seriously...

I know a Keeper is not the most exciting of players, but I suppose we do need one as back up and competition for the trusty bogdan...

so, you would think we would be going balls out for one that coyle likes and rates highly... yes?

well.... no

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now you would think....fair enough, Leeds must want stupid money...

but they dont...

this quote from the BEN article really riles me...

''Wanderers tried to kick-start things with a bid of their own but are now
likely to have to raise their offer to something approaching the fee
Leeds are looking to pay for Kenny, although Owen Coyle
has other options he may consider.''

so... Paddy Kenny is going to cost Leeds 500 grand. Meaning our Bid for Longeran must have been short of this...

WHAT THE FUCK!!!

500 grand for a half decent keeper that the club need is PEANUTS... and we are ready to pull the plug for an amount of money that to most premier league, championship and some of the bigger league 1 clubs would consider to be 'loose change'

pathetic cheapskates....

It's a sign of the times I am afraid. We already have Bogdan, Lainton and Jay Lynch. How many keepers do we need ?

So long as they get him eventually I'd rather see them haggle and try and pay as little as possible, considering how tight finances are every penny realy does count.

Long term future of the club though, we will need some investment soon. When you see the likes of Southampton coming straight back up and spending £7 mill on Jay Rod, and Reading giving Pogrebnyak a £13 million contract or something, it makes you wonder, even if we'd of stayed up would we of been able to compete?

I don't see why we would overpay for someone just for the sake of it.

would you go to a car lot and pay 34 grand for a Corsa just because, even though the true value is about 9 grand.

I do wonder what people want sometimes.

Hipster, Rebel just likes a bit of a moan/knee-jerk reaction. Often, on reflection, he accepts he has gone off on one unnecessarily. It's just the way he is. Entertaining at times, tiresome at others. He's a passionate fan.

Yeah i appreciate that, and to be honest at times, I'm with him.

I was frustrated by our approach for Zaha who i rate.

Palace wanted 10 million and we would only offer 7.

now that is a big difference but if you're talking a young cornerstone player i think sometimes you do have to overpay.

but for a 2nd maybe 3rd choice keeper i don't think it's worth it.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Yeah i appreciate that, and to be honest at times, I'm with him.

I was frustrated by our approach for Zaha who i rate.

Palace wanted 10 million and we would only offer 7.

now that is a big difference but if you're talking a young cornerstone player i think sometimes you do have to overpay.

but for a 2nd maybe 3rd choice keeper i don't think it's worth it.

my gripe is with the fact that we never seem to offer what other clubs are offering for players.

the way I see it, if a club wants a player, they usually have to pay for him. If the selling club wants say a Min of 2 million, they will take no less...

we seem to do this whole 'tried and failed' thing that really gets to me - its like they dont REALLY want the player but are just going through the motions to look good and help sell tickets...

its the same as walking in to McDonalds and offering them 3 quid for a big mac meal instead of what they are asking...

Not really, because it's a marketplace.

It's like an Car Boot, you generally will say "oh i'll give you a tenner" if it's marked up for 20 and so on and so on.

Clubs are always looking to get the best price, you don't just pay whatever the hell the club wants otherwise every tom dick and harry would be worth 50 million.

I get it if you're talking about a cornerstone player with massive upside that you want to build around but otherwise i don't see the gripe.

as for the "selling tickets" who in their right mind would buy a season ticket based on what some rag says.

"Bolton linked with BALE!" - Quick buy a season ticket!

I can't imagine anyone has ever done that, but i see this argument trotted out every season like it's fool proof.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Not really, because it's a marketplace.

It's like an Car Boot, you generally will say "oh i'll give you a tenner" if it's marked up for 20 and so on and so on.

Clubs are always looking to get the best price, you don't just pay whatever the hell the club wants otherwise every tom dick and harry would be worth 50 million.

I get it if you're talking about a cornerstone player with massive upside that you want to build around but otherwise i don't see the gripe.

as for the "selling tickets" who in their right mind would buy a season ticket based on what some rag says.

"Bolton linked with BALE!" - Quick buy a season ticket!

I can't imagine anyone has ever done that, but i see this argument trotted out every season like it's fool proof.

Veloso and Rivaldo... there's 2, just to get the ball rolling...

... and you bought a season ticket based on that did you?

And the interest in them players was obviously genuine so I'm not sure what your point is

Hipster_Nebula wrote:... and you bought a season ticket based on that did you?

And the interest in them players was obviously genuine so I'm not sure what your point is

no I buy a season ticket as its just something I 'do' regardless... id be whining about how crap things were but still going if we were in the conference.

It would be nice to get linked with a 'big' signing and every now and again have it come off...

OK, anelka came and elmander was a big money signing that screwed us up in every way imaginable... but the majority seem to be bids WAY below the 'accepted' value, then we get given the whole tried and failed bullshit...

