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Comment | The return of flat February - Knee Jerks
at 11:52:52
Despite the score, I really enjoyed the Bristol game. They looked a good side defensively, hard to break down, but we played some really good stuff particularly in the second half. My feeling is that finally we're doing things the right way, the football this season has been good, we've blooded lots of young players and loaned a few more, but this is a work in progress. Ok Eze won't be with us next season but hopefully a nice fat wad will arrive that we can spend on replacing him and strengthening the squad. The world of social media means we can all complain about the lack of instant results and blame all and sundry if we lose, but as has been proved comprehensively by our mad spending spree in the premiership attempts at instant success rarely work...have patience, we're doing the right things now, it will come. |
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Comment | Summer-long striker search turns up Brighton loan — Signing
at 11:47:00
Seems to me that we're witnessing a pound shop version of what happened in the Hughes disaster season - we've even started signing un-needed goalkeepers. We all know what happened last time we tried to sign as many new players as you could fit into an old Mini in one season. I see very few reasons for optimism other than if we do go down to League 1 we might finally get the Caterham treatment from Mr Fernandes...which might even be worth a bus top parade in W12 in itself. |
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Comment | Big trouble in little W12 - Report
at 12:21:24
Must be what happens when you sack a dunce like Ollie and replace him with the best coach in the league...oh hang on...
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Comment | West Brom wallop seven through hapless QPR - Report
at 23:29:07
Get the feeling that McClaren watched the way England played in the World Cup and decided he was going to copy that style for Rangers....if only we had players who could do that. Recruitment has been terrible, loaning Manning out nothing short of ridiculous and I'd feared McClaren was a disaster waiting to happen as soon as he was appointed ...just talk to Newcastle fans about the nightmare he created there, by the end the players weren't listening to him and the team was a shambles...looks like he's getting there a lot faster with us. Happy to see the back of him as soon as possible - he cost Newcastle £1.7M in wages for 7 months disastrous work....surely Tony wouldn't have signed a contract like that with ...oh yes he bloody would! |
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Comment | Myths, scapegoats and excuses - Redknapp
at 08:48:29
Nice piece. Agree that players and managers who seem to perform well elsewhere don't make it at QPR. Tony and his chums turned up like small children playing at collecting expensive footballers and high profile managers. The club is getting close to £200M in debt due to the profligate ways of these irresponsible men and may be due to pay the Championship another £60M shortly, for the FFP fine. If we get relegated then we can expect a total meltdown, with everything that moves being sold, in an attempt to conform with the FFP rules. My concern is that our owners will do exactly what they did at Caterham when it became too much work and too expensive and either demand their money back and bankrupt the club a la Chris Wright or walk and leave us in a total mess, as the american owner of Oldham did a few years back. The next manager is almost certain to be Sherwood and the whole cycle will start again. The club is a mess and far from being our saviour Tony Fernandes seems to be leading us headlong towards disaster. And the worst thing is, that with the positively embarrassing publicity around Rangers over the last few years, few outside of our fan base will shed a tear if we crash and burn. |
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Comment | Not very good, not very lucky, QPR suffer crushing Bolton loss — full match report
at 12:54:19
I wondered what Hughes was going to do to the line up with the return of Cisse. Given the performance of the defence, he has now become obsessed with Derry playing the role that sits in front and effectively makes a back 5. This sort of worked against Everton because we only played with one up front. Having decided he had to to play with two strikers against Bolton, something had to go and it was one of the wingers, which led to the team playing narrow and as you say Clive an easier time for Bolton's full backs. |
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Comment | QPR’s Premier League pub crawl nears the Last Chance Saloon — full match preview
at 10:44:53
Warnock had both strengths and weaknesses, as we all do, including Mark Hughes. We just haven't seen enough of Hughes to identify either. My optimism quotient is very low for this season mainly because of the change of manager. I don't see what was to be gained by changing the manager, its just introduced another major change on top of the huge change already in place by recruiting so many new players this season. If we do go down it won't be for lack of investment and of trying, but I do think the board unnecessarily lost their nerve in January.
I'm giving a Fulham fan a lift to the match today - feel sorry for me if we lose - I'm going to have to put up with 40 minutes of him on the drive home! |
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Comment | This Week — Heading home, a broken team from a broken system
at 22:12:46
Clive, things at youth football level would seem to have changed a little in recent years, but not much. My son has been playing for a youth football team since he was 6. He's 12 now. The system starts with 7 a-side on small pitches up to age 9 or 10 then oddly and suddenly moves to 11 a-side with much larger pitches and full size goals. At 7-aside they played with size 3 footballs, moving up to size 4 for 11 a-side - still smaller than a full size football. The move to 11 aside means unless you are in central midfield or central defence you suddenly see a whole lot less of the ball. Because shape becomes more important on the big pitch players get nailed on to positions and told to keep the team shape, plus of course there is off-side to deal with. This seems like a totally mad move designed to put kids off the game - they should either gradually expand numbers up to 11 or keep playing 7 aside for longer. My son plays up front - his last season at 7-aside he scored 25 goals, in his first season at 11-aside he spent long periods never seeing the ball and eventually asked to go on the wing in the hope he might get to kick the ball now and again .
On the whole the size of the players doesn't seem to count for too much at least at age 12, our side is mainly a team of midgets (the coach blames us parents), but they are quick and like to pass the ball and they consistently outplay bigger sides - the big lads at this age are rarely quick as well as big.
Having said all of this the youth system is only there because of the goodwill of parents who give up spare time to coach sides - and its quite a commitment - training sessions, matches, actually getting enough players to turn up requires a lot of chasing - parents who dump their kids at training and clear off - it goes on. So how does the FA treat these parents willing to make this commitment and give up their free time - well it insists they go on coaching courses - that sounds good - except of course it charges these volunteers for going on the courses it insists they have to do. What else does the FA do at youth level to encourage the willing parents and hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic kids who turn out to play on Saturdays....nothing! In 6 years of playing my son has had a couple of lessons from FA sponsored coaches coming in from Chelsea - so that's 2 hours contribution to improving skills in 6 years. The parents coaching the kids can pass on the tactics that the FA has them pay to learn, but in most cases they are incapable of teaching skills because they can't execute the skills themselves. Meanwhile the FA spends hundreds of millions on Wembley and £6M a year on a coach. I've heard Trevor Brooking complain on the same lines - but sadly no-one is listening or it would seem at the FA cares. We're going to be saying the same in 4 years time and for much longer than that unless the FA stops squandering the fabulous riches that luck has dropped in its lap and starts investing where it really counts - in youth football. |
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