You can’t beat one of QPR’s reactionary, wide ranging, ranty statements and Saturday’s effort was an absolute cracker. So where do we stand now? LFW tries some second guessing.

Nobody does a long-winded, nonsense-laced official statement quite as well as Queens Park Rangers. I think my favourite of recent times was the one where Gianni Paladini said people had threatened to kill him for daring to arrange a friendly with MK Dons. One can only imagine how the plea and directions hearing for that one would have gone had somebody followed through with their promise on that occasion. “I just really hate MK Dons your honour.” Hardly likely is it?

Anyway, let’s have a quick look at the latest effort shall we…

“We are pleased to confirm that Adel Taarabt will be staying at QPR this summer. Despite receiving a substantial bid for our Moroccan international, we rebuffed all approaches and indeed, we are keen to build for the future in the Barclays Premier League, and not sell one of our prized assets. Should we have decided to sell Taarabt this summer, we made it clear to Neil Warnock that we would reinvest funds into the squad. Taarabt is fully committed to the club and is looking forward to proving his undoubted star quality for QPR in the Barclays Premier League. Our decision not to sell him only serves to reiterate the ambition and commitment we have both shown to QPR since we arrived here.

We saved the club when it was close to relegation from the Championship and just one week from liquidation. At this time, Flavio Briatore outlined a four year plan to reach the Premier League, which was achieved. We have always owned approximately 70 per-cent of the shareholding at the club and have been the major benefactors since our arrival.

We have backed Neil Warnock in bringing in his two top targets, Jay Bothroyd and Kieron Dyer, and we are working hard to try and pursue a couple of other targets the coach has identified. Welsh international Danny Gabbidon has impressed the coach whilst on trial and we are aiming to add him, as well as at least one or two other players to our squad in the near future.

Neil Warnock is our coach and we are working closely with him in a professional and confidential manner to try to achieve our aims and objectives. The coach's job is to coach the squad and identify players he believes will improve the squad. As a board, we deal with all the negotiations and we have been successful in completing deals for Bothroyd and Dyer so far. We are aware of some issues that have been raised in the press by the coach, but we have discussed these with him internally and he has agreed to be more reserved in terms of what he discusses in the future.

We are fully committed to strengthening our status as a Premier League Club next season and in due course, build for the future. Now we are in the Premier League, we intend to stay here. We believe this club can achieve great things and we are looking forward to the Barclays Premier League season.

We are very encouraged by the 10,000 plus Season Tickets we have sold to date and we look forward to welcoming our fans back to Loftus Road on the first day of the season against Bolton Wanderers on August 13.”

This is the second time this summer that Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore, or at least people acting on their behalf, have put fingers to keyboard and addressed the supporters at QPR. The first occasion was back in May when they responded to Amit Bhatia’s resignation and Ishan Saksena’s sacking and now we have this latest effort. Sadly the much loved pair at the top of our club never miss an opportunity, either in statements or interviews, to betray their lack of knowledge and understanding of football. Nor do they ever miss the chance to show just how much distain they have for the supporters and how little they seem to think we know about the sport. They’ve done so again in spades here.

Back in May we were told that the vastly increased ticket prices were in line with other London Premiership clubs. That, of course, is true but to return to a metaphor once used by our former chairman Bill Power we’re not talking about a cinema here. We can’t simply look at what Tottenham are charging and charge the same because we’re not showing the same product as Tottenham. At the cinema everybody is showing Pirates of the Caribbean, so if you own a cinema you just look at what the other cinemas are charging people to see that film and charge accordingly depending on your strategy. In the Premiership Tottenham are showing Rafael Van Der Vaat, Gareth Bale and Luka Modric while we’re facing up to the very real prospect of having to pick Fitz Hall, Patrick Agyemang and Hogan Ephraim for some of our games this season. They point to the high sales figures as justification, but we've seen before at Loftus Road that such rises poison the atmosphere and at those prices sales will collapse next summer and thereafter as the novelty of the Premiership wears off or we are relegated. There's no long term planning in their pricing. It’s this clear lack of understanding of the sport that shines through time and time again when Ecclestone and Briatore speak and it does so again this weekend. 

