Following a 3-0 defeat at Ipswich on Monday and a subsequent interesting message board thread LFW dares to dream and proposes a potential plan of action.

On the first day
Well everybody thinks they can do a better job than their team’s manager don’t they? There was even a group of Manchester United fans who signed their e-mails “Fergie Out” a couple of years back. Chances are if you looked around every message board in the football league you’d find possibly only supporters of Leeds, Chelsea, Swansea and Fulham not worried or moaning about the club’s management, board and/or financial situation. Cardiff are fourth in our league and have had to put a statement out today saying their manager’s position is safe.

I remember reading with some amusement a Premiership chairman saying he’d had an application for his vacant job from somebody whose CV was headed by a Champions League victory with Crewe on Championship Manager. It brought back memories of a letter a friend and I wrote to Boston United applying for their vacant job aged 11 based on our achievements on the game. Fans always think they can do a better job, would have made a different substitution, wouldn’t pick a certain player. Some would argue that one of Gianni Paladini’s main problem at QPR is running the club like a fan – always loaning or signing another player, always spending money we don’t really have on more players we don’t really need looking for a quick fix rather than a long term plan.

But in the wake of the Ipswich defeat and with so much apparently wrong with our team that was sweeping all before it just two months ago a message board thread was started today asking what you would do if you woke up tomorrow and were actually Flavio’s latest victim in waiting. Below, though I appreciate it’s worth nothing more than material to debate, is my answer to it. I don’t pretend to understand football as deeply as those employed within it, my job on here is merely to comment and put forward an argument, to inform supporters who cannot get to games and, hopefully, to entertain. So in amongst some light hearted bits and pieces are some ideas that probably would not work at all but which are intended to tackle the three main areas I see as problems at the moment – low confidence and morale among the players, a total breakdown in relations and separation between them, the club and the supporters resulting in a terrible hostile atmosphere at matches and long term planning being spurned in favour of short term fixes.

Now first of all it’s worth saying that I wouldn’t even have considered taking the job (ooh get me) unless the club agreed to give me a three year contract, with very clear targets of where they expected our team to be every six months during that three years, complete control over transfers and team selection and a promise that the days of interference from the board room, use of favoured agents and a system that includes a sporting director were over. Personally I believe that this summer we need to do exactly that and hand the reigns over to a Coppell or Curbishley type of figure on a long contract with guarantees of complete control and clearly set out time to reach specific targets but let’s keep up the pretence that it’s me for a while and then you can have a go on the commenting facility below.

1 - Lock myself away with the DVD of every game so far this season and watch.

2 - Return the team as closely as possible to the formation, set up and style that we used through October.

3 - Return loan players including Taarabt, bring back players out on loan including Helguson. Make it clear that QPR is a bloody superb place to be and we will only be taking people who want to be here and who are willing to buy into what the place is about. We are not a project, a place to get match fit or a career stepping stone for anybody. If you want to play for QPR and sign for us permanently then great, come on loan first if needs, but the days of simply giving people experience and match fitness for Premiership teams are over or to go in the shop window are over. Loans are to cover for injuries or used very sparingly, on a long term basis, to bring quality Premiership players here.

4 - Find out how much Pellicori wants to leave and pay it myself. Three laps of the pitch for the people responsible for his signing.

5 - Immediately offer to pay for all coach and train travel to Sheffield this weekend for all supporters. those that have already paid can have club shop gear to the cost of their tickets. Thank them for sticking with us while we've messed them about and tell them I'm very much looking forward to seeing as many of them as possible in Sheffield this weekend because cups are bloody important and we fully intend to repay their faith with a good run this year. Tell players you'll accept nothing less than the quarter final and tell them it's about time we got a bit of belief and confidence back around the place.

6 - Offer large bonus for anybody who manages to inflict serious injury on Chris Morgan, red cards will be forgiven on this occasion. Seeing him carried from the field would cheer everybody up no end.

