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Saw this on the way to the game, Cifuentes describing how difficult the season's been, "not just the results", but "things the fans don't see" - particularly the last few weeks.
Interesting that he thinks this has been "by far" harder than taking over one of the worst teams I can remember last season.
Seems significant. I wonder what's been happening - and I wonder where that leaves him for next season.
1
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:22 - Mar 16 with 2627 views
QPR are never backwards in coming forwards when something is going even remotely well. We printed Ledesma t-shirts after a hat trick in a first round League Cup game. Koki Saito scores one goal away against a rank Hull side and we're printing Japanese language on the replica tops. Kieran Morgan has a good dozen games running on adrenalin and he's getting deep dive pieces in The Athletic.
They love it. They love it when something is going even very remotely well. It makes them look like hey know what they're doing. They hype the fck out of it.
Marti Cifuentes is just about the most popular manager we've had here since Warnock. The fans love him. They make flags with him on, they sing his name, he gets a complete free pass whenever we go on a winless run.
And yet QPR, the club of the Ledesma t-shirts, won't let me, won't let the other podcasts, won't let a (let's be honest, pretty tame) fans forum audience within 1000 yards of him. They obfuscate and say "oh we wanted this to be a forum about more off the pitch issues", they kick the can down the road with "there'll be forum with the football side of the business later in the year", they hope you'll forget they said that, then when you remember they say "oh, send us some qs on email and we'll ask the ones we like the best in a controlled, edited environment, involving all the coaching staff".
The most popular manager we've had in a decade, in theory an enormous success story for the club, and they are terrified of him speaking in any unfiltered, long form way that they cannot control. They don't want you and me speaking to him.
You can attack the "ITKs", you can dismiss it as gossip, you can talk about airing dirty linen in public, or whatever, but at the very least you should be curious about why that is.
Why is that?
13
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:37 - Mar 16 with 2527 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:31 - Mar 16 by Northernr
A thing to consider here...
QPR are never backwards in coming forwards when something is going even remotely well. We printed Ledesma t-shirts after a hat trick in a first round League Cup game. Koki Saito scores one goal away against a rank Hull side and we're printing Japanese language on the replica tops. Kieran Morgan has a good dozen games running on adrenalin and he's getting deep dive pieces in The Athletic.
They love it. They love it when something is going even very remotely well. It makes them look like hey know what they're doing. They hype the fck out of it.
Marti Cifuentes is just about the most popular manager we've had here since Warnock. The fans love him. They make flags with him on, they sing his name, he gets a complete free pass whenever we go on a winless run.
And yet QPR, the club of the Ledesma t-shirts, won't let me, won't let the other podcasts, won't let a (let's be honest, pretty tame) fans forum audience within 1000 yards of him. They obfuscate and say "oh we wanted this to be a forum about more off the pitch issues", they kick the can down the road with "there'll be forum with the football side of the business later in the year", they hope you'll forget they said that, then when you remember they say "oh, send us some qs on email and we'll ask the ones we like the best in a controlled, edited environment, involving all the coaching staff".
The most popular manager we've had in a decade, in theory an enormous success story for the club, and they are terrified of him speaking in any unfiltered, long form way that they cannot control. They don't want you and me speaking to him.
You can attack the "ITKs", you can dismiss it as gossip, you can talk about airing dirty linen in public, or whatever, but at the very least you should be curious about why that is.
Why is that?
They are some really good points, and I can totally believe we are being kept away and media managed, but why sign a contact?
Is it as cynical as a gaining a higher termination fee / wages while waiting for the inevitable sacking?
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:41 - Mar 16 with 2506 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:31 - Mar 16 by Northernr
A thing to consider here...
QPR are never backwards in coming forwards when something is going even remotely well. We printed Ledesma t-shirts after a hat trick in a first round League Cup game. Koki Saito scores one goal away against a rank Hull side and we're printing Japanese language on the replica tops. Kieran Morgan has a good dozen games running on adrenalin and he's getting deep dive pieces in The Athletic.
They love it. They love it when something is going even very remotely well. It makes them look like hey know what they're doing. They hype the fck out of it.
Marti Cifuentes is just about the most popular manager we've had here since Warnock. The fans love him. They make flags with him on, they sing his name, he gets a complete free pass whenever we go on a winless run.
And yet QPR, the club of the Ledesma t-shirts, won't let me, won't let the other podcasts, won't let a (let's be honest, pretty tame) fans forum audience within 1000 yards of him. They obfuscate and say "oh we wanted this to be a forum about more off the pitch issues", they kick the can down the road with "there'll be forum with the football side of the business later in the year", they hope you'll forget they said that, then when you remember they say "oh, send us some qs on email and we'll ask the ones we like the best in a controlled, edited environment, involving all the coaching staff".
