Forum | Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral by TK1

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Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral 09:18 - Oct 18 with 19571 views

Absolutely damning long-read in The Athletic. Lee Hoos standing on top of the Stan Bowles stand pissing on my head, while telling me it's raining gold:

(Hoos) defended Ainsworth’s style of play when that was put to him by The Athletic. “I’m not sure we always give up possession, the last five games that hasn’t been the case. I thought it had been fairly even. People got that from last year but he switched that after the first few games of this season, it’s a lot closer than people think (the two teams in possession) but because that perception is at the back of people’s minds that’s always what they fasten on to."

This makes me feel more doomy than the actual games. What are they looking at? Hoos now claiming we do not need a DOF or Sporting Director or whatever you want to call it.

https://theathletic.com/4969691/2023/10/18/qpr-gareth-ainsworth-downward-spiral/

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:02 - Oct 18 with 2705 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 14:29 - Oct 18 by TK1

Nothing at all?

Plus the idea he put forward that a manager on a terrible losing run stretching across two seasons signing players in their mid 30s on two and three year contracts alongside the head of recruitment is normal and sensible is plainly neither of those things, considering our history and everything the club has spent the previous seven years telling us.

I felt like I was going mad reading it. Real Chemical Ali tackle.

I dunno mate. It's his job. He has to find the positives. There's a million things to be fuming about at the moment, a couple of quotes from Hoos trying to remain positive and not chuck people under the bus are just about the last thing on my list.

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:21 - Oct 18 with 2648 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 14:38 - Oct 18 by toboboly
He had 8 years and we ended up with Chris Martin up front

Agree - but at one stage we had a squad with:

Dieng, Lumley, Furs, Manning, Eze, Chair, Kakay - even Oteh was kicking around the squad, plus Smyth, BOS, Masterson etc were players signed at a v young age (17 I think, at least in BOS's case), with an eye on the future.

At one point the general ethos was going well - developing internally (Lumley, Kakay, Oteh) and also picking up talents either nicked from smaller clubs (Smyth, BOS, Chair) or nabbed from bigger clubs who'd got rid of them (Amos, Masterson, Eze, Dieng), plus smart signings like Willock.

That was a plan that was working. I'm not arguing it hadn't fallen apart by last Feb as evidenced by Martin, but as Les said, they should have stuck to the plan.

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:29 - Oct 18 with 2601 views

BrianMcCarthy

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 14:11 - Oct 18 by Antti_Heinola
Remember when Les arrived, no one had come through the system, even in an Eze-style, for about 15 years. You can't just crank that up out of nothing.

True, and with this in mind Kevin Gallen's comment that nothing has come through in 8-10 years is true but generous to the club's history as a whole.

	"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Poll:	Player of the Year (so far)

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:29 - Oct 18 with 2602 views

daveB

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 14:15 - Oct 18 by TeddRanger

“The next season, we had Chris Willock, Ilias Chair, Seny Dieng, Rob Dickie, who we could have sold for good money. But we were in the top six. So the owners went, ‘We can’t sell our best players, we’re in the top six’. I said, ‘Well, hang on a minute, the remit is we need to raise money, we need to sell players’. Your players are going to be at their most valuable, unfortunately, when they’re in the top six. If I could change anything it would be having the plan and sticking to the plan rather than changing the plan.”

Can you imagine how many pitchforks would be flaming if we'd sold Willock and Chair when we were in the top six?

Lots of them but they needed to make unpopular decisions for the good of the club

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:29 - Oct 18 with 2595 views

Wegerles_Stairs

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 14:38 - Oct 18 by toboboly
He had 8 years and we ended up with Chris Martin up front

If we'd been developing or scouting players properly, we wouldn't have needed to sign the likes of Johansen or Austin. Teflon Les still abdicating responsibility.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:31 - Oct 18 with 2583 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:29 - Oct 18 by Wegerles_Stairs
If we'd been developing or scouting players properly, we wouldn't have needed to sign the likes of Johansen or Austin. Teflon Les still abdicating responsibility.

How is he Teflon? Honestly, what weird world do you live in?

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:32 - Oct 18 with 2567 views

Wegerles_Stairs

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:21 - Oct 18 by Antti_Heinola

Neither Kakay nor Oteh are Championship standard though. Chris Ramsey is clearly good at developing League 1 or 2 standard footballers, so maybe he'll finally be of some use next year.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:33 - Oct 18 with 2564 views

Wegerles_Stairs

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:31 - Oct 18 by Antti_Heinola
How is he Teflon? Honestly, what weird world do you live in?

I live in the real world, thank you.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:38 - Oct 18 with 2531 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:32 - Oct 18 by Wegerles_Stairs
Neither Kakay nor Oteh are Championship standard though. Chris Ramsey is clearly good at developing League 1 or 2 standard footballers, so maybe he'll finally be of some use next year.

