Sean takes a closer look at the situation of the young centre-back, who’s been turning heads in Berkshire recently and surely is attracting interest from elsewhere.
The name on every Reading fan’s lips at the moment is Tyler Bindon, and rightly so, albeit for positive and negative reasons.
He’s developing into a star, arguably our best player and almost certainly our most valuable asset. Sadly these are the exact reasons we live in fear of January. Will Bindon be here at 11pm on Monday February 3? Spoiler: probably not, but let’s discuss his and the club’s options.
From Bindon’s perspective, why would he stay?
Of course, Reading are the club that brought him over from the LAFC academy and gave him his first taste of first-team football, but we’re also the club that has paid him late, among all the other ownership drama. Football is a short career and one injury could change everything, meaning the opportunity to jump up a league or two and no doubt get a chunky pay rise is often too much to resist.
It’s easy to forget that he’s still just 19. With over 60 appearances for Reading, including captaining the side in the FA Cup, as well as double-digit international caps, Bindon is an established first-teamer - but still a teenager!
I’m not sure of his family situation, but given he’s a Kiwi signed from America, it’s likely his family aren’t in Reading. That would be tough for anyone, even without the ownership situation and everything that’s gone on at the club adding to the stress.
My hope for him personally is he finds the right club. I’m not sure a bottom five or bottom 10 club in the Championship would be much of a step forward. He’s more than good enough to make an instant impact, but he’ll outgrow them pretty quickly and probably move on again.
A club like Southampton as an example could be a good move. He probably wouldn’t play much this season and most assume they’ll be relegated back to the Championship, but that gives him a chance to be a first-choice centre-back for a promotion favourite in the summer.
So what about Reading? Where do we stand?
Let’s talk money: what is Bindon worth? Of course we’re biased, but if he were tied down to a long-term contract, surely it’s multiple millions. My heart says £5m-£10m but my head says £3m-£5m. Sadly it’s all irrelevant: not only is he out of contract in six months, but the club have shown we aren’t interested in selling anyone for market value nowadays.
Of course there is the argument that it wouldn’t be worth it to sell Bindon at all for such a small fee and we should keep him until his contract runs out. That’s totally valid: ignoring the immediate cash-flow needs, if we were only to receive say £200,000, that could easily be made back with a colossal performance against Burnley and finishing higher in the league with him in the team.
This is where the loan-back option is huge. If we can get a decent fee, say over £500,000 or even up to £1m, with a loan back to the end of the season, that feels like a win for everyone. Using the earlier example of a club like Southampton, Bindon would surely be a long-term signing for them, so guaranteed first-team football continuing his develop for the rest of the season benefits them too.
If we’re talking the ideal scenario, this would be the only sale of January and we’d also agree a loan extension for Chem Campbell. This would hopefully allow the current group to continue their remarkable play-off push. Ideally we’d agree a sell-on fee for Bindon too, but let’s not hold out too much hope for Dayong Pang and co.
In summary, it’d be really hard to begrudge Bindon a move to a better-run club to progress his career. He certainly deserves it and the club could be in a much worse position without him. I just hope we agree a sensible fee and can keep him around until the end of the season.
Thank you Tyler and, as you perfectly put it, up the Ding!