7 - If knocked out of the cup at Bramall Lane host very large dinner and drink up for players and fans on that free Saturday. Make the tickets cheap, make it good for kids, make players aware of their responsibilities i.e. no mobile phones, no leaving early, sit at the table and eat their bloody dinner etc. After the meal invite supporters to stand up and speak for a few minutes about how the past few years have been for them and how wonderful they felt in October. Then give players the same chance.

8 - Go out and get the best fitness coach money can buy. If beaten by Sheff Utd use that spare two weeks as a mini pre-season and make the bastards run. The blubber being carried by some of our players at the moment is a disgrace. If we beat Sheff Utd and have no spare time then bring back Gerry Francis' infamous 'running Tuesdays'. Several of our first team squad could actually do with losing as much as a stone.

9 - Immediately write to 200 former players informing them that the W12 club is now open to them on matchdays for food and they will be more than welcome at every game as our guests.

10 - Involve Angelo Balanta, Raheem Sterling and Joe Oastler in first team. Developing our own young players is more important than improving other people's players on loan and that will be the emphasis now. Tell board I will forgo all new signings if they spend the money on an academy instead.

11 - Show the players videos of the Derby, Preston, Reading and Barnsley games. Remind them how good they can be. Encourage them to relax on the field and plead with the supporters to show them more patience during games.

12 - Make hitting the first defender from corners an offense punishable by a fine of one week's wages. Spend three days solidly working on corners to give them a chance to get it right.

13 - Double training sessions - one in the morning, one in the afternoon, with a meal together in between. Two afternoons a week arrange compulsory bowling, golfing, fishing, go-karting, shooting etc etc and give places away to fans. There needs to be some spirit and heart put back in this team and the whole club needs to be brought together.

14 - Give Flav my mobile number with a couple of digits wrong - not before pointing out how stupid it is to not pay transfer fees but to offer massive wages, thereby getting other people's mediocre cast offs and freebies on long expensive contracts.

15 - Aaron Mclean, transfer listed at Peterborough, thank you very much indeed. Partner him with Helguson. Ask Arsenal how much they want for Simpson and pay it, send him back if there's no chance of him coming permanently. Take a chance on either Jackson or Beckford and play them when Helguson gets injured.

16 - Take that bloody P AGYE number plate of Agyemang's Bentley and jam it up his arse. Offer to pay for the removal surgery only when he is worthy of driving a Bentley. Provide a banged up old Ford Escort in the meantime.

17 - From Plymouth game onwards no more chauffeur driven lifts down South Africa Road for the players. All players and staff will park at White City and walk to the ground among the fans as before. They will sign autographs and talk to them. If fans shout rubbish at them they should be allowed to respond. Any player complaining about this will be told in no uncertain terms that if they put 100% effort in the fans will love them for it regardless and if they are therefore being shouted at on South Africa Road the solution is not to hide in a bloody chauffer driven car, it's to try a bit harder.

18 - Introduce strict no smoking rules on all players. Smokers who ignore these will not play or train with the first team and will be released at the first possible opportunity.

19 - Surround myself with QPR people. Ainsworth, Rowlands, Bircham, Gallen, Ferdinand, Francis - whoever. Get them in here, get them taking training sessions, get them in the dressing room before matches. Let’s make it a bit more fun, a bit more about QPR than money.

20 - Throw extremely large and extravagant Christmas party for all players and staff at house. Challenge all players to speak to at least three members of staff during the night and be able to name them and something interesting about them the following day – fine those that go straight for the three beautiful young ladies who work in the club shop.

21 - Impose strict wage limits on new signings and contract re-negotiations. Only ever award two year deals with a third year option on our side at most. Include massive bonuses for goals, assists, promotions. No further payments to agents under any circumstances. Anybody that won’t agree to this isn’t the type of player we want here.

22 - Make it very clear that leaking information about signings or goings on at the club to newspapers or websites is a gross misconduct sackable offence and enforce it. Make it very clear that anybody publishing such information is no longer welcome at Loftus Road - remove press passes and season tickets if necessary. Things are difficult enough without us undermining ourselves.

