| QPR - State of Play 13:33 - Nov 17 with 10823 views | Monkey_Roots |
Roughly a third of the way through the season - where's your head at?
So far it's been bad, awful, better, then really good, then poor, before settling on boring...
Reason to be positive:
The squad - its as competitive as its been for many a season.
Reason to be worried:
Inconsistent performances all round
What i'm hopeful for:
Now the internationals are done, we can settle into a bit of a rhythm. |  | | |  |
| QPR - State of Play on 14:00 - Nov 17 with 4973 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
Reason to be positive:
We have good players and good young players and are doing better points wise than last season
Reason to be worried:
Rumoured and confirmed off fields shenanigans escalating and resulting in manager termination and player desertion.
What i'm hopeful for:
The bear pit nature of this league giving us enough points for survival and ensuring an end to this bad form. The late stage run of fitness plan from BW paying off. |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 14:01 - Nov 17 with 4973 views | sprocket |
consistency is the name of the game and over a number of years we have been very inconsistent. I still think it could go either way but if I was a betting man, 16th |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 14:10 - Nov 17 with 4933 views | Monkey_Roots |
| QPR - State of Play on 14:00 - Nov 17 by BazzaInTheLoft |
Reason to be positive:
We have good players and good young players and are doing better points wise than last season
Reason to be worried:
Rumoured and confirmed off fields shenanigans escalating and resulting in manager termination and player desertion.
What i'm hopeful for:
The bear pit nature of this league giving us enough points for survival and ensuring an end to this bad form. The late stage run of fitness plan from BW paying off. |
Alright Bazza.
What are the rumours and confirmation please mate?
I've not been giving QPR news much attention lately, as things have been too busy... | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 14:23 - Nov 17 with 4895 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| QPR - State of Play on 14:10 - Nov 17 by Monkey_Roots |
Alright Bazza.
What are the rumours and confirmation please mate?
I've not been giving QPR news much attention lately, as things have been too busy... |
Well, without starting another thread about it, Nourry and Ben Williams and the way they've handled the Kolli stuff, telling Paal / Cook / Nardi / Field and god knows who else they aren't wanted before having to rely on them, poor morale and apparent poor treatment of admin and support staff.
Like I say, half rumour half fact, but it is what I'm worried about it and it's effect on results. JS has a history of walking away from dysfunctional clubs and I don't want to see another manager casualty here. [Post edited 17 Nov 14:24]
| | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 15:49 - Nov 17 with 4727 views | Northernr |
Reason to be positive:
- I like some of the signings and think we're a more competitive, physical, quicker side.
- We're nine (?) points better off than this time last year, and nine clear of a drop zone that we were well adrift in around this time a year ago. We've talked about "being happy with steady progress" and "as long as we're better this year than last year"... well, that's what it looks like.
- Some of the team selections have been barmy, frankly, but I would hope as we get 20-25-30 games in that will enable Stephan to learn the division and the team and improve, so we won't see as many Esquerdinha v Ipswich nonsenses moving forwards. There was always going to be a bit of that with a new manager coming in from the French league.
- The squad depth is improved. Our bench for Southampton was Cook, Dembele, Field, Hamer, Hayden, Bennie, Kone, Morgan, Vale. Two years ago to the week the bench for Leicester at home was A Drewe, T Richards, S Duke-McKenna, J Archer, Z Larkeche, R Kolli.
- We've got better strikers than we've had for ages. Burrell is something of a break out star, love him. Kone started hot, and is now in a bit of a lean patch - that was inevitable for someone that's risen so far so soon, hopefully he settles to the level, not sure we're using him right but relatively pleased with those two so far.
- We've largely ditched the play out from the back stuff, which we don't have the players for and doesn't work any more anyway. Slightly disturbing to see that come back in the Southampton and Ipswich games, and no surprise it got the results it got.
- We've got some potentially exciting players to come into the team and/or get up to speed (Poku, Chair, Saito, Kone, JCS LOL).