It’s there for all to see from the first line of this latest effort. The news that Adel Taarabt is staying, if it turns out to be true, is absolutely fantastic. He was our best player by a country mile last season and voted the best in the Championship by his fellow professionals. In a summer when we’ve already signed Kieron Dyer and are apparently now seriously considering Danny Gabbidon as well the retention of the Championship’s best player from last season is undoubtedly a huge boost. Norwich have spent the thick end of £8m this summer on seven players and not a single one of them is as good as Taarabt.

Personally, for all of that, I was never that convinced about this proposed big move to Paris St Germain and said as much on the messageboard. Even on Friday when it seemed the deal was close I clung to Taarabt’s comments earlier this summer about not being crazy on the idea of playing in Ligue One, and the fact that Flavio Briatore was leading the negotiations meaning we were probably asking for three times what Taarabt is actually worth and wanted it all paid up front. Taarabt will not be bought by anybody in this country for the money we want for him until he has proven himself in the Premiership because no manager will take such a big risk on such a problem child. Had he gone to France he’d have been the show pony who failed at Spurs and then ran away to a piss poor league when given a second chance to show he could cut it in the Premiership. Not a good reputation to have.

However to say he is definitely staying shows a lack of understanding of the sport, and backs Briatore and Ecclestone into a corner. I’m not sure I believe the interest in Taarabt was really there at all, and if it was I don’t think he’s that fussed about going to play in France. But if it was and if he is then Taarabt could now try and force that move through. In modern day football it’s the players that hold all the power. We will eventually see it with Fabregas, we’ll see it with Modric, we’ll see it with Tevez – as much as the old ideal about leaving them to rot in the reserves is admirable it’s merely wishful thinking. If players want to go they will go, and if Taarabt really wants to go then he will go. Paris St Germain have said today they expect to resume negotiations over Taarabt on Monday. And what if somebody does come in with an outlandish offer for him? Then what? Even if every supporter recognised that Taarabt had made it impossible for him to stay, or that the transfer fee received is a good deal, that fact would remain that Briatore and Ecclestone said the player was definitely staying and then sold him. One can only hope that when they said Taarabt is “fully committed” to playing for QPR in the Premiership they have actually spoken to him and agreed that with him first otherwise they’re at risk of being made to look like liars.

Another problem our club has with the Taarabt situation is our official website is now damaged goods – a ‘toxic brand’ I believe is the modern day saying. Having admitted publicly during the Alejandro Faurlin case that the club used the official website to publish a “puff” piece to appease the fans, saying Faurlin had cost £3.5m when in actual fact it was less than a tenth of that, can we ever actually believe anything that’s published on their again? If they do sell Taarabt for £15m, and then tell us they sold him for £15m, then none of us will believe them. If the official website told me the sky was blue I’d want to pop outside and check for myself.

Do we believe them when they say Warnock would have had the Taarabt money to spend had he been sold, despite Warnock saying the exact opposite last week? That sounds like an easy thing to say now it’s apparently not happening to me – yes, of course I’d have given all signed up members of LFW a thousand pounds in cash had I won the lottery last night.

Time and again when reading the statement above, and listening to the lines coming out of Loftus Road in general, I find myself asking: ‘how stupid do they really think we are?’. As we read down: “Flavio Briatore outlined a four year plan to reach the Premier League, which was achieved.” Oh right so it was the plan all along to work our way through Luigi De Canio, Iain Dowie, Paulo Sousa, Jim Magilton, Paul Hart and Mick Harford was it? The only reason Flavio’s four year plan came to fruition was because Flavio buggered off for a bit when things went absolutely tits up and Amit Bhatia and Ishan Saksena appointed Neil Warnock and let him get on with it. If Flavio had run the club for the last four years himself we’d be looking forward to Hartlepool not Newcastle this season. Do they think we’ve forgotten all of that?

