 Thursday, 5th Jun 2008 11:47 Once again Nathan McAllister has kindly taken time out to look back on the season just gone for LFW, and provide a few pointers for what we might expect in 08/09 Witless and charmless as many of our old friends on the Hull City Rivals site are, you have to admit that the nickname they chose for us (yes, that nickname, the one that gives them such a hard-on every time they use it in their articles or message-board ‘banter’) is rather apt. Drama Queens (get it?) Park Rangers. Not surprisingly they missed the point somewhat, as the term was coined in response to the supposed ‘over-reaction’ of Rs fans to that chant when they visited the KC stadium in 2005. Nevertheless, in the soap opera that is Queens Park Rangers Football Club the script-writers managed to keep the plot-lines as gripping as ever in the 2007/2008 season. If I have one gripe it’s in the re-hashing of some of the same storylines. I mean, another dreadful start, followed by another sacking, another subsequent relegation battle before another new manager rides in on his white charger to save the day, ably supported by another cavalry of reinforcements in January. And of course, there was another tragedy, another young life so full of promise snuffed out, just to illustrate once more how trivial all this kicking-a-bag-of-wind-around-a-park-nonsense really is. As if all this wasn’t enough, in late August came what you might call the football fan’s equivalent of winning the lottery. From being just hours away from missing a re-payment deadline which would have led to administration, and probable extinction, our club was taken over by new investors with more wealth than we dared even dream about. Almost overnight, in securing this new investment Chairman Gianni Paladini went from being villain of the piece to hero, in just the kind of implausible character transformation that TV dramas get ridiculed for. It’s been difficult not to get swept along on a tide of optimism since then, especially in December when Lakshmi Mittal, a man whose vast fortune makes Abramovic’s billions look like pocket change, bought into the club and installed his son-in-law on QPR’s board. Suddenly Chelsea and Arsenal fans were overheard in pubs discussing how long it would be before our little club broke the ‘big 4’s Premier League monopoly. However, as the curtain fell on the season, Rangers fans had barely had time to get up and put the kettle on for a commercial-break-cuppa before two events brought them back down to earth with a bump. First, just a few days after the final match, it was announced that our immensely popular Italian manager Luigi De Canio was to leave the club by ‘mutual consent’. Then a week later the club announced astronomical season ticket price rises after promising barely six months earlier that any such rises would be ‘reasonable’ and ‘not over the top’. In between the appointment of De Canio’s predecessor, Iain Dowie, had been met with less than broad approval on the boards, where the ‘honeymoon period’ between the fans and the new owners was declared by some posters to be ‘officially over’. When I wrote a similar article this time last season, the mood was not actually as pessimistic as we might remember. After looking doomed in late January, Rangers secured survival relatively comfortably in the end with 23 points from the last 16 games – that’s actually one more point than we managed in the last 16 games of the season just finished. It was before the Blitz-loan controversy and the subsequent re-financing of the ABC loan, so we weren’t quite fully aware of how dire our financial circumstances had become. As football fans, most of us swing between wide arcs of optimism and pessimism that fly in the face of logic and rationale and are more likely to be based on the quality of the most recent R's performance. For me personally, after our promising finish to the season the optimist was in the ascendency. I thought that a team built on a spine of Cullip/Stewart, Bolder and Blackstock with Cook and Rowlands on the flanks and the promise of Ray Jones up front was only a Lee Camp and a few loan signings away from being a team that MIGHT, JUST MIGHT, trouble the top six. If Lee Cook was indeed to be sold then we would at least be able to use some of the cash to strengthen the squad. Such optimism looks pretty naive now, though I’m sure our start would not nearly have been so bad if Adam Bolder and Dexter Blackstock had managed to continue some semblance of their 2006/7 form into the 2007/8 season. Nevertheless, the difference in expectation between this year and last is stark. While last summer we were clutching at straws and hoping Rangers might challenge for promotion, next season many Rangers fans will be demanding it. The board have guaranteed as much by setting Premiership prices for Championship season tickets. So, who of the current