The most popular manager we've had in a decade, in theory an enormous success story for the club, and they are terrified of him speaking in any unfiltered, long form way that they cannot control. They don't want you and me speaking to him.
You can attack the "ITKs", you can dismiss it as gossip, you can talk about airing dirty linen in public, or whatever, but at the very least you should be curious about why that is.
Why is that?
Can't I 'attack' an ITK and also be curious as to why things are as they are at QPR?
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:42 - Mar 16 with 2482 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:31 - Mar 16 by Northernr
A thing to consider here...
QPR are never backwards in coming forwards when something is going even remotely well. We printed Ledesma t-shirts after a hat trick in a first round League Cup game. Koki Saito scores one goal away against a rank Hull side and we're printing Japanese language on the replica tops. Kieran Morgan has a good dozen games running on adrenalin and he's getting deep dive pieces in The Athletic.
They love it. They love it when something is going even very remotely well. It makes them look like hey know what they're doing. They hype the fck out of it.
Marti Cifuentes is just about the most popular manager we've had here since Warnock. The fans love him. They make flags with him on, they sing his name, he gets a complete free pass whenever we go on a winless run.
And yet QPR, the club of the Ledesma t-shirts, won't let me, won't let the other podcasts, won't let a (let's be honest, pretty tame) fans forum audience within 1000 yards of him. They obfuscate and say "oh we wanted this to be a forum about more off the pitch issues", they kick the can down the road with "there'll be forum with the football side of the business later in the year", they hope you'll forget they said that, then when you remember they say "oh, send us some qs on email and we'll ask the ones we like the best in a controlled, edited environment, involving all the coaching staff".
The most popular manager we've had in a decade, in theory an enormous success story for the club, and they are terrified of him speaking in any unfiltered, long form way that they cannot control. They don't want you and me speaking to him.
You can attack the "ITKs", you can dismiss it as gossip, you can talk about airing dirty linen in public, or whatever, but at the very least you should be curious about why that is.
Why is that?
Get a AI letter to your mate Norf and ask him why he will not let you talk to him.......
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:44 - Mar 16 with 2447 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 20:13 - Mar 16 by dmm
Unless you verify your ITK comments, I will not take them seriously.
He never verifies anything: just drops the BS bomb and lets it do its thing. How the fck would he (or anyone apart from Nourry and Cifuentes) know how often they talk? It’s laughable. As is the poster who thinks Cifuentes is being told who to play and what tactics to use.
2
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:47 - Mar 16 with 2421 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:31 - Mar 16 by Northernr
A thing to consider here...
QPR are never backwards in coming forwards when something is going even remotely well. We printed Ledesma t-shirts after a hat trick in a first round League Cup game. Koki Saito scores one goal away against a rank Hull side and we're printing Japanese language on the replica tops. Kieran Morgan has a good dozen games running on adrenalin and he's getting deep dive pieces in The Athletic.
They love it. They love it when something is going even very remotely well. It makes them look like hey know what they're doing. They hype the fck out of it.
Marti Cifuentes is just about the most popular manager we've had here since Warnock. The fans love him. They make flags with him on, they sing his name, he gets a complete free pass whenever we go on a winless run.
And yet QPR, the club of the Ledesma t-shirts, won't let me, won't let the other podcasts, won't let a (let's be honest, pretty tame) fans forum audience within 1000 yards of him. They obfuscate and say "oh we wanted this to be a forum about more off the pitch issues", they kick the can down the road with "there'll be forum with the football side of the business later in the year", they hope you'll forget they said that, then when you remember they say "oh, send us some qs on email and we'll ask the ones we like the best in a controlled, edited environment, involving all the coaching staff".
The most popular manager we've had in a decade, in theory an enormous success story for the club, and they are terrified of him speaking in any unfiltered, long form way that they cannot control. They don't want you and me speaking to him.
You can attack the "ITKs", you can dismiss it as gossip, you can talk about airing dirty linen in public, or whatever, but at the very least you should be curious about why that is.
Why is that?
The Ledesma and Saito stuff is just shrewd marketing and suggests someone at the club has their eye on the ball and isn't embarrassed by a bit of blatant opportunism.
IIRC Ruben said at the Fans Forum last season that they had been too open in the past and would be keeping a tighter grip on things in future.
At the time I thought that was a dig at Tony Fernandes and his incontinent tweeting. And maybe not such a bad idea. (Anyone checked Ruben's LinkedIn recently!)
it seems there was more to it than that.
But you're right, it doesn't make sense to big-up little Koki after one goal but not take advantage of the popularity and respect that Marti gets from most QPR fans and from most of the Championship pundits and fans of rival clubs.
