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talk sport and Les 13:54 - Dec 28 with 38698 viewsmacclesfieldman

talk sport discussing QPR this morning and wanted to talk to LF but Les said he was too poorly with a flu to take a telephone call. Bless.

Wild horses couldn't drag me away...

0
talk sport and Les on 10:28 - Dec 29 with 2877 viewspompeyhoop

talk sport and Les on 20:36 - Dec 28 by daveB

Maybe he actually has flu, I have it at the moment, is a right pain and i wouldn't want to chat on the phone with someone about work at the moment either

What qualifications does he have for the job?

Well what qualifications did Phil Beard have to sign players? Or David Davies or Amit Bhatia or Gianni Paladini? They have all held that role in recent years of negotiating the transfers, none of them had a clue what they were doing at first, their qualifications for the role never questioned but a bloke who has worked in football all his life and has been doing the role for two years gets this constant bullshit aimed at him as it's his first job of this type.

Everyone who holds this position will at one stage have done it for the first time and learnt what they were doing, Alex Ferguson learnt on the job how to be a manager, Lionel Messi learnt on the job how to be a footballer, they never have all the answers on day one but learning and gaining experience of a role is a good thing and Les has learnt a lot in 2 years and is more than qualified for his role.

So all of QPR's problems down to him are they? Bullshit

Was it Les Ferdinand who closed the academy in the 90's?
Was it Les Ferdinand who gave no funding to the youth set up for over a decade allowing it to rot whilst other clubs in the area invested and left us behind.
Was it Les Ferdinand who spunked 200 million up the wall at mercenary players and robbing managers and wasted 2 attempts at the premier league and left us financially in a worst position after winning the lottery twice.

Ferdinand has come into the role when the money run out, when the FFP rules had been breached so we had to comply after relegation if we were to have any chance of avoiding a deserved 70million fine. Not hard to get the wage bill down? If you say so but something no one else managed or even tried to manage

He could have continued on the same path and said sod it lets go mad again, throw money at it and off we go, no guarantee that would have worked, it didn't before. Instead he did what many asked for, he created a pathway to the first team for youth players, in the last 2 years Doughty, Furlong, Grego Cox, Kakay, Shodipo, Lumley, Kwpewka and the finnish kid have all made first team appearances, not a hope in hell that would have happened before.

We've signed younger players who see QPR as a step up, another thing we wanted when the like of Boswingwa, Park and Chris Samba were being made millionaires by the club, now those players need to be developed and won't be great straight away but in Smithies, Ingram, Hall, Luongo, Cousins, Sylla, Wszoleck and Chery he's signed some very decent prospects who could go on and big big players for us. Not every signing has worked but not every signing worked under more experienced men like Redknapp and Hughes, these failures haven't been as costly though.

Managerial appointments haven't worked but the club is still run by Fernandes who still listens to twitter so Ramsey came in when fans called for a coach rather than an old school manager, he listened when we wanted an up and coming manager in Hasselbaink and he listened when we wanted a QPR man. Perhaps he should stop listening to us but thats the man Ferdinand is working for and thats the one you should be moaning about rather than the bloke trying to fix his mess.

Just bloody typical at QPR that the people doing the right thing are the ones being attacked by fans.
[Post edited 28 Dec 2016 20:39]


100% agree, we didn't want mercenaries robbing us, we don't wanna give time to developing lesser player, we want it to magically happen! Social media has actually made me dislike a lot of our fan base

Anton Ferdinand was not a very good footballer...

6
talk sport and Les on 10:33 - Dec 29 with 2866 viewsfrancisbowles

talk sport and Les on 01:01 - Dec 29 by CamberleyR

"can anyone name a club where having a DOF actually works ?"

Southampton
Manchester City
Everton
Ch*ls**
Leicester

Just five examples. Unless you mean Football League clubs....


The fakes haven't done too bad over the years with a DOF who was with the club for many years, until last year when he left to work at West Brom in a slightly different role.
0
talk sport and Les on 10:54 - Dec 29 with 2824 views1MoreBrightonR

talk sport and Les on 20:36 - Dec 28 by daveB

Maybe he actually has flu, I have it at the moment, is a right pain and i wouldn't want to chat on the phone with someone about work at the moment either

What qualifications does he have for the job?

Well what qualifications did Phil Beard have to sign players? Or David Davies or Amit Bhatia or Gianni Paladini? They have all held that role in recent years of negotiating the transfers, none of them had a clue what they were doing at first, their qualifications for the role never questioned but a bloke who has worked in football all his life and has been doing the role for two years gets this constant bullshit aimed at him as it's his first job of this type.

