Hob Nob Anyone?

Can’t believe I have the motivation to write this after the disappointment of the play off final but here it goes.

I remember starting a very similar thread last season that talked about the rebuild that we had to do over the summer of 2016, thankfully there hopefully won't be a need to rebuild again, not as much as last summer anyway.

GKs:
• Ali Al Habsi
• Anssi Jaakkola
• Jonathan Bond
• George Legg
• Luke Southwood
• Lewis Ward

Ali Al Habsi is likely to retain his starting spot throughout next season despite his age, although a new number one may need to be brought in, in a couple of seasons in order to replace Al Habsi. Jaakkola, from what I have seen of him, does not look an inadequate back up for Al Habsi so he is likely to also be staying at the club this summer. George Legg has made the bench several times for Reading already which indicates he is close to breaking in to the first team, although his time may not come in the near future. On the other hand, it seems that Jonathan Bond’s time at Reading is up, going out on loan and not making a big impact at Reading thus far, despite being Reading’s number one at the start of the 2015/16 season.

ONE TO WATCH: Luke Southwood – is a very exciting prospect for Reading, making several international appearances for England at youth level. He is the one to watch next season.

LBs:
• Jordan Obita
• Tyler Blackett

Jordan Obita has put in some very good performances this season, being at his best since his breakthrough season in 2013/14. Tyler Blackett has also featured regularly at left back this season, being better when he’s at centre back however. Omar Richards and Sindri Scheving are two academy products who aren’t quite ready to be in the first team squad just yet.

RBs:
• Chris Gunter
• Tennai Watson
• Niall Keown (can fill in at RB)
• Rob Dickie (can fill in at RB)

Gunter has been ever present in the Royals side since our Premier League season and he hasn’t had a lot of competition, except from Stephen Kelly, in order to be pushed out of that spot by someone else. Tennai Watson has looked very steady in the games that he has played in this season, this includes the EFL Cup game against Arsenal at the Emirates. Niall Keown is another member of the squad that can fit in at right back, and he has impressed out on loan at Partick Thistle. Therefore, he could feature numerous times next season. I remember last summer where Jaap Stam liked the look of Rob Dickie in defence. Could this be his year to shine?

ONE TO WATCH: Tennai Watson – he has looked promising every time i’ve seen him, he could make more frequent appearances next season.

CB:
• Paul McShane
• Liam Moore
• Tiago Ilori
• Tyler Blackett
• Jake Cooper
• Danzell Gravenberch
• Zak Jules
• Niall Keown
• Axel Andresson
• Rob Dickie

McShane, Moore, Ilori and Blackett have regularly featured for the Royals in the past year and they are more than capable first team players, despite Blackett being shaky at times Jake Cooper won promotion with Milwall to the Championship and he played a big role in that, whether he is ready to be in the Reading first team is another matter. In terms of Gravenberch, he is likely to leave in the summer, featuring rarely for the Royals over the past season. Zak Jules played in a number of pre season games but he had a less than successful loan spell in Scotland. Andresson has impressed on loan at Bath City, and he became the captain for them, could he break in to the team in the near future?

ONE TO WATCH: Axel Andresson – could he follow the meteoric rise of Liam Kelly, who has also had a loan spell at Bath City.

CDM:
• George Evans
• Joey Van Den Berg
• Liam Kelly
• Sandro Wieser
Evans and Van Den Berg have featured quite regularly, with the former being very promising and a very shrewd acquisition by Brian McDermott. Liam Kelly is a rising star and has been the player who has made the biggest breakthrough this season at Reading and has made a lot of appearances in the second half of this season, many of those appearances being starts. Sandro Wieser is a player we haven’t really seen but it would be good to see his ability and what he can bring to the team.

ONE TO WATCH: Liam Kelly – will he make even more progression to become a very good asset for Reading next season.

