Reading

[ramAnag]

Yes it is very unreasonable. Supporters go to matches to be entertained, and with no guarantee of good entertainment at that. There is no guarantee of success for their team either. You've paid to get in and watch, no more.

You pays your money and you takes your chance. If you go to watch a film and don't like it, would you go and boycott the cinema and stop others watching it? Especially those who may have travelled 100 miles to get there,?

The clue is in the word, ‘supporters’, GP.
I go to the cinema, the theatre or gigs to be entertained. Likewise I might also go to a cricket, football or rugby match in which I have no emotional investment to be entertained but, imo, ‘supporters’ are different from mere spectators or being part of an audience.
I haven’t at any time defended the action of those who forced abandonment of last weekend’s Reading v Port Vale match, however I do feel that being one of the 27,000 (at Derby) that regularly turn up to support a team - frequently regardless of whether the action is particularly scintillating or entertaining - does not make me, or others, the ‘root of the problem’ at clubs like Reading and Derby.

Anyway...got a match to go to, a team to ‘support’ and thermals to find!

[Geoff Parkstone]

Supporters are not the root of the problem, I've never said that. But supporters can pressurise owners/managers into financially dubious decision making in the transfer market.

Supporters, like Gen Z, tend to feel "entitled", more so than a filmgoer perhaps, but at the end of the day both pay to be entertained and there is "brand loyalty" to teams and actors/directors alike.

Enjoy the match. I'm sat here doing tax returns (time of year &#128546, but even that might be more interesting than watching Burton on a miserable cold wet evening!

[Ramshank72]

Reading fans though were probably loving it when he broke their transfer record multiple times

100%

[ramAnag]

Supporters are not the root of the problem, I've never said that.

No, you didn’t, but the poster I was replying to (#7) did.

[swaledale]

Not sure who, on this forum, is ‘demanding money is spent on players to get their club success’...however it seems a tad harsh to blame fans as the ‘route of all this’.
Probably fair to criticise those who caused the abandonment last Saturday, but those fans at Reading will have contributed in excess of £5m to Reading FC by the end of the season. Likewise at Derby regular fans are likely to have paid around £12.5m by the end of the season...is it unreasonable that such commitment should lead to reasonable levels of expectation?

N.B. Figures approximate and based on League One gate receipts alone.

Ah well if the cap fits as they say! I seem to recall at least one poster on here in both the summer window and in this one, posting that without the purchase of players of a certain quality the team wouldn't "progress" ad indeed claiming confidently (with no knowledge of the clubs finances) that Derby should be able to "afford" to pay transfer fees of at least £500K.

Mel Morris certainly spent millions in an attempt to satisfy the cravings of Derby fans for success, though admittedly he did make some gung ho promises!!

[ramAnag]

Hmmm...well I’ll put my hand up to saying sometime ago that we should be able to pay transfer fees of £500k, but that’s a very far cry from supporting the unsustainable days of Mel Morris (or even Lionel), and seeing as you’ve described your hope that we sign both Michael Smith and Blackett-Taylor along with another midfielder I’m not sure how you think we’re going to do that without spending in the region of £500k.

As for fans who suggest we should pay reasonable and comparatively affordable fees to strengthen the squad in a crucial window being the ‘root of the problem’...that’s just total nonsense.

[swaledale]

Hmmm...well I’ll put my hand up to saying sometime ago that we should be able to pay transfer fees of £500k, but that’s a very far cry from supporting the unsustainable days of Mel Morris (or even Lionel), and seeing as you’ve described your hope that we sign both Michael Smith and Blackett-Taylor along with another midfielder I’m not sure how you think we’re going to do that without spending in the region of £500k.

As for fans who suggest we should pay reasonable and comparatively affordable fees to strengthen the squad in a crucial window being the ‘root of the problem’...that’s just total nonsense.

I didn't say hope that we sign them I merely posted what the current situation with possible transfers was! Indeed I've actually gone on record saying that signings aren't vytal and that some of the demands of fans on here and elsewhere on the internet are unrealistic and forget where Derby were just over 18 months ago.

In your mind a transfer fee (plus the attendant agents fee and ongoing salary) maybe comparatively affordable, though I'd be interested in your view on comparatively affordable with what?) but then neither you, nor I or any other fan has the task of paying the bills to keep this club afloat which is where fans if not the root of the problem are certainly part of it, their expectation that a club has to sign players they consider good enough to be in the team, yet do not have the knowledge or indeed the responsibility of keeping the club financially solvent.

For example, you've consistently rubbished a number of signings, I've pointed out that they may well be the best the club can manage to sign given financial constraints, sure better players are out there, but Warne has to assemble a team within a set budget, those better players may not be achievable on that budget, so in context Warne's doing well.

But if we don't get promotion, fans will bemoaning and saying if only we'd spent £100,000's on new players we would have, though there is absolutely no guarantee that would be the case.

[ramAnag]

Going round in circles again but you brought it up (again) by blaming fans for having unreasonable expectations so I’ll hopefully finish it.

You really don’t have an argument. On the one hand you’ve repeatedly described your personal desire for us to strengthen in midfield and up front. On the other you’ve criticised others - possibly me in particular - for having ‘unrealistic’ expectations.