“We have backed Neil Warnock in bringing in his two top targets, Jay Bothroyd and Kieron Dyer.” Bothroyd? Perhaps. Kieron Dyer? Warnock’s top summer transfer target after 16 starts in four years at newly relegated West Ham? I very much doubt it don’t you? And if he was then why did it take until the end of July to get it sorted? Dyer has known he would be a free agent this summer for months and the season ended in May. Last summer such free agents were signed up immediately. Without wishing to be crude, top target my arse.

“Welsh international Danny Gabbidon has impressed the coach whilst on trial and we are aiming to add him, as well as at least one or two other players to our squad in the near future,” again, this is either mistaking us for being stupid or lacking understanding of the game or both. Would the other two players be Brian Murphy and Danny Webber by any chance? If they think these are signings that will make us competitive in the Premiership they’re sadly, sadly mistaken.

Hopefully what has actually happened here is that the purse strings have been tightened during the summer because Ecclestone and Briatore wanted and expected to sell the club in that time but having failed to do so they will now loosen them sufficiently to give Warnock a fighting chance of securing us as a Premiership club. Should DJ Campbell and Wayne Routledge be the other two players (costing a sum total of about £3m) then I may start to believe that is the case.

And then the really killer paragraph. Neil Warnock is our coach and we are working closely with him in a professional and confidential manner to try to achieve our aims and objectives. The coach's job is to coach the squad and identify players he believes will improve the squad. As a board, we deal with all the negotiations and we have been successful in completing deals for Bothroyd and Dyer so far. We are aware of some issues that have been raised in the press by the coach, but we have discussed these with him internally and he has agreed to be more reserved in terms of what he discusses in the future.

Ignore the irony of the statement urging a professional and confidential approach and then going on to issue an unprofessional and public rebuke of QPR’s most successful manager in years for a moment if you can. This, I believe, is what lies at the heart of this latest offering from our club. Criticism from fans and newspapers our owners can handle, because they’ve never cared what the QPR supporters think and some of the newspaper coverage is so badly written and wildly inaccurate that it’s hardly worth the paper it’s written on – count the inaccuracies in yesterday’s Independent article, a paper that carries Neil Warnock’s column and could therefore have checked the facts with him at the drop of a hat, and marvel at just how poor today’s effort from the Express is.

However over the past couple of weeks Neil Warnock has played a very clever game with our board. He is unsackable at the moment. Adored by the QPR supporters and seen throughout the game and the media as a miracle worker who triumphed in the face of the QPR farce where so many others had failed. Even Flavio Briatore cannot sack Warnock, at least until he’s suffered a bad run of results in the Premiership, and Warnock knows that. So he’s used the media to put a bit of pressure on the board, to say they’re not backing him, to say he’s got nothing to do with his best player being sold and he won’t see any of the money when he is. Paulo Sousa was sacked for less but the fans are on Warnock’s side, the press are on Warnock’s side, and so he’s got away with making Briatore and Ecclestone look terrible. That has clearly rankled with them and has forced action.

Hopefully it has led to a full and frank exchange of views in which Warnock has agreed to rein in his public criticism of the pair in exchange for a little bit more support in his squad building. Either that or Warnock has been told in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t like the cards he’s been dealt he can resign. Whichever it is I still believe that Warnock is likely to be out of a job at Loftus Road sooner rather than later, probably when his grossly underequipped squad has lost its first few games, and then Flavio’s dream of an obscure Italian coaching players Briatore has used his connections to bring in can be rekindled.

It is massively concerning that they are now referring to Neil Warnock as “the coach” rather than the manager. Accuse me of looking for something that isn’t there if you like but the word “coach” is mentioned several times and this is exactly how the trouble started with Iain Dowie. Warnock has a clause in his contract entitling him to full control of players coming into the club and a full pay off upon departure of that is broken, which should prevent a repeat of the Dowie situation, but you’ll forgive me for not trusting Briatore as far as I can throw him on that issue.

