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Reply | southampton...
at 12:11 1 Nov 2026
The reason why QPR were relegated from the PL, then bounced back and were relegated immediately with catastrophic results had nothing to do with the stadium. It had every single last thing to do with appalling management and governance of the club from top to bottom. The reason why Bournemouth have survived and thrived in the PL for most part of a decade, including one bounce back, in a 12k stadium is because they have great governance. Sunderland's 40k stadium may not save them this season.
No, we're not all those other clubs. But in a new stadium in, I dunno, Hillingdon we will be.
"It won't be safe". That's total nonsense. Don't worry, though, your dreams will come true sooner than you imagine (well, the announcement will). Will it improve the team, the injury record, the position, the club? It will not, as all my examples prove.
Every single last West Ham fan would swap their ground for Upton Park, and we will be pining for Loftus Road of old just as much when your dreams come true. While still being the 39th best team in the pyramid because, to paraphrase Popeye, we are what we are. |
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Reply | southampton...
at 11:25 1 Nov 2026
No, I'm saying that they have all those facilities you reckon are holding QPR back and are currently enjoying their third consecutive season in the third tier - alongside Leicester, yes, who may well have won the PL in a new stadium ten years ago but what warmth do they get from that now watching Russell Martin-ball draw 2-2 at home to Stevenage? They're now 10th in L1, lower than Stockport (capacity 10k), Cambridge (8k), Luton (12k)...
Get with the times? Yeah, baby, get with it, get a new stadium built with sexy conferencing suites at a cost of £100s millions in some undetermined location and QPR can finally compete with the likes of Bolton, Reading, Leicester, Stoke, Wigan...
West Ham lost 1-3 at home in front of 61k furious Hammers in the Championship yesterday. What do they need to compete, to not be held back? Bournemouth meanwhile won 2-0 at home to Leeds in front of 12k. 17k in to see Brentford up to 6th in the PL, one place above Bournemouth.
Stadiums win nothing. Identity, marginal playing gains are everything. We're failing on the second point year after year. When the new stadium arrives - as it will in time - and QPR remain the third best-placed team in West London, what will fans then blame? |
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Reply | southampton...
at 09:45 1 Nov 2026
And yet it is Bournemouth with a ground capacity of 12k just down the coast who sit at 7th in the PL, their 9th season out of the last 11 at that level, while Southampton with their - checks notes - "cavernous plot of land, all the hospitality and facilities" - and 30k stadium sit in the EFL (not to mention all those other clubs in the middle of nowhere with massive stadiums, hotels, corporate spaces like Leicester, Stoke, Bolton, etc, etc).
QPR, if they ever get their best team out consistently, have just as good a chance as punching above their weight in the PL as Bournemouth, Brentford. This is a PL with those clubs plus Fulham, Cov, Ipswich. It's organisational, not structural. Get the 1st team out and we can compete. Fixing the sports science department + recruitment is more likely than building a brand new stadium at a cost if £100s of millions in London with 30k capacity. I may live to see the first succeed; the later will take forever and guarantees nothing.
If it's the 30k modern stadium on a "cavernous plot" with corporate facilities that's so sexy, Reading is not that far away and they even play in hoops (sort of). |
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Reply | Harry Kane
at 17:56 27 Oct 2026
Outstanding players in great teams. And of course, they won it in 1978 without either - and in fact, without an outstanding superstar. Kempes was great, but a team player.
Could Harry Kane win a medal with Spurs? No, he had to join a better team. Would he have won the PL had Man U dug deep for him? I suspect not. He had to join a winning team. |
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Reply | Harry Kane
at 14:42 27 Oct 2026
Stand out player, true, but he wouldn't have that league medal without Derry and Faurlin behind him, Helguson beating up the CBs, Hill organising the team and the loans of Walker and Routledge as additional cheat codes. Plus a manger to manage him in a way nobody else could.
