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Gloomy.... 12:43 - Aug 13 with 2240 viewsYorkRanger

...piece of analysis in The Times Sports section today. I'm away currently and struggling to post a link.
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Gloomy.... on 12:45 - Aug 13 with 2218 viewskropotkin41

Give us a clue then..........

‘morbid curiosity about where this is all going’

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Gloomy.... on 12:48 - Aug 13 with 2180 viewsMick_S

Gloomy.... on 12:45 - Aug 13 by kropotkin41

Give us a clue then..........



Did I ever mention that I was in Minder?

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Gloomy.... on 13:06 - Aug 13 with 2080 viewsYorkRanger

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/qprs-relegation-struggle-starts-now-for
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Gloomy.... on 13:16 - Aug 13 with 1998 viewsMick_S

Gloomy.... on 13:06 - Aug 13 by YorkRanger

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/qprs-relegation-struggle-starts-now-for


Cheers York - they want my inside leg measurement or it's only a couple of paragraphs.

Did I ever mention that I was in Minder?

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Gloomy.... on 13:19 - Aug 13 with 1966 viewsMetallica_Hoop

Gloomy.... on 12:48 - Aug 13 by Mick_S



Just googled him to see if he is still with us he's 89!!

Beer and Beef has made us what we are - The Prince Regent

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Gloomy.... on 13:19 - Aug 13 with 1963 viewsTacticalR

You have to sign up to the Times site if you want to read it - they allow you to read two free articles a week.

Air hostess clique

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Gloomy.... on 13:31 - Aug 13 with 1888 viewsLunarJetman

Half past one on Saturday, before QPR’s first home game of the season, and supporters outside the Queens Tavern on South Africa Road are trying to pick a handful of teams who they hope finish below Rangers in the Sky Bet Championship this season. Another, who is hawking scarves, thinks Rangers have “relegation written all over them”. The front cover of fanzine, A Kick Up The R’s, sums up the pervading mood. “I’ll settle for safe,” it says inside a speech bubble next to an image of Steve McClaren, the manager. “Actually that’s empty now”, replies Tony Fernandes, the co-chairman, peering over a safe with its door ajar and nothing inside but a few fluttering moths.

When McClaren replaced Ian Holloway in May, he described the union as a “perfect fit” and given just how much the stock of club and manager has fallen in recent years perhaps the 57-year-old is right. Yet it does feel a little incongruous in this Championship season, the preamble for which was dominated by ambitious managerial debutants and a growing number of heavyweights in the dugout, that England’s manager of just over a decade ago arrived to such little fanfare, to a club shackled with such limited ambitions.

Since McClaren’s reign as England head coach ended in 2007, after defeat by Croatia under those wet and sullen skies at Wembley, there have been successes with Twente, whom he led to the 2010 Eredivisie title, and with Derby County, whom he led to within a whisker of the Premier League, losing the 2014 Championship play-off final to the QPR team McClaren coached for three months under Harry Redknapp earlier that season.

More recently, though, there were bruising stints with Newcastle United and a five-month return to Derby, which ended in March 2017. Six months as a coaching consultant at Maccabi Tel Aviv affirmed his desire to be “out on the grass”, to be a manager. But football moves fast, as do perceptions. His credentials as a coach are not in question but it is fair to say that as a No 1 there may not be many more chances. And the chips at Loftus Road are not exactly stacked in his favour.

QPR are a club still facing up to the consequences of years of financial injudiciousness and to a future in which chasing a return to the top flight must finally come second to laying foundations for a more sustainable future.

A new training ground to replace their base at Harlington, near Heathrow, on land rented from Imperial College University, and another rented facility used by the academy, at Cranford Community College in Hounslow, is high on the agenda. As is a new home on the Linford Christie Stadium site less than a mile away from Loftus Road, their home of 101 years, with the third smallest capacity in the second tier.

“This club is not financially sustainable in the long term whilst we remain at Loftus Road,” Lee Hoos, the QPR chief executive, said on Friday. ”We are running out of possible sites near our current home where we could move to.”