CM:
• John Swift
• Danny Williams
• Stephen Quinn
• Josh Barrett
• Andy Rinomhota

John Swift has been a good purchase for Reading, scoring a number of goals and being an important part of the central midfield, despite him going missing in some games. Danny Williams is out of contract in the summer so it will be interesting to see whether he stays or not. Stephen Quinn has been injured for the vast majority of this season with a recurring knee injury so it will be good if we could see him come back in time for the start of next season. Barrett is a play we saw at the end of the 2015/16 season but we haven’t seen him since.

ONE TO WATCH: Josh Barrett – he continues to look promising.

LW:
• Roy Beerens
• Callum Harriott
• Tarique Fosu

Roy Beerens has frustrated many fans this season with inconsistent performing. However, he has provided some important goals for Reading including his brace against Sheffield Wednesday. Callum Harriott unfortunately had his season cut short with injury, before that, he looked promising. Tarique Fosu has only made one appearance for the Royal’s first team, he has been loaned out to Colchester amongst other clubs over the past couple of years.

ONE TO WATCH: Tarique Fosu – has he been underrated by management or overhyped by fans?

RW:
• Garath McCleary
• Adrian Popa
• Josh Barrett
• Yakou Meite
• Jack Stacey
• Paolo Hurtado
• Tyler Frost

We have a lot of depth at right mid, Hurtado, Meite and Stacey all have a point to prove.

ONE TO WATCH: Paolo Hurtado – will want to make his mark in England after getting off to a very slow start.

ST:
• Yann Kermorgant
• Dominic Samuel
• Deniss Rakels
• Joseph Mendes
• Andrija Novakovich
• Sam Smith

Yann Kermorgant has been a vital figure for Reading, scoring many goals and he will need to be replaced at the end of next season, announcing his retirement a month or two ago. Mendes hasn’t featured that much this season but he has looked promising, scoring a brace against Aston Villa. Samuel was given a chance to prove himself in the first team, and despite scoring a couple of goals, didn’t make a big impression on the fans, he was loaned out to Ipswich but injury prevented him from playing that much. Rakels sustained a fractured ankle earlier on in the season, preventing him from playing throughout the season. He will be looking to prove a point to Stam when he fully returns from injury. Novakovich has shown some promise in the U23s, however, himself and Sam Smith aren’t likely to be ready just yet.

ONE TO WATCH: Andrija Novakovich – has been in very good form for the under 23s.

Still with me? Here are the already rumoured players and key questions that will be answered in the summer.

Already rumoured players:
• Modou Diagne
• Dion Pereira

Key questions:
• Will Stam stay? (I think he will)
• Will the new Chinese owners back Stam? What’s the transfer budget for the summer?
• How many players will we buy?
• Who will we buy?
• Who will be leaving?
• Who will be in the starting eleven come the first league game of the season?
• How many youth players will be involved next season?

Who do we need to sign? (In my opinion)
• In terms of the goalkeeping position, I think we are pretty much covered and there’s no need to purchase any more goalkeepers to stifle the coming through of Legg and Southwood.
• We are short in terms of full backs and it will definetly be beneficial to buy another left back or two seeing as we don’t have many left backs in the academy coming through and because Blackett doesn’t look all that comfortable at left back. Gunter and Watson are good enough for the right back spot; however, Stam may choose to buy another right back if he doesn’t want to put Keown there.
• We have enough centre backs that are capable to compete in the championship so there is no need to strengthen in that position. Arguably, McShane, Ilori and Moore are three of the best centre backs in the Championship, with Blackett being capable and Cooper coming back.
• We are spoilt for choice in the CDM position, with Evans, JVDB and Kelly all competing for a spot in that position; we will not need to find another CDM.
• We need more creativity in this team; with Swift being one of the only creators in the team and even he doesn’t create all the time.
• We are covered in the wing position although it isn’t of the greatest quality. Hurtado will come back with a point to prove.
• We will need more strikers because Kermorgant is retiring at the end of the 17/18 season, plus none of the other strikers have fully proved their worth, even Lord Mendes.
• Overall: we’ll probably need another back up left back or two, maybe another back up right back, a few creative centre mids, a top quality winger and a couple of strikers.

