Hob Nob Anyone?

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Competitive.... selling our ‘potential Messi’s’ whilst buying everybody else's failures and has-beens?

How about getting our youngsters and home-grown players wanting to develop physically (footbally) and financially stay with Reading.......a bit like the ‘old’ days?

Again, it is the lack of connection with this town.

Loader has lots of connection with it

It’ll be a sad day to see some foreign (non-bothered) journeyman replace him for the sake of a few quid.

That’s all well and good but wont happen if the player doesn’t want to stay.

and his reasons are?

Again...time to make ‘sticking around’ a bit more attractive instead of moving-on and us ending up hiring somebody else's injury-prone dross to replace them.

For me, the supporter, it’s a turn-off in its present guise

Rightly or wrongly, that’s how it is....empty blue seats an’all

He is ambitious and talented, It’s always the way. I hope he stays for now but if he doesn’t want to sign up to a contract extension we need to move him on and get in some much needed dosh.

Sadly, you’re right

@even more empty blue seats

Er... Rinomhota?

Had a bigger impact of the first team, come up through the Academy.

Then we've got Olise, Barrett, Richards, Howe, McIntyre, Osho... Just because Loader is the 'name' out of that lot. If we can get multi millions for Loader now, rather than lose him for nothing next year, no brainer. And we still have the connection to the youth side with all those others.

It's not like Loader is the first prospect we've produced in ages and we're immediately selling. It's a total rumour and we produce loads of potential first team players from our Academy.

How long ago were these old days when we didn’t sell players ?
Were they the days when we didn’t sell Adie Williams and Scott Taylor ?
Or the days we didn’t sell Laurie Sanchez and Neil Webb ?
You seem to be railing against life as it has always been ....
As for the empty seats, people don’t come primarily to see home grown kids, nice as it is to have them in the team people come to see winning teams and exciting football. When did we fill the ground every week ? Under Steve Coppell, how many home produced players were in the 106 side ? A fairly round number.....

Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

Surely there needs to be a point for it to be missed ?
If selling Loader means we keep McIntyre, Nolan, Holsgrove etc then we have the best of all worlds.

The point was...the empty seats will bear testimony when your aforementioned do not feature in our starting line-ups....whilst other teams cast-offs do

Maybe I am not wording this too well

But, basically, reinvent football, keep what we’ve got...build it from the yoof...invest and pay their going rate, and progress. The way things are, we have nothing much to relate nor look forward to.

Nameless wrote:

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

Surely there needs to be a point for it to be missed ?
If selling Loader means we keep McIntyre, Nolan, Holsgrove etc then we have the best of all worlds.

I agree with your point to an extent. But we're not talking about some average academy guy like McIntyre etc...we're talking about someone who has already represented his country at national level 42 times at the age of 18! So I don't think we do have the best of all worlds

URZZZZ wrote:

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Competitive.... selling our ‘potential Messi’s’ whilst buying everybody else's failures and has-beens?

How about getting our youngsters and home-grown players wanting to develop physically (footbally) and financially stay with Reading.......a bit like the ‘old’ days?

Absolutely. I'm tired of seeing us flog away our academy players on the cheap and re-investing it in utter rubbish

As for the poster above who said we need the money, that's true but there's many saleable assets in the squad, not our highly promising player from the academy. Put Swift, Barrow, Meite etc on the market and there will be interest so I don't want the usual suspects coming back with the "there'll be no interest in them" malarkey

They are only saleable assets if people want to buy them. It seems that Loader is our most saleable asset at this time.

It’s all well and good putting someone on the market but if nobody wants them, they ain’t going anywhere.

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

It's you that's struggling if you think anyone is suggesting selling all our young players Spizz. As always.

Followed by your usual sulky flounce when challenged I expect.

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Competitive.... selling our ‘potential Messi’s’ whilst buying everybody else's failures and has-beens?

How about getting our youngsters and home-grown players wanting to develop physically (footbally) and financially stay with Reading.......a bit like the ‘old’ days?

Again, it is the lack of connection with this town.

Loader has lots of connection with it

It’ll be a sad day to see some foreign (non-bothered) journeyman replace him for the sake of a few quid.