- They might go back for Edwards in January and his price may have reduced.
- They'll correct the goalkeeping position in January, that's already cost us 4 points which would put us joint 7th.
Reason to be worried:
- We still don't look very good, to me. A very, very frustrating watch at times. We changed our shape, system and style and put in some good performances that I enjoyed, caught a few teams on the hop, but as they've got wise to us we've been poor. Oxford, Southampton at home, Derby and Sheff Utd away were boring, every bit as bad as anything we've seen over the last few years with lots and lots of the same failings.
- Stephan talking about defending a 0-0 at Sheff Utd because it keeps us nine points ahead of them, rather than attacking a win which would have put us within four of the play-offs, for me was instructive about what he thinks he's got here and how he sees the season going.
- Players we were excited about, players we're meant to be developing, are stagnating, or going backwards - bar Burrell. Kone, Saito, Morgan, Esquerdinha, Poku, Dembele, Varane. We've spent money, last summer, and this summer. Madsen, Celar, Kone, Saito, Poku etc were not cheap. The Eze money is here now, and won't be coming again - we've spoken about it for years, we've got it now, this is what we're doing with it. We desperately need to start producing results and/or sellable assets.
- The youth focus has been completely, predictably binned at the first sign of poor results for the first team. The development squad who got the big hype around that Brentford game have melted away into the usual loans at Bedford and Hampton. There seems to be precious little attention given to where we loan these boys and why. The ones who were near the first team (Esquerdinha, Morgan) are decreasingly involved, and have had nightmares when started. The cheerleaders for this regime were very quick to parrot the "youngest average age in the division" after game one, where we were poor and dropped two points at home. Since Coventry I don't hear this among the 'lines', and that's because we've gone straight back down the Hayden, Hamer, Norrington-Davies line. Michi Frey, two new contracts in the bag, is getting minutes, Rayan Kolli isn't.
- Because of this, and the obvious ditching of the game model, I like Barry fear we may get some more managerial upheaval unless we get good results, fairly consistently, fairly quickly. He was brought in here as a head coach to work with the game model (ditched), to bring in younger players per his reputation (ditched), and to develop assets to sell (all going backwards apart from Burrell). So, if the next six results look like the last six, I wonder how discussions at boardroom level will sound.
- Injuries and fitness. There are, once again, some bizarre things going on in this realm. The state of us in August I thought, personally, was quite embarrassing. We've got an ongoing situation with Poku where we were told he hadn't done his hamstring and wasn't serious when he clearly had and was, he comes back for 20 minutes now he's out again. The farce of JCS' various comebacks in the reserves. The Kolli situation.
- As I said on another thread, I can't shake the feeling I've had since Nourry took over that a) we're run by some very, very inexperienced people and b) they're winging it a bit. That might go well or it might not. The goalkeeper situation is farcical. The situations with Field, Kolli, Frey not far behind it.
- Linked to that, and the need to get some pigs fattened for market - CONTRACTS. I know this is my hobby horse, I've been told lots of QPR fans don't care, Christian says nobody ever asks him about this on his many journeys on the Central Line, I appreciate I'm attacking this as a journo who wants to cover the club, but it is a deliberate attempt to conceal information and I think part of the reason behind it is there would be some alarm about the deals being handed out. Michi Frey got two contract extensions this summer alone, Sam Field has had two in 18 months (first one was 4.5 years) and basically straight after the second one is surplus to requirements, Rayan Kolli is on four years and not playing, Burrell allegedly got five years signing from Burton Albion. If this doesn't go well on the pitch, if we don't build players up to sell, we're going to be on the hook with this squad and with the money spent for a very long time.
- I thought the puff piece about the women's team, quoting none of the women involved nor even mentioning them by name, was really poor, because it again just looks like a bit of an ego trip, CV padding, all about Christian. We've already had one "Lionel Messi of football execdom" article appear this year because we went six unbeaten. It makes me uncomfortable. It should be about collective, team, club, QPR, not one man trying to boost his career prospects.