Everyone who holds this position will at one stage have done it for the first time and learnt what they were doing, Alex Ferguson learnt on the job how to be a manager, Lionel Messi learnt on the job how to be a footballer, they never have all the answers on day one but learning and gaining experience of a role is a good thing and Les has learnt a lot in 2 years and is more than qualified for his role.

So all of QPR's problems down to him are they? Bullshit

Was it Les Ferdinand who closed the academy in the 90's?
Was it Les Ferdinand who gave no funding to the youth set up for over a decade allowing it to rot whilst other clubs in the area invested and left us behind.
Was it Les Ferdinand who spunked 200 million up the wall at mercenary players and robbing managers and wasted 2 attempts at the premier league and left us financially in a worst position after winning the lottery twice.

Ferdinand has come into the role when the money run out, when the FFP rules had been breached so we had to comply after relegation if we were to have any chance of avoiding a deserved 70million fine. Not hard to get the wage bill down? If you say so but something no one else managed or even tried to manage

He could have continued on the same path and said sod it lets go mad again, throw money at it and off we go, no guarantee that would have worked, it didn't before. Instead he did what many asked for, he created a pathway to the first team for youth players, in the last 2 years Doughty, Furlong, Grego Cox, Kakay, Shodipo, Lumley, Kwpewka and the finnish kid have all made first team appearances, not a hope in hell that would have happened before.

We've signed younger players who see QPR as a step up, another thing we wanted when the like of Boswingwa, Park and Chris Samba were being made millionaires by the club, now those players need to be developed and won't be great straight away but in Smithies, Ingram, Hall, Luongo, Cousins, Sylla, Wszoleck and Chery he's signed some very decent prospects who could go on and big big players for us. Not every signing has worked but not every signing worked under more experienced men like Redknapp and Hughes, these failures haven't been as costly though.

Managerial appointments haven't worked but the club is still run by Fernandes who still listens to twitter so Ramsey came in when fans called for a coach rather than an old school manager, he listened when we wanted an up and coming manager in Hasselbaink and he listened when we wanted a QPR man. Perhaps he should stop listening to us but thats the man Ferdinand is working for and thats the one you should be moaning about rather than the bloke trying to fix his mess.

Just bloody typical at QPR that the people doing the right thing are the ones being attacked by fans.
[Post edited 28 Dec 2016 20:39]


Post of the year for me too
1
talk sport and Les on 10:59 - Dec 29 with 2811 views1BobbyHazell

talk sport and Les on 03:03 - Dec 29 by FredManRave

As per usual some middle ground is needed in this debate. Les is neither the savour (so far) or the devil incarnate as both sides would have us believe.

To try and answer some of Daves points in his post;

You mention learning on the job and that Les has learnt a lot in his first two years. Bearing in mind the shambolic situation that we were in 2 years ago the ideal scenario would not have been to take on board a DOF taking on his first such position such that he could learn a lot in his first two years.

Nobody is blaming all of our problems on Ferdinand. Full Stop. Everybody understands the academy and spending problems that preceeded him and therefore nobody is blaming him for that.

When Ferdinand came to the club the financial position was clear. The over spending days were over. That wasn't a decision that he took, that is what he faced. And he acted accordingly getting the high erners off the books. There was absolutely no way he had the option to "have continued on the same path and said sod it lets go mad again, throw money at it and off we go" so to give him credit for not doing that is completely false.

I won't comment too much on the signing of players even though it is an important part of his remit beause there have been some good and some bad, exactly the same as at every club although some of the youngsters that made it to first team apearances were few and far between and have since found themselves being loaned out.

Regarding the wage bill, he came in at the perfect time. It was astronomical. The only way could ever have been down. He's done well to achieve that but still not the most difficult task, all things considered.

And finally, the managerial appointments. I appreciate it's hindsight but even so giving Ramsey the caretaker role and then the permanent role were huge mistakes and even though he had to go I didn't like the wording and the way it was dealt with by Ferdinand. JFH appeared a good appointment at the time inspite of the warnings of his non QPR style of play and obvious lack of experience and unfortunately for all of us it turned out to be an appointment that gave us neither the resuts or quality of football that we would have hoped for.. And now we find ourselves with Holloway that with 6 games is, to put it mildly, not going well.

In summary, and inspite of how this post may read I'm not actually in any way against Ferdinand or Holloway. I'm sure ALL of us want them to do well and be a success but my view from afar tells me that whilst there have been some improvements there have also been some important mistakes made (again I realise due to hindsight) in Ferdinands 2 year tenure.