His statement came less than 24 hours after Fernandes, the 54-year-old Malaysian, cast doubt over his future at the club, by saying that his time as co-chairman is “fast coming to a close”. All of which followed the settlement, at the end of July, of QPR’s long-running dispute with the EFL, for failing to comply with Financial Fair Play rules during the season in which they were promoted to the Premier League in 2013-14.

The club’s owners wrote off £60 million in an attempt to avoid a huge fine for breaching FFP regulations. But the settlement includes a fine of £17 million and a transfer embargo enforced in the January window.

McClaren understands that the recovery will be a lengthy process and judging by the 2-1 defeat by Sheffield United on Saturday, which followed the opening day defeat away to Preston North End, his job could be a daunting one. “This club is reeling from the last few years,” McClaren says. “Reeling from an embargo, and a big fine. This season is going to be another step towards that recovery. I know the owners – I’ve known Tony Fernandes for the last five years – they want QPR to succeed. We have to cut our cloth accordingly. But they’re still 100 per cent behind this club.”

Last week, the transfer window closed with just one addition to a squad badly in need of some reinforcements. In the summer, QPR bid farewell to captain Nedum Onuoha, James Perch, Jack Robinson, Jamie Mackie and Alex Smithies, who joined Cardiff City for £3.6 million, as they continue to offload the last remnants of their exorbitant expenditure.

They held on to Luke Freeman, their most creative midfielder, despite interest from Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers last week, recognising, perhaps, that the continuing balancing act of cost-cutting while remaining competitive already looks rather precarious. Toni Leistner, a centre half, was signed on a free transfer from Union Berlin and impressed on Saturday. Àngel Rangel, the 35-year-old former Swansea City right back, was in attendance and is expected to sign this week but McClaren will require all of his acumen on the training ground to extract consistent performances from the many young players he may have to rely on this season.

QPR’s future is likely to include more players, such as Paul Smyth, Bright Osayi-Samuel, Osman Kakay and Ebere Eze, four 20-year-olds who played a part on Saturday and have either been signed for nominal fees from lower leagues, discarded from other academies or nurtured under the watchful eye of the Rangers academy, now headed up by the highly regarded Chris Ramsey.

“They’ve got talent, now they need to make the next step,” McClaren says. “I think this is going to be a tough season, but all I want to do is bring a certain attitude, a certain culture, identity, to how we play, to QPR.

“Today we looked to play from the back and we were brave in that and we created chances. We didn’t get our rewards. We’ve just got to continue, it’s a process. It’s not my strength, but I think in this job patience is the big word.”

Moment in Time: League Cup winners 1967
A crowd of more than 97,000 at Wembley watched West Bromwich Albion take a two-goal lead in the first half, before goals from Roger Morgan, Rodney Marsh and Mark Lazarus made QPR the first third-division club to win the League Cup. The trophy remains the club’s only piece of major silverware.

Cult Hero: Stan Bowles
Bowles’s bedazzling skills and charisma lit up Loftus Road during more than 300 appearances for QPR between 1972 and 1979. He was a key player in the Rangers team that fell agonisingly short of winning the 1975-76 first-division title; Rangers finished the season top, one point ahead of Liverpool, but were forced to wait ten days for them to complete their final fixture against Wolverhampton Wanderers, which they won 3-1 to seal the title.

Greatest XI
(as chosen by Clive Whittingham, of fans website, Loft For Words)
Phil Parkes
Dave Clement
Alan McDonald
Paul Parker
Clive Wilson
Dave Thomas
Gerry Francis
Ray Wilkins
Stan Bowles
Rodney Marsh
Les Ferdinand

Comments:

Dave Thomas
On the positive side they competed with Sheffield United who finished just below the play-offs last season, didn't deserve to lose and were punished by an outrageously bad penalty decision by a referee who had no control over the match. Presumably you didn't want to mention anything about the actual match as it might have spoilt this wholly negative article? Eze was clearly the most skilful player on the pitch.

The last 30 minutes were a joke with SU players continuously falling over dramatically, the keeper regularly taking up to 20 seconds holding the ball and basically taking the p***. The referee added on 5 minutes when double that would have been more appropriate. He booked no one at all for this blatant "game management". Wouldn't it be lovely to watch a match where the skills on display were the abiding memory.
[Post edited 13 Aug 2018 13:32]
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