- Connected to this, I'm also uncomfortable with the number of fan accounts, some who are genuine fans and have been going for years, others who have appeared recently and are largely anonymous, behaving like PRs for the regime, attacking people who are critical or not positive. It feels like if Nourry turned up and curled a big steamer out on their front lawn they'd say he was probably right to do it and it was a really smart move. I guess they'd say I'm over negative, but there it is. A lot of us remember the Paladini days and are very sensitive to this sort of thing.
What I'm hopeful for:
We'll go on another good run of results, hopefully soon (Hull, Blackburn, Norwich, you can't really ask for three better games than that) and push back towards the play-offs at which point I'm sure we'll all get big stiff hard ons again. We'll also have one of our cratering sequences where the bed wetters switchboard starts taking calls. Overall, I don't see us finishing too far away from where we are now, which is what I predicted in the season preview.
This post has been edited by an administrator |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 16:39 - Nov 17 with 4613 views | rbee |
Clive, good to see you getting 1500 words in during an international break! |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 16:42 - Nov 17 with 4606 views | Northernr |
| QPR - State of Play on 16:39 - Nov 17 by rbee |
Clive, good to see you getting 1500 words in during an international break! |
I don't know if it's a gift or a curse that it takes me about 2 minutes to spill that onto page once it's in my head, but I'd been thinking about it on my run earlier so there it is. | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 16:56 - Nov 17 with 4574 views | numptydumpty |
| QPR - State of Play on 16:42 - Nov 17 by Northernr |
I don't know if it's a gift or a curse that it takes me about 2 minutes to spill that onto page once it's in my head, but I'd been thinking about it on my run earlier so there it is. |
Its hard enough going for a run on a brisk November day, without adding to the pain, by running through all things QPR whilst doing so. Respect for doing. Was a runner in my 20s and 30s, but the motivation is harder, as the years roll by....
Regards the op, all three answers and scenarios are simultaneously possible, as is always the case with Rangers... [Post edited 17 Nov 16:58]
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| QPR - State of Play on 17:03 - Nov 17 with 4546 views | dmm |
Thanks for mentioning the contracts issue, Clive. I don't want it forgotten and it will rile me until it's put right. |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 17:50 - Nov 17 with 4422 views | Northernr |
| QPR - State of Play on 17:03 - Nov 17 by dmm |
Thanks for mentioning the contracts issue, Clive. I don't want it forgotten and it will rile me until it's put right. |
I fully accept it's just you and me at this point, but that's okay.
If a worst case scenario plays out and it turns out all the players involved in it are contracted to 2030 interest will increase I think. | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 18:08 - Nov 17 with 4348 views | TK1 |
| QPR - State of Play on 15:49 - Nov 17 by Northernr |
Reason to be positive:
- I like some of the signings and think we're a more competitive, physical, quicker side.
- We're nine (?) points better off than this time last year, and nine clear of a drop zone that we were well adrift in around this time a year ago. We've talked about "being happy with steady progress" and "as long as we're better this year than last year"... well, that's what it looks like.
- Some of the team selections have been barmy, frankly, but I would hope as we get 20-25-30 games in that will enable Stephan to learn the division and the team and improve, so we won't see as many Esquerdinha v Ipswich nonsenses moving forwards. There was always going to be a bit of that with a new manager coming in from the French league.
- The squad depth is improved. Our bench for Southampton was Cook, Dembele, Field, Hamer, Hayden, Bennie, Kone, Morgan, Vale. Two years ago to the week the bench for Leicester at home was A Drewe, T Richards, S Duke-McKenna, J Archer, Z Larkeche, R Kolli.
- We've got better strikers than we've had for ages. Burrell is something of a break out star, love him. Kone started hot, and is now in a bit of a lean patch - that was inevitable for someone that's risen so far so soon, hopefully he settles to the level, not sure we're using him right but relatively pleased with those two so far.