Fwiw, I don't think we'll get relegated, I want Holloway to succeed and to be given at the very least this season and I want and hope that Ferdinand continues to improve through experience and as a consequence stays in the job for many more years and with Holloway as manager because that could only be good for QPR. It's what we want, isn't it?!

However, that's not to say that it's not been a very difficult couple of years for Les but I hope, as surely we all do, that things and to an extent our luck turn around pretty damn soon such that we can remember this as being maybe the lowest point, football/table wise and that we can soon start the long road back to mid table obscurity with a team of players that we can all be proud of and show pride in wearing the hopes and witha willigness to battle and to improve.

U R's.

Oh and PS. DaveB. I think your man flu is more likely cold turkey after going 1 day without alcohol for the firt time in well over a week!
[Post edited 29 Dec 2016 3:22]


Fair(ish) post Fred.

I'm certainly not claiming that Les has done a perfect job. Does such a thing exist? But he came in at the absolute sh1t end of the wedge and has clearly moved a lot of things in the right direction. It's a shame to see some fans taking it all for granted or even describing him as a disaster.

After having Rigg and Beard bend us quietly over the desk for Hughes, Kia, Harry etc to fill their boots whilst Tone stood by all excited in his signed shirt and full kit writing out the cheques I can't believe some people still wonder why we need a DOF.

I don't see turning round the mess being as easy as maybe you do. Teams relegated from the Premiership that have overstretched financially often fall into League 1, none of them had to recover from a loss as big as ours, none of them had as many mercenaries as we did on as much money as we paid, none of them were viewed by the football world (agents) as the biggest mugs in the game who would overpay for anyone from a bigger club, etc etc etc.

So we get rid of Les and then what? We let Tone, Ollie, Bircham and the fella from Hartlepool make all the football decisions? Where is the proof that that is going to work out any better?

Post Sillybigspend was always going to be tough.

We're all going to need to dig deep into our collective emotional fortitude to ride this out. Or just moan like f*ck every week, whatever works!
4
talk sport and Les on 11:26 - Dec 29 with 2760 viewsHunterhoop

Lots of great posts on here. Hats of to Dave, but also good contributions from Northern and BobbyHazell.

What I don't understand is how anyone can reach the conclusion that we don't need a DoF role. Football has changed. Almost all clubs have one. After what happened with Hughes and Kia, Redknapp, and the issues raised by the Telegraph investigations of managers potentially having vested interests, it's surely common sense to see the value of a DoF?!

Couple this with the reality of the modern game:
- managers come and go due to the short tempered views of fans, egos of mad entrepreneurial chairmen, and dummy spitting of players
- players come and go with alarming frequency. Champ Man, Deadline Day all exacerbate this
- agents in the ear of everyone touting their vested interests under the guise of short term success
- big amounts of money flying around due to TV and football being the best vehicle for money laundering imagineable for a Russian oligarch of Chinese billionaire.

Given all the above, surely the idea of having a DOF to oversee the club's strategic direction on the playing side (but not "manage the team") is valuable. It provides much needed consistency and stability (taking over 10-15 years here...), it can ensure a club identity is maintained, fans' interests are looked after, community involvement isn't sidelined, important projects like youth academies, training grounds, etc, do not lose focus. Etc, etc.

Is Les the best DoF in football? Of course no. Is he best qualified DoF out there? Almost certainly not.

However, is he qualified better than many other DoF's? Absolutely. Experience as a player and coach in the modern game and a genuine management qualification, which I believe was a year FT and is the FA's recommended qualification for non-coaching football leadership roles, surely position him well for a DoF role. He's not the CEO, remember. He's certainly not qualified for that. I'm more qualified for him than that. But as a DoF he is certainly not as unqualified as Rigg, Beard or Paladino, all of whom had responsibility when at the club for some of what he's now overseeing.

And most importantly of all, we need to remember we're QPR.

We love the club. We waste hours on here. We turn up on Saturdays, Tuesdays, even bloody Thursdays... However, for most people in football QPR is nothing. We're irrelevance. No one else gives two hoots about us. Yes, there may be the odd better qualified DoF in England than Les, but why would they come here?? They wouldn't. We're not a club able to attract the best. Even when we paid through the nose to do so on the playing and coaching side, we couldn't attract the best and those we did attract severely let us down.

No, we need to remember we're QPR and we probably can't attract better, more qualified DoF's. And, the one we have got, is actually a QPR man. One of the top 5 genuine QPR legends. Synonymous with QPR when you talk to other fans. A local lad. He palpably cares about the club.

So, is he the most qualified? No. Is he the best we can get? Quite possibly. Does he care? Yes.

Well, bloody well support him!! He needs it, Holloway needs it, the players need it, the whole bloody club needs it. We need to come together and support our club.

