Shane Long’s definitely leaving in the summer. Maybe.

He was the 9th top trend on Twitter last night. I’m no tweet freak, but apparently this is a big feat.

Shane Long, the man in form of the club and league is making his mark on the international scene too. After last night’s game against Uruguay, the Rep of Ireland striker grabbed an equaliser for his country on 15 minutes after Diego Lugano had put the away side in front. Shane got up from being knocked down to rush into the box, and met Lawrence’s cross with a pounding header. He was easily Ireland’s best player last night, nearly winning a penalty and caused the Uruguayan defence nightmares. He was duly awarded Man of the Match, and earned plaudits from Trapattoni, Stephen Kelly, and Sky Sports pundits. So what does that mean for Reading?

Well, with 20 goals in league and cup he’s definitely not short of those to his name. Those goals have proved vital to Reading’s resurgence to three points outside the playoffs, and have propelled him to second in the league’s Top Scorers. West Ham were rumoured to be sniffing around him in January, but the club were reluctant to sell mid-season. However, Long himself has told of his desire to play in the top flight, with Reading or without. However, I can’t help thinking that even if the Royals do go up this year, Long will move on to greener pastures with more lucrative contracts. He’s still at the ripe-young age of 24, and could slot straight into the first team of several Premier League clubs.

Can we keep him at the club? In a word, no. Shane’s contract is up at the end of next season, so it’s time to sign him up or cash in. Doyle was in a similar position two years ago, and we managed to get £6.5m for him. Sigurdsson went for more than that last year, and with the current market in the hyperactive state it is, who knows what price we could be looking at.

One thing is for certain, promotion or not, if Shane leaves, Madejski has to seriously look to spend some of that income on an already proven player, we all know what happened the last time the key players were sold…

Category: International Duty