Stam Frustrated At Ownership Limbo

Jaap Stam wasn't happy with his team's performance on Thursday night and while his frustrations towards QPR sitting deep and his team's lack of adventure were evident from his general media interviews, it was his comments to BBC Radio Berkshire's Tim Dellor that sparked the most concern.

Stam clearly isn't thrilled that the sale of the club to Chinese investors is dragging on, going so far as to hint that unless the club decides where it's going in the long-term, he might not be around long.

Stam: 'The owners are still the Thai people, I don't know what's going to happen with the Chinese people. Everyone is asking me questions and to be fair I don't know what's going to happen, or if there's going to be more transfers.'

TD: Does it annoy you?

Stam: 'To be fair it does, because you need to have clarity and a certain structure within the club so then you know what can happen. It's important for the team, the players read the speculation, you guys ask me questions, I'm willing to answer them but it annoys me there's no news'

TD: Do you want the takeover to happen?

'It's not up to me. For me, and for what I thought was going to happen when I joined Reading was to build a team and take steps towards the Premier League. With the club for sale, you don't know what the new owners want to do. The old owners want to sell the club so I don't know if we can still build the team for next season, or the season after.

I told them I'm the type of manager that builds a team and works towards something. There needs to be structure within the club, the owners and the team need to have a certain vision. I don't know if that's there at the moment but we need to see wait and see what happens.'

TD: Might you be tempted away?

Stam: 'I like the fans, like the club, like the players and I'm enjoying my time here. It's good for the manager to know what's going to happen with the club in the future but if that's not the case then who knows what's going to happen.'

You can find the full audio of the interview here.

While it's concerning to hear Jaap so frustrated, the good news is it shows how desperate he is for the club to succeed.

As to whether this could see the Reading manager walking away, I wouldn't think you'd see anything in the short-term but if the Thais are backing out on the promises made when he was appointed, or the Chinese don't share those same ambitions, he'd be well within his rights to entertain other offers.

The fact that the Tiago Ilori deal is dragging on is another worrying sign that these ownership problems are slowly starting to destabilise the ship. Fingers crossed that with nine days before our next Championship fixture, we'll have a much clearer idea of whats going on.