Rumours, Rumours, Rumours,

Ok I’m starting to like this. As the squad departs and have fun in Sven’s homeland, the rest of us are left behind complementing who we are going to sign and some of the players I really like the sound off.

According to the Wokingham Times we were rumoured with Tottenham’s youngster Adel Taarabt and he would have been a brilliant additional to our prevailing squad.

Unfortunately he looks to be heading to rivals Queen Park Bench Rangers nevertheless a good player to be rumoured with and one mad Tottenham fan informed that we missed out on a world class player in the making. I hope he’s not right.

Chelsea’s Jack Cork remains to be heavily linked, he was with Brendan Rodgers at Watford last term. Spurs centre back Dorian Dervitte is another however with Tottenham’s recent centre back crisis, Woodgate, King and Dawson are all apparently
going to miss the start of the season, this looks very doubtful at present.

Another one is Macedonian international Ilco Naumoski. Whoever he is? We are supposedly stuck in a three-way battle to sign the striker with Coventry and Hearts but I’m not sure is good or bad – 29 international games with only six goals is not the kind of striker I personally want to sign.

And according to those brilliant minds at the Dairy Mirror Reading are trying to sign Jobi McAnuff. The winger was, again, at Watford and a bid of £800,000 is expected as a like for like replacement Stephen Hunt.

This is a list of some very good players that I would love to see at our club- they would not only be an asset to the squad but they would an asset to the first team as well.

May the rumours continue.

£30,000 for What? Hunt needs to go

Ok, I read something extraordinary, eerie and a bit disturbing. It is said on the Get Reading website that Stephen Hunt is being paid something in the region of £30,000 a week. Yes, a week.

Reading, the team that has just been relegated, the team who’s budget in often very limited in the best of times are shelling out far too much for a player who’s, honestly, not that good.

Reading this has just annoyed me more and being paid more than double anyone else in the team surely he’s warranted to put in a big performance now and again. Off hand, it’s hard to remember the last game he played better than average. Back in the glory days of top-flight football, he was good, better than average most of the time and remembering games against Everton and West Ham at home showed the world how good he could be. However a season down in the doldrums of the Championship indicates that he does not want to be with the club anymore.

Brendan Rodgers understand that his budget will be severely torn in half if Hunt does not leave by the end of August and he must be hoping for a bidder to enter the fray sooner rather than later.

Hunt’s mockery cameo appearances against Didcot Town and Kettering were indeed laughable especially that, in both games, he played left back as we don’t have Chris Armstrong up to scraps yet. Ryan Bertrand, just signed on a season long loan from Chelsea, will be sharing left back duty with Armstrong from now on and Rodgers’ seems reluctant to use Hunt in any sort of attacking formality.

And who can blame him. Why should he use a player that is obviously going to move on? Rightly, he’s giving youth a chance, a step I very much encourage. Hal Robson-Kanu performed wonders for Swind*n last season and he deserves a little run in the team to see if he is up to the task. James Henry definitely deserves a run in the team if he does well in preseason, especially with the hopelessness of Jimmy Kebe on our right wing.

It seems rather pointless having Hunt in the first team squad at all especially if Rodgers intentions are not use him and if he wants match sharpest a spell in the reserves wouldn’t be the worse thing.

Rumours on the paper fronts have gone dead recently as gossip of a move to Everton, Wigan, Fulham, Sunderland, or Bolton hasn’t appeared for a few weeks worryingly. No doubt, they will soon pick and these clubs have a potential bargain on their hands as Reading might just accept any bid that heads their way.

Therefore, any half-decent Premier League club out there please take Hunt off our hands, as he will be much more of use to you than he would us.