Stop trying to find blame and criticise. Our club is struggling on the pitch at first team level currently. But the club is full of QPR people. People who care about the club, genuinely care.

For the love of all that is good, SUPPORT THEM. And that starts with Les. Support him.
12
talk sport and Les on 11:39 - Dec 29 with 2742 viewsrsonist

The thing that people who love to croak "accountability" in black and white don't ever get at is how in football and in life you can very often happen upon a winning formula by accident and fail with the best laid plans and soundest intentions. It's not like doing some drywall. Same with anyone in his position, all Les can ever do and has ever done is make educated gambles and see how they pan out. Sometimes the percentages are surer sometimes riskier but they are always always gambles. There was an appreciable logic to appointing Ramsey, to appointing JFH, to appointing Ollie every time, at the time. Now if you want to turn round and say well they've all failed so fck off, everyone out, then that's your prerogative. But don't sit there and give us all this disingenuous and malicious hindsight b0llocks about how Les has always been incompetent, every decision was always destined to fail, the narrative reads perfectly backwards, and you knew it all along. Cos you didn't did you?
4
talk sport and Les on 11:54 - Dec 29 with 2707 viewsBrianMcCarthy

talk sport and Les on 20:36 - Dec 28 by daveB

Maybe he actually has flu, I have it at the moment, is a right pain and i wouldn't want to chat on the phone with someone about work at the moment either

What qualifications does he have for the job?

Well what qualifications did Phil Beard have to sign players? Or David Davies or Amit Bhatia or Gianni Paladini? They have all held that role in recent years of negotiating the transfers, none of them had a clue what they were doing at first, their qualifications for the role never questioned but a bloke who has worked in football all his life and has been doing the role for two years gets this constant bullshit aimed at him as it's his first job of this type.

Everyone who holds this position will at one stage have done it for the first time and learnt what they were doing, Alex Ferguson learnt on the job how to be a manager, Lionel Messi learnt on the job how to be a footballer, they never have all the answers on day one but learning and gaining experience of a role is a good thing and Les has learnt a lot in 2 years and is more than qualified for his role.

So all of QPR's problems down to him are they? Bullshit

Was it Les Ferdinand who closed the academy in the 90's?
Was it Les Ferdinand who gave no funding to the youth set up for over a decade allowing it to rot whilst other clubs in the area invested and left us behind.
Was it Les Ferdinand who spunked 200 million up the wall at mercenary players and robbing managers and wasted 2 attempts at the premier league and left us financially in a worst position after winning the lottery twice.

Ferdinand has come into the role when the money run out, when the FFP rules had been breached so we had to comply after relegation if we were to have any chance of avoiding a deserved 70million fine. Not hard to get the wage bill down? If you say so but something no one else managed or even tried to manage

He could have continued on the same path and said sod it lets go mad again, throw money at it and off we go, no guarantee that would have worked, it didn't before. Instead he did what many asked for, he created a pathway to the first team for youth players, in the last 2 years Doughty, Furlong, Grego Cox, Kakay, Shodipo, Lumley, Kwpewka and the finnish kid have all made first team appearances, not a hope in hell that would have happened before.

We've signed younger players who see QPR as a step up, another thing we wanted when the like of Boswingwa, Park and Chris Samba were being made millionaires by the club, now those players need to be developed and won't be great straight away but in Smithies, Ingram, Hall, Luongo, Cousins, Sylla, Wszoleck and Chery he's signed some very decent prospects who could go on and big big players for us. Not every signing has worked but not every signing worked under more experienced men like Redknapp and Hughes, these failures haven't been as costly though.

Managerial appointments haven't worked but the club is still run by Fernandes who still listens to twitter so Ramsey came in when fans called for a coach rather than an old school manager, he listened when we wanted an up and coming manager in Hasselbaink and he listened when we wanted a QPR man. Perhaps he should stop listening to us but thats the man Ferdinand is working for and thats the one you should be moaning about rather than the bloke trying to fix his mess.

Just bloody typical at QPR that the people doing the right thing are the ones being attacked by fans.
[Post edited 28 Dec 2016 20:39]


Superb.

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

1
talk sport and Les on 12:01 - Dec 29 with 2688 viewsted_hendrix

Strewth, what I would give for mid table security right now under JFH.

Having said that I'm not blessed with a huge amount of hindsight floating around in my bonce.

Having said that if I had a huge amount of hindsight floating around in my bonce I'd be a pretty good DOF at a football club.

Sadly and the only outcome I can see at the moment is that by 5.00pm on Saturday things are gonna be even worse.

I don't have any answers, we're in a bad place yet again.

