This week - QPR deny reports of Dowie's demise
Wednesday, 6th Aug 2008 14:57

Three days before the start of the season club officials are right when they say that stories of Iain Dowie's departure is unhelpful and unsettling. If there is indeed no truth in them, could this mark a watershed in the flow of rumours and leaks coming out of Loftus Road?

Rumours "untrue and unhelpful"
To be honest the unlikely story that Iain Dowie was sacked yesterday that appeared on the .org site was one I would normally have ignored altogether. However I woke this morning to find TalkSport, The Times, The Guardian and then this afternoon The Telegraph all reporting this and contrary to popular belief these outlets don't fill their morning sports reports with stories they saw exclusively on a QPR message board.

If this was just one poster on a message board making something up through boredom then it is both unhelpful and unnecessary. However like I say The Times and The Guardian don't give column inches over to something they heard from one bloke on a message board so either there's some truth in this, or there are sources leaking false information to the press.

Let's say there is some truth in this. I mean clearly Iain Dowie has not been sacked as the reports suggest because he's taking training tomorrow and will more than likely be on the touchline on Saturday for the Barnsley game. However this could be the first indication that all in the garden is not quite as rosey as it may seem.

From his first press conference Iain Dowie has been faced with questions about just how much control he has over the team at QPR. It was well known when De Canio was the manager that he didn't buy the players and it was trumpeted as a terrific thing by several message board posters that after the Cardiff game where we were beaten 3-1 members of the board told the Italian to stop playing a one up front system and go back to 4-4-2. Now while I don't agree with either of those things Italian managers are used to it in their homeland and it probably wasn't a great problem for De Canio.

Bearing this in mind it was a surprise to me and many others that a British manager got the nod to replace him. British managers are used to managing the whole shooting match - the signings, the team selection, everything. I can't imagine Dowie would have taken too kindly to one of his board members coming up to him after a big defeat at Ninian Park and saying "stop playing 4-5-1" and nor should he. Neither can I imagine that he'd be too chuffed if the club started doing transfer deals over his head and presenting him with signings that he had nothing to do with.

If you're going to employ a British manager then let him manage. If the board wants to do the signings and have a say in the team then appoint another Italian - Walter Novellino was available when we appointed Dowie and has a fabulous CV. Don't hire a British manager and try to force Italian ways of doing things on him. Of course there's no indication that's that was is happening however Dowie did not want to sell Simon Walton to Plymouth and knew little about that until the player travelled to Home Park to discuss terms. In the end Dowie told Walton he couldn't guarantee him first team football and the player made his decision.

The signing of Daniel Parejo is a tremendous coup for the club but it's Flavio Briatore and his contacts that brought it about. Dowie says he picked Ledesma and Di Carmine out himself from youth tournaments and he may well have done, but he's never shown any interest in young Italian players before in his managerial career and again looking at the statements it was Flavio Briatore's connections that helped make the deals happen. Gianni Paladini is the man behind the Lee Cook deal we're told as well.

Meanwhile more typical Dowie signings - Hudson, Watson, Morrison - have been linked and then never quite happened. Now there's talk of a row with the board which according to The Times was over a striker being brought in from The Gulf.

If there is any truth in it then the club should just get rid of Dowie now and appoint a continental manager that can fit into this system where the board has influence over the team. If Dowie is to be the manager then Dowie should be allowed to manage - the signings, the tactics, the whole lot, for better or worse.

The second possibility is that there is no truth in this at all and the paper's are getting their stories from a rogue source connected to the club. The club's legal adviser Nick De Marco was on our message board last night stating that there is absolutely no truth in the story at all and it isn't helpful three days before the start of the season.

He's dead right - this is the last thing we need with the season starting on Saturday. I wrote here a few weeks ago that QPR still leaks like a sieve. Posts appear on message boards about player comings and goings and all sorts of stuff happening down at Loftus Road - everybody reckons they've got a mint sauce and several people seem to actually get their stories from people high up within the club. Now if that's the case, the club cannot then complain about unsettling stories that they don't like coming out three days before the start of the season.

There cannot be these unwritten rules where some people are allowed to post rumours they've heard but others are not. Where some rumours can be posted and others can't. We're either leaking or we're not. If your bath tub starts leaking it doesn't only let the clean water out and leave the dirty stuff sitting there in the tub - if the club doesn't want rumours damaging the team's chances of winning Saturday's game then all leaks have to be stopped. No more little hints on signings, no more insights or informal chats. Similarly people cannot go around posting everything they hear on the internet and then slag somebody off for doing exactly the same thing just because they don't like the content of it.

