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When I woke up this morning I genuinely wasn't sure it was still 2024, then I decided even I couldn't have missed New Years' Eve (if only because I hate the bloody thing.)
I don't really think that undermines Clive's point.
Some clubs bounce around a bit between the divisions - Fulham, Leicester, Palace all cases in point, probably Leeds too - but they are spending decent numbers of seasons in the top flight, sometimes doing pretty well there, and when they come down they have a good chance of getting back due to parachute payments.
I didn't enjoy either of our last forays there, but that was partly because all season you could see that we were failing do do what those clubs did - we were neither banking the cash to establish ourselves as a regular top-Championship club, nor hanging on by the skin of our teeth to stay in the Premiership (with the sole exception of that extraordinary day at Man City). I don't want that again but it wouldn't be a sacrifice to swap our last decades for Fulham's even though they did get relegated twice.
It's not as though Fulham have got some massive inherent advantage over us, we're very similar clubs in terms of history, size, location.
I'm not on Twitter and have no idea what a false 8.5 is and I'm getting a strong impression that it would not be a good idea to change either of these things.
I think we should all assume that the manager can spot a good or bad player at least as well as any of us.
What is notable about Madsen is that in the various debates about players I've read here this season (which, off the top of my head, includes Celar, Kolli, Smyth, Varane, Saito) Madsen is the one where I can't remember anyone defending him beyond the obvious need to give people a chance when they first sign.
Looking forward to hearing from Norwich fans (I expect Dick Menace will have something to say about it) about how that own goal was some sort of nefarious QPR plot.
Macca played for years and years at the top level of football in this country, in a QPR side that rarely looked uncomfortable at that level, and was one of the first names on the team sheet for a whole range of managers, including some very respected names.
He was also a regular for a Northern Ireland side who were getting into World Cups and looking decent there - his Northern Ireland were streets ahead of, say, Scotland today due tot he sad decline of British football outside of England.
And he did all that from the age of 19.
So I get the people saying that Dunne has a long way to go, but I feel that's missing the point. For the level the club is at right now, Dunne is doing the job Macca did, both in terms of spirit, never say die defending, and a very useful contribution of goals. Whether he'll stick with the club for as long is another matter.
On this basis, can anyone point out some way in which Jimmy Dunne is "a bit mad" (unless playing like Cafu while being Irish and built like a brick sh*thouse counts), because he is definitely in the "love" rather than "like" category.
The comparisons with Alan McDonald stack up for me, and let's face it Macca was pretty eccentric. Please tell me that he insists on reciting a haiku composed in Gaelic before every game or something.
A pleasing side to all this is that when he left us for Orient I felt that he was yet another apparently bright spark who hadn't made it. There's too bloody many of them, they get a few sub appearances and look bright, maybe get a goal, then disappoint when they get starts. They then go through the "needs a loan" period before hitting "League 1 at best, mate, get rid".
So was quite pleased to see him get a second chance and delighted to see the improvement he's made this season.
Interesting that simultaneously Kolli has so rapidly progressed from the jury being out on whether he's even a Championship player at all, to being focus of the attack. The two of them seem to work well together.
Yeah, I've been delighted to get points with poor or, err, basic, performances, but worried that if we kept playing like that we'd sooner pr later get found out.
The opposite possibility was that a run of decent results would build confidence, give time for team-building, and that we'd start to get better.
Dickie was the one that sprang to my mind, and thinking it over still is.
The decline of Johansen and Austin was awful and unexpected, but in hindsight you have to ask what we thought we were doing. But Dickie looked a class act and unlike the older pair was going to be an asset we'd sell.
What's really interesting is that Dunne, who was bought at about the same time, apparently as a squad player, more or less matched Dickie at his best and then at his worst, but has since risen like a phoenix from the flames [(c) Baddiel and Skinner] while Dickie doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Don't really think I'm accepting Stuart Wardley in this category.
I don't feel like it's a case of "where did it all go wrong?" so much as "how on earth did it go so right? How did a non-League big lump central defender, who never looked good enough in that role, bought in part-exchange for a load of old kit because both parties were skint, turn into a goal machine when played out of position for 6 months?"
I don't suppose he mopes over what might have been, more like he remembers that one glorious time in his life when he was a hero.
Don't think anyone's mentioned Bend It Like Beckham, but if I recall correctly the entire QPR Ladies team of the time appear as extras, both as Keira Knightley's team mates and as the opposition in the cup final, in which they are wearing the hoops.
(It ought to be a matter of some embarrassment to the club that the QPR Ladies were - as I understand it, and I'd be more than happy to be corrected - effectively binned off, despite a pretty impressive history that QPR should be proud of - and evolved into Hounslow Women, when the current side was reinvented.)
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