My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.

2
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talk sport and Les on 12:06 - Dec 29 with 2667 viewsPinnerPaul

talk sport and Les on 03:03 - Dec 29 by FredManRave

As per usual some middle ground is needed in this debate. Les is neither the savour (so far) or the devil incarnate as both sides would have us believe.

To try and answer some of Daves points in his post;

You mention learning on the job and that Les has learnt a lot in his first two years. Bearing in mind the shambolic situation that we were in 2 years ago the ideal scenario would not have been to take on board a DOF taking on his first such position such that he could learn a lot in his first two years.

Nobody is blaming all of our problems on Ferdinand. Full Stop. Everybody understands the academy and spending problems that preceeded him and therefore nobody is blaming him for that.

When Ferdinand came to the club the financial position was clear. The over spending days were over. That wasn't a decision that he took, that is what he faced. And he acted accordingly getting the high erners off the books. There was absolutely no way he had the option to "have continued on the same path and said sod it lets go mad again, throw money at it and off we go" so to give him credit for not doing that is completely false.

I won't comment too much on the signing of players even though it is an important part of his remit beause there have been some good and some bad, exactly the same as at every club although some of the youngsters that made it to first team apearances were few and far between and have since found themselves being loaned out.

Regarding the wage bill, he came in at the perfect time. It was astronomical. The only way could ever have been down. He's done well to achieve that but still not the most difficult task, all things considered.

And finally, the managerial appointments. I appreciate it's hindsight but even so giving Ramsey the caretaker role and then the permanent role were huge mistakes and even though he had to go I didn't like the wording and the way it was dealt with by Ferdinand. JFH appeared a good appointment at the time inspite of the warnings of his non QPR style of play and obvious lack of experience and unfortunately for all of us it turned out to be an appointment that gave us neither the resuts or quality of football that we would have hoped for.. And now we find ourselves with Holloway that with 6 games is, to put it mildly, not going well.

In summary, and inspite of how this post may read I'm not actually in any way against Ferdinand or Holloway. I'm sure ALL of us want them to do well and be a success but my view from afar tells me that whilst there have been some improvements there have also been some important mistakes made (again I realise due to hindsight) in Ferdinands 2 year tenure.

Fwiw, I don't think we'll get relegated, I want Holloway to succeed and to be given at the very least this season and I want and hope that Ferdinand continues to improve through experience and as a consequence stays in the job for many more years and with Holloway as manager because that could only be good for QPR. It's what we want, isn't it?!

However, that's not to say that it's not been a very difficult couple of years for Les but I hope, as surely we all do, that things and to an extent our luck turn around pretty damn soon such that we can remember this as being maybe the lowest point, football/table wise and that we can soon start the long road back to mid table obscurity with a team of players that we can all be proud of and show pride in wearing the hopes and witha willigness to battle and to improve.

U R's.

Oh and PS. DaveB. I think your man flu is more likely cold turkey after going 1 day without alcohol for the firt time in well over a week!
[Post edited 29 Dec 2016 3:22]


Spot on - nice summary.
0
talk sport and Les on 12:07 - Dec 29 with 2662 viewsBrianMcCarthy

Good thread this. Started off on a hysterical note and I nearly skipped over it, but some balanced posts on here mean that I will have to read it again to digest fully.

Generally, though, I am in the camp that Ferdinand has done a fine job in extremely difficult circumstances. It's a shame that our fo on the pitch has coincided with a spell that has seen out club run better off the pitch than at any stage over the last twenty-odd years, meaning that Ferdinand, Hoos, Sinton and others are getting grief they don't deserve.

I'm not sure who is precisely responsible for our sensible wage policy, our more restrained transfer fees, the Forever R's Club, the excellent PR, the astute handing of the JFH sting, the increased work on Junior R's and all the other fine work being done. But the difference in our club now to only a few short years ago is night and day, and all of the above should be applauded and rewarded with our patience.

Threads like this give me hope that, despite our varying views, they will be.

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

2
talk sport and Les on 12:29 - Dec 29 with 2607 viewsDannytheR

Also worth saying that anything positive LF has achieved will have happened while working under a chairman/ownership that must be one of the most erratic, short-termist and unhelpful in British football.

Many of us will have been in professional situations where we have to manage up the whole time because our boss is an idiot. The experience should give an insight into how things work (or don't) at Rangers.

I'm amazed it needs saying anymore, but I don't know a single R in real life who thinks Fernandes is anything but a disaster area. The only debate is whether he's well intentioned or only in it for Old Oak.