I never said they were, nor was that really the point. But I think you know that. Or maybe you don't.

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:44 - Oct 18 with 2516 views

earthdweller

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 10:01 - Oct 18 by Welsh_Ranger
Can you copy the article TK1? I haven't got a subscription and doubt id want one to listen to more examples of how F@%ked we are.

With iPhone, disable java script to stop the paywall then you read the article.
Settings>Safari>Advanced>JavaScript toggle off.
Probably a way to do this on Android as well.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:44 - Oct 18 with 2516 views

daveB

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:33 - Oct 18 by Wegerles_Stairs
I live in the real world, thank you.

Ferdinand has been heavily criticised by fans for the last 8 years, not sure how he is teflon, he was getting pelters last season

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:50 - Oct 18 with 2492 views

terryb

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 14:11 - Oct 18 by Antti_Heinola
Remember when Les arrived, no one had come through the system, even in an Eze-style, for about 15 years. You can't just crank that up out of nothing.

That's not true Antti.

There might not have been many, but Langley, Jones, Bean & Bailey definitely came through the system during that time period.

I admit that I'm struggling to think of any others!

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:53 - Oct 18 with 2482 views

vanrrrr

Hoos . “I’m not sure we always give up possession, the last five games that hasn’t been the case. I thought it had been fairly even. People got that from last year but he switched that after the first few games of this season, it’s a lot closer than people think (the two teams in possession) but because that perception is at the back of people’s minds that’s always what they fasten on to. “

Hoos comes across so badly . He’s basically guessing here and knocking fans. Andrew’s data analysis shows we are 3rd bottom for possession even before we factor in we are sht once we do have the ball… but it’s our perception? Give it fcking rest.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:10 - Oct 18 with 2413 views

Northernr

Obviously with these it's a skim across the top for an audience of non QPR fans, so there's lots here we already knew.

The big bits of concern for me are... there's an unnamed first team source willing to speak off the record. I can't remember the last time that happened here. It was rife in the Redknapp and Hughes days but the club has been very tight for a long time on things like that. That somebody(s) is now willing to take that risk of speaking to journos is not a good sign, does not suggest a happy camp at all. On the medical/sport science bit of the business, Gareth was allowed to bring in Ben Williams and others over the summer, but as far as I can tell none of the people previously doing those jobs for Beale et al were let go, possibly to avoid paying them off. We've got staff tripping over themselves down there, and the football side basically spent the back half of last season blaming those guys for their failures. Suspect there's some disgruntlement there.

And also LH now talking about not needing a DOF, never had one before, he'll do it with Belk and Ainsworth. This is bad, in my opinion, for so many reasons. Firstly, as I keep sdaying, Hoos basically hung his hat on being a numbers and figures guy who left the football to the football people when he first came here, which was the right approach. Secondly, our owners have persistently shown themselves to be benevelent but incompetent, and if they just give the keys to the manager then he makes uber short term decisions to shore up his own position rather than medium and long term benefits for the club. This club needs a DOF more than just about any other. Three, if you are letting Ainsworth run the show, then you either have to appoint another Ainsworth-type to replace him when he goes (Pulis?) or you have to completely rip the thing up and start again under a new guy who wants to play a more palatable style - this is precisely what was happening before and what we were meant to be getting away from. And, four, Belk and Ainsworth are completely opposite ends of the football spectrum when it comes to style. Belk likes players like Willock, Paal and Dozzell, Ainsworth likes Chris Martin and Sam Vokes and Leon Balogun. It's like having a joint management team of Russell Martin and Sam Allardyce. And fifthly, the club are meant to have engaged some fancy US data analytics and recruitment company (presumably at some expense) to source a new DOF, a process being driven by Richard Reilly, and now you've got the CEO here saying we don't need one - so which is it?

All in all, pretty grim.

We're winning this weekend by the way. 1-0. It's the most QPR thing to do.

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Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:19 - Oct 18 with 2385 views

toboboly

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:21 - Oct 18 by Antti_Heinola

Not sure you can count most of those if the idea is to bring through young talent, play said talent and sell for a profit;

Kakay - has come through, not really good enough but tries hard, however there will be no fee when he does leave

Oteh - no fee, absolute rubbish

Manning - left for almost nothing because a manager brought a load of other players in and refused to play him, surely a DoF would have prevented that?

Smyth - same as above, received no fee and then we had to bring him back!

Chair - Decent player, should have been sold when we were riding high and may have fetched 8 figures, the DoF should be pushing such sales, doubt we will get much if/when he does go in January or July

Masterson - brought in looked half decent then see Manning above, no fee received when left.