crop is good enough to bear the weight of our expectations? Are the players we have at the club now capable of sustaining a genuine promotion challenge next season? If not, in what areas do we need to strengthen the team most? LFW Average Player Ratings 07/08 The table below is based on the average rating awarded to each player in the match reports from this site. To begin with, let’s just take it as read that since the following stats are based on one person’s highly subjective view of a player’s performance in each game, they are inherently flawed. I’m not going to go into a lengthy defence of why these statistics are therefore worthy of discussion, except to say that the people who awarded these ratings (Clive Whittingham, aka NorthernR, for all but two of the games, which were done by Tracy Stent) write superbly detailed, well-written, perceptive and objective reports of our matches for this site and I think most will agree that their player ratings are rarely too wide of the mark. For those of us who can’t attend as many of Rangers’ matches as we would like, as fellow fans Clive and Tracy have essentially been our eyes and ears at every game, so again huge thanks to them for the brilliant job they have done this season. Only players who have played more than ten games are included. Other players who featured are listed below. The numbers represented signify:
The rest: Caps duly doffed then to Lee Camp, who tops the list for the second successive season, although it was a far closer-run thing this time around. In fact Martin Rowlands had a narrow lead going into the final game of the season against West Brom, but his sending off and subsequent rating of ‘5’ saw him drop below both Camp and Matthew Connolly. With the split between the top three a whopping 0.01 however, you could essentially call it a dead heat. Akos Buzsaky and Michael Mancienne also fared well, just missing out on the top three, although it’s interesting that the latter’s average rating was slightly down on last season. More startling are the huge drops in the average ratings of Dexter Blackstock and Adam Bolder compared with last season. The 2006-8 aggregates give a more balanced picture of their time at QPR. What this table highlights is consistency over the whole season. Camp had a rating of 7.18 last season – but that was only over 11 games when he was in outstanding form. Players rarely maintain that sort of form over 40 games, and Lee was no exception with one or two ‘blips’- most notably in the last game of the season at Norwich. Anyone surprised that Martin Rowlands’ average rating wasn’t higher is probably forgetting that from September to December his form was pretty poor by his standards. In the 16 games over that period he was awarded ten ratings of five or below, and his average rating going into the Christmas period was only 6.09. The turning point of the season for him was the Watford game, when he was switched to his preferred position in the centre of midfield and turned in a man-of-the-match performance, weighing in with two goals in a memorable 4-2 victory. From then on he never looked back. His average over the last 23 games was 7.13, boosted by 12 ratings of eight or above. Mikele Leigertwood’s season went in the opposite direction. While never entirely consistent even over the first half of the season, an average of 6.53 at the mid-way point saw him emerge as an early candidate for Player of the Year. However, aside from that towering performance against Stoke in front of the Sky cameras, his form dipped considerably over the latter part of the season. In the last 16 matches of the season he got ten ratings of five or below. Leigertwood’s average over the season (6.11) compares unfavourably with fellow midfielder Marc Bircham’s average in 2006/7 (6.47 over 17 games). This would suggest Mikele ought to be no more than a squad player in 2008/9. However, with respect to ‘Birch’, a solid and dependable performer throughout his time at Rangers, colossal all-action-goal-scoring-match-winning performances weren’t really his forte. ‘Leggy’ on the other hand looks Premiership-class on his day, and if being re-united with his former boss helps him can find a bit more consistency next season he may yet have more than a peripheral role to play in any R’s promotion push. Man of the Match Awards 10 - Martin Rowlands This table gives us a much clearer idea of why Martin Rowlands had the edge over Camp in the ‘Player of the Season’ awards. Beating Mikele Leigertwood into third place is one Damion Stewart – someone else who, like Mikele, perhaps has a few consistency issues. Damion had some immense games last season (Sheffield Wednesday at home, Burnley away for example), and those famed ‘lapses in concentration’ are probably the only thing holding him back from being a first choice at centre half. He’s a very good player to have in reserve