Having not as yet seen us play this season I clearly can’t comment first hand on performances however the overwhelming doom and gloom over the past 10 days is staggering. I get that we have been pretty poor, lacked much of a goal threat, had the same sort of issues Olly had with half time changes etc but are we really a relegation team? Yes I hear some people cry, probably those same people who kept on crying out for Olly to be sacked or for Fernandes to sell up etc (better the devil you know and all that) but on what basis?
Our team is weak at the back and can’t score goals? Our team is physically weak and is getting bullied, our team is full of nice lads who can’t do the dark arts as well as other teams?
Okay, so all of those may or may not be true over a 46 game season, but and this is the crucial part, where did we finish last year and the season before that? Safe of relegation, never anywhere near the relegation zone in fact, even two years ago when we went through two horrendous loosing spells we didn’t get anywhere hear it.
So if those sides stayed up fairly comfortably and last year certainly was comfortable, is our team any weaker than then? Yes I hear some cry look at who we have lost, well yes, Ned is a huge loss both on and off the pitch, by Leinster has, in his short QPR career done very well by all accounts. Smithies, clearly an absolutely class keeper, but equally we have two keepers that all our managers have rated extremely highly. Whilst Ingram’s distribution has been pretty poor so far is he really the reason we are terrified of league 1? Perhaps the elisive Jack Robinson, missing for 3 years and then plays pretty well for the best part of half a season, much of which was covering the injured Ned? James Perch, the man whom regularly tried, in Northern’a words to ‘kill a man to death’ in his attempts at tackling and was generally pretty woeful at right back? Or the beloved Jamie Mackie whom despite being an absolute QPR hero, had a failrly minimal impact over the past 12 months.
Compare the losses with the incomings, this time a year ago we had barely even loaned Eze out to league 2, nor had we seen anything from Paul Smyth, Darnell Furlong was a sub at best, Osayi-Samuel was barely in the squad. These players are an improvement to the squad and with the exception of Mackie leaving I cannot thing of a single other attacking player that we have lost. In which case this shot shy team of nailed on relegation candidates are in fact a new Number 10 Messiah (tongue firmly in cheek) and our most recent Norhern Irish international better than we were a year ago. I seem to recall us scoring goals last year.....
So if my assessment of the squad is right, loaning a bit of experience, perhaps a Rangel, a CB and a striker and we will in fact have a squad that is potentially far stronger than last year. So I really really don’t see the need for the massive overreaction to loosing a couple of games. |  |
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