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Comment | Youâre going to need a bigger boat â Report
at 21:16:45
Re: Bains's comment above - it turns out that they've sent the rest of the EFL the wrong film script. Us (ex -) happy clappers thought we'd be watching a re-run of "The Great Escape", with GA in the Steve McQueen role. Instead, it looks like its been replaced with "Titanic", with GA and the rest of the management team playing the role of the musicians on the deck continuing to play their pretty tunes whilst the boat is merrily sinking beneath them. |
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Comment | Chekhov's winter - Awaydays
at 14:20:31
I'd like to personally thank Damo for his downvote to my earlier comment.
Tell me, my friend, exactly what you objected to.
Was it the reference to a lack of balance in the self-pity brigade, or was it the fact that I let you down by not fulfilling your preconceptions by offering my blood up to be bathed in?
To repeat - so its clear this time - all I'm interested in is a balanced, objective view of where we currently stand. If its crap, I'm not going to deny its crap.
Hopefully, its reedemable, and I trust this management team to find a way to do that, even if its a painful process for us all to endure in the meantime. |
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Comment | Chekhov's winter - Awaydays
at 08:57:37
Can I come back on this whole "darkness not allowed on the message board " bullsh*t that I keep seeing??
Speaking for myself at least - and seeing as I've taken a fair amount of crap from various quarters over the last few months, I feel I'm fairly justified in speaking out about this - my whole point has been to formulate a balanced, objective viewpoint on exactly where we are.
Many in the "happy clappers" camp, as we are often somewhat patronisingly referred to, have simply been asking for those who clearly enjoy indulging in self-pity and seeming to love coming up with the phrase "I told you so" on as many occasions as possible, to justify their standpoint.
I saw a couple of messages - not a great surprise, to be fair - yesterday saying "I can't wait for the happy clappers to come out and justify this sh*t", clearly salivating at the prospect of sinking their ravenous teeth into those of us who have simply been asking for some degree of balance and perspective.
Sorry to disappoint you all, but I'm not going to come at you with "it will all be fine next week" and all the "blind optimism" that you've been dying to see from me in response.
This post-match interview is, indeed, very telling, and I would hope for a particularly uncomfortable week in training this week for those individuals who GA clearly had in mind with the phrase "those who don't want to try won't play", regardless of what their surname is. |
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Comment | End of Term Report 22/23 â Attack
at 17:16:20
No happy-clapping from me, Clive, on anything you've said on the end of season reports, you'll be relieved to hear, given some of our previous conversations!
I think you've made all your points as eruditely as we've all come to expect, and have been very balanced (with plenty of empirical evidence to back up all your statements, which, as you know, I'm a particularly big fan of!)
There is, of course, a however coming, and its also in relation to Jamal Lowe.
I absolutely get where you're coming from in general, but I thought he was excellent in the second half away at Burnley and throughout at Stoke, with his collect and hold-up game a valuable contribution - not especially great at home to Bristol City, to be fair, but he did at least show energy and some sense of purpose (and pace, as you mentioned).
Given that these games came right at the end of the campaign, doesn't that point more towards the morale-sapped "what's the point" end of the spectrum in the matches preceding, rather than the "not prepared to sacrifice myself" end?
He seemed also to be one of the players more directly engaged and enthused by the Haka than some of his colleagues, which leads me also to think he responded well to GA and RD's pep-talks.
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Comment | Itâs about ownership â Preview
at 10:09:17
As you summed up brilliantly, Clive, I think many of us who lived through 2000-01 are just hoping that this time the board wake up one day soon and realise that they are repeating the same mistakes that led to them entrusting the future of our much mistreated club to Hughes, Rigg Joorabchian and all the other chancers we've had to endure over this ridiculously turbulent 20+ years.
The sense that this is all heading towards some sort of apocalyptic endgame becomes increasingly palpable with every passing sorry defeat, and yet given that we survived and came back stronger (for a while at least) last time, I can't help but be hopeful that we will at least exist in some form for a goodwhile longer yet. Quite what that will look like is, of course, anybody's guess, but you have to imagine that this long helpless slide towards League One and all the revision to business plans and the very definition of what "success" now looks like for us will at least wake Amit and Ruben up to the need for the root and branch review of this whole crazy structure this club has.
Maybe a slice of humble pie will finally be eaten by them. Like so many others on this forum have already said over this past week alone, we could do a lot worse than bringing back The Warbler to cast his calm and incisive eye over this sda state of affairs. He has already shown that he would perform such a task with nos sense of vengeance for how he was mistraeted last season, and I'm sure would take massive professional pride in restoring this once pioneering little club of ours to something vaguely approaching normality. |
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Comment | Beale elects to take his âloyalty and integrityâ elsewhere after all â Column
at 19:56:04
Thanks for unpicking all of this for us all, Clive.
One thing I still don't understand, though, is why he just didn't sit it out at Villa until the Rangers job came up without involving us in the interim? If his star was so high, surely they would have been happy to snap him up anyway?
5 Live has been reporting that GvB was on thin ice at Ibrox for months now - surely he would have known that?
The only explanation I can think of is that by pitching up with us and having a decent first half of the season, it distanced him from Gerrard's Villa implosion and basically gave him the opportuity to go "Look how great I am", unless there's something more blindingly obvious that I've completely missed?
