Reading's transfer window

In my preview for this season, I wrote that our fortunes for the year depended on what happened in the remaining month or so of the transfer window. What followed was a relatively busy month.

We saw the loss of last year’s star performer and top scorer Shane Long in a relatively expected move and in through the door came a man with way too many ‘S’s in his name (Kaspars Gorkss), Southampton’s third choice left-back (Joseph Mills) and the man with the most northern sounding name ever (Glenville Adam J. le Fondre).

I wrote at the start of the season that if we lost Shane Long then we would be in for a long hard season and, despite the arrival of le Fondre, I stand by that.

Le Fondre may bang in the goals at this level and his record elsewhere certainly shows he knows where the goal is but, increasingly in the Championship , being a goalscorer isn’t always enough. If a team plays two up front, one of the pair must be prepared to work the channels and work his socks off for the team. Matthieu Manset has shown glimpses of this but he is the only striker we have with the combination of pace and power to do it.

The signing of Gorkss should add a certain degree of fearless insanity that all backlines should have and one we have lacked since the loss of Andre Bikey. However, a distinct lack of pace is still in evidence in the defence as a whole and at centre back in particular, an issue that Gorkss, for all his positives as a very good centre half at this level, will not alleviate.

Mills looks like he is one for the medium to long term unless Ian Harte puts in some terrible performances over the next few weeks and Mills is required to step up.

Overall, the transfer window has not been unkind to us. Only losing Matt Mills and Long (as well as the releasing of the likes of Ivar Ingimarsson and Zurab Khisaishvili going back to his parent club) is not too bad when, quite conceivably, we could have also lost Adam Federici, Jimmy Kebe and Jem Karacan too.

Furthermore, each loss has had a like-for-like replacement brought in more or less as two centre halves have replaced the three that have left (with Sean Morrison being, rightly, expected to step up) and le Fondre replacing Long.

However, the issue that remains is one of faith of the fans. Money has been spent with the summer spending coming in at an estimated £1.5 million but faith comes into the equation when one asks if the replacements are good enough to plug the holes left by Mills and Long.

I do not believe the quality of the ins are as good as the outs though I would love to be proven wrong on this matter. However, that said, they are good acquisitions at this level and a top half finish with a possible play-off push is a distinct possibility should the team gel together.

We are notoriously slow-starters in this division these days but there is enough quality in the squad to pose a challenge to most sides in this league. The disappointment of course comes when one looks at the financial aspect of the ins and outs but that is another story and another can of worms.