- We've largely ditched the play out from the back stuff, which we don't have the players for and doesn't work any more anyway. Slightly disturbing to see that come back in the Southampton and Ipswich games, and no surprise it got the results it got.
- We've got some potentially exciting players to come into the team and/or get up to speed (Poku, Chair, Saito, Kone, JCS LOL).
- They might go back for Edwards in January and his price may have reduced.
- They'll correct the goalkeeping position in January, that's already cost us 4 points which would put us joint 7th.
Reason to be worried:
- We still don't look very good, to me. A very, very frustrating watch at times. We changed our shape, system and style and put in some good performances that I enjoyed, caught a few teams on the hop, but as they've got wise to us we've been poor. Oxford, Southampton at home, Derby and Sheff Utd away were boring, every bit as bad as anything we've seen over the last few years with lots and lots of the same failings.
- Stephan talking about defending a 0-0 at Sheff Utd because it keeps us nine points ahead of them, rather than attacking a win which would have put us within four of the play-offs, for me was instructive about what he thinks he's got here and how he sees the season going.
- Players we were excited about, players we're meant to be developing, are stagnating, or going backwards - bar Burrell. Kone, Saito, Morgan, Esquerdinha, Poku, Dembele, Varane. We've spent money, last summer, and this summer. Madsen, Celar, Kone, Saito, Poku etc were not cheap. The Eze money is here now, and won't be coming again - we've spoken about it for years, we've got it now, this is what we're doing with it. We desperately need to start producing results and/or sellable assets.
- The youth focus has been completely, predictably binned at the first sign of poor results for the first team. The development squad who got the big hype around that Brentford game have melted away into the usual loans at Bedford and Hampton. There seems to be precious little attention given to where we loan these boys and why. The ones who were near the first team (Esquerdinha, Morgan) are decreasingly involved, and have had nightmares when started. The cheerleaders for this regime were very quick to parrot the "youngest average age in the division" after game one, where we were poor and dropped two points at home. Since Coventry I don't hear this among the 'lines', and that's because we've gone straight back down the Hayden, Hamer, Norrington-Davies line. Michi Frey, two new contracts in the bag, is getting minutes, Rayan Kolli isn't.
- Because of this, and the obvious ditching of the game model, I like Barry fear we may get some more managerial upheaval unless we get good results, fairly consistently, fairly quickly. He was brought in here as a head coach to work with the game model (ditched), to bring in younger players per his reputation (ditched), and to develop assets to sell (all going backwards apart from Burrell). So, if the next six results look like the last six, I wonder how discussions at boardroom level will sound.
- Injuries and fitness. There are, once again, some bizarre things going on in this realm. The state of us in August I thought, personally, was quite embarrassing. We've got an ongoing situation with Poku where we were told he hadn't done his hamstring and wasn't serious when he clearly had and was, he comes back for 20 minutes now he's out again. The farce of JCS' various comebacks in the reserves. The Kolli situation.
- As I said on another thread, I can't shake the feeling I've had since Nourry took over that a) we're run by some very, very inexperienced people and b) they're winging it a bit. That might go well or it might not. The goalkeeper situation is farcical. The situations with Field, Kolli, Frey not far behind it.
- Linked to that, and the need to get some pigs fattened for market - CONTRACTS. I know this is my hobby horse, I've been told lots of QPR fans don't care, Christian says nobody ever asks him about this on his many journeys on the Central Line, I appreciate I'm attacking this as a journo who wants to cover the club, but it is a deliberate attempt to conceal information and I think part of the reason behind it is there would be some alarm about the deals being handed out. Michi Frey got two contract extensions this summer alone, Sam Field has had two in 18 months (first one was 4.5 years) and basically straight after the second one is surplus to requirements, Rayan Kolli is on four years and not playing, Burrell allegedly got five years signing from Burton Albion. If this doesn't go well on the pitch, if we don't build players up to sell, we're going to be on the hook with this squad and with the money spent for a very long time.
