Speaking to media, Stam said, “He was not in good shape. Our medical people are not going to be lying about that”, the coach added.
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“That’s why we made the decision not to sign him” Stam told reporters.
“I’ve been a player myself and certain players look for excuses for certain situations”.
“We’ve got two good strikers”. It’s the same for Stephen Quinn.
“If [Reading players] Quinn or McShane or McCleary or Gunter are not fit, they are not going to be playing for their country. After that you can play for Ghana”.
“It’s easy to blame the club when a transfer doesn’t go through, but it’s not about that”.
“Had he been fit we would have let him go to Ghana. But he wasn’t so we said he couldn’t go because he needed to work on his fitness over here”.
However, his time in China has not proved as successful.
But after netting seven times in 20 appearances for Shanghai last season, he was seeking a move back to England.
Gyan became one of the highest players in world football when being handed a salary of over £220,000-a-week when being signed by Shanghai SPIG from Al Ain.
“To be honest, he [Gyan] wasn’t that expensive”, he revealed”.
After the reported move to Reading was cancelled, Gyan claimed that the club’s unwillingness to allow him to play for his national team was the reason the deal fell through, to which Stam remarked as “rubbish” and then exposed the reason from their side. We took that into consideration.
“He did well here in the United Kingdom, he did well in Saudi Arabia, in China and with the national team. If you see him play you can see he’s a quality striker”.
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And Stam says if Reading are spending money on a player then they need to know he is ready to perfom, something which was not the case with Gyan.
