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Reply | Huge Win
at 18:15 28 Nov 2024
I agree. In the freezing light of day, Celar's superb goals and Nardi's qualities got us over the line, though we defended well when we had to. A team with even a modicum more finesse than Cardiff would have won comfortably with their possession and stats, but you can only beat who's in front of you.
I still don't much fancy us at Watford but will be salivating if the team shove my words down my throat. |
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Reply | Gaffer on tonight's win
at 18:09 28 Nov 2024
Yes - but apart from lacking speed, strength, courage and a goal threat, we're doing OK, right?  |
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Reply | Gaffer on tonight's win
at 18:05 28 Nov 2024
Well, I am delighted, but it's qualified, which is only sensible when we're concerned.
You make a good point about my apparent inconsistency in praising us more highly at Burnley under Ainsworth (two goals, three points, ludicrously defensive) than Marti (one point, no goals, a bit less defensive), but then I'm not even the same person I was a minute ago!
As Walt Whitman said, 'do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)'  [Post edited 28 Nov 18:07]
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Reply | Willock?
at 17:56 28 Nov 2024
I agree, though also a little sadly. (I'm a 'both-and' rather than 'either-or' kind of man.) |
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 16:47 28 Nov 2024
If you can't see that 'an adult speaking to another adult by prefacing a highly contentious speculation with 'I hate to break it you that . . .' is patronising and therefore likely to get a reaction, I'm sorry for you. You're like someone pointing at the moon and mistaking his own finger for it, or putting the cart before the horse. Of course, the ususal supects have their favourties and scapegoats on here. Whatever my many flaws, I just respond and react to what's written, not who's writing it, and I engage on that basis.
As for my writing, I write as I see fit, just like you. If you have a problem with some of my 'long words', get a dictionary! [Post edited 28 Nov 16:50]
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Reply | New boys
at 16:39 28 Nov 2024
Ridiculously harsh.
Dembele is injured and needs a ruin of games, with good coaching, as he clearly has a lot of talent. It's down to Marti, as well as the player, to show that, so your fears are just that, and we can all fear anything.
If you still think Celar is a 'dud' after last night's goals, even if he still has to improve his all-round game, you're mean-spirited and/or not watching.
Madsen needs to be better and stronger, but I think he will imrpove and is showing some signs.
Ashby has been getting a lot of plaudits. |
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Reply | Cifuentes’ comments
at 16:33 28 Nov 2024
'QPR need to improve' is hardly headline news, is it? And how is thanking 'everybody' pointed in any way? There's reading between the lines, and then there's over-reading.
I think his reference to the owners pretty much implies the board, unless he means to say the former are telling him how much they like and want to support him but failing to pass that onto the latter (on which Ruben and Amit themselves sit), which would be weird even for us.
As he's/we've had such a bad start, in my view Marti's doing what most managers do whose teams are struggling and sending out a message about what more he needs to protect himself and modifying his much sunnier assessment of our recruitment a mere three months ago. That's hardly news either - it's called downward managemnt of expectations, which has always gone on at QPR. In any case, no manager ever says he's totally happy with this squad and pleads for it not be added to, let's face it.
The bottom line is, if the team can't improve, everyone is to blame - Marti, Nourry, the Board, the owners, and the players, in whatever order. |
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Reply | New boys
at 16:22 28 Nov 2024
Thirded! As Marti himself said in the key interview I've posted from August (about his satisfaction with our summer recruitment), his job was/is to get the parts harmonised in a cohesive team. If, on that basis, he doesn't manage to do that, he's failing as a coach, I'm afraid. They're his players, or at least players we know he values and trusts (as he continually tells us he does) and had a big input on signing, as evidenced by the above interview and the recent summary of a 1-1 fan convo with my old friend Lee Hoos (unless whoever it was told me Marti might have been lying now wants to say Hoos is lying too).
The players, most of them, still have plenty to prove, but so does Marti in my book. Again, as he says himself, this is a new season, and last season's great escape, while a bit of sentimental credit in the bank, means nothing this year. In the words of John Sitton, good players want to be good players all the time, but so do good managers. |
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Reply | Gaffer on tonight's win
at 11:30 28 Nov 2024
I'm as delighted as aonyone with the result of course, and how it came about, but wonder what Marti and others think about the performance as a whole, which I feel is getting muted a bit amid all the understandable relief.
Cardiff had nearly 70% possession, a massive 24 shots (7 on target), and 14 corners. We were defensively resilient, but Nardi literally saved us on a number of occasions. By contrast, apart from the goals and a decent effort from Smyth, we hardly troubled their keeper.
I know we're struggling, but this was Cardiff, not Bayern Munich - who until recently had been rank! Keep performing in that 'backs to the wall' way away from home, and we won't pick up a lot of points, I fear.
Watford will tell us a lot, when we'll hopefully have Colback back - though I'm a bit worried he'll be off the pace and pick up a card or possibly two.
Any thoughts? [Post edited 28 Nov 11:31]
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 11:18 28 Nov 2024
Your prerogative (if you're reading this), but then why contribute to it signficantly if you don't expect a response youmay or may not agree with? This a a fan board, not a mothers' meeting.