- I thought the puff piece about the women's team, quoting none of the women involved nor even mentioning them by name, was really poor, because it again just looks like a bit of an ego trip, CV padding, all about Christian. We've already had one "Lionel Messi of football execdom" article appear this year because we went six unbeaten. It makes me uncomfortable. It should be about collective, team, club, QPR, not one man trying to boost his career prospects.
- Connected to this, I'm also uncomfortable with the number of fan accounts, some who are genuine fans and have been going for years, others who have appeared recently and are largely anonymous, behaving like PRs for the regime, attacking people who are critical or not positive. It feels like if Nourry turned up and curled a big steamer out on their front lawn they'd say he was probably right to do it and it was a really smart move. I guess they'd say I'm over negative, but there it is. A lot of us remember the Paladini days and are very sensitive to this sort of thing.
What I'm hopeful for:
We'll go on another good run of results, hopefully soon (Hull, Blackburn, Norwich, you can't really ask for three better games than that) and push back towards the play-offs at which point I'm sure we'll all get big stiff hard ons again. We'll also have one of our cratering sequences where the bed wetters switchboard starts taking calls. Overall, I don't see us finishing too far away from where we are now, which is what I predicted in the season preview.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
"Connected to this, I'm also uncomfortable with the number of fan accounts, some who are genuine fans and have been going for years, others who have appeared recently and are largely anonymous, behaving like PRs for the regime, attacking people who are critical or not positive."
Agree. Big bugbear. Have noticed a couple accounts mention "if the head coach doesn't do this or that he has to go" a few times recently, a theme being developed by the guys who used to have Marti as avatars, then JS in the summer and probably won't soon. Fishy. | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 18:09 - Nov 17 with 4342 views | Wilkinswatercarrier |
4.5 year contract for Fiekd, good God, no wonder they couldn't give him away in the summer.
If a player is going to be given this sort of contract at least play him, yet we are also repeating it with Kolli, which is even worse considering his age.
Is anyone actually in charge of all this as it doesn't make any sense. | |
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| QPR - State of Play on 18:19 - Nov 17 with 4308 views | Match82 |
Reason to be positive: we may go on another long winning run and flirt with the playoffs before inevitably collapsing and finishing 16th.
Reason to be negative: we may lose our next 6 games, be all stressed out about relegation before recovering and finishing 16th. |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 18:21 - Nov 17 with 4305 views | Northernr |
| QPR - State of Play on 18:08 - Nov 17 by TK1 |
"Connected to this, I'm also uncomfortable with the number of fan accounts, some who are genuine fans and have been going for years, others who have appeared recently and are largely anonymous, behaving like PRs for the regime, attacking people who are critical or not positive."
Agree. Big bugbear. Have noticed a couple accounts mention "if the head coach doesn't do this or that he has to go" a few times recently, a theme being developed by the guys who used to have Marti as avatars, then JS in the summer and probably won't soon. Fishy. |
Absolutely, now he’s ditched the “game model” he needs to win and win quickly or I can already tell you what people will say and who will say it.
It was very noticeable after Preston at home and Plymouth away I thought.
Lines being parroted word for word about average age of team. Accounts like mine being attacked for daring to say drawing with Preston and losing to Plymouth is a bit sht.
I don’t want to derail the thread really because I’d be interested in other posters responses to the original question but I’ve more to say on this in time. I though the “Bobby z in 89” post on here at the end of last season was absolutely appalling.
This post has been edited by an administrator | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 18:44 - Nov 17 with 4201 views | stevec |
Aside of Madsen I’m struggling to think of any player who was here last season playing better this season.
I’m not convinced he has really changed the set up. It’s still 4 back, 2 centre mid, one up front and three behind though I’d grant you, Kone makes it a two up top at times, but still looks a very similar set up, crap passing out from the back, dispossess the ‘three’ and we’re in big trouble etc etc.
Think the players are starting to accept the formula doesn’t work long term and are losing belief in it.
Footballs changing and once again we may find ourselves behind the curve. |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 19:42 - Nov 17 with 4031 views | lassel |
| QPR - State of Play on 17:50 - Nov 17 by Northernr |
I fully accept it's just you and me at this point, but that's okay.
