By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
There are currently three English managers in the PL who didn't see their team relegated this season: Eddie Howe, top-placed at seven with the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia behind him, Gary O'Neil doing a good at Wolves at 14th and Shaun Dyche getting up and at 'em with Everton at 15th.
Three English managers out of 17 (unless you fancy Rob Edwards or Chris Wilder?)
There are three Spanish managers of teams in the top four, all in very different circumstances doing remarkable work.
There are no English managers in the top Spanish, Italian or German leagues, one in France.
So far, the two managers promoted from the Championship are not English. The third could be, but could also be German. Imagine Russell Martin as England manager.
We have built the richest league in the world, with (mostly, for now, until PSR lures them to higher wages elsewhere) the best players, the best managers - none of which are English.
There are no Englishman to choose from. It's thirty years too late for jingoism: for that to work, PL clubs needed to be in majority-owned British hands, with a forced % of British coaches at each. Unworkable, and let's face it, a bit crap. No Marti, no party.
Instead, England has dozens of technically world class players the like we've rarely had before, yet no Englishmen to get the most of them. Every level of football in England is already corrupted by money:it's too late to make the England manager's that one last place holding out with principles that also weaken it. Just get the best manager for the players available.
I think the camp and two friendlies will decide it - he genuinely sounded like he didn't have a clue beyond 18 places at the presser. And I reckon Wharton and Eze should come in in flying club form and ease out Jones and Maddison who are not in good form. But who knows? Wharton looks a proper player, better than Jones or Gallagher. I wonder if in years to come we'll be saying "can't believe we took Curtis Jones to Euro 24 over Wharton" - or the other way round?
They're really different managers in terms of the way they play(ed), and I believe that their characters are vastly different too. Everyone loves Ancelotti for starters. And unlike Capello, he's managed in England: won the league and FA cup at Chelsea. Which is better than all English managers combined since the 1980s.
It would be great to have an English or even British manager, I agree. But until some of them are good enough to be hired by an elite club (and actually compete for a trophy) that's going to be self-defeating. McKenna may turn out to buck that. Let's see.
Amusing to read that "Pep and Southgate play the same way". I mean, in the same way that i can make a pasta dish a bit like they do in Milan.
Southgate plays a very conservative version of Pep's City 2018 to 2020ish. Three attackers, fast attacking full backs, two solid CBs.
Southgate then goes for two holding CBs (Henderson/Mainoo and a misused Rice) and a 10, whereas Pep played two tens, or a ten and 8.
But Pep doesn't play that now. He hasn't for a while. He started moving full backs and CBs into midfield. When everyone was copying that to nullify him, he played four CBs! How do you imagine Marti came up with Dunne at right back (and Fox at LB at Swansea)? By watching Pep do it first.
They are not remotely comparable. Southgate would be embarrassed by the idea, I imagine, being a decent and humble man. Pep is a genius who finds surprising lateral answers to a fresh problem posed by rivals every season. He has won four titles in a row. I don't believe another manager could do that with his City squad, and certainly not Southgate.
And the idea of International players coming from working with him at City, or Ancelotti at Madrid, or Klopp and Arteta, to be coached at tournaments by...Lee Carsley, Gary O'Neil, Graham Potter. It's not serious. We're not taking it seriously! That is partly the problem.
For the first time in a long while, England have genuinely world class players in several positions due largely to the world class coaching they get at their clubs. Eddie Howe seems a good club manager, but he's hit his ceiling and he's won nothing. None of these names have. The players are too good for them, wasted on the Potter/Copper/Howes of this world.
I think, for example, Ancelloti would be a brilliant England tournament coach, if not a long-term thing. He's great with players, pragmatic, a serial winner. He'd find a solution to having two injured left backs. There are better candidates than the ghosts of Roy Hodgson and Graham Taylor out there for these players.
Gonna have to go some to beat Pizanti's goal against West Ham in '88: (0ver) full house, his first and only significant touches of the ball in front of the Loft from 30+ yards. On debut, barely to be seen again...
