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Michael Antonio


spyinthesky
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Did well for us but a few suggested shelling out a sizeable sum to buy him

Others thought he was limited to Div 1

See he is now on loan to Colchester.Probably his level

Also notice that Andrew Davies, a success during his time here, is now plying his trade with Bradford City whilst David Mcgoldrick was sub for Sheff Weds last week on loan from Forest.

Meanwhile our chum Anthony Pulis seems a permanent fixture on the bench at Aldershot

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Antonio was 100% a pace merchant. I actually wouldn't be adverse to bringing him back and sticking him on the bench against wear legs with 10-15 mins to go but I guess that what we have Forte for. He was a very useful player in our first year in League One and I bet he is furious with Reading for preventing his permanent move here because they thought they could squeeze more money out of us.

 

Davies was a quality player in his short stint here but is being held back by injuries. Shame, as for me he's been our best defender since being relegated and would be an ideal partner to JF if he was fit and capable of 40 odd games a season.

 

McGoldrick is horse $hite. The less said about him the better.

 

Who's Anthony Pulis?

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Antonio is deffo a quality legaue one player and would do a job for us in this league as a back up, but if we aiming to get promoted this season, there would be no point signing him we would need someone slightly better as a back up who would be more consistent with there crossing and passing.

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Scored in his last two matches for Colchester too.

 

He came on in leaps and bounds for us, playing regular football, in his season here. Then Reading smelled a chance to reap some cash for a player they weren't to fussed about and his career stalls. As someone else said above if he'd stayed here (ie if Reading had being willing to let him go for a sensible sum rather than trying to screw us) I reckon Nigel and the team would have moulded him into a pretty good player. Still I think that ship has sailed now - shame IMO.

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Reading priced him out of a move to us. They thought we could be held to ransom. I always thought he could be a good player in the champ.

The coach at Stoke who looks after my nipper reckons Davies likes a drink or 6 & is to quote 'a bit thick even for a footballer!' - No loss imho.

I always thought McGoldrick was rubbish...........................no where near as good as he thought he was/is!

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E can no longer look at getting somebody who would be a good bit player from the bench - The 5 on a bench really does put a whole new complexion on which players we name as subs now.

 

Loved Antonio whilst he was here - a bit of a cult hero in the "Chicken George" Lawrence way, but we need to be aiming higher now.

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Reading woudnt let us sign him in the summer of last year. Yeah good decision Reading. Now the player is doing far worse than he would have done and they have f*ck all chance of getting a decent fee for him.

 

Perhaps it's not the player but Reading's handling of him. Pards is a good manager,we have a good set up. Reading..not so much, can't even remember which tea boy they've got as manager nowadays since Rogers went to Swansea.

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I would have him ahead of Forte any day of the week.

 

They arent dissimilar types of player. Personally I see Forte as the better of the two, and with more potential than Antonio. That said, at the time I would have been well pleased if we had managed to sign Antonio after his loan spell. Shame Reading got inflated ideas about his valuation....

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IIRC, I got the impression it wasn't about valuation and them overpricing him. If memory serves, they made out they wanted him as part of their setup. They sent him to us to get him up to speed, and once we did that for him, they frustratingly decided they didn't want to sell him to us, at any price. He was originally not in their picture, surplus to requirements. Once we had him up and running they decided he was 'not for sale'.

However, having decided they wanted to keep him, they let him go out on loan again.

I'll like to get him back on loan or for a modest fee. If we can get him back to the performance levels he was putting in for us, then it would be a good deal.

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Reading kept Antonio because they were shedding their high wage earners during that close season. Their expectation was that McAnuf and Kebe would both leave and Antonio would be in their starting line up.

They didn't. He wasn't. When he did get picked he was not good so went down the pecking order. Luck of the draw, I guess.

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I'm afraid we are straying into CMS territory here; good player but where would he play?;)

 

I thought at the time we should have paid the fee and I don't think with hindsight we would have lost out if we had. He would have been awesome last year coming on in the last 20 minutes of games, and I'd like to think that after a settled 18 months on our bus he would now be a very good squad player at this level and probably worth what we paid for him. I don't think he would ever have been ahead of AOC, Gully or SDR in the pecking order therefore the squad position he would have taken would be Forte's, guess we weren't prepared to pay a decent fee for a squad player (though we do seem to have spent a relative fortune on left backs in recent years, funny old game football).

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Reading seem to be tracking his strike rate at Colchester. They have an option on a third month, but hopefully we could take him in January?

I would certainly rank him above Forte, who I can't really see a place for.

 

Anyway, here's Reading's take on Antonio. http://www.readingfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10306~2471861,00.html

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