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Think there's been quite enough 'hounding out', particularly recently.
I'm still mortified by the treatment of Ferdinand, Bhatia, Hoos. The chants, the clown-face memes and stickers up of them, for what, coming 16th while paying off a huge FFP fine?
Not a moment's self-reflection that I've seen from anyone involved in any of that revolting nonsense. Singing 'Fck Off Les Ferdinand!' at games, Hoos being hounded (and filmed) in the street, the memes...embarrassing.
Well, they fcked off. Congratulations. How is that going so far? Everyone involved should put it on their CVs. Enjoying it so much you now want to 'hound out' some others too? Sure that will work just as well.
I am sure that neither Ferdinand, Hoos or Ramsey (or Impey - was there a heartfelt tribute from Nourry to him I missed - nor any of the decent football staff quietly jettisoned and replaced) are vindictive by nature. But they probably do pause while looking at the binfire now in progress.
The owners should communicate with the fans. That's worth pushing for. I think they plan to, but were hoping for genuine news rather than an emergency broadcast. But unless you have a spare £10-15 million quid a year I'd probably hold-off doing any 'hounding out' until you have a better plan.
Continue the post-Luton run and they'll ditch Marti by Christmas. Win two or three of the home games (I know, I know!), throw in a few draws and suddenly all is not lost. Get enough players back fit and perhaps even doing a Millwall-like run of winning a block of games is not impossible. But I do think it's the season right there. I'm more inclined to think it'll fall flat, but you never know with this lot. Wish we had a couple more strikers.
Gallen was there for six years, not eight: 2017 to 2023. So, let's do that judging.
Year two that he was there, Charlton won promotion. That was 2019. Between 2019 and 2023, Charlton had three different ownership groups, as well as one very acrimonious court case between board members and a rare failed 'fit and proper ownership" test. There was a transfer embargo placed upon the club in 2020.
Millwall did indeed, as you suggested, "judge Gallen on his (six) years at Charlton". They judged he was a very competent, experienced football executive who'd worked successfully in the most testing of environments and would therefore make a great DOF for a London club with a budget set in the bottom half of the Championship. All the players the club signed this summer since his arrival have hit the ground running. Because they fit the Millwall game model and he knows what he's doing at this level in a way that nobody at QPR does anymore, because nobody at QPR has anything like his experience, contacts, reputation - despite what they write on LinkedIn.
Agree strongly. Based on experiencing both, I genuinely, honestly fear and loath the idea of going up more than going down.
The season you win promotion is incredible, hilarious and brilliant; the season you are relegated (24/25?) is miserable, humiliating and depressing. But both of the last seasons we spent in the PL were the worst I've had for very different reasons, while the three we spent in the third tier were by contrast a romp and rejuvenating. And the PL looks to have grown more annoying (ie VAR) and prohibitively expensive.
I dream of between tenth and sixth in the Championship, year in/year out.
I don't see the advantage of anyone leaving before the season is out.
And in terms of fan mobilisation, well, this is it: multiple threads on messageboards, social media uproar (and quite a few tantrums), fans giving players the bird at the end of matches and QPR bottom of the table...this is all a million times more powerful a message for the board than a strongly worded letter from a fans group and 150 supporters standing outside the main entrance chanting.
Nothing substantial can be done before January anyway. All the people signing cheques - ie Ruben - will be very aware of the kind of people we've signed in previous seasons to dig us out . And now Recruitment + Nourry will be told to sign those kind of players regardless of 'the model'. I bet they do.
Then, in the summer, the blood-letting will begin, whichever division we find ourselves in. All the seeds have been sown for that.
One caveat: yes, we are in a relegation battle. Have been from the start. But three successive wins can upend that in this division and with injuries clearing and a couple of canny signings (on huge wages) in January could make that a reality. I've been in panic mode since watching the team early on, but I definitely don't think all is lost.
Nourry was a choice.I don't think there is any competitive advantage in anybody leaving before the season is over - but there may be to wrestling the transfer strategy back from Nourry for January. Pragmatism must rule in the short term: changing DOF or whatever he is called now would not help, and provides cover for everyone else.
However, this was a choice. Nourry was the board's choice after they employed his Retexco to do an audit. He recommended they strip the coaching staff, employ his choices instead, and himself. They fell for another smooth-talking powerpoint bullshitter.
There were other choices. Steve Gallen is an excellent football administrator who has done a lot of good work for basket-case clubs, QPR and notably Charlton, in preparation for the DOF role at Rangers. He was free and waiting, no doubt, for the call as a lifelong QPR man. Perfect for the role, and cheap. Once again, the board wanted to prove how clever they are, how they can work outside the box, how they think they can do Championship success differently and went with a 26-year-old guy's never worked in day-to-day club football before.