The news about Dunne's extension reminded me of this small bit of message-board grit that has been grinding my gears since February.
I know it's petty to bump it. I know that.
But that double-hit of ITK wink-wink "I really know what's going on inside the club" coupled with a weary condescension towards fans who were looking at the team/squad/matches + the three point gap to safety and seeing something different still niggles, so congratulations on that at least.
Because in the end, "putting those 7/8 wins on the board" wasn't really a madcap dream of the hopeless, blind romantic. We put nine more wins on the board. And instead of the far-fetched 26 more points needed that we'd never manage, we actually added 32 points. It wasn't "a miracle", as was repeatedly suggested. Turns out it was a pretty "realistic" expectation, after all.
From a pure pissing-on-the-corner-flags, wearing the same pants, waving bunches of sage down Ellerslie Road superstitious juju point of view, I think changing the home kit you've just won one must-win home game wearing to put something totally new and untested on the players so a betting firm can get their logo on telly early strikes me as thumbing our nose unduly and provocatively at fate. Not that I believe any of that, of course. But, still. New kits on their first outing: risky, for all kinds of reasons. Save it for a meaningless game. Two bad results and we'll be wearing it in L1.
I watched the podcast. He didn't bring it up, Neville asked him about it and Rio was saying he realised he was physically washed up, he should've either retired or gone abroad after Man U. He moved to London to be nearer his wife's family. He just couldn't believe what he'd found at QPR. Who can blame him? That's arguably the most dysfunctional club in Prem history. We're still paying for it. Neville said in the previous episode it's the least professional team he's seen at that level.
That team and club was beyond one player fixing it, beyond five players fixing it, ten. Remember the official site made a special video of Rio's first drive to training, it was like we'd signed Prince Charles. It was embarrassing, humiliating. Gerry Francis captained England playing for QPR.
It wasn't on Rio Ferdinand to come and cure a dressing room and culture that sick and revolting. It was on Tony Fernandes, Phil Beard and Harry Redkanpp: three genuine clowns who were in it for themselves as much any of the players in the dressing room they'd hired on those ludicrous wages. RF said that when Redknapp signed him he told him to train when he fancied it. I mean...
And then Redknapp bailed when he'd really fcked it all up for good, with our dynamic leaders leaving the mess for Les Ferdinand to clear up, which he mostly did and then ten years later we stuck up pictures of Les as a clown and sang songs about him fcking off.
We can pick scapegoats from a flammed together Daily Mail piece. Or we can remember history as actually happened in front of us.
He said it became toxic, which it clearly did. Can't believe there's someone else rolling their eyes about that on this thread. Not sure how else you could describe people singing 'fck off Les Ferdinand' at games and sticking up pictures of him, Hoos and Bhatia as clowns on the way to and all over the ground. All three have left, all family men. Probably a coincidence.
Interesting that he says he doesn't have social media but was clearly aware of ex-players (Kevin G) slagging him off. I still think he did far more good for the club than bad, and those figures he cited convince me even more. Yes, a poor final 18 months, but I think we treated him - our greatest number 9 and a decent, hardworking servant of the club subsequently - shamefully. But hey ho. I'm sure we'll never do that again to someone else.
I always really enjoy Stick To Football, easily the best football pod, but wish they'd done a tiny bit of research before this week so they could've asked some better questions of him. Everything he said was news to them (but not to us).
Pretty sure he was talking about Sanderson, who came in in January on an absolute packet and then shat the bed for eleven games while we sent Masterson out on loan in the same window. Gray and Hendrick also pathetic, expensive path blockers. I'd have fallen out with Warbs over all three too.
He's the number 9 who's scored four goals (one a penalty) in 30 league games this season and eight (two penalties) in 39 last season. Some very gentle piss-taking on a messageboard by those who spend huge sums up and down the country watching him underwhelm is more than fair enough. Got another two years on that contract.
