Hob Nob Anyone?

Apart from possibly Ejaria I think we need to forget about January’s loan signings. I would have been happy with Oliviera but I’ll be equally happy with Gary Hooper, if he were to sign for us.

Hopefully, we’ll get 2 or 3 in this week mainly so that they’ll get some time to bed into the squad before the season starts.

blythspartan wrote:

Royal Bison wrote:So when we said Oliveira was "100% a done deal"

LOL

I assume that I should just ignore anyone claiming to be ITK on here, as most of it stems from media speculation.

Not sure anyone claims to be ITK but you certainly get a feel after a while for those who pick up on stuff early and those just reposting stuff they have seen talked about by kids on Twitter

Snowball wrote:

sandman wrote:

Snowball wrote:I for one am glad he's not coming back

Yeah brilliant news.

I think N-O is a bad apple. We have Baldock, Meite, Nokavich, Loader, and there are other forwards out there.

Yeah! We don't need Portugese internationals! The players we have already are better! He's a bad apple.. the amount of problems he caused last season was awful!

Utter nonsense. The guy is endlessly better than what we already have up front, and likely much better than what we can afford to bring in. Remember when we didn't have him? We weren't very good.

Only Reading fans would rather inexperience, youth and players that management deemed "not good enough" last season.

Of course you'd take Olivera back. Don't be a silly billy liar pants.

Other points:
Have you ever seen Novakovich play?
How many did Loader score last season? Is there any promise he'll actually be better and more suited to the champ?

Rollerbob wrote:How many did Loader score last season? Is there any promise he'll actually be better and more suited to the Champ?

No promises, bob. But maybe Loader won't have to worry about Champ. Was rumored to go to Prem for 10mil?
(But, we shouldn't sell our academy grads, etc, even tho he only has one season left on his contract anyway, thx Gourlay, etc, partly why we sold Bod, etc)

Pepe the Horseman wrote:

Snowball wrote:

sandman wrote:
Yeah brilliant news.

We've lost one of our strikers to a potential relegation rival and now the guy we wanted to replace him with looks to be going somewhere else, leaving us to scramble for a replacement who likely won't be as good as Oliveira or Bod.

I think N-O is a bad apple. We have Baldock, Meite, Nokavich, Loader, and there are other forwards out there.

Such a bad apple he did everything he possibly could to recover from a hamstring injury in record time, to get back playing in a relegation battle for a club he was only on loan at, when he should've been out for the season.

VERY unwanted at Norwich and strikes me as more than average-selfish for a striker.

Of course I don't KNOW his character, nor have I heard anything specifically or directly
but I just don't think he is right for us (and he would be relatively expensive).

I don't dispute he can score goals, but...

Sometimes players just feel wrong.

Not too bothered about Oliveira as I think in terms of mentality and injury record he would be a big risk and I don't see up front as our major problem. IMO we look very light at Centre Back and Centre Mid. We have good Academy lads coming through in both positions (McIntyre, Holmes, Osho, East and Holsgrove) but going into the season with just Moore, Blackett, Swift and Rimonhota with any experience in those two positions would be a huge risk.

all a balance of risk and cost
and for me a 3 million price tag and high wages for Oliveira possibly doesn't outweigh the risk involved, for me.

wouldn't be too bothered if we looked elsewhere, happy enough if it happened

Rollerbob wrote:

Snowball wrote:

sandman wrote:
Yeah brilliant news.

I think N-O is a bad apple. We have Baldock, Meite, Nokavich, Loader, and there are other forwards out there.

Yeah! We don't need Portugese internationals! The players we have already are better! He's a bad apple.. the amount of problems he caused last season was awful!

Utter nonsense. The guy is endlessly better than what we already have up front, and likely much better than what we can afford to bring in. Remember when we didn't have him? We weren't very good.

Only Reading fans would rather inexperience, youth and players that management deemed "not good enough" last season.

Of course you'd take Olivera back. Don't be a silly billy liar pants.

Other points:
Have you ever seen Novakovich play?
How many did Loader score last season? Is there any promise he'll actually be better and more suited to the champ?

Agree with this.

If we can’t score goals, we won’t win games, as we found out last season.

Injuries to Meite and Nova would be catastrophic. Oliveiras experience, or someone similarly experienced, is a must have in this division.

Olivera on a FT would be a no brainer

Before he got injured everyone was absolutely raving about Oliveira and now people have convinced themselves we don't need him. It's nuts. He's literally the player we've been crying out for for years. He's shown no sign of a poor attitude, quite the opposite in fact, and he had one poor game in his cameo at Brizzle when he was clearly just trying too hard.

Players of Oliveria’s quality do not come about too often on a free, as Norwich released him from his contract earlier today. £1 million wages a year is not a lot (around £20k a week). Shame because he was a focal point when he played, nibbled at defenders who clearly didn’t like getting too tight to him. I still wonder whether a late offer from us is in the pipe work.

I think it would be a big risk going into the season with the current crop of forwards.

Would love to see Novakovich be the real deal, Loader scoring lots & Meite chipping in. But Nelson would give me a lot more confidence.

Wonder whether we might see Baldock feature a bit more than previously thought. Sounds like he linked up well with Nova the other night - could be a good combination

Snowball wrote:

sandman wrote:

Snowball wrote:I for one am glad he's not coming back

Yeah brilliant news.

We've lost one of our strikers to a potential relegation rival and now the guy we wanted to replace him with looks to be going somewhere else, leaving us to scramble for a replacement who likely won't be as good as Oliveira or Bod.

I think N-O is a bad apple. We have Baldock, Meite, Nokavich, Loader, and there are other forwards out there.

That's a player we don't want who did badly up front on his own, our first choice right winger for whom we have uncertain cover, a promising but untested young player and a player with 1 senior goal who has mostly played behind a striker and looks lost leading the line.

Excuse me for not being encouraged

I have reservations about Oliveira, but we are in deep, deep trouble without him or Bod.

Has everyone here completely forgotten how utterly atrociously oxf*rd we were going forward last year pre-oliveira? And the season before tbf and probably the one before also. We haven't had a great striker forever and many of the same who now say we don't want/need him were the same saying he was the 2nd coming after his first few games. He's class - we definitely need him and we should pull out all stops to sign him.

It's a good job we've sorted the defence out and will keep more clean shee... oh.

it's laughable that anyone says we don't need Oliviera, he transformed our season.

We need Oliveria or a striker like him.

The one thing to note is his goalscoring is good in a mins per goal ratio but in England he has only once manage to play more than 30 league games in a season and only hit double figures once.

What he offers is a stronger link up play than anything we have and confidence that he will bury a decent chance. The negative, is that he thinks he can score from anywhere and will at times choose a shot over a better option (e.g. Bristol City (a)). Also, whilst he is in the team he is a great asset but he does have a history of getting unhappy and unsettled pretty quickly if he finds himself out of the team.

So on balance, yes I hope there is still a chance we sign him but if we have missed the boat, I hope we are looking at similar alternative options - like Hooper.

scumbag wrote:it's laughable that anyone says we don't need Oliviera, he transformed our season.

Fully agree

scumbag wrote:it's laughable that anyone says we don't need Oliviera, he transformed our season.

Hooper has a far superior record at this level as a goal scorer. plays more games and scores far more goals.

I wouldn't just pin it on N O. We had 5 loan players who all excelled. Nelson was great and a focal point for our attacks but Miazga outshone him in my eyes.
I for one would rather bolster our CM or CB than use all what little we have on a CF. Goals win you games but clean sheets guarantee you points.