Furlong - came through and sold for ok money, slight caveat is that he was here well before LF

Bright - not developed through our youth system, left for very little due to the same issue as Manning above

Eze - only positive so far

Lumley - did ok, hounded out by fans, no fee received, slight caveat was here before LF

Dieng - did well, not sold at peak, dropped off a cliff and sold for not very much

From what I can see almost all of the players were sold at less than they could have been had a DoF been aggressive in negotiating and mindful of the clubs future regarding FFP.

We can also see some of the issues that a DoF could have prevented by following 'the model' QPR were supposed to be using;

Travelman - no ability, silly contract, no fee

Austin and Johansen - good loans, far too much wages for permanent transfers

Lee Wallace - older player, often injured

Odubajo - see Wallace

Liam Kelly - see Wallace, also prevented younger players getting games

Archer/Marshall/Westwood/Dillon Barnes - blocked youth players, cost more money than younger players

Chris Martin - already covered

El-Khayati/Borysiuk/Nbakoto/Hendrick/Ramkilde/JET - give me strength

Bad loan signings - Hemed/Clarke/LuaLua/Ravel Morrison 2nd time around/Angella

Sean Goss - how much did we waste on this guy again???!!! no fee.

It just goes on and on and on, I will always clap LF for what he did as a player and had he at least stuck to his guns as a DoF I would respect him for that, but the amount of poor recruitment under his watch, the complete lack of talent coming through, the feeble returns for the talent we did have on the books is a massive reason why this club is going to fall through the trapdoor into League 1 and will be lucky to see the grassy Championship uplands for quite some time.

Sexy Asian dwarves wanted.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:26 - Oct 18 with 2361 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 15:50 - Oct 18 by terryb
That's not true Antti. There might not have been many, but Langley, Jones, Bean & Bailey definitely came through the system during that time period. I admit that I'm struggling to think of any others!

Well, Langley was late 90s, so that's him out.
Let's compromise then and say a decade.

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:32 - Oct 18 with 2337 views

Benny_the_Ball

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 11:45 - Oct 18 by daveB

This bit is the big one for me from Ferdinand, real opportunity missed

In an interview with Kammy and Ben’s Proper Football Podcast, he said: “When I came through the door at QPR we talked about how we needed to bring players in, develop them and then sell. We did that with Eze. And we knew that was the model.

“The next season, we had Chris Willock, Ilias Chair, Seny Dieng, Rob Dickie, who we could have sold for good money. But we were in the top six. So the owners went, ‘We can’t sell our best players, we’re in the top six’. I said, ‘Well, hang on a minute, the remit is we need to raise money, we need to sell players’. Your players are going to be at their most valuable, unfortunately, when they’re in the top six. If I could change anything it would be having the plan and sticking to the plan rather than changing the plan.”

I broadly agree with Les there but you also have to factor in ambition and the pandemic. Moreover, did Les identify or recruit adequate replacements? The latest crop suggests not. That's where clubs like Brentford have excelled. They sold Maupay and Watkins stepped up. They signed Toney and immediately sold Watkins.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:37 - Oct 18 with 2318 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:19 - Oct 18 by toboboly

I think we're on different trains here mate.
I don't disagree with most of your points there. But for me, the point is there was a stage where what we were doing was the right thing. We were fielding an attractive team with a lot of youth picked up for very little. The ethos was correct. What happened after that - players leaving for cheap, in some cases unluckily, in others not so, players going backwards, is not really that relevant to what I was saying. You could make the sort of points you make about almost all players at all clubs. I don't buy all the 'we didn't develop him since he was 9' stuff - that's bollox. If you bring in a player whio has not been near a first team and turn him into a first team player, you have developed him. QPR used to do this all the time in the 80s/early 90s. Les himself was saying they shiould've stuck to the plan and sold players at their height.

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:48 - Oct 18 with 2281 views

slmrstid

Liam Kelly was 23 when we signed him so not sure how a 23 year old playing games was preventing youngsters getting games. He was the youngster who had potential to be a bright young signing we could sell on for future profit. The fact it never worked out that way because he couldn't quite make the step up shouldn't be a criticism that he was stopping somehow even younger better goalkeepers at QPR getting a chance.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:56 - Oct 18 with 2251 views

BAWHoops

When we interviewed Lee Hoo's on Open All R's the thing that stood out for me was how much of, for want of a better phrase, a starf*cker he was.
We were asking him questions about the business side of the club and strategy and all he could keep going on about was how good Illy and Willy were and that he 'wanted to keep the band together'.

What's so frustrating is that after Warbs had a tilt at promotion (arguably, rightly so) it only needed to set us back a year or so once it hadn't planned out.
A sale was needed summer 2022. I don't buy 'there were no offers'. You had a player in Chair who was in the £5-£10m bracket and who could've been sold to the whole of Europe. It was an eminently easy deal to get done if they had wanted to.

