Could we stay up in the prem?

[Snowball]

Put it another way.

If we had this team (incl loanees) plus Noel Hunt and we finished seventh this year
would we not be 1-2-3rd favourites for promotion next year?

(I'm presuming no more fire-sales, and guessing Matejovsky/Cisse might go and be replaced)

That to me suggests this team would have a fighting chance in the Prem

[Royal_Delight]

We don't even have the firepower to stay up in this division and some of you want to be promoted?! We will get slaughtered if we are promoted, relying on Long and Sig to score in this division, no capable strikers to really, and I mean really to score. Where is the Ebanks-Blake and Jason Scotlands in the squad?


Error prone defenders may also be our downfall, Ivar is not young anymore and Bertrand makes too many denfensive mistakes for my liking. Failure to mark bigger strikers and marking quicker players is also a problem. Premiership players are quicker than our player and I mean much quicker and promotion would be suicide IMHO.

Other than Sig, not much players can score in the midfield which may prove problematic if we are promoted.

But we drew with Liverpool, won at Liverpool, beat Burnley at the first time of asking,
drew with WBA and beat them at their place.

Sure we lost to Villa, but hat was a very good top six team


and we'll be a much better team next year with the kids getting better (Bertie being a prime example)

But that was over a period of 3 months. We need to consistently beat teams that are weaker than us. If we were to be promoted this season, I think the kids would not be able to handle the pressure of the Premier League. Sure, they may play week in week out every 3-4 days but the Premier League would be tougher and more physical than the Championship. I believe that we are not yet ready in terms of class and in terms of finance.

Some considerations that must be taken into if we are promoted is that we definitely need to buy players, not just any players but quality Premiership proven players. People may argue that the 106 team may have prospered in the first season but look at the next season. Failure to replace Sidwell and no strikers being brought in caused our relegation. I said all season that one can never have too many strikers in a team and hopefully we can find someone who has the 'right' DNA as the team. ( Apologies for sounding like Rogers in the last sentence )

We cannot even afford to keep most of our players this season and I don't think we can keep Bertrand and co.

Hopefully I can be proven wrong.

[Royal_Delight]

Put it another way.

If we had this team (incl loanees) plus Noel Hunt and we finished seventh this year
would we not be 1-2-3rd favourites for promotion next year?

(I'm presuming no more fire-sales, and guessing Matejovsky/Cisse might go and be replaced)

That to me suggests this team would have a fighting chance in the Prem

I would have to partially agree on you with this one but a fighting chance would not necessary guarantee survival. Look at Wolves, last season, they have one of the best striking partnership in the League with Iwelumo and Ebanks-Blake. When they are promoted they could not cope with the pressures of the Premiership and may be relegated this season. We may have replacements in the future but ARE they good enough?

For the past couple of seasons we were poor in replacing lost players and I wouldn't take the risk again.

[Royal With Cheese]

I think it would be down to the number of points we could get during the season.

[Very near...far away]

I'm just always worried that we'll never be successful because we're not a big club and our fans don't know enough songs. Also because we're not called a "sleeping giant" by the media. And the Thames Valley is not a "hotbed" of football.

Leeds deserve to be there. They just do. We never have. Oh woe.


[cough]

[MalcybabyRFC]

Anyone know the bookies odds on us to finish in the top 6?

It was 18 - 1 to get promoted if thats helps a bit but not sure about the top 6

[papereyes]

This team, in the Premiership = (shock win against Manchester City)

[Ian Royal]

Even assuming we kept Griffin and Bertrand and made a few signings to improve on what we have... Probably not.

I don't think Church, Karacan or Sig are ready to make the step up. I don't think Pearce is good enough to.

Add on to them we'd need players like Long, Kebe & McAnuff to produce consistently at the top of their game, which I don't believe they've really shown they can do over a full season at this level yet.

I think we've got a lot of players who might be good enough towards the bottom end of the Prem. But a lot of them are less than reliable or in need of another season playing regularly at this level first.

I think we'd be much better off narrowly missing out on the play offs (anything up to 6 points adrift and 10th place or higher) and making a concerted push next season after strengtherning in the summer. Than going up this season off the back of half a season's superb form.

[Archie's penalty]

'Greed Ian.