He won FA the rest of his career, before and after, so value of that team framework far bigger than his talent. Plus Paddy Kenny was voted POTY. I admire players, can enjoy their individual skills and whatnot, but it's teams I cheer. Still, good on Harry Kane! Would he swap it for winning CL or WR medals in 25/26, though, as some of his losing competitors picked up...? |
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Reply | Harry Kane
at 13:38 27 Oct 2026
If we're making a big deal nowadays about individual awards in a team sport, then fair play, he's a good lad, nice fella, sensational striker.
Individual awards are weird, though. Football is a team sport. You get medals when your team wins, no other time counts. No fan can be invested in individual awards, can they? Really? Nobody is singing about someone's POTY bauble are they.
Nice do at the end of a season, of course, but come on. Found the level of hype around it yesterday mentally ill. It's the Fabrizo Ramonofication of football. Here we go! Who is going to win an award judged by, checks notes..."a specialized panel of international journalists."
Great players leave average teams so they can win real medals in sporting competition with better teams. Like Bayern Munich.
Stan Bowles is arguably QPR's greatest player, had a tremendous few seasons in a brilliant QPR team including our highest ever placing - but he got relegated with us three years later in a dog awful team.
I love a great team. Find the fetishising of individuals above teams very odd, a bit sick and it seems to be much more prevalent now than in previous eras (when there were also some good players). |
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Reply | Injuries
at 09:55 23 Oct 2026
November is too early for anything. A three or four match match winning run in Feb or even March can change the whole picture, while we can still afford to lose two on the bounce now. This squad, if largely fit, I have seen enough of to know we can go on a run when it really matters.
Hull proved last year that looking at net spend and all that is no reliable indication or help in predicting outcomes.
End of November 2025, the play-off positions included Stoke in 4th, Preston 5th. Absolutely meaningless by April. Southampton who made the play-offs were 14th then. Ipswich who were promoted automatically with some swagger were 8th. Hull were 7th but nobody seriously thought they were going up.
It's the Championship. Accumulate points best you can and time the run-in. But above all, get your best players fit and be lucky. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 22:51 22 Oct 2026
We signed Dieng for nothing, got 120 games out of him and then sold him for £2m. This was a decent development club success, but for QPR it was a monumental outlier.
He also had the absolute textbook development route of U21 team, then successful loans through non-league and the pyramid before becoming our number one for three seasons (as long as that fellow 'one season' wonder Smithies was number one).
We sold him for £2m pure profit at his peak, which his subsequent career suggests was the perfect time to sell. Let's see if we get that kind of a markup on any recent free U21 signings soon. For everything the current leadership describes as a "development club" model, Seny Dieng is the textbook example. Selling a few free signings for seven figures every other season is how we get this thing going. For every Eze, you need some Diengs and Kelmans too. We currently have neither in play. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 10:43 22 Oct 2026
We were just talking about ambition and standards. Clive said LF and LH were always happy to just par the 15th in the league based on wages. I disagree, saying the Warbs seasons proved that wasn't true. The money bit actually backs that up. Only we made some sales from the LF recruitment of Dev players.
Hopefully Morgan and Bennie will generate Eze and Kelman income...
The only thing we're doing differently is training at a brand new complex we own and are continuing to develop. We know when that was built. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 10:17 22 Oct 2026
Players brought through in that era, from the same get 'bring in players for Dev-squad to grow into first teamers or sales' that we are doing now: Eze, Chair, Dieng, Manning, plus Amos, BOS , Willock and others like Owen who didn't work out through whatever reason, ie fitness, mentality.
Were they any better or more successful than same in class now of Morgan, Vale, Adamson, Bennie, Pearman, Scarlett...we shall see. We haven't sold or developed a single player yet. Some we bought to develop and sell are damagingly injured at regular intervals, such as Kone and Burrell. This summer we signed the old but injury prone likes of Kamara, Lamptey. Kemper's not exactly a child, nor Cirkin. I like them. But I also liked the signings of Johansen, Odubajo, Dickie and even Austin at the time.