Somewhat ironic that this "proud Bromley boy" who was apparently so keen to reconnect with the city of his birth and his beloved family should pitch up camp 400 miles away! Still, as you said, we'll always have Watford.. |
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Comment | Promised land - Preview
at 07:04:02
Well said, 062259. If Brighton can do what they've done, why not us in a few years' time?
We're already seeing the benefits of actually being run like a proper normal sensible football club, with snsible investment in playong staff, development, training ground etc.
For as long as we keep following the same model, don't revisit the Bosingwa days, are happy to yo-yo between the Prem and Championship for however long it takes to reach escape velocity and eventually get stuck in the promised land of Premer League mid-table, then there could still be the odd salad day ahead. |
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Comment | However, the radio still works, and it's clear as a bell - Preview
at 11:20:19
Update: the club has just announced that conversations are "ongoing" with Yoann Barbet, Uncle Albert, Moses Odubajo, Charlie Owens and Mide Shodipo (who I personally thought was great under Hasselbaink). Has someone at the top finally woken up??ðŸËÂŽ |
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Comment | However, the radio still works, and it's clear as a bell - Preview
at 11:01:24
Cheers, Clive. As always, you've done an amazing job making sense of the complete chaos that our beloved football club adopts as its standard default position.
Should make your new season preview easier, in that I think we all know already that we're nailed on to finish 24th. I'm not sure even the risen Lord Jesus Christ could rustle a big enough miracle out of this self-inflicted massacre for us to expect anything other than complete and utter disintegration. And you thought things were bad enough when Joey Barton and Jose Bosingwa were around..🤢
Thanks also for your note on the Patreon. I certainly hadn't appreciated exactly how tight things have been for you. I shall be adding my name to your sponsor's list later today.. |
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Comment | Standing on the platform, watching you go â Report
at 15:39:19
Like all of us, I imagine, I can vividly remember my first visit to LR. It was the hard-fought 1-1 draw with reigning league champions Derby County (my how strange those words sound now..) in late 1975 in THAT season. Little did I realise that this was to be the height of my joy, and that it would be downhill all the way from then on, with little glimpses of hope in between (the first Premier League season, Warnock and Tarbs, Secret Agent Keogh doing a sterling job for us at Wembley in 2014 -we all know the script oh so well...)
Sadly, our beloved "R"s are not so much a Hollywood blockbuster, as a Shakespearean tragedy in the making. Something is truly rotten in the state of White City, and Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council, Air Asia/Tune Group and Swordfish Investments aren't going to be removing the stench anytime soon.
Alas poor Warbler, I respected you well.. |
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Comment | Tony Currie â Patreon
at 19:19:36
Fantastic interview, Clive, as ever. He's a solid guy, feet firmly on the ground, confident in what he brought to the R's, but in no way arrogant.
I think this has been my favourite interview of yours so far, mainly because I've never read one from him before. Really happy memories for all of us R's fans of a certain age. I can still picture me in my overalls in the Saturday job I did in the hardware store on the Cockfosters Road (just up the road from your own manor) with the '82 Cup Final on the radio whilst we (sort of) worked, and basking in the glory of the smoky 6th Form Common Room at East Barnet School revelling in Rangers running away with the Second Division title the following year. Happy hormone-filled days! |
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Comment | QPR continue to state intent, adding Gray to attack - Signing
at 12:48:25
I suspect that behind the scenes Warbler has been very direct with Mr. Gray and told him words to the effect of" You're drifting, and now you're a father to twins you need to get your act together." Warbler is probably one of the few people that Mr. Gray might actually listen to, and I suspect that he also knows he needs to do this, hence his willingness to come here (as well as it being just down the road). The words "Andre has a point to prove" are probably the most important ones in what Warbler had to say on this, I think. |
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Comment | Perfect penalties rescue QPR's cup hopes - Report
at 17:56:44
Pleased you caught the Faysal-love, Clive! To my mind, sending him out on loan to a league below might actually be a retrograde step, when, as I wrote last week, he just seems so in control of what he's doing now. He could easily deal with a run in the first choice first team squad.
I actually missed the chance to be at the ground last night, despite it being virtually at the bottom of my garden, but snuck quite a few glances whilst telling myself I was finishing off a very key work proposal. To be fair, I got the order today..ðŸâ |
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Comment | Season Preview 21/22 â Contenders
at 13:38:19
Reading this just further underlines what an amazing job Sir les, Lee Hoos and Warbler's Crew have done in organising us and making us battle-fit, when you compare it to madhouses like Fulham and Forest. Sorry, Clive, but all you've achieved with this preview us make us all believe that this is definitely our year🤣 |
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Comment | Odubajo completes QPRâs summer â Signing
at 17:43:26
Also, I think Faysal Bettache has looked almost faultless so far. I expect he'll get farmed out on loan a la our previous conversations on Conor Masterson (or Ilias Chair and Ebere Eze) for example, but to me, Bettache already looks very comfortable and confident at this level, either playing as a 4 or an 8. |
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Comment | Odubajo completes QPRâs summer â Signing
at 17:30:49
I think the answer to the issue will be Luke Amos, Clive, assuming he doesn't have any understandable lingering doubts about his knees holding up. (What is it about this club and dodgy knees??)🤢 |
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