This whole debate would be a lot easier to swallow if you didn't suspect that in some people's eyes, TF's real crime has always been not just handing the keys to the club to Neil Warnock.
0
talk sport and Les on 14:11 - Dec 29 with 2494 viewsbaz_qpr

A little bit of rewriting of history here.

1. Fernandes wanted Clement not Ramsey and was unable to get him, they then had a choice wait until the end of season with caretaker in charge or appoint then, following a good result and a couple of decent performances it was decided to appoint Ramsey full time a fairly big mistake
2. Ramsey was sacked because Warnock came in having worked on Fernandes and then literally took the team over mid game when he was supposed to be advising. Ramsey was fatally undermined I think he went on another two games before they pulled him out of the situation. Any relationship between Warnock, Ferdinand and Hoos was broken before the start
3. JFH was primarily a Hoos appointment based on recommendation and was second choice to Rowlett
4. Both Hughes and Redknapp were on paper obvious appointments. Hughes was friend with Fernandes had good premiership record and was available. Redknapp had a reputation "Harry Houdini" for escaping relegation 60 or 70% of us would have made these two choices at the time.
1
talk sport and Les on 14:21 - Dec 29 with 2478 viewsdaveB

talk sport and Les on 14:11 - Dec 29 by baz_qpr

A little bit of rewriting of history here.

1. Fernandes wanted Clement not Ramsey and was unable to get him, they then had a choice wait until the end of season with caretaker in charge or appoint then, following a good result and a couple of decent performances it was decided to appoint Ramsey full time a fairly big mistake
2. Ramsey was sacked because Warnock came in having worked on Fernandes and then literally took the team over mid game when he was supposed to be advising. Ramsey was fatally undermined I think he went on another two games before they pulled him out of the situation. Any relationship between Warnock, Ferdinand and Hoos was broken before the start
3. JFH was primarily a Hoos appointment based on recommendation and was second choice to Rowlett
4. Both Hughes and Redknapp were on paper obvious appointments. Hughes was friend with Fernandes had good premiership record and was available. Redknapp had a reputation "Harry Houdini" for escaping relegation 60 or 70% of us would have made these two choices at the time.


Fernandes did want Clement but when he said no and when Sherwood asked for too much money he went with Ramsey as fans were in his ear on twitter about wanting a coach and several players told him to give the job to Ramsey so it wasn't all down to Ferdinand that one, I do think they should have looked elsewhere that summer but as Clement had made it clear he was going to Derby they panicked and gave it to Ramsey full time
0
talk sport and Les on 14:40 - Dec 29 with 2430 viewsamusant

talk sport and Les on 14:21 - Dec 29 by daveB

Fernandes did want Clement but when he said no and when Sherwood asked for too much money he went with Ramsey as fans were in his ear on twitter about wanting a coach and several players told him to give the job to Ramsey so it wasn't all down to Ferdinand that one, I do think they should have looked elsewhere that summer but as Clement had made it clear he was going to Derby they panicked and gave it to Ramsey full time


But was Ramsay such a bad appointment? His track record in this division wasn't so bad, better then Ollie's for sure and I strongly suspect, better then JFH's. Why would any club take on a rookie manager, with a team in flux and then sack him a year later. Having made the decision to hire him, they should have let him get a stable side together and get some experience under his belt. All symptomatic of the lunatic way the club has been run. Briatore's random running of the club came to a sticky end when we nearly got relegated to League 1....all we can hope is that the same happens to Tony. Put the Mittals back in charge ....it worked last time!
0
talk sport and Les on 16:04 - Dec 29 with 2329 viewsvegasranger

talk sport and Les on 09:33 - Dec 29 by Juzzie

We were mugged by Southampton.

Leicester offered circa £12-13m in the summer but we knew he was worth more (with a full year on contract) and rightly held out. Fans would have been apoplectic had we sold him for that amount.
No other offers came in and by the end of the year he'd already got 10 goals. Despite this, it was clear we were never going to get in the play off's.
The hope was there would be 2 or 3 clubs coming in for him in January which might have bumped up the final selling price to a more realistic £15m+. That never materialised (probably the problem of English players costing more than ones from other countries) and Southampton swooped in with a piss-take offer. Even if other clubs had offered more, i dont think he wanted to go further north than junction 5 of the M1 so Southampton held all the cards.

What to do?..... turn it down and he goes for free in the summer and potentially goes off the boil for the last few months of the season.

It was clear he wanted to go so the club had no choice but to accept.

What would you have done?