And the only two young players QPR have brought through from Dev squad recruitment to sales for as long as we remember were signed and developed under LF, in that 2019 onwards era: Eze, Kelman. That's £20m brought in from zero fee paid. Over to you Nourry and Dev squad coaching team.
Let's not pretend it's different. That's club propaganda. And yes, those three Warbs years did damage when followed by Beale and Ainsworth. But let's not prejudge this year and next's campaign and the signings made. We spent two summers in a row but we have recouped FA. Let's see. The writing of history needs time's perspective. [Post edited 22 Oct 10:26]
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Reply | Injuries
at 08:28 22 Oct 2026
Haha! Because I climbed upon A VERY VERY HIGH HORSE and wrote a reply to your reply, pressed send and the site had crashed so mercifully swallowed it up. Let's shake.
It's three seasons of Warburton, whatever the circumstances or backdrop. Finishes of 13, 9, 11. Not bad. Not enough.
Well run clubs who have a little ambition should, disaster notwithstanding, give managers three full seasons. I'm sure the plan is the same with Stephan. He's on season number two. I thought at the start it could be a top 8, perhaps 6 season. Looking like maybe a top ten now. Season three will be key, as it was for Warbs.
I think the ambition's the same, on the playing side. You only know how grumpy Warbs was about, say, Masterson because the club let you near him. Stephan is out of bounds to all beyond a zoom. But for Masterson read perhaps Morrison, for Willock's hamstring perhaps Dembele's knee...
Nourry, Stephan, Warburton, Ferdinand, Betsy, Eustace, etc...ambitious football guys who want(ed) to win and succeed. Hoos, Gnanalingam, Reilly: no change there where the big calls are made. And we know where the fish rots typically. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 21:34 21 Oct 2026
This bit is not true, though is it:
"I understand why they did it and what they were working against, but for me there was too much acceptance of mediocrity under Les and Lee's regime - basically we've got the 15th best budget in the Championship and so we finish 15th and can never aspire to or hope for more."
In 2019, they seized control of footballing appointments from the board after McLaren, appointed Warburton and finished 13th.
Encouraged, they invested in the team and finished 9th in 2020-21. But for Covid, who knows?
Encouraged even further, they invested again and really went for it. Manager, players, LF all spoke about it. They weren't doing what you describe at all. They were more explicit than anyone at club now, other than Dunne. Finished 11th. Disappointing.
But those three seasons are all better finishes than Nourry's three placings. They went for it again the next season with Beale and, well, it cost them their jobs. Not Hoos, obviously. He gave himself a promotion. But the others.
Worth pointing out that that 2020-21 play-off push was badly derailed by injuries too. It's not just happened under Ben Williams (I also have strong muscle memories of managers stretching back from Holloway through Francis to Jim Smith all saying "I've never known an injury crises like this...").
Let's not be revisionist. Nourry and Stephan are no more ambitious than Ferdinand and Warburton, their standards no higher. Imagine trying to tell either Les or Warbs you felt that. It's rubbish.They just have more money to play with. For now.
No need to invent recent history. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 13:04 21 Oct 2026
I think the plan was probably to rotate both full back positions.So Kember/Cirkin one side and Mbengue/Lamptey on the other with Adamson getting in on it too.
That works on the right if Lamptey manages those 15+ games you're talking about this season, but now totally collapses with Mbengue's ACL. I still think we'll get a dozen games out of Lamptey - and perhaps as you say they may be valuable, especially in the spring - but I'm fearful of Adamson carrying it through the winter. He's exceeded expectations, but he's played fewer than a dozen career games at this level so there's a drop off to come. Mbengue's injury is a big problem.
I wonder if we may see Cirkin in a DCM role or playing advanced of Kember too in coming weeks, especially away at Southampton. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 10:06 21 Oct 2026
It's mid October. Can we not give a 26-year-old player signed on a free with an injury in July a little bit longer before deciding it was a 'total farce'?
His performance at Blackburn transformed that game and, as keen as Keeley Adamson is, he could play for another ten years and not produce an assist for the winner that Lamptey did that afternoon. So I'm going to give him the length of his contract rather than three months.