Instead we diverted from the project for the second summer in a row (after the outlay on Field, Johansen, Austin, Gray, Dozzell etc) and it's snookered us.

We had identified the problem, basically got ourselves out of a death spiral... then let hubris pull us back in.

QPR's summer business every single season needs to start with the question 'Who are we selling this summer at a profit?'

http://blogandwhitehoops.wordpress.com/

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 17:00 - Oct 18 with 2233 views

Northernr

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:56 - Oct 18 by BAWHoops

Yeh I'm not sure the "you can only sell if you have an offer" really washes now Les has basically said the opposite publicly. They definitely could have sold Willock, at least, if they'd wanted to.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 17:13 - Oct 18 with 2173 views

toboboly

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:37 - Oct 18 by Antti_Heinola

I disagree. I think we are on the same train but completely different carriages.

Apart from two 5 month spells across two different seasons under Warburton there was never a sustained period of playing well let alone attractively;

Redknapp - no (despite going up and having the squad he did most games were a trial)
Chris Ramsay - no
JFH - no
McLaren - no
Ollie mk2 - no
Warburton - yes as described above
Beale - a few games
Critchley - no
Ainsworth - no

Did we play much youth from 2015 onwards? We utilised very few young players initially;

Dunne/Sandro/Barton/Hill/Wright-Phillips/Green/Henry/Krancjar/Zamora

Then Konchesky/Perch/Tozser/Mackie/Lynch/Big M Smith/Baptiste

Then Cameron/Rangel/Leistner/Hemed/Wells etc

Bright and Manning specifically left because they weren't getting games. Youth was very rarely given a chance under McLaren or JFH. Ollie mk 2 started to make inroads but this was all undone by McLaren. Warburton only really played younger players whom had already established themselves, preferring Wallace/Odubajo/Hendrick. Hendrick ffs.

The ethos was correct but was never actually used. Read Clive's reports, season previews and season summaries, they all lament letting our top talent wither on the bench and go elsewhere, McLarens "team of men", Warburton using Wallace, Cameron, Gray, Odubajo and the laughable keeper situation when we had a youth prospect on the bench who turned out to be just as good if not better.

It is a fantasy to say we played loads of youth under LF's tenure, it is even more unrealistic to say that we nurtured and developed talent and sold it for a profit. If we had done then we would be looking up and not down, like Brentford and Brighton are.

We did "the right thing" for about 6 months....out of 8 years. If LF had the conviction of his beliefs then he should have stood for them and walked if needs be. He didn't. For him to come out now and say he 'wishes he had' isn't enough, he was part of the mess, a large part, a mess that will likely see us consigned to an oblivion it will be hard to come back from.

That is on him, that is on the owners, that is on the players whom "were all the right sorts" yet were humbled 3 times in a season by fcking Peterborough, that's on that stupid cnt Hoos who reckons we will get out of FFP by charging people £40 to go into the blue and white bar but it took a riot for him to give a fck about how $hit the online shop/store was.

Fck them. Fck them all and I hope they all rot in fcking hell together.

Sexy Asian dwarves wanted.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 17:26 - Oct 18 with 2154 views

toboboly

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:48 - Oct 18 by slmrstid

He wasn't a youngster he was 23 and with around 100 appearances under his belt, he was a seasoned player, not good enough and kept Lumley from getting more appearances despite establishing himself the season before.

He also didn't get us a fee when he left.

That all seems like a failure on every conceivable level. At least with Ingram we tried and got a fee when it was decided he could move on.

Sexy Asian dwarves wanted.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 17:49 - Oct 18 with 2092 views

Antti_Heinola

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 17:13 - Oct 18 by toboboly

No, I was mistaken, we're on totally different trains. There's so much to untangle in that lot that it'd take me until tomorrow to rebuff it! You might be right - personally, I think most of that isn't - but it's going to be very boring going any further.
No idea whatsoever what Redknapp or this list:
Dunne/Sandro/Barton/Hill/Wright-Phillips/Green/Henry/Krancjar/Zamora
has to do with Ferdinand, seeing as every single one was signed well before he arrived.
Anyway, let's shake hands and call it a night, I'vbe probably explained myself very poorly as usual!

Bare bones.

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 18:10 - Oct 18 with 2032 views

jtuck

Athletic: This is the sorry tale of a club stuck in an ominous downward spiral on 16:10 - Oct 18 by Northernr

Lee Hoos has nailed his colours to the Ainsworth mast and should go along with GA. A clear-out is needed. Hoos as a football tactician who deciphers possession stats is hilarious in all the wrong ways. Really at this point Hoos IS the de facto DOF with no qualifications for that role.

LAranger

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