at Championship level. Team of the Season Lee Camp (6.60) Michael Mancienne(6.57); Matthew Connolly(6.60); Fitz Hall(6.50); DamienDelaney(6.47) Akos Buzsaky (6.54); Martin Rowlands (6.60); Gavin Mahon (6.44); Hogan Ephraim(6.38) Patrick Agyemang (6.44); Rowan Vine (6.50) Next Season If we take the last 20 games of the season, starting from the Sheffield United game just after the transfer window opened (and the game in which Connolly, Hall, Mahon and Agyemang all made their league debuts), Rangers record was: Total: Played 20; Won 7; Drew 7; Lost 6; Goals For 30; Goals Against 28; Points 28 Extrapolate those stats over a whole season: P46 W16 D16 L14 GF 69 GA 64 PTS 64 That ‘extrapolation’ puts us into 11th, just ahead of Charlton on goals scored. On that basis, the current squad is still a fair way short of even being good enough to reach the play-offs, and it certainly doesn’t justify our current standing as some bookie’s favourites to be promoted next season. I’ve got a sneaky feeling that, as far as the fans are concerned, an improvement of 3 places is not quite going to cut it as evidence of this supposed ‘better product’ that they have been told recently to stump up for. Naturally, Rangers fans expect to see some significant improvements made to the squad over the summer. In his first press conference as QPR boss, Iain Dowie hinted at more signings to come but refused to be drawn on which areas of the team he would be looking to strengthen: “There are one or two areas that need strengthening. I’ll identify them but to talk about them would be remiss when I haven’t spent one day training with the lads yet so that’s something I wouldn’t do. As and when we sign players you’ll see what I think we need.” Hopefully, by the time the transfer window slams shut again on August 31 we will have seen what those areas are – and also the extent of the owners’ ambitions for next season. The players (or lack thereof) brought in will give us a good idea whether QPR are aiming for a year of consolidation, a push for the play-offs, or the big prize: automatic promotion. In the meantime, the declared goal has been to have at least two quality players for every position. Let’s take a look at the four departments of the squad and look at what improvements might need to be made to get QPR into the play-offs or one of the automatic spots. Goalkeepers: This is surely the strongest department of the team right now. We have not one but two keepers who would walk into most of the sides we’ll be lining up against in the Championship next season. Rangers pulled off a bit of a coup to land Radek Cerny on a free. This is the guy who has just finished the season as Tottenham’s first choice goalkeeper. Arguably our most consistent player last season could be starting the new campaign on the bench. If this is a demonstration of the 2 quality players for every position then it’s a real statement of intent. I just hope Lee Camp is prepared to stay and fight for his place, because with Cerny now getting on a bit at 34, he remains the goalkeeping future of the club. Defence: On the face of it this is the area of the team most in need of improvement if Rangers are to become serious promotion contenders. Only Colchester, Scunthorpe, Southampton and Burnley leaked more goals than we did last season. While R's fans will (surely!) never to have to suffer the trauma of seeing the likes of John Curtis and Bob Malcolm in a blue and white hooped shirt ever again, the fact remains that after spending in excess of £2million in January improving this area of the team, Rangers continued to ship goals; three at Cardiff, Wolves and Norwich and four at home to Burnley. 28 goals in 20 games in fact – at 1.40 goals per game that represents virtually no improvement on first 26 games, when 38 goals were conceded (1.46 goals per game) It’s important to note however, that in those 20 games, De Canio’s first choice back four (Delaney, Hall, Connolly and Mancienne) played the full 90 minutes together in only seven of them, in which they conceded just four goals. Although Mancienne has returned to Chelsea (for good by all accounts), his loss at right back will hopefully be more than compensated for by the arrival of Peter Ramage. If we can get a settled back four – and a fully fit Fitz Hall – our defence should have a much more solid look about it next season. One concern that remains is the lack of specialist full backs. Delaney and Ramage are ostensibly both tall centre halves converted to play left and right back respectively. Although Delaney has surprised nearly everyone with some of the most swashbuckling displays seen from a Rangers full back since Gino Padula, some have expressed concern about the gaps left at the back by those marauding forward runs. If Delaney’s form dips and he starts looking more like the player Hull fans told us we were getting, you would