[RoyalChicagoFC]

We'd either spend an obscene sum of cash in order to try to be competitive (and, in all likelihood, fail nonetheless) or wouldn't (and suffer relegation in inevitable fashion, accompanied by the real possibility of shattering Derby County's embarrassing standard of Premiership futility in the transaction --and sorry, but "Oh yeah, well at least we were there" isn't at all clever and has no place in any argument between mature adults possessed of normal cognitive function)

The club's finances would get knocked off kilter as a direct consequence of the "success" of securing an unanticipated season in the top flight; at least one managerial sacking would transpire during the doomed campaign, and the general mood and bearing of the support would veer between surly on good days and, on those less so, downright belligerent

As a consolation prize, the squad would be denuded of first-team regulars sold off to Premier League and promotion-chasing Championship sides over the summer following a wretched and thoroughly forgettable 38-match run deemed utterly unworthy by all concerned of a commemorative season-in-review DVD, after which acquaintances with Swindon Town FC would be renewed at the second level during the 2011/12 season

Happy days!

[Franchise FC]

Even assuming we kept Griffin and Bertrand and made a few signings to improve on what we have... Probably not.

I don't think Church, Karacan or Sig are ready to make the step up. I don't think Pearce is good enough to.

Add on to them we'd need players like Long, Kebe & McAnuff to produce consistently at the top of their game, which I don't believe they've really shown they can do over a full season at this level yet.

I think we've got a lot of players who might be good enough towards the bottom end of the Prem. But a lot of them are less than reliable or in need of another season playing regularly at this level first.

I think we'd be much better off narrowly missing out on the play offs (anything up to 6 points adrift and 10th place or higher) and making a concerted push next season after strengtherning in the summer. Than going up this season off the back of half a season's superb form.

If we were to finish out of the play-offs by 6 points or so, just imagine the vitriol for the previous manager who would/could/may have cost us the chance ?

[Jack Celliers]

Who cares.
It would be nice to see us try again.

[Ozymandias]

No

[Tails]

What a stupid fred.

A decent run in the league and the reading fans return to normal.

Give it a couple of bad results and you lot will be booing.

Not even that, so it seems.

[facaldaqui]

You'd assume we wouldn't stay up, but Brian might make some clever buys. Most teams can't survive easily, but who would have thought this time last year that Birmingham would do so well? Someone has to survive. Would depend on quality of management and clever investment in new players.

Highly unlikely we'll go up, though. We've only scored one goal in open play in two games, and now we have a run of decent teams to face. Wonderful though our run has been, we are still a team with Long and Church as first choice strikers--say no more.

[rollsy]

would like us to go back up, but we wont, and even if we did would get bummed week in week out. winning two fa cup games to prem opposition is no gauge to what we can do, it was a one off caup game, no pressure, the league is different.

[rhroyal]

We'd either spend an obscene sum of cash in order to try to be competitive (and, in all likelihood, fail nonetheless) or wouldn't (and suffer relegation in inevitable fashion, accompanied by the real possibility of shattering Derby County's embarrassing standard of Premiership futility in the transaction --and sorry, but "Oh yeah, well at least we were there" isn't at all clever and has no place in any argument between mature adults possessed of normal cognitive function)

The club's finances would get knocked off kilter as a direct consequence of the "success" of securing an unanticipated season in the top flight; at least one managerial sacking would transpire during the doomed campaign, and the general mood and bearing of the support would veer between surly on good days and, on those less so, downright belligerent

As a consolation prize, the squad would be denuded of first-team regulars sold off to Premier League and promotion-chasing Championship sides over the summer following a wretched and thoroughly forgettable 38-match run deemed utterly unworthy by all concerned of a commemorative season-in-review DVD, after which acquaintances with Swindon Town FC would be renewed at the second level during the 2011/12 season

Happy days!

This.

Building a team for the Premiership takes time, and the process can be upset if you win promotion too early. So much for taking the gold coins and strengthening a level down, it hardly appears to have worked for Derby and Watford. This team will be better placed to fight in the Premiership in a couple of years time. We need to get a team with then prospects of staying together for a while and growing together, both individually and collectively.

We have a few players who could do this. Kebe, Long, Mills, Tabb, Church, Gylfi, Karacan, McAnuff. Possibly even Howard. However, we need to try and phase out the short term options, such as Ivar, Bryn, Rasiak and bring in players who fit in well and offer long term prospects for the team. Notice how I say phase out, not firesale. They still offer short term options to McD. Coppell phased out the likes of Salako, Williams and Forster, amongst others, in a similar way. Then give them a couple of years together, bingo you have the 05/06 with a bit of luck.

I think this process has began already. Win promotion this season, and what Chicago wrote about will stop all that. We'll be back to square 1 in no time.