The headline for this article was going to be ‘actions speak louder than words’, but instead I’m using that as my conclusion. It’s easy to say that Adel Taarabt will be staying and is committed to the club, it might be a good deal harder to actually make that a reality. It is certainly more difficult to secure a club of our size in the Premiership than to merely say you’re going to do so and for all the grand promises in this latest statement it will all count for nothing once Bolton set about us on day one. We will not survive this season if the highlights of our summer activity are Kieron Dyer and Danny Gabbidon and if the board thinks we will then I’m afraid a long winter lies ahead. A winter those two will probably spend mostly with the physio.

To be fair to the owners a statement was needed, but that’s only because things clearly aren’t going well at Loftus Road. You don’t see successful and well run clubs slinging out too many official statements like this. It’s now up to the board to make good what they’ve said and secure us as a Premiership team. As it stands, three weeks before the start of the season, they’re a million miles away from doing that.

Disagree? Argue the toss in the comment box below or follow @loftforwords on Twitter and chat to me there. Not between 3.30pm and 5.30pm today though please, I’ll be watching the latest nail going into the Hull FC 2011 season coffin then.

Photo: Action Images

delhisuperhoop added 14:53 - Jul 24 we must be favourites to finish bottom. I've already resigned myself to relegation.
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lifer added 14:55 - Jul 24 Spot on. My feeling is that E & B were planning a sale of the club, expecting the Mittals to cough up way over the odds now Premiership football is part of the deal. When the Mittals (and/or anyone else) didn't offer enough, tactics had to be adjusted. E & B clearly don't want to invest any more money in the Rs, but they are at least bright enough to realise that without at least some minimal input, the club is likely to be doomed to a swift and humiliating relegation, thereby rendering their investment even less saleable. So, if they are forced to retain control of QPR for the coming season, they will have to inject some kind of cash for players, to prevent themselves from losing millions. Like you say, the Taarabt to PSG saga has struck me as strange right from the off. Why would an ambitious and (over)confident player want to take himself out of one of the best shop windows in world football after waiting years to arrive there? It just doesn't add up. Also, you're right about Warnock. He's a canny old manager whose been in the game a lifetime (I remember seeing him running up and down the wing for Aldershot decades ago). He's no fool and does not underestimate the knowledge of the fans like the 2 chancers in charge. He also works the press really well. I've always felt that as soon as he felt his position was untenable, he'd walk, and he hasn't walked yet. That's got to mean something. I still cling to the forlorn hope that E & B will sell the club to the Mittals in the next couple of weeks, take their profit and disappear, but it's looking less & less likely. My only spark of solace is that having seen the uninspiring calibre of the players that the smaller clubs in the Premiership are signing, we might actually have a faint chance of survival. The next couple of weeks could prove interesting (or not).

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lifer added 14:56 - Jul 24 Spot on. My feeling is that E & B were planning a sale of the club, expecting the Mittals to cough up way over the odds now Premiership football is part of the deal. When the Mittals (and/or anyone else) didn't offer enough, tactics had to be adjusted. E & B clearly don't want to invest any more money in the Rs, but they are at least bright enough to realise that without at least some minimal input, the club is likely to be doomed to a swift and humiliating relegation, thereby rendering their investment even less saleable. So, if they are forced to retain control of QPR for the coming season, they will have to inject some kind of cash for players, to prevent themselves from losing millions. Like you say, the Taarabt to PSG saga has struck me as strange right from the off. Why would an ambitious and (over)confident player want to take himself out of one of the best shop windows in world football after waiting years to arrive there? It just doesn't add up. Also, you're right about Warnock. He's a canny old manager whose been in the game a lifetime (I remember seeing him running up and down the wing for Aldershot decades ago). He's no fool and does not underestimate the knowledge of the fans like the 2 chancers in charge. He also works the press really well. I've always felt that as soon as he felt his position was untenable, he'd walk, and he hasn't walked yet. That's got to mean something. I still cling to the forlorn hope that E & B will sell the club to the Mittals in the next couple of weeks, take their profit and disappear, but it's looking less & less likely. My only spark of solace is that having seen the uninspiring calibre of the players that the smaller clubs in the Premiership are signing, we might actually have a faint chance of survival. The next couple of weeks could prove interesting (or not).