When I met with Ali Russell at the end of last season he stated his desire to stop as much information leaking out of QPR and to have more control over what does and what doesn't come out of the club. Great news. If this Dowie story really does have no basis whatsoever in truth then this should be a watershed - those that are leaking information to message board posters should stop it and the club should take control over what information they release. At the moment all manner of stories about signings and stuff comes out on message boards and people seem to think that's great, then suddenly a story that some people don't like comes out and it's all denials and finger pointing. You cannot have it both ways.

From my point of view like I say papers like the Guardian and the Times don't publish stuff randomly without a good source. If there has been a row then it needs to be sorted out now, preferably without another manager leaving. If the board want to sign the players and have a say in the team then let's get rid of Dowie now and get a continental manager in here who knows that system and will work with it. Otherwise Dowie should stay for a full season and be allowed to manage it his way - if he fails then fine fire him, but we're turning over managers with an alarming frequency and what's needed at the moment is a steady hand for a decent length of time left alone to get on with the job.

One from the top and any other ten of your choice
Assuming Dowie is still the manager on Saturday, and I'm sure he will be, he's got something of a selection headache for the Barnsley game with key positions overflowing with options and others set to be filled with whatever is available on the day.

With Connolly injured the back four pretty much picks itself. Gorkss and Hall looked very good together at centre half on Saturday and will start, Delaney and Ramage will be the full backs. For the record I'd expect Ramage to drop out when Connolly is fit again but for this weekend we're settled there and we know what we're doing.

In midfield Dowie has a multitude of options available to him. Leigertwood, Mahon and Parejo can play in the middle with Rowlands and Buzsaky still to come. Ephraim, Ledesma, Alberti, Cook and Ainsworth can all play on the wings. Personally I can't see Parejo not starting and I think it will be Mahon alongside him in the middle. From then on toss a coin - Ephraim's shin splints injury may make the decision a little bit easier and Ainsworth is more of a coach than a player now so it's two from three for the wide roles. Cook on the left and Ledesma on the right? It's attacking but at the moment it's what I'd go with I think.

Attack is the big headache. Blackstock and Agyemang looked like they'd been carved out of blocks of wood on Saturday such was the paucity of their movement and lack of cutting edge. With Vine still injured, no sign of a new signing in that area, and only the young but impressive Angelo Balanta to pick from as an alternate Dowie may have to go with a forward line that fails to inspire me one bit.

The most interesting selection of all though for me will come between the sticks. Now those that know me will know I'm slightly biased in this regard but I'd pick Camp as my number one and make Cerny wait for a loss of form or confidence, should it occur, from Lee.

Lee Camp has done so much for our club despite his relatively young age. He arrived as an 11th hour loan to keep our promotion campaign on track in 2003/04, playing the last 11 games of the season and playing them very well. He returned the season before last, again on loan, and played a massive part in keeping John Gregory's team in this division. Then last summer he finally signed permanently and after spending the first few months keeping the score down he excelled in the second half of the season and was only just pipped to the Player of the Year award by Martin Rowlands. Some said that Camp's consistency over the whole campaign meant he should have taken the trophy home - really in 48 games played he only had one bad one, at Norwich away.

He's talented, young and English. Is it worth putting Cerny in goal this season and risk losing Lee in his search for first team football only to find ourselves 18 months down the line looking for another keeper? I don't think so. Cerny is a good keeper, don't get me wrong, and he's got all the experience and know how that Camp lacks. He's a super shot stopper with top flight experience but let's not be blinded by that - he made less than 20 appearances in three years at Tottenham and those that criticise Camp for his lack of height or poor command of his area are unlikely to be greatly thrilled by Cerny either.

Above all Lee Camp is our number one keeper and deserves to keep that spot until he suffers a loss of form or starts costing us goals. To drop him for no reason other than Cerny's arrival would be scant reward for a great campaign last time out and as I say we could end up losing a 23 year old keeper forever for the sake of playing a 34 year old for the next season or two.

So it's Camp for me, but does Dowie agree?