The thing with the old days is that when the club is owned by a philanthropic local boy made good, you could bumble along making a loss year on year, the sums were in the realms of the real world, there was less pressure to sell and "chasing the dream" wasn't a game of Russian Roulette. It was less of a draw for the player to bounce from club to club,uprooting your family when you wage is maybe only 3 times the national average. Players didn''t move half as much as they do now.

These days, football is absolutely awash with obscene amounts of money, there are more checks and balances and the players have become commodities to be bartered and sold and they are rewarded for that with wages way beyond the level of the ordinary fan.

Not sure many players now aspire to opening a pub or a sports shop with the proceeds of their testimonial.

URZZZZ wrote:

Nameless wrote:

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

Surely there needs to be a point for it to be missed ?
If selling Loader means we keep McIntyre, Nolan, Holsgrove etc then we have the best of all worlds.

I agree with your point to an extent. But we're not talking about some average academy guy like McIntyre etc...we're talking about someone who has already represented his country at national level 42 times at the age of 18! So I don't think we do have the best of all worlds

Well given that McIntyre is rated every bit as highly as Loader and has played higher level international football I think you are being a bit unfair with the comparison ! Loader is not an exception in our set up, he’s not even the only one with a World Cup medal ! I’d rather we kept him but if the model is we sell one Academy product and keep half a dozen that seems pretty good.
Athletic seems to have totally lost the plot, his line makes no sense what so ever at a time when more of our Academy products are getting first team minutes.

Tbh CBC sounds like he could well end up a better prospect. Definitely need to tie him down to a new deal asap

Snowflake Royal wrote:

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

It's you that's struggling if you think anyone is suggesting selling all our young players Spizz. As always.

Followed by your usual sulky flounce when challenged I expect.

not sure that that last line was necessary, but yes, a simple point of (me) becoming more and more disappointed with us being a selling club is over analysed once again

URZZZZ wrote:

Nameless wrote:

AthleticoSpizz wrote:Oh dear...I’ve set them (hi Ian, point missed yet again...but you crack-on) off again

Yep...let’s sell all of our future team

Surely there needs to be a point for it to be missed ?
If selling Loader means we keep McIntyre, Nolan, Holsgrove etc then we have the best of all worlds.

I agree with your point to an extent. But we're not talking about some average academy guy like McIntyre etc...we're talking about someone who has already represented his country at national level 42 times at the age of 18! So I don't think we do have the best of all worlds

Blimey m8 anyone would think we were talking about the new Michael Owen here.
Just to remind you, one goal in 14 appearances either as a striker or just off the striker.
Loads of caps playing kids' football is no guarantee that a player will make it in mens' football.

I sincerely hope that Danny does go on to be the next Michael Owen(preferably for Reading) but from what I have seen so far he is a long way from being the finished article and any club buying him (especially at the figures being banded about on here) would be taking a massive gamble.

Victor Meldrew wrote:

URZZZZ wrote:

Nameless wrote:
Surely there needs to be a point for it to be missed ?
If selling Loader means we keep McIntyre, Nolan, Holsgrove etc then we have the best of all worlds.

I agree with your point to an extent. But we're not talking about some average academy guy like McIntyre etc...we're talking about someone who has already represented his country at national level 42 times at the age of 18! So I don't think we do have the best of all worlds

Blimey m8 anyone would think we were talking about the new Michael Owen here.
Just to remind you, one goal in 14 appearances either as a striker or just off the striker.
Loads of caps playing kids' football is no guarantee that a player will make it in mens' football.

I sincerely hope that Danny does go on to be the next Michael Owen(preferably for Reading) but from what I have seen so far he is a long way from being the finished article and any club buying him (especially at the figures being banded about on here) would be taking a massive gamble.

He won’t be the next Michael Owen as they play in different positions.

It has been made clear we need to balance the books by hopefully clearing out the dead wood but also that some difficult choices around other players. Loader appears to be one of those players.

The club won't want to sell him but we need cash to improve elsewhere. Sadly him leaving may prove to be one of those tough decisions. It is just where we find ourselves post Gourlay.

Stranded wrote:It has been made clear we need to balance the books by hopefully clearing out the dead wood but also that some difficult choices around other players. Loader appears to be one of those players.

The club won't want to sell him but we need cash to improve elsewhere. Sadly him leaving may prove to be one of those tough decisions. It is just where we find ourselves post Gourlay.

At least it gives us a new hate figure, been a while since Anton oxf*rd off.