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The strange thing is that in those first X games he came in, looked sharp, fearless and powerful. He scored goals. Looked like the missing link. Then he didn't score for a few games and appeared to lose confidence and some of that natural instinct. Does he receive the right kind of service. Is he playing in a position that gives him the best chance to at least create scoring opportunities? Not really at the moment.
Is he up to it? Yes, probably. I remember watching Ferdinand when he first started here and I think? he was older than Kone. I remember saying to my dad after half a dozen games, I don't think he's going to make it... But then we seemed to work out how to get the ball to him, where to make him dangerous and he exploded into action. We do need to make him a traditional 9 and make him not just a target man, but also someone that wide players actually find.
I'd actually go and hire Charlie Austin, who loves this club, as a personal coach for Kone (and others) and I think we'd find a much better player in a matter of weeks.
Perhaps it's just that it's the first day of the year and my team phoned in a performance? It's the hope that kills you should definitely be the motto on the club badge. I don't usually feel too down about results but for some reason this one has floored me a bit. Anyone else feeling like that tonight?
No but I think most people look at the selection and he's dropped Varane for Hayden, Saito for Smyth and he then has Dunne, Hayden and Smyth on the pitch who are all experienced at this level and who should be able to have some influence over the way the team plays and responds. That really didn't happen today. We saw what the players could do against Leicester when they do what's being asked of them, and then what they can't do when they slack off and don't follow instructions.
I know you don't like JS but the team he sent out today should have been capable of a lot more than they didn't achieve. That could partly be JS's fault for not drilling in some things they should have done but these players aren't wind up toys that the manager shuffles onto a pitch to only do his bidding. They should be able to have the energy and the experience to make things happen themselves. Ray Wilkins once told me that a lot of the time when you went out onto the pitch it was about strength of character and making decisions as the group of players on the pitch that won matches, not just what the gaffer said and a whiteboard. He put a lot more on the players on the pitch to sort it out as well.
Perhaps that is a dying art but we seem to lack the collective thinking on the pitch to take control sometimes. The manager is there to pick the best version of a team to get a job done but the players have responsibility to not only take on board what they are asked to do but also collectively sort themselves out if it isn't going to plan. So today JS picks his most experienced players, okay without Sam Field, and it still doesn't happen. It's not always ALL the managers fault, is all I am saying.
Amazingly the title predictor thing when I typed in the word Gaffer automatically found... on today's defeat
I think it's safe to say that us fans are pretty p*ssed off this evening but I'm not sure we are as p*ssed off as Stephan is this evening.
Let me stick up for him for a moment. I looked at the side he chose today and thought, yeah, that's the side I would have picked and the changes I would have made. It didn't work and I would have been scratching my head too right now.
Late on in this interview he talk about it being a mentality issue and he's right. The problem is that 'the mentality issue' has been the same f*cking issue for the last 3-4 years and the last 4 managers. Every single one of them seems to inherit a mentality hex issue that dogs the club.
That starting 11 should have won today. So we can have a go at the manager. He picks the teams etc but tonight the players need to have a real look at themselves and get their act together.
This is a squad that blew Leicester away 12 days ago... and then decided to phone in the next 3 performances. We can all blame the manager but the players have to stand up on Sunday and show us that they aren't feeble and have some pride about their work.
Blimey that was a bit horrible. Where is the team that took Leicester apart?
Norwich fully deserved it but bloody hell, how many years of watching us fall asleep at the wheel against lower sides in the division do we have to take?
I thought he had picked the right side as well today but they were very very poor all over the pitch.
That was pretty awful and it takes quite a lot for me to say that. I thought he'd picked the right side as well today but even that didn't work. The endless inability to beat teams at the bottom of the table and make them look half decent isn't very good. After Leicester it felt like we had a platform to really do something but for some reason they really have fallen asleep at the wheel in the last few games.
I think him and Luke Amos are similar in some respects although Amos's career has been crippled by injury. He's still only 28! Both Amos and Bonner-Dixon I think suffer from split football personality. Some games they would look like they really belonged and others they were a bit like Casper The Friendly Ghost.
I can sort of sympathise with this because when I was a young lad (many centuries ago) I could go onto a football pitch and be the best player on it. You don't train with Glenn Roeder, Ray Wilkins and Glenn Hoddle as a youth player if you have nothing. The problem for me was at youth level I simply couldn't do it every game. Something switched off in certain games and I would be invisible. I got a few injuries and dropped down the pecking order. So obviously I should have been a shoe in at QPR! :)
The point is I think Dixon-Bonner and Amos have talent. The problem is if you can only switch that on now and then you're never going to make it at the higher levels. I couldn't do it. Many can't, despite having real ability.
I for one think Madsen's turnaround has been a key part in us being a better team this season. When he is on it he has a Faurlin like presence. He moves the ball forward, has very good delivery and if you watch extended highlights, there he is, in the main, crunching into tackles.
I agree, we are massively too dependent on him and we are starting to see a bit of fatigue in some of his play, but we are lacking a back up. With Chair struggling a lot through injuries it's massively highlighted. The weird thing is I remember watching Kolli in the dev team and he very much played the Eze role. Picking the ball up in his own half and being a playmaker. Simply not being used in that role and he's had his own injury issues.
It could be one of the reasons we go for Edwards in this window again. The lad can play CB very well but we also know he can play the midfield role too and there is a lot of Glenn Roeder in his style of play and for those of us who remember Roeder, he could explode through the midfield and create all sorts of chances.
But I think Madsen is as close as we have had to Faurlin in some time. Faurlin, if he hadn't killed his knees so many times would have played way above our level but he was the elegant playmaker we needed who could get stuck in. The best compliment I can pay Madsen is he's the nearest type of player we've had to him.
Faking injuries is the big one. I think if a player rolls around on the pitch like they've been shot and then get up as if nothing has happened it should be in the rules that the ref is allowed to kick them in the nuts.
Although I do remember Uncle Albert actually in tears after he scored twice against us years ago at Loftus Road. Two moments when you could almost see him screaming 'I hate my job!' Obviously Albert wasn't a journeyman.
Honestly his face and off mic words after their second goal probably summed up what we all felt. Poor lad has completely fallen into the QPR heaven and hell net.
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