Millwall said thanks very much. We'll have Steve Gallen as our DOF instead. And they've just enjoyed a summer window that's the polar opposite of QPR's (known quantities, identified with attributes who can hit the ground running, and representing value) and are now fifth, putting all to the sword.
I mentioned this on X and got loads of laughing crying emoji abuse: 'we've got higher ambitions than Millwall' etc. I mean.
There's nothing wrong with the DOF model. I was listening to Thomas Frank discussing buying players at Brentford. Nobody's really in charge. Targets are identified and then all four departments - scouting, data, Frank and owner - get in a room and discuss. Players are watched closely for ages, interviewed, signed. It works.
It works everywhere, in fact, where the people doing it know what they're doing. We don't have those people anymore.
Cifuentes on #QPR selling two strikers during the summer and signing one: “The club has a clear model and then my job is to work with the players that we have. I think Zan has proved in Switzerland that he is a striker that can score a lot of goals."
There's a book to be written about Rachid Harkouk, so many stories about him.
Like you, I was a kid when he signed and something about him made me really want him to succeed for us. He was very QPR: skilful, scruffy, cheeky, bit dirty - and ultimately not quite good enough. Part of that team that got relegated in 78/79, breaking my heart.
He was Barry Silkman's best mate, I read, and there's all kinds of tales of them, one rumour of him being nicked for something or other as Harkouk came off the field somewhere. Who knows if true. But he was sent to prison for two and half years a decade ago, a member of big speed dealing gang in Notts.
Ernie Howe, however, even as a ten-year-old I could tell he was absolute garbage.
I thought it was a cowardly performance by him. I've never seen a CF look so often to attach himself to defenders, not to hold them off, but to sort of shadow them whenever we had the ball. His closing down was so half hearted, as well. I mean, twelve touches! Very odd and uncommitted. Can't even think of a comparison in a former player.
I can see merit in all the signings. There are moments with each which are encouraging, Madsen and Santos included. I see absolutely nothing so far in Celar. I'd love to know what his teammates think.
It was absolute madness to go into this season with two senior strikers. It's just not competitive. To have lost both Dykes and Armstrong and replaced them with just Celar, who I read here now we must give six months to acclimatise...total dereliction. We will need strikers in January somehow or it will be how we're relegated. We create too much to only contribute twelve touches.
His performances for an atrocious Orient side this season suggest not. They're one point off the bottom off the bottom of L1, and their fans are even more mutinous than QPR fans (for similar reasons: an encouraging second-half of 2023-24 and new signings, like Dom Ball, about whom much was expected).
A guy on my street is Os home and away. I used to ask him how Smyth was getting on ("best winger in league": so no stranger to hyperbole), now it's Kelman (rolls his eyes) and Dom Ball. Ball, he said a little sadly, is miles and miles off the pace. I think that last injury at Ipswich was pretty ruinous, long-term.
I don't think we got the blend of signings right this summer, at all. I can see merit in all the signings individually - but it should've been Varane or Madsen; Saito or Dembele; Ashby or Santos, plus two other Championship dependables for the spine.
But I'd have all the midfielders we signed ahead of 2024 Dom Ball.
Interesting conversation between Dave McIntyre and Kevin Gallen on the WLS podcast today. Personally find it very hard to disagree with anything they say here, though am sure some will (especially on X).
Surprised Dave Mc doesn't make more of the interview he has with Marti at just under thirteen minutes, though. Finally, some questions asked of MC which aren't spoon-fed club soft-balls. And really good answers. He's great at talking about the specific, challenging football stuff: it's mad the club don't serve him up for more. (A conspiracist might wonder why they don't want this charming, eloquent, thoughtful coach out front more regularly...)
I largely agree with you. We looked decent at Luton with Colback and Field (who both had good games), Cook was good too, and we have looked bereft subsequently without that foundation and JCS. Chair for Lloyd of that starting eleven is our best possible team though, so we better hope for no more injuries as we look weak without key experienced players. Field cannot win a midfield alone, that was never the plan, and the new signings (plus Anderson) are not winning midfield alongside him. That's the big problem for me: the midfield signings were very risky and not cheap. But fair enough, you're on the hill that the new signings are gelling fine, something else is wrong. I agree with Kevin Gallen who - perhaps based on his several hundred Championship games often in absolutely batsht QPR squads - was worried about the summer signings and felt we needed one or two with Championship experience. Who knows? Maybe we're both right. Probably are to a degree.
Nothing we can do about it now anyway, until at least January. I'm sure it'll be fine eventually (I actually do).
Browne was a free transfer. Madsen/Varane were not. Celar was not. I mean, come on: we're paying fees. This is very different to last season. It's clearly a policy to look for value with younger players from abroad. No problem with that, but we look to be fundamentalists with this approach and are now witness to the risks in that.