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 22:09 - Mar 16 with 2310 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:47 - Mar 16 by KensalT
The Ledesma and Saito stuff is just shrewd marketing and suggests someone at the club has their eye on the ball and isn't embarrassed by a bit of blatant opportunism.
IIRC Ruben said at the Fans Forum last season that they had been too open in the past and would be keeping a tighter grip on things in future.
At the time I thought that was a dig at Tony Fernandes and his incontinent tweeting. And maybe not such a bad idea. (Anyone checked Ruben's LinkedIn recently!)
it seems there was more to it than that.
But you're right, it doesn't make sense to big-up little Koki after one goal but not take advantage of the popularity and respect that Marti gets from most QPR fans and from most of the Championship pundits and fans of rival clubs.
On the Ruben comments...
We, as the supporters, are the only constant in this. The players, the managers, the execs, the owners all come and go. Chris Wright breezes in, makes some big promises, spends loads of money, fcks it all up, leverages the debt against the club, walks away from the whole thing with a training ground in his back pocket. Who's left going to Hartlepool? Us lot.
An owner saying "we've been too open, we're going to tell you less in future" is not a good thing. It's Bernard Matthews taking the calendars out of the turkey sheds.
This is a club that has gone from a Premier League side in receipt of and spending a fck tonne of money, to one stuck in Championship purgatory far more likely to exit this division south than north. That has happened through the club's repeated rank bad decision making around appointments, recruitment and retainment of players, managers and execs. The last couple of years in particular have been fuelled by disastrous decisions on contracts, player and manager recruitment and retainment.
We're blessed that they pay for their mistakes, and put in £2m a month to keep it going. But we should be pushing for more transparency and openness about these decisions, not sitting there nodding as they say "actually we're going to tell you less".
9
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 22:15 - Mar 16 with 2266 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 22:09 - Mar 16 by Northernr
On the Ruben comments...
We, as the supporters, are the only constant in this. The players, the managers, the execs, the owners all come and go. Chris Wright breezes in, makes some big promises, spends loads of money, fcks it all up, leverages the debt against the club, walks away from the whole thing with a training ground in his back pocket. Who's left going to Hartlepool? Us lot.
An owner saying "we've been too open, we're going to tell you less in future" is not a good thing. It's Bernard Matthews taking the calendars out of the turkey sheds.
This is a club that has gone from a Premier League side in receipt of and spending a fck tonne of money, to one stuck in Championship purgatory far more likely to exit this division south than north. That has happened through the club's repeated rank bad decision making around appointments, recruitment and retainment of players, managers and execs. The last couple of years in particular have been fuelled by disastrous decisions on contracts, player and manager recruitment and retainment.
We're blessed that they pay for their mistakes, and put in £2m a month to keep it going. But we should be pushing for more transparency and openness about these decisions, not sitting there nodding as they say "actually we're going to tell you less".
"An owner saying "we've been too open, we're going to tell you less in future" is not a good thing. It's Bernard Matthews taking the calendars out of the turkey sheds."
100%
And it wouldn't work if we had a Warnock or a Redknapp in charge because they'd still be getting their message out through their army of tame media chums.
Maybe that was a factor in recruiting someone like Marti who had never previously worked in this country and didn't have a network of local media contacts.
1
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 22:37 - Mar 16 with 2161 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 21:47 - Mar 16 by KensalT
The Ledesma and Saito stuff is just shrewd marketing and suggests someone at the club has their eye on the ball and isn't embarrassed by a bit of blatant opportunism.
IIRC Ruben said at the Fans Forum last season that they had been too open in the past and would be keeping a tighter grip on things in future.
At the time I thought that was a dig at Tony Fernandes and his incontinent tweeting. And maybe not such a bad idea. (Anyone checked Ruben's LinkedIn recently!)
it seems there was more to it than that.
But you're right, it doesn't make sense to big-up little Koki after one goal but not take advantage of the popularity and respect that Marti gets from most QPR fans and from most of the Championship pundits and fans of rival clubs.
It makes sense if the board and manager are not fully aligned. The lopsided transfer dealings in the summer were THE big talking point on here at the start of season, quietened down when we won a few, but it is again raising its head. Can't allow the manager to say so in public, so don't let him say anything.
Shame, but I think someone will grab him, and we'll get a bit of money.
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 22:40 - Mar 16 with 2146 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 22:09 - Mar 16 by Northernr
On the Ruben comments...
We, as the supporters, are the only constant in this. The players, the managers, the execs, the owners all come and go. Chris Wright breezes in, makes some big promises, spends loads of money, fcks it all up, leverages the debt against the club, walks away from the whole thing with a training ground in his back pocket. Who's left going to Hartlepool? Us lot.