As for 'aggressive toxicity', though I see none here (only interesting/important argument and counter-argument), there's also something called passive aggression/self-righteousness you may want to consider. In my experience, a lot of people who make accusations about the former love to indulge in the latter. [Post edited 28 Nov 16:48]
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 11:10 28 Nov 2024
I guess I'm quaintly old-fashioned in (i) wanting my club to be (more) transparent rather than pleading for our CEO to go on behaving like an ink-spurting squid and (ii) arguing with journalistic evidence/common sense rather than indulging in mystifying speculation. Presumably, then, you two are delighted with the club's current comms strategy? [Post edited 28 Nov 16:43]
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 10:59 28 Nov 2024
No, it isn't - it's misinformed, occultising nonsense! [Post edited 28 Nov 10:59]
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 10:51 28 Nov 2024
Christ alive, stop wriggling on your silly pin (laced with patronising/smug cliche) and take a clearly supported point! So now you need to cast Marti as a liar to save your simple-minded (and entirely speculative) contrarian/perverse thesis about his relentless dissatisfaction? Embarrassing! [Post edited 28 Nov 10:52]
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 10:43 28 Nov 2024
Since when does any manager get everything he wants (or necessarily should)? The financial restrictions etc. the club has been have been exhaustively (and exhaustingly) rehearsed on this very board for one thing - frequently by the same people who argue for a collective approach to recruitment. Do you want Marti to be like Brian Clough at Derby - buying players over the heads of the Baord? Won't/can't happen in 2024, however romantic and maverick it was.
As I've already posted, Marti already told the South London Press and Mercury at the end of August he felt we had an 'almost perfect' recruitment over the summer and was 'convinced' we had signed some good players, so it would be extremely odd if he'd now suspiciously changed his mind in a way that couldn't possibly have something to do with his coaching then to bottom (now first from bottom in the table).
For those like Padula's Shampoo who apparently still haven't read/digested it, here it is in black and white from the horse's mouth:
https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/sport/im-very-stubborn-marti-cifuentes-provides-a
A bit unfortunate for the black and white thinkers about Nourry as devli's spawn and Marti as benighted messiah, but, just for once, don't shoot the messenger! Sometimes it's good to let the facts get in the way of - or at least curdle/complicate - a good story/fan meltdown. (Apologies to the usual suspects who need to think of me through mythic (or myth-thick) lenses) as some kind of contorted contrarian!) [Post edited 28 Nov 16:43]
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Reply | A conversation with Lee Hoos
at 10:22 28 Nov 2024
I wouldn't want to disappoint you, Francis Bowles  , though, believe it or not, there are a lot more important things in my life these days than revisiting my transient spleen about our finger-popping former Chief Executive! If he's coming across positively to one or two in the swim of things, I'm glad for him and them, and maybe I'm wrong about absolutely everything.
Yes, Hoos and the board will obviously act immediately on 1,000 emails of varying degrees of literacy/sanity urging personnel changes tout de suite! Christ, I got pelters on here, rather than support, from the usual suspects from sending a reasoned one to him a few moons back about some burning topic I've now forgotten about! It's hard to take it all seriously - even though I do, perversely. (As Kafka so wonderfully put it, football is the most important of the less important things.)
Accountability is a collective thing, and, as a glorified accountant, Hoos and his colleagues should understand that better than most. I think a lot of the hysteria around Nourry et al is basically a by-product of the miasma in the owners'/board's lamentable communication, spiced with wounded amour propre re Marti's disinterest in granting the likes of a fanboard like this an interview once in a while, so perhaps PM can build a bridge and the club can buck the trend and start treating the fans like invested adults.
All that said, we start climbing the table, the likes of Celar and Madsen continue to improve, and a lot of it disappears like yesterday's fish and chip paper! [Post edited 28 Nov 16:42]
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Reply | Willock?
at 10:08 28 Nov 2024
Maybe if you're having a kickabout on Hackney Marshes, but hardly if you're a professional representing the fans who pay said wages. By contrast, look how hurting Cook has been looking in his last couple of interviews. Willock, for all his giftedness, isn't fit (and often literally wasn't) to lace his boots. |
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Reply | Cardiff City V QPR.FC Match Thread.
at 09:56 28 Nov 2024
Just about everyone here from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom was saying the same thing, so no idea why you'e chewing this guy out. What we can all agree is Celar answered his critics handsomely on the night, even if he still need to up his all-round game significantly, and the criticism has been deserved. One, or even two, Slovenian swallows don't make a summer, but his confidence should be through the roof now.
We won that game through resilience, great goalkeeping, and two moments of quality. Much of it was hardly convincing, and we were mostly outplayed, but the points are gold/goal dust right now. A point at Waford and then 4 (or better 6) at home to Oxford and Norwich, and things will be looking up. [Post edited 28 Nov 10:05]
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Reply | Cardiff City V QPR.FC Match Thread. (n/t)
at 21:42 27 Nov 2024
More important than Silverfox's obsession with me, we're off the bottom and two points from Cardiff and safety. They had so much ball, and it can't go on, but we had balls. Something to build on at last.
As they say in the Bible, selah! [Post edited 27 Nov 21:51]
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