If you managed to read through all the annoying bullet points and poor grammar, well done, I salute you.

Thoughts on my post/essay people?

Agree with your conclusions. Quality especially required up top IMO.

Stacey has been out on loan with Exeter and has been a solid Right Back for them. I'm guessing he'll be cover there as he's not really likely to play on the wing with all our talent there.

I could see this summer being a relatively quiet one compared to recent seasons with a emphasis on quality over quantity, especially up front where our options just aren't quite good enough.

The only player I can see leaving that we don't really want to lose is Danny Williams, and perhaps McCleary or Gunter. The rest of them probably won't be in demand enough or at the right time of their career to be leaving. I'm much more worried about losing Stam than any of the players right now. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of our style of play Stam has done an excellent job getting the side to where he has in such a short space of time.

I think the biggest thing the side needs to add over the summer is a bit more attacking intent and willingness to take a risk in order to create something.

Whilst losing Stam wouldn't be great, I feel less worried about the impact of losing a manager than in the past. Losing Teverenden would be a bigger issue.

We have a style now that I believe the club has bought into and that comes down from the DoF who got Stam in to implement this style. If we lose Stam, I truly believe we would look to recruit somebody who plays in the same way and who would only tweak/improve certain aspects, very similar to what Swansea did to get themselves in to and established in the PL.

A change in DoF could see a major shift in playing style again which could impact us more given we are now set on a path to recruit players who can play this style effectively.

My only disagreement is we should sign improvements to our starting XI where we're weak, not cover. Harsh as that maybe on the likes of Obita.

Ian Royal wrote:My only disagreement is we should sign improvements to our starting XI where we're weak, not cover. Harsh as that maybe on the likes of Obita.

I agree with quality over quantity for this season, we do have good depth in most places, we just need more quality if we do want to have another successful season like we have just had

In my opinion, our team should be based on the likes of Moore, Ilori, Obita, Evans and Swift who still have a lot of time to make an impact at this club.

Southwood is someone who I would love to be experimented with in pre season, I haven't seen him much but he must be good if he's gaining England youth caps? Al Habsi and Jaakkola with Bond coming back and Legg being another option also means we are covered in the goalkeeping position.

Ilori has been a good signing thus far, looking solid and rightly so considering how much we paid for him. He could turn out to be a bargain however. Moore has been the signing of the season in terms of value for money along with the likes of Swift. With the addition of the experienced head of McShane and the capable back up of Blackett, we have one, if not, the best central defences in the championship. Don't forget we have Keown, Dickie and Cooper along with Gravenberch as back up as well.

I can't help but think we need more quality at full back, I think that's an area that needs looking at. Gunter is consistent, but do you remember when he was absoloutely schooled by Florian Jozefzoon at the Brentford home game? I think Watson needs more of a chance to prove himself. I've been a big fan of Obita this season, however, we may need someone to give him some competition other than Blackett. Maybe we need a better version of Andrew Taylor.

Got to agree with Ian Royal. We have a large squad now. We have our squad in depth with players bought this season (Popa, Harriott, Blackett, JVDB, Meite and Mendes) this window should be all about buying first team improvements. The most obvious of which are our forwards. Kermorgant had a great season and I would prefer to see more from Mendes and Meite but if a better option is out there we should take it.
McCleary and Beerens both are talented but when they're out I fell less confident.
Obita I'm sorry to say has very little competition making it the most important place to buy. He's been very good and still has loads of potential to improve but if we buy in that position it has to be a starter.

NewCorkSeth wrote:Got to agree with Ian Royal. We have a large squad now. We have our squad in depth with players bought this season (Popa, Harriott, Blackett, JVDB, Meite and Mendes) this window should be all about buying first team improvements. The most obvious of which are our forwards. Kermorgant had a great season and I would prefer to see more from Mendes and Meite but if a better option is out there we should take it.
McCleary and Beerens both are talented but when they're out I fell less confident.
Obita I'm sorry to say has very little competition making it the most important place to buy. He's been very good and still has loads of potential to improve but if we buy in that position it has to be a starter.