Let's assume (hope) that Nourry and Cifuentes are really successful. At the end of 2024/25 season QPR make the play-offs but fall short of promotion: beaten by bigger ex-Prem clubs en route, no shame in that etc.
Success of both is noted and they are highly coveted. They are snatched by ambitious PL or European clubs (we don't know anything about their own length of contracts of course).
So we have a great 24/25 season, but lose excellent coach and wily CEO, both of whom are young and extremely ambitious.
What would be the legacy? A load of players on contracts fans don't know the length of and ready made excuse for the next CEO for financial woe. (And what if some of that near-miss success in 23/24 is built upon pushing the FFP bill, betting on a few players to take us up as we have done a decade earlier?)
Another good conspiracy theory is that as Nourry has a history of working on multi-club deals, his arrival is tied into that and not revealing contract lengths is a vital part of clubs that are to be part of a multi-club group moving players between clubs.
I mean, these are both batshit, I agree. But they still seem more logical than anything suggested for not sharing contract lengths by CEO.
Not knowing the length of the youth contracts handed out by Clive Berlin under Chris Wright - ludicrous multi-million pound deals on multi-year contracts to players who barely kicked a ball professionally - was a crucial part of QPR going into admin. Couldn't throw the expensive ballast over board quick enough.
I'm just going to say that *I* *am* on the offensive with any new CEO. It's not personal. But he's middle management. We are the custodians. We remain. We're QPR, he's Linkedn. They come and go. And our trust should not be guaranteed. It has to be earned, properly, over time.
(This is not directed to you Dave, but generally just my feelings)
Please direct me to the chairman or CEO who didn't arrive at the club in a flurry of "we're lucky to have him; he really cares; he's got really innovative ideas; he's passionate; he's exactly what we need after the last guy" messages and then left a few years later in either shame, embarrassment, apologetic retreat or against a backdrop of unrest, disdain and protest. Remember that song about Flavio and Bernie? That was a good one.
We're QPR. They're passing through. They don't get to keep secrets (that aren't really secrets) from us, or divide fans into some animals are more equal than others sections. Want the best for the club? Prove it, Chris.
Thirty-three minutes into Thursday's The Game Podcast by The Times, there's a lovely tribute to Stan by first Martin Samuel and then Tony Cascarino.
Cascarino went for a trial at QPR when he was 15, last 70s. Tells a story about watching reserves Clive Allen and Paul Goddard - a year or two older - doing an amazing finishing drill, being blown away by their sharpness. Stan wanders over and says to him, 'That's the standard, son. Think you're up to it?' Later he was up against Stan in a small game (he was a CB then) and just thinking, 'stand up!' because he couldn't get near him. They describe him as partly Zola, partly Aguero.
Anyway, Samuel talks about the brilliant Michael Nyman Concerto for Stan that's at the centre of his After Extra Time record. Been mentioned on here before, I know, but it was filmed largely during our 4-1 victory over Spurs on 3/10/91 (orchestrated magnificently by Wilkins) with a flashback to the 75/76 season with Stan at its centre.
It made me think: if we were to change the run music, this bit of it, the Concerto For Stan section would be very fitting this year.
It's here, after 7 and a half minutes (whole half hour well worth a watch, of course). It would work!
Dave has been a journalist for 25+ years (I remember him doing his NCTJ certificate while on the QPR list in the late 90s). He owns WLS but it is not his main income, nor Ian's, not remotely. Dave's patch as a sports reporter is West London.
So if he or Ian gets commissioned by the BBC, for example, to cover Fulham, Brentford or Chelsea because they are in the PL and therefore of interest beyond WLS, that's what they'll cover because he/they get paid properly for that. They do not get commissioned to cover Championship strugglers QPR at home to Rotherham by mainstream media. WLS is a side hustle done for love: but if doesn't pay the bills, it probably barely pays for itself. Independent sports journalism is not a nationalised industry, alas.
So, not remotely disingenuous. It's the economics of journalism in 2024, which some bum-fluffed keyboard Twitter basher giving Dave emoji grief wouldn't grasp even if it was tattooed on their hands.