So the whole "linked with players to sell tickets" is nonsense then, as you accept you wouldn't buy a ticket for that alone and i don't think anyone of a sound mind would either.

The major problem in signing "big" names is we support Bolton and we're now in the championship.

We were lucky enough to see Okocha, Djorkaeff, Heirro, Campo, N'Gotty, Candela, Anelka. In terms of "big" names you won't see many bigger than that rocking up at a tiny club like ours with pitiful funds at our disposal.

time for a reality check i think.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:So the whole "linked with players to sell tickets" is nonsense then, as you accept you wouldn't buy a ticket for that alone and i don't think anyone of a sound mind would either.

The major problem in signing "big" names is we support Bolton and we're now in the championship.

We were lucky enough to see Okocha, Djorkaeff, Heirro, Campo, N'Gotty, Candela, Anelka. In terms of "big" names you won't see many bigger than that rocking up at a tiny club like ours with pitiful funds at our disposal.

time for a reality check i think.

I know we are a small club and accept that, however I see smaller clubs than us spending stupid amounts of money on players...

look at reading, I know they are in the prem again but they currently have the 'we are going to try our damn hardest to stay up' attitude... so they are spending money, investing in the future...and they are not exactly monied are they?

if it was us it would be 'we are not going to spend anything on players, if we do it will be peanuts on a 12 year old (possibly from burnley) for 'the future'

we seem to sign players to sell them again in a year or two... not to just win football matches.

there seems to be a lack of ambition.

I know we have no money, but to gain the riches that the premier league gives us, we need to spend some money on getting there and staying there.

speculate to accumulate...

Reebok_Rebel wrote:
I know we are a small club and accept that, however I see smaller clubs than us spending stupid amounts of money on players...

look at reading, I know they are in the prem again but they currently have the 'we are going to try our damn hardest to stay up' attitude... so they are spending money, investing in the future...and they are not exactly monied are they?

if it was us it would be 'we are not going to spend anything on players, if we do it will be peanuts on a 12 year old (possibly from burnley) for 'the future'

we seem to sign players to sell them again in a year or two... not to just win football matches.

there seems to be a lack of ambition.

I know we have no money, but to gain the riches that the premier league gives us, we need to spend some money on getting there and staying there.

speculate to accumulate...

Come on Rebel, you're more intelligent than this post suggests. This isn't a game of Monopoly we're talking about here and whether to put an extra hotel on Park Lane.

Spending money you haven't got - ie 'borrowing' - is no guarantee of anything in football. Look how much money Megson spent. When he took over we were 20th and when he was sacked we were 18th.

Lets see how Reading get on next season - and for several seasons after. Pobgrebnyak is a complete mercenary, just like Elmander was. He won't sign a new contract and he will be off if a big club come along and offer to give him yet another pay rise.

So far we look like keeping all our best players and we will have one of if not the highest wage bills in the division next season, if that's not 'speculate to accumulate' enough for you I don't know what will be.

But the fact of the matter is we did spend money.

i see this argument again and again, but when we went up under Sam we used the free agent market to our advantage by spending big money on wages, we also spend 8 million on Anelka. when he left we had to change tact, under Megson we spent 40 million + on the likes of Matt Taylor, Knight, Cahill, Elmander, Mark Davies, LCY etc etc, not to mention the kind of wages these players commanded.

Pogbreniak is a free agent, so I'm not sure why thats such a blockbuster deal? They've done exactly what we did when we came up, attacked a free agent with a big wage deal.

maybe your right, maybe im wrong... maybe reading will fold, maybe they will qualify for Europe in 3 seasons... who knows.

I just like the fact they are trying, we, as a club seem to be an entity that just 'exists' now...

considering i was romping around europe a few years ago... its a bitter pill

.... and how did we "romp round europe" by spending nothing?

Pogbreniak is a free agent, so I'm not sure why thats such a blockbuster deal? They've done exactly what we did when we came up, attacked a free agent with a big wage deal.

They've offered him something like £70,000 a week or something, and probably plenty of big bonuses. Fulham were only offering £40,000 Reading have big Russian money backing them now, and it's not the sort of deal we'd be offering these days.

I've got no issue with us not spending huge money, you don't need to as shown by Norwich, Swansea etc. Big wages to older players cost us in the end, but Reading have the backing to do it.

... no obviously not but we paid Anelka around that amount and Diouf was widely thought to be on 60k a week.

Add in the kind of money you'd have been paying Okocha, Heirro, Djorkaeff and N'Gotty and you can see kind of cash we've spent.

Football has left us behind I'm afraid.

HN's absolutely right. We have spent the money in the past, same as the new arrivals to the Premier. We now have to keep the costs down, because we owe !00 million plus, and we have to pay the interest on that, if nothing else.. Our wriggle-room is very limited.