23 - Re-employ Sheila Marsen as secretary and Mel Johnson as chief scout.

24 - Tell Gorkss and Stewart that they are my centre back pairing for the next ten games regardless of how they play. Tell them to relax, be confident and work on their partnership. Invite them in to review after that ten games and give them another ten if there are more positives than negatives, or five more games if there are more negatives. Replace with connolly after 15 matches if it's not going well and give tell him he will get the same opportunity. It's time to end the constant chopping and changing. Make no more than ten team changes in first ten games.

25 - Write to Rob Styles and call him a knob.

26 - Employ fit PA.

And that’s just the first day.

Careless talk costs fans
I was intrigued by the advert on the big screen at recent home games encouraging supporters to text in and report other fans who were using foul and abusive language. A number of things sprung to mind and basically I’m just going to ask questions here rather than provide answers because, as I say, I was intrigued and thought about it a lot on the train home from the Sheff Utd match when it first appeared. I’m going to send these questions into the club and see what sort of a reply I get back.

The first thing I would ask is what happens once a text has been sent? Who reads them and what do they do with the information? I would presume that it would need more than a text, or several texts, to get a supporter into trouble otherwise we could all just pick on the bloody idiot that sits near us and text his seat number in regardless of whether he misbehaves or not. I would presume, I don’t know, that if one seat number is reported a lot the club will send a spotter to sit near there on a matchday and report back.

If that is right, then is it just one spotter on one trip and is it just their judgement that counts? What I’m getting at there is the differing standards of behaviour people see as acceptable. I mean I was sitting near a group of people at Derby this year who I felt were completely over the top – everybody was a “fucking c***” on both the QPR and Derby sides every thirty seconds for the entire match. Had a text facility been available that day I may well have sent something, although to be honest I find the whole thing a little bit like snitching and telling tales at school so I probably wouldn’t but anyway. Those lads would probably say you should not go to a football match and expect everybody to sit quietly, they probably saw little wrong in their behaviour.

Now against Sheff Utd the frustration of the visiting team’s tactics and Mark Bunn time wasting an hour before the end of the game got to me and I shouted down at Kevin Blackwell from the South Africa Road stand that he was a “miserable bastard.” Now I know I’m a bit of a pain to sit with, although I have calmed recently, and that I get too involved and swear too much but I don’t think, nowadays, I’m too bad. At a Hull FC match last season I called Lee Radford a “lazy bastard” and was immediately yelled at by the father of a young lad a couple of rows down who said he didn’t want his kids hearing things like that – I argued with him that perhaps a rugby league game in Hull on a Friday night wasn’t the best place for them then. He would have texted in about me though, as would my Mum who agreed with him that night.

Now my Gran would sit next to my Mum at the rugby and tell her off for saying that Hull are: “absolute crap” which she does three or four times a game and would probably text in about that. So you see what I mean? Whose standard are we judging by here? Is it acceptable to call Kevin Blackwell a miserable bastard in frustration? Is it acceptable to say that QPR were bloody crap at Ipswich? Because I could find you people who would say no to both.

Then once you get past that lets say several texts have been sent, a guy has been watched several times, and he is bang to rights. What happens then? I’ve heard anecdotally about somebody being written to by the club and fined £50. How do the club enforce that? What happens if you refuse to pay? Where does the money go if you do? Personally if that letter arrives at LoftforWords towers I’m torn between wiping my arse (is that acceptable?) on my season ticket, positing it back to them and never attending again or withdrawing £50 in penny pieces and taking it to them in a wheelbarrow just to make their lives awkward.

All in all I felt the whole exercise just further increases the ever growing ‘us against them’ atmosphere that is enveloping our club at the moment driving wedges between the supporters, the players and the club. It is very easy to forget at the moment that we do actually all want the same thing.

Photo: Action Images

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