I would have sold him to Leicester and used the money to invest in the team. 12 -13 million was a good offer for a player in his last year of contract. Of course hindsight is very easy but I thought we should have sold him that summer.
1
talk sport and Les on 16:06 - Dec 29 with 2321 viewstraininvain

talk sport and Les on 14:40 - Dec 29 by amusant

But was Ramsay such a bad appointment? His track record in this division wasn't so bad, better then Ollie's for sure and I strongly suspect, better then JFH's. Why would any club take on a rookie manager, with a team in flux and then sack him a year later. Having made the decision to hire him, they should have let him get a stable side together and get some experience under his belt. All symptomatic of the lunatic way the club has been run. Briatore's random running of the club came to a sticky end when we nearly got relegated to League 1....all we can hope is that the same happens to Tony. Put the Mittals back in charge ....it worked last time!


I'd happily accept some of the gung ho attacking football we saw under Ramsey in the early part of last season.

It went wrong for him when he tried to reign it in a bit and play more defensively.
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talk sport and Les on 16:15 - Dec 29 with 2307 viewspaulparker

talk sport and Les on 14:40 - Dec 29 by amusant

But was Ramsay such a bad appointment? His track record in this division wasn't so bad, better then Ollie's for sure and I strongly suspect, better then JFH's. Why would any club take on a rookie manager, with a team in flux and then sack him a year later. Having made the decision to hire him, they should have let him get a stable side together and get some experience under his belt. All symptomatic of the lunatic way the club has been run. Briatore's random running of the club came to a sticky end when we nearly got relegated to League 1....all we can hope is that the same happens to Tony. Put the Mittals back in charge ....it worked last time!


No he wasn't a bad appointment he was a terrible appointment
How this bloke still has a job at this club is still a mystery to me , awful coach, awful manager
If you enjoy hoof ball , Karl Henry on the wing , defensive calamities, crap set pieces , your big striker doing long throws to no one and giving SWP a cameo so the city fans can clap him then Ramsey is your man
Didn't he also try and take his sacking to the LMA to try and get extra compo from the club ?
I wouldn't have this clown in charge of an under 11s team

And Bowles is onside, Swinburne has come rushing out of his goal , what can Bowles do here , onto the left foot no, on to the right foot That’s there that’s two, and that’s Bowles Brian Moore

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talk sport and Les on 16:21 - Dec 29 with 2296 viewsthemodfather

flu or not, i always questioned the appt of les to the position he now holds at qpr...based on what? he has been pivotal in the "hand picked" signings and most have been some of the worst we have had, then the "lower expectations" statement....this current squad has not cost peanuts but near all are either under performing, not interested or most likely not good enough!! ramsey was the start of a huge downfall, who was he? based on what? this myth spurs can hold a candle to anything kills me, they struggle top 4 and win jack yet are held up as something special?????
tf has a huge responsibilty here and in a way 'arry, cos he knew sandro was injury prone, cos he had him at spurs and let us pay £10m!!
qpr have just not got vfm for ages and many have been expensive disasters and maybe the money from asain air/malaysia air has dried up due to their "fleet" issues and a few plane crashes in a short space a time.
for me, more important are the number of "die hards" who don't bother anymore. atmosphere at qpr dried up a few years back and became a drag. right now an away team must fancy a game at loftus road got we are poor, losing and not rocking the place.
neat possession or having the better stats don't win games.
watching sylla v brighton, his arms are UP all the time, border line handball often and/or elbows, he is not the answer.
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talk sport and Les on 16:29 - Dec 29 with 2274 viewsDannytheR

talk sport and Les on 16:04 - Dec 29 by vegasranger

I would have sold him to Leicester and used the money to invest in the team. 12 -13 million was a good offer for a player in his last year of contract. Of course hindsight is very easy but I thought we should have sold him that summer.


Austin didn't want to go to Leicester. Would have loved to have seen the response if the club had tried to force the transfer through against his wishes.
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talk sport and Les on 16:40 - Dec 29 with 2236 viewsAddinall

talk sport and Les on 11:26 - Dec 29 by Hunterhoop

Lots of great posts on here. Hats of to Dave, but also good contributions from Northern and BobbyHazell.

What I don't understand is how anyone can reach the conclusion that we don't need a DoF role. Football has changed. Almost all clubs have one. After what happened with Hughes and Kia, Redknapp, and the issues raised by the Telegraph investigations of managers potentially having vested interests, it's surely common sense to see the value of a DoF?!

Couple this with the reality of the modern game:
- managers come and go due to the short tempered views of fans, egos of mad entrepreneurial chairmen, and dummy spitting of players
- players come and go with alarming frequency. Champ Man, Deadline Day all exacerbate this
- agents in the ear of everyone touting their vested interests under the guise of short term success
- big amounts of money flying around due to TV and football being the best vehicle for money laundering imagineable for a Russian oligarch of Chinese billionaire.