Can't disagree with that at all. I do feel that we need a couple of more attacking central midfielders to help Swift out. We've had problems sometimes this season with being too static and with Williams maybe departing, we will need to recruit in that area.

We've struggled for creativity when swift has been out of form. Sign another creative midfielder to help him out, sign a more attacking right back, another striker or two, a left back, and then we're all good.

Tommio wrote:We've struggled for creativity when swift has been out of form. Sign another creative midfielder to help him out, sign a more attacking right back, another striker or two, a left back, and then we're all good.

Not to start another Gunter debate but he's about as good an attacking fullback as anyone could expect in the championship. He's arguably top quality when it comes to getting forward, overlapping his winger and putting a cross in.

NewCorkSeth wrote:

Tommio wrote:We've struggled for creativity when swift has been out of form. Sign another creative midfielder to help him out, sign a more attacking right back, another striker or two, a left back, and then we're all good.

Not to start another Gunter debate but he's about as good an attacking fullback as anyone could expect in the championship. He's arguably top quality when it comes to getting forward, overlapping his winger and putting a cross in.

He's a great right back, no doubt about that, he's a top professional and his fitness levels are immense. But if Stam wants to go ahead with 5 at the back, Gunter just doesn't suit that role. Fredericks is the perfect example of wingback that we need, with Gunter in that position we just don't have enough width or threat from wide areas, and that showed yesterday.

NewCorkSeth wrote:

Tommio wrote:We've struggled for creativity when swift has been out of form. Sign another creative midfielder to help him out, sign a more attacking right back, another striker or two, a left back, and then we're all good.

Not to start another Gunter debate but he's about as good an attacking fullback as anyone could expect in the championship. He's arguably top quality when it comes to getting forward, overlapping his winger and putting a cross in.

He's just like an athlete, and when given the chance sometimes he does go up and down the wing. The cross that he put in yesterday where we got close to scoring was just one example of that. However, sometimes he does stay deep and just passes it backwards and sidewards. The difficult thing about this is that we don't know how good Watson is and what his best attributes are. Keown could be good in that right back spot, coming back on loan from Partick Thistle, but will he be attacking enough to suit the philosophy? I remember he started off as a right back in the academy, but he's become more of a centre back over time.

Tommio wrote:

NewCorkSeth wrote:

Tommio wrote:We've struggled for creativity when swift has been out of form. Sign another creative midfielder to help him out, sign a more attacking right back, another striker or two, a left back, and then we're all good.

Not to start another Gunter debate but he's about as good an attacking fullback as anyone could expect in the championship. He's arguably top quality when it comes to getting forward, overlapping his winger and putting a cross in.

He's a great right back, no doubt about that, he's a top professional and his fitness levels are immense. But if Stam wants to go ahead with 5 at the back, Gunter just doesn't suit that role. Fredericks is the perfect example of wingback that we need, with Gunter in that position we just don't have enough width or threat from wide areas, and that showed yesterday.

I'm far from gunters biggest fan but to base his suitability to that role based on yesterday would be more than a bit unfair. The vast majority of attacks went down the left hand side and our best chance came from a beautiful overlapping run made by gunter. As soon as Grabban cam off the width increased as McCleary drifted wide to both sides more often.
Gunter, imo, is ONLY suited to playing as a wing back. The only thing stopping him being great is his inconsistent defending. If we had a left footed gunter on the other side in this formation we would probably concede more but we would create a bucket load more chances for our strikers.

I think Obita has to be one of our most underrated players.

I'm surprised we still have Gunter tbf. He's a quality player IMO despite the stick he gets, and regardless, he seems highly rated by other fans and clubs.

With the high profile Euros he was a key player in, I'm surprised a PL club haven't come in for him.