hope we’d have better options in reserve than Chris Barker or a ‘square peg’ like Matt Connolly. Midfield: Few would argue that this was the strongest area of the team last season, providing not only the fans’ player of the year, Martin Rowlands, but also the season’s top scorer in Akos Buzsaky. That said, Iain Dowie has three important issues to tackle. Firstly, and most importantly, as we all know we need a left sided midfielder. Rowan Vine had some of his best performances last season playing in an attacking wide left midfield role, and while it’s good to know that we have someone who can provide decent cover in this position, Dowie himself said recently when outlining his footballing philosophy that having ‘natural width is important’. With no natural left winger at the club, this is surely an area we are looking at. Secondly, it’s hard to overstate how vital Martin Rowlands has become in the middle of the R's midfield. In his absence the combination of Mikele Leigertwood and Gavin Mahon saw Rangers concede 12 goals in less than 300 minutes of football (Cardiff, Wolves away / Burnley, West Brom at home). While it would be nice to think that we’ve seen the end of that particular partnership, with Rowly’s sending off in the final game of last season and the departure of Adam Bolder looking inevitable, they could well be lining up in the middle of midfield together again on August 9th, unless we sign someone better. Alternatively, the third midfield problem could provide the solution. The signing of Akos Buzsaky for an estimated £500,000 turned out to be a fantastic bit of business for the new owners as the ‘Magical Magyar’ proceeded to embark upon his very own private goal of the season competition. Fittingly, QPR’s new number ten bagged ten goals in 24 starts - most of them absolute belters. Yet trying to accommodate the Hungarian internationals’ prodigious talent was a bit of a challenge for De Canio, especially once Rowlands had cemented his own position in the middle. Buzsaky was tried in every position of the midfield; central, left, even the ‘hole’ behind a lone striker before Gigi decided that ‘Buzz’ would serve the team best on the right side of the midfield. If rumours are to be believed Akos was unhappy at not being played in his preferred central position. With Ephraim, Ainsworth and Italian signing Matteo Alberti providing plenty of options for Dowie on the right, I would hope to see Buzsaky starting the in the middle of midfield once he has recovered from his summer ankle operation. What then happens when Rowlands is ready to return to the side though will be interesting. Attack: Listen to your average ‘punter’ across the various QPR message-boards and he’ll tell you that what we really need if we’re serious about getting promoted is a striker who’ll reach that magic 20 goal target. You only need look at last season’s Championship Champs West Brom, who had Kevin Phillips bagging 22 goals in only 29 starts. Before we get too obsessed with signing such a beast it’s worth noting that prior to the Baggies this year, the teams winning the title in the four previous years (Norwich 2004, Sunderland 2005, Reading 2006 and Sunderland 2007) have not had a single player reaching that milestone in the league, neither have any of the other sides promoted in the last two seasons (Stoke and Bristol City/Hull this year and Birmingham and Derby last). As for players that have scored 20 league goals or more over the past few seasons (last season: Beattie[Sheff U], Ebanks-Blake [Plymouth/Wolves], John [Southampton]; in 2006/7: Cureton [Colchester], Chopra [Cardiff] and Kamara [West Brom]) only one of them, Kamara, has featured in a team that even made the play-offs. Basically, if the team are scoring enough goals it doesn’t matter where they come from. Over the last 23 games of the season Rangers scored 38 times. You don’t need a calculator (I hope!) to work out that if we’d equalled that over the first half of the season we would have scored 76 goals. Pretty impressive when you consider that West Brom (with 88 goals) were the only side in the Championship to even score more than 70. However, if we’re using West Brom as our benchmark for next season let’s do a little comparison. The Baggies finished the season with Phillips and Czech striker Roman Bednar (23 starts, 17 goals) as their first choice strike-force. On the bench were Ishmael Miller (28 starts, 16 goals) and Luke Moore, who they have just signed permanently for £3million. Two other forwards on their books, Craig Beattie (bought from Celtic for £1.25million) and Bartosz Slusarski (a £680,000 signing, capped twice for Poland) finished the season on loan at Preston and Sheffield Wednesday respectively due to limited first team opportunities. In contrast Rangers currently have: Surely, only Rowan Vine would stand a chance of even making West Brom’s bench. So the