Given all the above, surely the idea of having a DOF to oversee the club's strategic direction on the playing side (but not "manage the team") is valuable. It provides much needed consistency and stability (taking over 10-15 years here...), it can ensure a club identity is maintained, fans' interests are looked after, community involvement isn't sidelined, important projects like youth academies, training grounds, etc, do not lose focus. Etc, etc.

Is Les the best DoF in football? Of course no. Is he best qualified DoF out there? Almost certainly not.

However, is he qualified better than many other DoF's? Absolutely. Experience as a player and coach in the modern game and a genuine management qualification, which I believe was a year FT and is the FA's recommended qualification for non-coaching football leadership roles, surely position him well for a DoF role. He's not the CEO, remember. He's certainly not qualified for that. I'm more qualified for him than that. But as a DoF he is certainly not as unqualified as Rigg, Beard or Paladino, all of whom had responsibility when at the club for some of what he's now overseeing.

And most importantly of all, we need to remember we're QPR.

We love the club. We waste hours on here. We turn up on Saturdays, Tuesdays, even bloody Thursdays... However, for most people in football QPR is nothing. We're irrelevance. No one else gives two hoots about us. Yes, there may be the odd better qualified DoF in England than Les, but why would they come here?? They wouldn't. We're not a club able to attract the best. Even when we paid through the nose to do so on the playing and coaching side, we couldn't attract the best and those we did attract severely let us down.

No, we need to remember we're QPR and we probably can't attract better, more qualified DoF's. And, the one we have got, is actually a QPR man. One of the top 5 genuine QPR legends. Synonymous with QPR when you talk to other fans. A local lad. He palpably cares about the club.

So, is he the most qualified? No. Is he the best we can get? Quite possibly. Does he care? Yes.

Well, bloody well support him!! He needs it, Holloway needs it, the players need it, the whole bloody club needs it. We need to come together and support our club.

Stop trying to find blame and criticise. Our club is struggling on the pitch at first team level currently. But the club is full of QPR people. People who care about the club, genuinely care.

For the love of all that is good, SUPPORT THEM. And that starts with Les. Support him.


For the love of all that is good, SUPPORT THEM. And that starts with Les. Support him.

Absolutely!
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talk sport and Les on 21:02 - Dec 29 with 2050 viewsdaveB

talk sport and Les on 16:04 - Dec 29 by vegasranger

I would have sold him to Leicester and used the money to invest in the team. 12 -13 million was a good offer for a player in his last year of contract. Of course hindsight is very easy but I thought we should have sold him that summer.


If Austin had wanted to go last summer he's have gone but he turned down those move to allow his contract to run down and that opened up the chances of a move to a team higher up the league like Southampton.
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talk sport and Les on 21:16 - Dec 29 with 2025 viewsqprewan

Many interesting views on here; but let's not forget that we could have had Warnock back for a longer spell had it not been for Les Ferdinand...I loved Les as a player; 2nd only to Stan in my all time favourites but I think his ego and his signings have both been a problem; not the only problem but a significant one nevertheless
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talk sport and Les on 21:30 - Dec 29 with 1990 viewsRoller

talk sport and Les on 21:16 - Dec 29 by qprewan

Many interesting views on here; but let's not forget that we could have had Warnock back for a longer spell had it not been for Les Ferdinand...I loved Les as a player; 2nd only to Stan in my all time favourites but I think his ego and his signings have both been a problem; not the only problem but a significant one nevertheless


Would you care to expand upon where you think that Les' ego has been a problem?
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talk sport and Les on 21:38 - Dec 29 with 1965 viewstraininvain

talk sport and Les on 21:16 - Dec 29 by qprewan

Many interesting views on here; but let's not forget that we could have had Warnock back for a longer spell had it not been for Les Ferdinand...I loved Les as a player; 2nd only to Stan in my all time favourites but I think his ego and his signings have both been a problem; not the only problem but a significant one nevertheless


Warnock didn't want the full time job as his wife was ill at the time.

Unless you know something we don't?
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talk sport and Les on 21:44 - Dec 29 with 1948 viewsdaveB

talk sport and Les on 21:16 - Dec 29 by qprewan

Many interesting views on here; but let's not forget that we could have had Warnock back for a longer spell had it not been for Les Ferdinand...I loved Les as a player; 2nd only to Stan in my all time favourites but I think his ego and his signings have both been a problem; not the only problem but a significant one nevertheless


We couldn't have got Warnock, he didn't want the job at the time and by the time he got the bug back and wanted it the job had been given to JFH.

No idea what you are on about with Ferdinands ego being a problem, what do you mean by that?
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