I'm saying I want him to be interviewed by journalists beyond the club channels, to have minuted meetings with fans groups and forums as well, and all of that to happen first. I'm against first having un-minuted private chats with anonymous social media channels and "bigger personalities" (who decides that?! There are some very big personalities near me in the R block). I have absolutely no interest in attending any of this myself.
I'm also saying experience should make us all very wary of any communication that is not open to all, including those who do not use X or message boards but may go to Rotherham away, and that smooth-talking new football club CEOs who suddenly appear telling everyone they've fallen in love with the club are to be treated with extreme caution.
But everyone is entitled to their opinion. Just voicing mine.
Jim Gregory did a great job in the building of the modern club. But do you remember how he left it?
Gregory was a life-long and extremely committed Fulham fan whose offer to buy Fulham was turned down twice in the early 60s. The second time he was turned down in 1964, he was so furious that he immediately offered himself to QPR in revenge and then took over QPR in '65. His commitment to QPR was based purely out of scorn and we profited hugely from that, over-taking Fulham comprehensively a decade later.
However, he sold QPR out to Marler Estates in full knowledge that their goal was to merge Fulham with QPR to become Fulham Park Rangers (and how long before the Park Rangers dropped off?) and if it wasn't for the fans of both clubs, that wold've come to pass. No CEO rescued us then.
I totally agree about Hoos. I think for the first few seasons he was a huge and unusual breath of fresh air, was always open in communications, did not sugar coat it and told us as much as possible (even if he was proven wrong about the Loft end and he lapsed into a bit of a computer-says-no speak about any fan in stadium experience). He was badly wrung out by the final 18 months, understandably. His final communications all got a bit Lord Haw Haw though: the new chairman who has also retired to spend more time with his family in the US? You wot, m8?
Well, ideally I'd like the new CEO to be interviewed outside of the club channel about his plans, the set-up and FFP etc. That's not happened yet. Moreover, that's been refused.
If he's going to meet fan groups etc, then I think the club should say beforehand that the CEO will be meeting representatives of fan groups, messageboards, podcasts. That way, when other fans are scrolling through their socials on the tube/bog early one morning the first thing they see isn't: "I met the CEO last night and told him we want to change the run out music to our own new club anthem. Thoughts?" Followed by, "I met the CEO last night: he's blinding, he really cares, he's fallen in love with QPR: he goes to every game!"
This is not the communication on behalf of fans I require, especially in the week of concerning club accounts.
In my time going to QPR the head honchos and their first line CEOs have included: Jim Gregory, David Bulstrode, Richard Thompson, Chris Wright, David Davies, Gianni Paladini, Flavio Briatore, Tony Fernandes, Amit Bhatia (?), Ali Russell, Phil Beard, Lee Hoos and now this bright young whizzkid.
I never trust them because they are all bullshitters of the highest order who had zero interest in QPR previously. Mostly, they had neither the fans nor, in reality, the club at heart. There is always, always another shoe about to drop. The sense I have from Nourry is that shoe will drop very heavily over the close-season.
Personally, I distrust secret meetings with fans groups to drip feed good news in the name of canvassing opinion. I prefer proper scrutiny by journalists. But no doubt I'm worrying over nothing and will be proven wrong this time.
Experience, not cynicism. All this nonsense drove wedges between fans in the past.
If you start a social account and call yourself Up The Talking Loft Superhoop Rangers Boys and eventually have a few thousand followers by pumping out inane posts about impossible formations or who's 'cooking', who the club should 'bring' etc then you get invited to have some PR poured into you by the wide-boy CEO and then the club have a free propaganda service for a while. It's no coincidence this has happened the week accounts came out and before FFP calculations. So now there's a big debate about changing the music we run out to, which is a handy channel switch.
This kind of nonsense with Paladini is how we ended up with Q Block Pete (wither he now?) etc. It mustn't pass.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