question really remains: is one new striker going to be enough?! I think most of us would ideally like two, especially with Vine looking as effective on the left of midfield as up front. It seems very unlikely Nardiello will remain a Rangers player beyond this summer, while I suggest that Blackstock, Agyemang and Balanta will be useful squad players but no more in a promotion chasing side. I’d love to see Dexter prove me wrong, and there were glimpses towards the end of the season that he just might be returning to his form of the previous campaign. The Verdict That would give us a squad of 26 players likely to be as good as any other in the Championship next season, with the possible exception of Birmingham, and provide us with enough quality and strength in depth to get us out of the division. The examples I’ve given are not necessary players I’m expecting us to sign, just benchmarks for the quality needed in that position. For the play offs: If the first few signings of the summer are any indication however, the board have no intention of embarking on an Abramovich-style summer spending frenzy. When asked if there would be major transfer activity this summer, Dowie replied: A million or so here, a free signing there, add a few loans from Premier League (or should that be Primera Liga?) reserve teams and steady progress seems to be the blueprint, or at least that’s what they would like us to believe. With a reported £1.25million bid for Ben Watson turned down by Crystal Palace last week it will be very interesting to see whether or not we go in with an improved offer. Briatore has stated that he does not want to be in an ‘elevator’, going up and down constantly, and the declared target at least remains to reach the Premiership within three years and stay there. In terms of the club’s long term future this is hard to argue with and makes sound financial sense. What doesn’t is alienating half your most loyal fan base in one fell swoop! So, unless we can emulate what Stoke and Hull did this season, and add up to a team worth considerably more than the sum of its parts, top six might be the best we can hope for. Assuming we don’t lose too many key players through injury and the players play to their potential we may be able to make the play-offs with just two or three astute signings and a couple of loan deals. The following squad would be very ‘competitive’, as Iain Dowie might say: Of course, no matter how good a squad of players is on paper, what matters is how they work as a unit on the pitch. Stoke and Hull City were promoted with what on paper looked like pretty average Championship squads and certainly seemed to punch well above their weight last season. If Dowie is to achieve what many Rangers fans will be demanding next season he will probably have to do the same with the squad of players he has, and do it quickly. It won’t be easy, especially with the likes of Derby, Notts Forest, Sheffield United, Charlton and Ipswich threatening to spend a fair bit of cash themselves in what will surely be a much more competitive league next season. Like many on this website, I was somewhat underwhelmed when Dowie was appointed, but I have to say I’ve been impressed with what I’ve heard from our new manager so far. He comes across as a very forthright, positive, intelligent man who likes his teams to play football the right way. I just hope he is allowed a bit of time and backing from both the fans and the new owners. In recent weeks, most notably at the QPR 1st AGM, fans have made sure the club has got the message in no uncertain terms just how let down they feel about the ticket price increases and the way the whole episode has been handled. The owners have made a rod for their own back if the team fails to challenge at the upper end of the division next season. They have asked fans to pay upfront for a more successful team, effectively binding themselves to a commitment to deliver that success immediately. The mood around Loftus Road could turn very sour indeed if results do not match expectation levels. Hopefully though, as long as the manager and players are giving it their all, the fans will respond in kind and give them (if not the owners) their full support, even on those days when things on the pitch are not quite going our way. Expecting, rather than hoping, for success on a Saturday is something we haven’t had much experience of recently. I hope we are able to deal with it more class than ,, ahem ..certain fans of other clubs. It would be great to make Loftus Road a fortress again, a la 2003/2004. Whatever happens, it promises to be some season – after all, this is Queen’s Park Rangers we’re talking about, and things round here are NEVER d-Hull! Roll on August 9..... Discuss this story on the Message Board Click here and be the first user to comment on this story
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