I reckon we will lose GMac and Williams

NewCorkSeth wrote:

Tommio wrote:

NewCorkSeth wrote: Not to start another Gunter debate but he's about as good an attacking fullback as anyone could expect in the championship. He's arguably top quality when it comes to getting forward, overlapping his winger and putting a cross in.

He's a great right back, no doubt about that, he's a top professional and his fitness levels are immense. But if Stam wants to go ahead with 5 at the back, Gunter just doesn't suit that role. Fredericks is the perfect example of wingback that we need, with Gunter in that position we just don't have enough width or threat from wide areas, and that showed yesterday.

I'm far from gunters biggest fan but to base his suitability to that role based on yesterday would be more than a bit unfair. The vast majority of attacks went down the left hand side and our best chance came from a beautiful overlapping run made by gunter. As soon as Grabban cam off the width increased as McCleary drifted wide to both sides more often.
Gunter, imo, is ONLY suited to playing as a wing back. The only thing stopping him being great is his inconsistent defending. If we had a left footed gunter on the other side in this formation we would probably concede more but we would create a bucket load more chances for our strikers.

The vast majority of our attacks went down our left side because Gunter made about two positive passes all game, half a dozen runs and spent the rest of the time telling his team mates to pass to someone else or giving it back to a CB.

Fredericks is a good attacking full back back. He takes people on and he beats them. He surges forward. His first thought is positive and aggressive. His defending may need some work, but Gunter's isn't the best either.

Gunter's first thought is always "how can I avoid a critical error".

It's why he always stands off and backs off wingers. A cross in is a percentage his team mates can deal with, attempting a challenge and failing means someone's through and it's his fault.

It's why he controls inside and passes back to defence rather than passes inside and runs for a give and go. Or never takes on his man anywhere other than the final 20 yards of the pitch if he has any other viable choice. Or plays the safe low percentage balls into the channels. If it goes wrong, it's not an immediate break all down to him. It's why his crosses are swung in to areas rather than picking out individuals. It's why when defending he waits for the hand to touch his back and then falls over. Because trying to win the freekick is easier than getting out of the position. And if it's not given, well it's not his fault, he was pushed over.

It's why he's not a winner. Look at his track record.
Cardiff 06/07 - mid-table
Cardiff 07/08 - mid-table
Forest - 08/09 - bottom half
Forest - 09/10 - bottled promotion and play offs
Forest - 10/11 - bottled play offs
Forest - 11/12 - bottom half
Reading - 12/13 - relegated from the PL
Reading - 13/14 - failed to make the play offs on the last day
Reading - 14/15 - bottom half
Reading - 15/16 - bottom half
Reading - 16/17 - bottled the play offs

He's an incredibly athletic player, with talent, who simply lacks the killer winning instinct. A lovely guy. About as committed to the club as players get. But not a winner who will take us forward.

With the right wing back, it feels as if we need a great defender who can attack or a great attacker who can defend and Gunter is neither, in my opinion. An athlete yes - he works very hard and runs a lot, but with a ball at his feet he is hardly impressive.

Most times he gets the ball, and especially yesterday, he turns around passes back or he'll run forwards and look for a pass inside or the one two. He very rarely takes anyone on, and then if he does get the ball back or past the defender, his crossing is less than convincing (apart from when he plays for wales of course). His challenges always feel half hearted and weak, and he very rarely makes glaring mistakes, but he just doesn't do enough to impress and we can't play with him as a right wing back.

He seems like a good guy and has been a very good servant to the club, even though he's been regularly linked with a move away - but to me that's always been lazy journalism who just see a 'full international', who's had a pedigree in the past who hasn't really done much with his current team. Obviously it's usually a welsh connection to Swansea or Cardiff.

I just don't think he's the man to take us forward if we insist on using the wing back role. Not a terrible player, but certainly not one that can take us anywhere other than where we are now.

I firmly agree with all these points but Stam seems to have him at the centre of his plans - making him vice captain, and how many times have we seen Watson instead of him this season? Not much