If a worst case scenario plays out and it turns out all the players involved in it are contracted to 2030 interest will increase I think. |
It makes you realise how Lyle Lanley sold his monorails to Brockway, Ogdonville and North Haverbrook….
You have Michael Frey gifted millions of pounds, Lucas Andersen announcing to his LinkedIn followers that having left QPR he has lots of offers but ‘no longer needs to play for less than he’s worth’, Kolli on a long term, punchy contract banished and yet most supposedly don’t care about details of what we are committing to whom.
And you can guarantee that ‘the socials’ will be full of people demanding we blow ‘the Eze money’ on the next panancea striker every window for the next 5 years.
Yet point out that this money is gone and *this* is what we got and you’re deemed as simply negative. | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 20:04 - Nov 17 with 3977 views | dmm |
| QPR - State of Play on 19:42 - Nov 17 by lassel |
It makes you realise how Lyle Lanley sold his monorails to Brockway, Ogdonville and North Haverbrook….
You have Michael Frey gifted millions of pounds, Lucas Andersen announcing to his LinkedIn followers that having left QPR he has lots of offers but ‘no longer needs to play for less than he’s worth’, Kolli on a long term, punchy contract banished and yet most supposedly don’t care about details of what we are committing to whom.
And you can guarantee that ‘the socials’ will be full of people demanding we blow ‘the Eze money’ on the next panancea striker every window for the next 5 years.
Yet point out that this money is gone and *this* is what we got and you’re deemed as simply negative. |
Are you sure the Eze money is gone? Besides Saito, the summer incoming transfers were weeks before Eze's move to Arsenal. Surely QPR wouldn't have gambled on Eze's move. | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 20:16 - Nov 17 with 3942 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| QPR - State of Play on 17:50 - Nov 17 by Northernr |
I fully accept it's just you and me at this point, but that's okay.
If a worst case scenario plays out and it turns out all the players involved in it are contracted to 2030 interest will increase I think. |
No, it's me as well.
It's a genuine reason for concern in my opinion. |  |
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| QPR - State of Play on 22:23 - Nov 17 with 3711 views | Boston |
Pros - we're an ok side and won't go down.
Cons. - we're an ok side and won't go up. | |
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| QPR - State of Play on 22:24 - Nov 17 with 3700 views | Wegerles_Stairs |
| QPR - State of Play on 18:09 - Nov 17 by Wilkinswatercarrier |
4.5 year contract for Fiekd, good God, no wonder they couldn't give him away in the summer.
If a player is going to be given this sort of contract at least play him, yet we are also repeating it with Kolli, which is even worse considering his age.
Is anyone actually in charge of all this as it doesn't make any sense. |
Yeah, that is genuinely wild. | | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 22:35 - Nov 17 with 3683 views | CateLeBonR |
Reason to be positive:
I think that we’ve been unlucky especially with the type of goals we’ve conceded but luck can turn quite quickly. I can’t fault the effort and the squad spirit seems quite good just maybe lacking a bit of spark.
Reason to be worried:
Not creating enough clearcut goal scoring chances perhaps and tactically suspect but I’m not really that worried about anything. Just a bit disappointed with recent results.
What i'm hopeful for:
I’m not particularly hopeful either. I felt we would be better second half of the season than first but not so sure now. Oh to be surprised and entertained for once! |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 22:38 - Nov 17 with 3667 views | wombat |
| QPR - State of Play on 22:24 - Nov 17 by Wegerles_Stairs |
Yeah, that is genuinely wild. |
Last few games as Clive said have been awful to watch , the subs at Sheff were to not loose the game . I think he’s gone into self preservation mode fairly early to be honest .
Defence is ropey , we don’t cause any problems whe we do get a corner something we wasn’t that bad at last season .
Notice the ceo has been very very quiet recently not a 5000 Word message that nobody will read or probably understand either . Not actually sure the wheels were fully on to have come off either .
