 4 or 5 teams, I'm pretty sure Spanish football has its fair share of cloggers. In fact, Spanish football has a long and proud history of psychotic hatchet men.

Whilst the number of hard nut psychos in the championship is probably at an all time low.
It’s a tough league because of the intensity and sheer number of games. The days of a wizened old pro kicking a talented youngster out of games are long gone. He’d take a few knocks but it’s not a violent league !

Which is absolutely no different to any of our own academy graduates.

I'm agreeing with you here. There's this notion that because he's young and coming from abroad that he'll be less able to cope with the rigours ot the Championship than a home grown talent.

We’re on the same page on this . We saw the lad from Saints we had on loan look far from ready to play first team football but that was not his nationality. Josh Barrett has the talent but not the application, Bobby Convey was physically frail but thrived.

[Hound]

why do these videos always have such awful music to accompany them?

I'm not a fan of the hair though. Needs a good trim.

[Sutekh]

As mentioned any issues with him playing wise are likely to be whether he can hack a 46 games English season with many weeks having 2 games where expectation is always to perform.

Plus it’s not going to be like anything he’s played in before with not only the physical side but the pace and tempo - he’s not exactly going to get slower paced passing games from most opponents.

He can apparently play anywhere in an attacking midfield 3 and hopefully won’t be adverse to playing like winger on occasion. Interesting to see though how he’s going to fit into what is currently the one area where Reading have several options.

[Millsy]

One thing we've always been desperate for since Stam is more midfielders.

We've been signing far too many left backs, it's about time we started signing a load of midfielders.

I'm hoping he is a proper winger not another midfielder who will be made to play out wide.

[CountryRoyal]

Was linked with Celtic a few months and they seemed keen. If he's good enough for them...

[Snowflake Royal]

The super-agent recruitment model can work, look at Wolves. And it has brought us some successes like Rafael.

The part we seem to be missing is the internal recruitment team to look at these signings and assess where they will fit in (I.e. have the knowledge and backbone to tell Kia "no" when appropriate.)

I think we have that but it gets ignored.

Kia seems to be in control and puppet strings on the owners rather than us using him for mutual benefit.

[Nameless]

The super-agent recruitment model can work, look at Wolves. And it has brought us some successes like Rafael.

The part we seem to be missing is the internal recruitment team to look at these signings and assess where they will fit in (I.e. have the knowledge and backbone to tell Kia "no" when appropriate.)

I think we have that but it gets ignored.

Kia seems to be in control and puppet strings on the owners rather than us using him for mutual benefit.

What’s the evidence for that ?
We’ve had some very good players at the club as a result of his involvement. Which deals would you th8nk he has abused us on ?

[Snowflake Royal]

The super-agent recruitment model can work, look at Wolves. And it has brought us some successes like Rafael.

The part we seem to be missing is the internal recruitment team to look at these signings and assess where they will fit in (I.e. have the knowledge and backbone to tell Kia "no" when appropriate.)

I think we have that but it gets ignored.

Kia seems to be in control and puppet strings on the owners rather than us using him for mutual benefit.

What’s the evidence for that ?
We’ve had some very good players at the club as a result of his involvement. Which deals would you th8nk he has abused us on ?

Well that would explain why we've played such good football and had all that success, I guess.

[Hendo]

I think we have that but it gets ignored.

Kia seems to be in control and puppet strings on the owners rather than us using him for mutual benefit.

What’s the evidence for that ?
We’ve had some very good players at the club as a result of his involvement. Which deals would you th8nk he has abused us on ?

Well that would explain why we've played such good football and had all that success, I guess.

I mean the 5 we signed on loan at the end of Gomes’ season practically kept us up, so there’s that.

[From Despair To Where?]

To be fair, since Kia allegedly started taking control of our recruitment on the playing side, it's not been too bad. Virginia was shit, Boye and Timbe were pretty pointless signings and the jury's out on Araruna but Ejaria (3 times), Miazga (twice) , Martinez, Baker, Oliviera, Morrison, Puscas, Joao, Rafael and Pele were all decent signings, Adam did ok and Laurent looks promising.

That's a pretty good success rate.

Is there any evidence of him having any undue influence in the boardroom? Does he represent Gomes, Bowen or Paunovic?

[maffff]

If anything, it's surely more beneficial for Kia to have us in the Prem?

[WoodleyRoyal]

If anything, it's surely more beneficial for Kia to have us in the Prem?

Sorry mafff sound reasoning isn’t appreciated here. People like to have agendas

[Lower West]

Was linked with Celtic a few months and they seemed keen. If he's good enough for them...

Apparently we've even beaten Real Madrid.

[Snowflake Royal]

If anything, it's surely more beneficial for Kia to have us in the Prem?

It's beneficial for him to get a steady easy stream of income from us with large and frequent turnover of players.

Pitch side success isn't really that important to that. And this isn't the first time he's been involved here.

[TiagoIlori]

If anything, it's surely more beneficial for Kia to have us in the Prem?

It's beneficial for him to get a steady easy stream of income from us with large and frequent turnover of players.

Pitch side success isn't really that important to that. And this isn't the first time he's been involved here.

Premier league status means better players getting more expensive contracts and thus more money for him- especially if his client does well(after all he’d be able to move him all around the continent if the player does well wherever he is). He has the same aims, but he does it in a way where he benefits just as much or more as we would if we get promoted along the way. What makes him the type of poison to stay away from is that he will only help us if we stuff his pockets and accept some of his bang average players to access the good ones.

[URZZZZ]

Was linked with Celtic a few months and they seemed keen. If he's good enough for them...

Apparently we've even beaten Real Madrid.

It’s nearly as exciting as signing Drenthe was

[SCIAG]

To be fair, since Kia allegedly started taking control of our recruitment on the playing side, it's not been too bad. Virginia was shit, Boye and Timbe were pretty pointless signings and the jury's out on Araruna but Ejaria (3 times), Miazga (twice) , Martinez, Baker, Oliviera, Morrison, Puscas, Joao, Rafael and Pele were all decent signings, Adam did ok and Laurent looks promising.

That's a pretty good success rate.

Is there any evidence of him having any undue influence in the boardroom? Does he represent Gomes, Bowen or Paunovic?

Related but how many of those players are even his?

Timbe for example was signed from our sister club, and wasn’t Boye represented by his uncle?

Miazga has pretty public links to him but most of the players we’ve signed have been the sort of players we were signing anyway.