We have seen chronically injured players with real pedigree and class overcome those physical issues to perform heroically at QPR (and elsewhere) before, like Paul Furlong, Heidar Helguson, even Sam Field. I have not seen too many physically robust but technically limited players succeed to fans' expectations. Lamptey is 26. Younger than the chronically injured Furlong when he signed.
Whether we have the right people here fixing players, getting them fit etc...that's a different question. The signs since Williams came are not good! But midseason, in the words of JFH, it is what is.
I do think it's endemic at this level and am not sure there's a magic bullet. I have always thought Steve Gallen has done miracle work at Millwall and would have swapped him for CN in a heartbeat. However, there's a nine-page thread on the Millwall board titled 'Injuries' asking why this is the third season they've been derailed by them and demanding an enquiry and heads on sticks... |
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Reply | Injuries
at 17:16 20 Oct 2026
Clearly, these are depressing injuries to key players and understand the despondency. Feel it too.
However...do we know what the injuries are?
Burrell was injured with Jamaica, so seems harsh to blame QPR.
Madsen I saw the contact that injured him, I think.
Lamptey was also a contact injury, pretty sure.
Chair, however, that was a muscle. Or was it? Still obviously top secret to maximise the competitive advantage of not having your best player available.
Saito and Dunne, we are not allowed to know.
Lloyd, an ankle, sounds like a knock.
Mbengue and Dembele are ACLs and that's just the devil's work. Not sure again you can blame QPR (though Mbengue's knee was strapped. Was it the same knee?)
I know we want to burn the witch but unless they're muscle injuries, it's hard to mitigate beyond not playing so many games in such a short space of time at the start of the season. If most medical departments are having nightmares, is it really all the medical departments? Or is the schedule and the intensity? I lean towards the later.
The players who are available need maximum support. So all "I'm done with Vale", "Kolli is out of his depth", "Kone is fat and lazy" etc posts must be paused, surely.
Hope we can get through these next four games without any further serious injuries to key players, then regroup for the next onslaught. |
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Reply | Charles's gambit
at 17:46 15 Oct 2026
With Fuseni and particularly Ward, both of whom Kember breezed by as if they were Marcin Kus and Zesh Rehman. It was incredible defending, if we'd conceded like that this board would be in flames. [Post edited 15 Oct 17:46]
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Reply | Charles's gambit
at 17:32 15 Oct 2026
"I thought he should have gone long because we didn't really gain anything from when he finally played across to Jimmy at right centre back."
It started the move that led to the first goal.
He broke the line, not across too. Move is here. It's clearly heavily rehearsed to break low blocks. He's a 21 year old on loan, he's not got carte blanche to play jazz at 0-0. Everyone knew where they were meant to go, ball was always coming back to either Ronnie or Charles to go left long:
https://www.instagram.com/reel |
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Reply | The next three matches
at 16:44 15 Oct 2026
One game at a time.
Birmingham is tough as it's soon, some looked out on their feet at the end and they've had an extra day. But after that it's two Saturdays, which may give us a chance to have a couple back (certainly Cerkin). Then it's a Tuesday and a Saturday but both at home.
One game at a time though. I don't think the league really takes shape until the new year anyway and there's no point looking at it. Just gotta keep plugging away, getting points. |
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Reply | The Starting XI v Derby I think JS will select
at 13:29 13 Oct 2026
I imagine Stephan will play Mbengue right back for that reason, bring in Vale for JCS, moving Edwards back into CB and perhaps Kone plays first hour. Smyth looked in discomfort at the end of his shift too, so wonder if Scarlett comes in? May benefit from Kember behind him.
Think we may see a team more like that at WHU on Saturday v Brum, though. |
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Reply | Radio 4
at 12:21 13 Oct 2026
The piece starts at 2 hours and 45 mins in, Clive is up a couple of minutes later but the section is five mins long and worth listening as a whole.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/p |
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