Where will we finish if we are lucky outer usual 16th but gut feeling we have a bad run in us way worse than the run we are presently on ,
We don’t play well at Blackburn and same for Norwich either so not expecting anything from either game . |  |
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| QPR - State of Play on 23:17 - Nov 17 with 3581 views | Hunterhoop |
I’ll keep it simple:
Reasons to be positive:
The players
Reasons to be worried:
The club’s leadership (but not owner, I should add)
What I am hopeful for:
The Head Coach |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 00:09 - Nov 18 with 3490 views | daveB |
Reason to be positive:
Much better squad on paper with options from the bench and forwards who pose a threat and can score goals.
Recruitment much better in the summer
The Manager seems alright (although not sure hes much different to the last one who I'm regularly told on X was useless)
Reason to be worried:
We've had a good start but still in the bottom 8 and already feels like a get to 50 points type of season.
Still feels like we are are a bad weel away from a crisis.
Despite a good summer of recruitment we still look very weak in goal, right back and centre half plus I still don't think we're very good in midfield either.
Ben Williams in this Sporting Director role feels very wrong
What i'm hopeful for:
We have enough quality to have a nice decent mid table season which in fairness we are probably on course for at the moment |  | | |
| QPR - State of Play on 04:08 - Nov 18 with 3390 views | QPROslo |
| QPR - State of Play on 15:49 - Nov 17 by Northernr |
Reason to be positive:
- I like some of the signings and think we're a more competitive, physical, quicker side.
- We're nine (?) points better off than this time last year, and nine clear of a drop zone that we were well adrift in around this time a year ago. We've talked about "being happy with steady progress" and "as long as we're better this year than last year"... well, that's what it looks like.
- Some of the team selections have been barmy, frankly, but I would hope as we get 20-25-30 games in that will enable Stephan to learn the division and the team and improve, so we won't see as many Esquerdinha v Ipswich nonsenses moving forwards. There was always going to be a bit of that with a new manager coming in from the French league.
- The squad depth is improved. Our bench for Southampton was Cook, Dembele, Field, Hamer, Hayden, Bennie, Kone, Morgan, Vale. Two years ago to the week the bench for Leicester at home was A Drewe, T Richards, S Duke-McKenna, J Archer, Z Larkeche, R Kolli.
- We've got better strikers than we've had for ages. Burrell is something of a break out star, love him. Kone started hot, and is now in a bit of a lean patch - that was inevitable for someone that's risen so far so soon, hopefully he settles to the level, not sure we're using him right but relatively pleased with those two so far.
- We've largely ditched the play out from the back stuff, which we don't have the players for and doesn't work any more anyway. Slightly disturbing to see that come back in the Southampton and Ipswich games, and no surprise it got the results it got.
- We've got some potentially exciting players to come into the team and/or get up to speed (Poku, Chair, Saito, Kone, JCS LOL).
- They might go back for Edwards in January and his price may have reduced.
- They'll correct the goalkeeping position in January, that's already cost us 4 points which would put us joint 7th.
Reason to be worried:
- We still don't look very good, to me. A very, very frustrating watch at times. We changed our shape, system and style and put in some good performances that I enjoyed, caught a few teams on the hop, but as they've got wise to us we've been poor. Oxford, Southampton at home, Derby and Sheff Utd away were boring, every bit as bad as anything we've seen over the last few years with lots and lots of the same failings.
- Stephan talking about defending a 0-0 at Sheff Utd because it keeps us nine points ahead of them, rather than attacking a win which would have put us within four of the play-offs, for me was instructive about what he thinks he's got here and how he sees the season going.
- Players we were excited about, players we're meant to be developing, are stagnating, or going backwards - bar Burrell. Kone, Saito, Morgan, Esquerdinha, Poku, Dembele, Varane. We've spent money, last summer, and this summer. Madsen, Celar, Kone, Saito, Poku etc were not cheap. The Eze money is here now, and won't be coming again - we've spoken about it for years, we've got it now, this is what we're doing with it. We desperately need to start producing results and/or sellable assets.