An owner saying "we've been too open, we're going to tell you less in future" is not a good thing. It's Bernard Matthews taking the calendars out of the turkey sheds.
This is a club that has gone from a Premier League side in receipt of and spending a fck tonne of money, to one stuck in Championship purgatory far more likely to exit this division south than north. That has happened through the club's repeated rank bad decision making around appointments, recruitment and retainment of players, managers and execs. The last couple of years in particular have been fuelled by disastrous decisions on contracts, player and manager recruitment and retainment.
We're blessed that they pay for their mistakes, and put in £2m a month to keep it going. But we should be pushing for more transparency and openness about these decisions, not sitting there nodding as they say "actually we're going to tell you less".
Totally agree. Couldn't have put it better. We are in a trench and the long term future looks more likely to be avoiding league 1 and not ever troubling the promotion picture.
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 23:12 - Mar 16 with 2011 views
Is it that time of the season again when we start saying the owners need to go..Followed by they cant go , we need them paying £2 mill p/m. ? Could be worse, at least we're not Man U .
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 06:57 - Mar 17 by Rsole
I bet Smythy shares his Haribo with Saito….on the coach.
The behaviour on coach trips is also one of Marti's issues. Saito keeps asking 'are we there yet?' and Colback constantly asks to stop at the next services because he needs a wee wee
'What do we want? We don't know! When do we want it? Now!'
2
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 08:30 - Mar 17 with 1374 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 20:13 - Mar 16 by dmm
Unless you verify your ITK comments, I will not take them seriously.
Not sure what you mean by ‘verify’, if you mean how I get to hear about goings on at the club, I’ve been transparent from the start that my wife was ultimately Cifuentes’ boss at Hammarby. Obviously I won’t tell you exactly who I hear from but Swedish sports clubs are extremely open, social clubs and Marti and his partner were a very active part of that.
If you mean verify what I’m saying is true, then without meaning to throw North under the bus, he is diplomatically and politely trying to lead people to connect the dots because me and him have been comparing matching notes for the past 12 months from (presumably) very different sources.
Once Cifuentes leaves I’ll happily post fully transparently as it won’t matter anymore - if North wants to do a podcast debrief then sure, but he already knows everything I do as he gets to hear it from his side anyway.
3
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 08:34 - Mar 17 with 1364 views
The ‘new contract’ was signed back end of July. It ultimately just protected QPR with a much higher buyout fee.
For the pre season out in Catalonia it was far from certain Cifuentes would still be at the club to start the season and we were making signings during that time because obviously the club had to as we couldn’t wait around and see what the manager would do..
0
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 08:57 - Mar 17 with 1258 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 08:34 - Mar 17 by lassel
The ‘new contract’ was signed back end of July. It ultimately just protected QPR with a much higher buyout fee.
For the pre season out in Catalonia it was far from certain Cifuentes would still be at the club to start the season and we were making signings during that time because obviously the club had to as we couldn’t wait around and see what the manager would do..
"The ‘new contract’ was signed back end of July."
The question was how did they negotiate a new contract when you say they weren't talking to each other over the summer.
It would be truly remarkable if the CEO and manager weren't talking at a time when the club were trying to tie down the manager to a new deal.
I didn't ask when the contract was signed. Although that is a remarkable level of detail for your wife's mate at Hammarby to know about our internal workings when the rest of us don't even get told how long players have signed up for!
And why would Marti be so indiscreet with this Swedish connection? Does he share confidential club information with all his former clubs?
2
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 09:07 - Mar 17 with 1206 views
"By far the most challenging season of my career!” on 08:30 - Mar 17 by lassel
Not sure what you mean by ‘verify’, if you mean how I get to hear about goings on at the club, I’ve been transparent from the start that my wife was ultimately Cifuentes’ boss at Hammarby. Obviously I won’t tell you exactly who I hear from but Swedish sports clubs are extremely open, social clubs and Marti and his partner were a very active part of that.
If you mean verify what I’m saying is true, then without meaning to throw North under the bus, he is diplomatically and politely trying to lead people to connect the dots because me and him have been comparing matching notes for the past 12 months from (presumably) very different sources.
Once Cifuentes leaves I’ll happily post fully transparently as it won’t matter anymore - if North wants to do a podcast debrief then sure, but he already knows everything I do as he gets to hear it from his side anyway.
Thanks for your response. You'll understand I can't know whether or not your posts are true. Those who claim to be ITK almost always turn out to be anything but and their reasons for doing so seem to be to just grab attention for themselves.
Nonetheless, when Cifuentes does leave your offer to 'post fully transparently' would be a very interesting read.
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