You know, Madjeski probably could swing that much. It's unlikely he would, but he loses money on Reading now, so with the increased revenue, he might be willing to plow a bit of that back in. OTOH: Reading the past two years has been putting together a very impressive, very young team. The latest two additions, Brown and Golbourne are said to be impressive young defenders who can devo into top level players. They've got a lot of people who, by age, are on the rise, meaning if they can hold this team together, they should be better next year than this, and better yet the year after that.
it's regarded as one of the oddities of the game that the CCC play-off final is now thought to be the single richest match in the world, in terms of the financial difference of winning. West Ham were said to have increased their revenue by £35 million on the back of it. Not even Liverppol's champions league win boosted them by that much.
I would be surprised if Convey started. He and Little have been our most affective players this season and we have 2 fairly good replacements for them so why risk injury. It will be pretty much the same as the Arsenal game I expect, both teams concentrating on the league. Marcus Handyman may even get subbed off for Graeme Stack
Although Whelen was running to the papers with claims of a £30 Million transfer fund after clinching promotion they have actually only spent around £7-£8 million and have spent wisely, in particular 2 centre backs with a lot of experience (De Zeeuw & Henchoz) One thing to remember about Wigan is that they were already spending big before they got promoted, when in the championship they were already preparing a team for the Premier league with signings like Jason Roberts for £2.5M who could realistically have got into a handful of Premier first 11's I feel for Wigan because the only way they were ever going to get success was by being bankrolled by someone, they have very little income from fans as it is a rugby league town and even last season when they were odds on for promotion they were getting crowds of only 7,000. When the money runs out they are back down again, simple as that.
Good point. It seems that clubs looking to push into a play-off spot are doing the same thing now also. As to Jason Roberts, Eddie Pope's still got bruises to show for their engagement. PS. Attendance wise, Wigan is on 20.7K now, 4th lowest ... but still ahead of Fulham.
In case it didnt already get posted, here are the highlights: http://www.ccfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/media/0,,~,00.asx?path=zzf%3A//ivqrb.cerzvhzgi.pb.hx/ivqrb/01_2006/30790_uv.jzi