- The youth focus has been completely, predictably binned at the first sign of poor results for the first team. The development squad who got the big hype around that Brentford game have melted away into the usual loans at Bedford and Hampton. There seems to be precious little attention given to where we loan these boys and why. The ones who were near the first team (Esquerdinha, Morgan) are decreasingly involved, and have had nightmares when started. The cheerleaders for this regime were very quick to parrot the "youngest average age in the division" after game one, where we were poor and dropped two points at home. Since Coventry I don't hear this among the 'lines', and that's because we've gone straight back down the Hayden, Hamer, Norrington-Davies line. Michi Frey, two new contracts in the bag, is getting minutes, Rayan Kolli isn't.
- Because of this, and the obvious ditching of the game model, I like Barry fear we may get some more managerial upheaval unless we get good results, fairly consistently, fairly quickly. He was brought in here as a head coach to work with the game model (ditched), to bring in younger players per his reputation (ditched), and to develop assets to sell (all going backwards apart from Burrell). So, if the next six results look like the last six, I wonder how discussions at boardroom level will sound.
- Injuries and fitness. There are, once again, some bizarre things going on in this realm. The state of us in August I thought, personally, was quite embarrassing. We've got an ongoing situation with Poku where we were told he hadn't done his hamstring and wasn't serious when he clearly had and was, he comes back for 20 minutes now he's out again. The farce of JCS' various comebacks in the reserves. The Kolli situation.
- As I said on another thread, I can't shake the feeling I've had since Nourry took over that a) we're run by some very, very inexperienced people and b) they're winging it a bit. That might go well or it might not. The goalkeeper situation is farcical. The situations with Field, Kolli, Frey not far behind it.
- Linked to that, and the need to get some pigs fattened for market - CONTRACTS. I know this is my hobby horse, I've been told lots of QPR fans don't care, Christian says nobody ever asks him about this on his many journeys on the Central Line, I appreciate I'm attacking this as a journo who wants to cover the club, but it is a deliberate attempt to conceal information and I think part of the reason behind it is there would be some alarm about the deals being handed out. Michi Frey got two contract extensions this summer alone, Sam Field has had two in 18 months (first one was 4.5 years) and basically straight after the second one is surplus to requirements, Rayan Kolli is on four years and not playing, Burrell allegedly got five years signing from Burton Albion. If this doesn't go well on the pitch, if we don't build players up to sell, we're going to be on the hook with this squad and with the money spent for a very long time.
- I thought the puff piece about the women's team, quoting none of the women involved nor even mentioning them by name, was really poor, because it again just looks like a bit of an ego trip, CV padding, all about Christian. We've already had one "Lionel Messi of football execdom" article appear this year because we went six unbeaten. It makes me uncomfortable. It should be about collective, team, club, QPR, not one man trying to boost his career prospects.
- Connected to this, I'm also uncomfortable with the number of fan accounts, some who are genuine fans and have been going for years, others who have appeared recently and are largely anonymous, behaving like PRs for the regime, attacking people who are critical or not positive. It feels like if Nourry turned up and curled a big steamer out on their front lawn they'd say he was probably right to do it and it was a really smart move. I guess they'd say I'm over negative, but there it is. A lot of us remember the Paladini days and are very sensitive to this sort of thing.
What I'm hopeful for:
We'll go on another good run of results, hopefully soon (Hull, Blackburn, Norwich, you can't really ask for three better games than that) and push back towards the play-offs at which point I'm sure we'll all get big stiff hard ons again. We'll also have one of our cratering sequences where the bed wetters switchboard starts taking calls. Overall, I don't see us finishing too far away from where we are now, which is what I predicted in the season preview.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
Not seen this mentioned but regarding the contract lengths isn't the reason for giving valued players long contracts likely to be to be able to spread their depreciation cost over long periods, which helps with the annual FFP situation, short term. | | | |
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