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devonranger added 14:58 - Jul 24 another top article clive,let cut to the chase and cut out all the bullshit.bernie and flavio want out to the tune of £100 million (laughable amount) .they will not spend a penny more than they have to untill they sell! that it in a nutshell.
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Northernr added 15:03 - Jul 24 I'm inclined to agree Devon, but if they don't then we will be relegated and they won't even get half of that for the club. Maybe they've realised that. Or maybe the theory that they are simply going to take all the TV money to repay the money they have loaned into the club plus interest and then whatever they sell the club for would be profit is right.
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Hooped_Pully added 15:20 - Jul 24 Clive - excellent and spot on throughout. Only small issue would be the credibility of Bothroyd as a 'top target' - whilst Warnock was desperate to sign him, I think he would have preferred Graham, CMS and possibly Morison as the 'marquee striker' signing - when we missed out on all of those, Bothroyd was the only show in town. Otherwise, I might have written this myself. If I were any good, that is.

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Doughnut added 15:27 - Jul 24 DJ Campbell, Wayne Routledge (although that chance seems to have passed us by) and a decent defender - Kyle Walker springs to mind, and I'll be looking forward to the new season again. The defence really does need strengthening!
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TonyH added 15:31 - Jul 24 QPR fans i'm sure don't care how rich the board members are but expect them to have a go and spend say £15 million out of the £40 million TV money on players. We just don't have players who are quick enough, not only in defence but midfield and out wide or people who can open up other sides. Our defence will be like Blackpools last season, whilst the attack is worse. We don't want people like the overated Carlton Cole, Crouch would be great-but no chance on his wages or the fee. The likes of DJ Campbell, Routledge would give alternatives and are in the price range. All the players so far signed or on trial are injury prone. Mostly they are the type of players you have as back up in the championship. QPR need first choice players better than what they have, apart from Bothroyd thats not happened. It appears to me Briatori again wants to pick the team and sign Italian free transfers he's heard of, whilst Warnock (the coach!) is giving trials to frees Briatori has never heard of and frankly if thats the best we can get we are in bigger trouble than i first thought.

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ade_qpr added 15:42 - Jul 24 have worked out the new cash cow plan by owners??? dehisuperhooop checked the odds on relegation we are third in betting across the board so put the prem money on us to go down 100 million secured. Clive meaning to bring this up all summer the extra money made on season tickets goes to paying off fines from GP handling??? of Furlin transfer?? As you stated earlier doesn't go long way to buying alot of new players. NW mentions he hasn't seen much in transfer fees. On serious note how would people compare QPR preseason dealings to other highly ranked clubs for relegation Swansea, Norwich, Wolves and Wigan?

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ade_qpr added 15:42 - Jul 24 have worked out the new cash cow plan by owners??? dehisuperhooop checked the odds on relegation we are third in betting across the board so put the prem money on us to go down 100 million secured. Clive meaning to bring this up all summer the extra money made on season tickets goes to paying off fines from GP handling??? of Furlin transfer?? As you stated earlier doesn't go long way to buying alot of new players. NW mentions he hasn't seen much in transfer fees. On serious note how would people compare QPR preseason dealings to other highly ranked clubs for relegation Swansea, Norwich, Wolves and Wigan?

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JB007007 added 15:51 - Jul 24 Another good write up Clive. Another thing that made me boil last week was the fact we lost out on the Naughton loan deal. I'm sure if NW had been leading that we would have ended up with him. Just waiting for the Routledge one to go south (or Wales as the case may be) and that should top it. It will be a sad day when Neil goes and I hope fans dont turn on players and him when the inevitable defeats start due to lack of squad strengthening. I'm praying that there will be a buy out in time before the season starts. I remember the relief felt when fatso took a back seat 16 or 17 months ago. Thought we had seen the last of his meddling, but fear that we could have this for some time. Loftus Road is a bad atmosphere with these clowns around.