Like you I’m not privy to the finer details of our financial situation but I would have thought that this season, having got into the position we’re in and having the comparatively huge supporter generated revenue we have, that paying around £500k in transfer fees should no longer be beyond us.

Pleased to see you’ve moved your stance from fans being the ‘root of the problem’ - which is all I objected to - however 18 months is a long time. Things have, to an extent, moved on and one should look at where these fans’ ‘unrealistic expectations’ have come from. Wasn’t it Warne who described last season as a ‘failure’? Personally I’d have taken 7th - or anywhere in the top half - as acceptable at the beginning of last season. It was only a failure - or disappointment in my eyes - because we failed to capitalise on the situation we’d got ourselves into this time last year.
Wasn’t it also Warne who was brought in as an expert in getting clubs promoted from L1 and isn’t it Warne who’s suggested that this season’s aim is promotion? At the moment he/we appear to be on target to achieve that - and all credit to those concerned for that - but then again we were this time last year so I don’t see how you can blame fans for having unrealistic expectations and associated concerns.

‘Consistently rubbished a number of signings’? No I haven’t. I’ve questioned Warne’s transfer record. He’s made more signings than one might imagine and, imo, only three - Nelson, Nyambe and Wilson - have been successes. The fact that our success on the pitch this season, like last, has been largely down to signings by previous managers is indisputable as is the fact that many of Warne’s summer signings have proved injury prone or not as good as the players they were signed to replace. There’s no point trying to deny that or make out that such suggestions are somehow unworthy...they’re just facts...so far.

Finally, ‘if we don’t get promotion, fans will be bemoaning and saying if only we’d spent £100,000’s...’. Very possibly yes, although that presupposes we won’t be spending that sort of money. I think our greatest problem at the moment, and Michael Smith may be a prime example of this, is the difficulty in identifying players who can not only get us up but are of Championship level ability if we get there.
It is the manager’s job, thankfully, to build and strengthen a side who, for the second year running, are on the cusp of achieving something. Time to push on. Making the right acquisition/s now is, imo, essential to that and it won’t be the fault of fans who regularly turn up in huge numbers should expectations be dashed again through lack of the right investment on the pitch.

P.S. Don’t pretend to know, or particularly care, about Reading’s plight, but I doubt it’s down to the fans. They do seem to have more of the ‘fair weather’ variety than ourselves, but it seems the situation there is down to inadequate ownership rather than unrealistic fans.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Just to pitch in my two pence worth. Fans always have unrealistic expectations - or rather hopes may be a better word for it - of their team. That's what makes them fans.

These expectations do pressure ownership into decisions that are often rash eg sacking manager, spending money on players that often they don't have etc. Owners need to be more strong and resist appeasing the fanbase, but often they are not and cave in (also flattering their own egos).

Trouble is the existence of supporter pressure means clubs don't run in a business like manner. It's the nature of the beast. Despite huge revenue numbers from TV deals and nerchandising, most (even PL) teams aren't really sustainable. Crowd (ie fan contribution) revenue is relatively minor the higher up the pyramid you are, but as one descends to more Stygian depths this is more critical to the well being of a club. This makes the fanbase feel more entitled as their participation in club revenue is greater.

So it's a bit of a vicious circle. The fan as a stakeholder becomes more important as a teams fortunescslide, but fans are not renowned for financial acumen and some call for greater spending eg "a 500k transfer must surely be affordable" without having a clue what money is realistically there to spend on player acquisition.

The wider implications get ignored. Pay a newcomer a decent salary and you likely get 15 players knocking on the door asking for commensurate rises. It's not as simple as it sounds.

Before making judgement, let's wait and see what the first new era accounts tell us... If there are bounteous resources in the balance sheet, then ask the questions

[Andy_Faber]

Just to pitch in my two pence worth. Fans always have unrealistic expectations - or rather hopes may be a better word for it - of their team. That's what makes them fans.

These expectations do pressure ownership into decisions that are often rash eg sacking manager, spending money on players that often they don't have etc. Owners need to be more strong and resist appeasing the fanbase, but often they are not and cave in (also flattering their own egos).

Trouble is the existence of supporter pressure means clubs don't run in a business like manner. It's the nature of the beast. Despite huge revenue numbers from TV deals and nerchandising, most (even PL) teams aren't really sustainable. Crowd (ie fan contribution) revenue is relatively minor the higher up the pyramid you are, but as one descends to more Stygian depths this is more critical to the well being of a club. This makes the fanbase feel more entitled as their participation in club revenue is greater.

So it's a bit of a vicious circle. The fan as a stakeholder becomes more important as a teams fortunescslide, but fans are not renowned for financial acumen and some call for greater spending eg "a 500k transfer must surely be affordable" without having a clue what money is realistically there to spend on player acquisition.

The wider implications get ignored. Pay a newcomer a decent salary and you likely get 15 players knocking on the door asking for commensurate rises. It's not as simple as it sounds.

Before making judgement, let's wait and see what the first new era accounts tell us... If there are bounteous resources in the balance sheet, then ask the questions

Maybe its time for some sad ******* to develop a Duckworth Lewis equivalent for player salaries - all the data appears to be around us these days

Edit: Lovely to see the word Stygian pop up for the first time that I recall since an NME concert review in around 79. It might even have been written by Charles Shaar Murray