Surely, surely you can see it's an issue right now with the players we've assembled? Nourry himself said it'll take time and we need to be patient with these players as they assimilate - I think that massively underestimates the journey the fans have been on ove the last three years.
I think there's something in both Varane and Madsen - but at once? It's clearly a huge risk that's cost several million quid and not worked yet. Sunderland looked at their young and very talented squad in the summer and decided what they need was Alan Browne with his 390 Championship appearances to help the likes of Rigg along. This is not controversial! A winning Championship squad needs a bit of Shaun Derry as well as Ali Faurlin and Adel Tarrabt.
But we didn't sign anyone with know-how in this league - that's clearly been a problem these past weeks. That's surely not a debate?
Saito, Madsen, Dembele, Varane, Celar, maybe Santos (if he ever gets that far) each with 50 Championship appearances under their belts are gonna be significantly different propositions than any of them are now with five or so appearances each, all playing together, all finding their feet at the same time. I like the look of all these players individually to varying degrees - I just don't like the look of them all at once right now. And right now, we haven't won at home this season and have just lost three in a row with barely a whimper.
This doesn't need to be a culture war issue. We're not winning games and we're playing badly. There's a reason or two that most can broadly agree on, no?
There's a lot of talk about Hayden being the magic fix. Possibly would help, but expensive and with history. Instead of signing Varane and Madsen, though, how much better would this team be if a Whiteman or Mowatt had been signed (both unlikely, but we need that know-how centrally)? We clearly spent on Madsen, Celar, Varane: maybe we could've sacrificied one for a box-ready midfielder.
Hard to disagree with any of that, though, unless you're an 18-year-old FM nerd who thinks every new European club-player we're linked with is better than the last despite never having seen (or heard) of them before, but still posts on X things like "League ain't ready for what Nourry is cooking" and so forth. QPR 1 Hull City 3.
The signings look very unbalanced. You can have one or two assimilate slowly in a Championship season, perhaps. Six or seven is asking for trouble.
Saw some very active kid on X bawling that Kevin Gallen "was some kind of legend apparently but is trashing that with the fanbase" because KG said Madsen was rubbish or something. Kevin Gallen: 96 goals in 400 appearances across three divisions, promotion winner, scored winners v Chelsea, Arsenal etc etc no longer a QPR legend because he doesn't think the summer signings have been very good.
Saw Jimmy Dunne in Soho yesterday, shook his hand. "Well done on recognising me!" Said we'll be fine. Then went to the Coach and Horses and Scott Twine and Luke McNally of Bristol City were outside having pints of Guinness and cider....
I clearly meant that over the last three seasons we've been circling the drain for long periods over each season and that it is therefore too soon in SEPTEMBER to start saying we won't go down. There are no guarantees. Anything from play-offs to a relegation battle is still available to all.
I am not pessimistic at all. I'm not pessimistic because we have an excellent and pragmatic coach. I am optimistic because of him and I trust him to pick and instruct the players above people who do not take training or look at data. But I don't think MC knows his best team yet, and I don't anyone on this board does either. Because we haven't seen any of them play together enough.
We lost 1-2, had a last minute chance almost equalise. I do not think that Dunne or Frey makes any difference to that outcome. In fact, let's see who we think are our first eleven is in April: may well be Celar at 9 and Ashby or Heverton at RB once they bed in. Nobody knows. They've been brought in for those roles though.
The main thing about this thread that I find incredible is that I do not understand how anyone can look at how the team played at Sheffield Wednesday and say, yes, that's our best team. We were appalling. And in fact, all season we have only really played well for half an hour of any game at most.
The uncomfortable fact is neither we nor the coaching staff really know at this stage what the strongest team is. Our most expensive signings for some time all started last night. They *have* to work. And to work, they must play sometimes. Varane looks like he may have benefited from this. But the only two players we know are top quality - Chair and JCS - are injured. Without those two to hold it together, we are a whole new group trying to rub along.
Also, the idea already stated thread that "we will neither go up nor down this season" is mental. How could anyone look at the last three seasons and think that? We've been circling the drain. It's mid-September. We could easily go down. There's a lot to sort out with this squad
More competitive than losing 1-2 with Lloyd almost scoring in the last minute? No. I think you may be massively overstating the powers of all those players.
Did you see how we played against a much inferior team at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday with all those players? We looked like they'd all dropped half a valium before kick-off.
Chair and JCS may have made a bit of a difference. But I think we will have to get used to not seeing Chair for quite a while.
I did not leave disappointed by a lack of competitive intent. Neither did anyone I went with or spoke to in the pub after. What can I say? I'm not being contrary.
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