Angry rant. #389 in the series
When our new owners took over what did you think they'd focus on improving at the club? Sponsorship? Well they've certain done that. We're rolling in sponsors now, all of them bringing serious money to the table and that's excellent - it's a big step towards making the club pay for istelf rather than lose money and that's terrific. Well done on that.

Branding? Well we have a new badge that some people like and others don't, and we have a seriously good looking new home shirt that everybody seems to approve of. However we do also have two away shirts that look very much like whatever Lotto had lying around the warehouse when we rang them up.

Merchandise? The club shop has had a makeover but it's still too small and too hot and the stuff inside seems to be poor quality and over priced.

The big thing though, the massive thing I really thought we'd see improvements on, is the ticketing. Making it easy for a customer to come to QPR and spend money. On this front the club is currently embarrassing itself.

Last Thursday I had an afternoon off work when I was supposed to be collecting and setting up my new television however when I got to the shop they told me that they'd sold the one I had reserved and I'd have to come back next week. I was a bit pissed off about that to tell you the truth and my mood didn't improve much because I used the time I was supposed to be spending setting my television up to ring QPR and buy tickets for our Sheffield United away game.

Usual drill, box office number, press one for info on home matches, two for away games, please hold for an operator, hold music punctuated with plugs for the website and hospitality and occasional updates on where I was in the queue, four, three, two, everything normal so far. And then before I really knew what was happening my call seemed to be diverted off elsewhere and I ended up speaking to somebody with a northern accent who I'd certainly never heard in the QPR Box Office before. Maybe we'd hired new staff? Anyway two for Sheff Utd, adults, client reference numbers, all normal until it came to paying at which point suddenly the card I've used to pay for QPR tickets for the last five years was no longer acceptable. I reasoned that QPR accept Maestro cards normally, he told me that Ticketmaster didn't and so began my battle with the thick oiks employed in the Manchester call centre that you and I will be speaking to if we want to buy QPR tickets.

"You'll need to call QPR," he said. So I did. And I went through it all again, on hold, progressing down the queue, all normal and then WHAM, another thick tosser in Manchester. "You'll have to call QPR" she said. So I did. And the same thing happened again. In the end an e-mail to the box office extracted a new phone number for me to call and I was mercifully able to speak to somebody at Loftus Road and buy my tickets for Bramall Lane.

Many have not been so lucky. Almost everybody that currently rings QPR gets put through to Ticketmaster. You can only pay with a Master or Visa Card and if you bought Swindon tickets from them I'll bet you haven't received yours yet. Ticketmaster are a headbangingly, mind numbingly frustrating organisation to deal with for more than two minutes at a time. Several people who have asked for Swindon tickets have been asked "and who are Swindon playing?" and like I say the vast majority of those that bought tickets for the County Ground match are yet to receive them - the QPR Box Office without fail has tickets with you the day after you order them. They know nothing about QPR or who we're playing, they're pretty clueless to every question you ask them and they have the nerve and the cheek to finish the conversation with "thank you for calling QPR". If only we could.

QPR has a box office full of people who know what they're doing. We know them, they know us, they know the club, we know the club. Buying tickets from them is rarely a problem - pick your match, pick your seat, have a bit of a chat with them on the phone. After many years of poor service the box office now offers QPR fans a terrific service in my opinion and I'd like to speak to those people when I ring the box office please not some kid in Manchester who couldn't find his own arse with both hands in a well lit room.

It seems that our box office staff, rather than selling us tickets, are currently licking envelopes on our season tickets and trying to deal with a rush of people wanting to collect them in person - a situation brought on by the club's mean spirited demand of £5 to have it posted out to you.

How about next year the mundane job or sifting through and posting out the season tickets is sub contracted out, and the box office staff are left to sell us tickets over the phone? The decision to involve Ticketmaster in the sale of QPR tickets when they don't take the same method of payment of the club is really, very poor and unprofessional. It took me two hours over two days to give QPR £40 plus booking fee so I can go to the Sheff Utd game - do you recognise me QPR? I am your customer. People less keen than me won't put up with this kind of crap, they just won't go.

I urge the club to get the box office number pointing at the bloody box office and not the damned Ticketmaster call centre as quickly as possible. Meanwhile if the stories are true that you can only pick up loyalty points on tickets if you buy them over the phone and incur the scandalous £3.50 booking fee and they cannot be added to your account if you pay in advance at the box office in person you can expect another angry rant from me next week because that really is kicking the most loyal supporters square between the legs.