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roeder added 16:50 - Jul 24 Agree with all the sentiment. Still none the wiser whether the shareholders will keep our £10m loan in place which gives them the best part of £1m in interest each year before paying any of it off loan presumably secured against the ground. With the "hard part" done and promotion gained, we should not be worrying about spending a little cash and wondering if Loftus Road is actually in the right hands. Hopefully whoever buys of our current "majority shareholders" (now evidently Siamese twins?) would not do what Goldberg did at Palace and not have full ownership of all the assets. Anyone able to shed light on the lucrative loan we are paying to (greedy?) shareholders?

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SomersetHoops added 17:17 - Jul 24 Well said Clive. Warnock is entitled to protect his reputation. When he was in this position before at Sheffield United he had owners who could not afford to put together a Premiership squad and they were relegated as a result through no fault of Warnock's. Now he sees a situation where a modest outlay could provide a squad that would survive and owners that could easily afford it I think he's right to complain when it doesn't happen. I see Briatore doing everything he can to undermine Warnock so he can add him to the long list of managers he has got rid of so he can go back to making an incompetant mess of running the club as he did before. We must not forget our recent success was only possible because Briatore was not involved in running the club at the time. If the owners really want the club to stay in the Premiership they should give Warnock a reasonable transfer budget they have denied him so far and allow him to manage the transfers rather than that idiot Briatore. By telling Warnock not to say what he honestly believes is not reasonable, but Briatore doesn't know what honesty means and this statement only proves it further. Saying Kieron Dyer was a main target for Warnock is a joke as is not taking up the option to sign Routledge. I anticipate Taarabt being sold at the last minute of the transfer window with no opportunity to replace him just to undermine NW's position and have a greater excuse to get rid of him.

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NorwayRanger16 added 18:44 - Jul 24 When they are already deluded enough to think the club is worth £100 mill, why not spend £10 mill on new players and then just up the asking price to £110 mill?! Surely problem solved ;-) Ron Norris on QPRnet.com summed up the statement perfect, "Typically of QPR though they manage to take something quite positive and coat it in such smarming arrogance that you actually find yourself more irritated than ever." But all in all i'm far happier now than before this statement. We have achieved two things, Taarabt's staying and finaly some reaction from our owners. Now we can hopefully plan ahead for our most important season in a long long time.

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baz_qpr added 19:53 - Jul 24 The one thing I think the club and board have failed to come to terms with yet, is the level of scrutiny as a premiership club they are now over. Fans are not happy and saying so and before you know it The Guardian, Telegraph Times etc are running stories and chasing T and C. GP will also be under this scrutiny as will the players and especially Tarrabt. This does not help them sell the club. Frankly the one thing the club needs to do is a get a good pr agency in working with the in-house team and the board and the players so that everyone fully understands what will happen. Warnock of course has been here before, and played it very cannily over the last few weeks.

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DesertBoot added 20:02 - Jul 24 wasn't it "Champions League in four years" and since when was Warnock "coach"? The more you read this statement the more it is easier to dissect. Laughable.
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YorkRanger added 20:56 - Jul 24 Good article Clive - pretty much agree with all your sentiments. Looked at the walk up prices for myself and my two daughters for the Bolton game....Wigan away I think.
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RangersAreBack added 23:14 - Jul 24 F & B justified the price rises to "keep our best players" yet they obviously tried to sell Adel. Now they are trying to recover some face by suggesting they blocked the deal all along and have directed Neil to go along with their silly games. In my view the deal collapsed because F & B wanted the money up-front before selling their shares. As neither now looks likely, they have gone to plan B - protect their investment by holding on to Adel until January. If the season ticket sales figures quoted in the statement are to be believed, they were commercially (if not morally) justified to increase the prices to such extortionate levels. However, prospective buyers don't share supporters' addiction. The level of investment F & B seek can only come from shrewd individuals who won't be held to emotional blackmail.

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Spaghetti_Hoops added 23:54 - Jul 24 The truth of the matter is that whatever the club put out as a statement you would either disagree with it or distrust it, or more likely both. Some of your points are contradictory or made in apparent ignorance, just fearing the worst. Rather than yet another picky rant to fuel the sentiment on the message board the "actions speak louder than words" approach would have made more interesting reading. The season ahead is what matters, not apportioning blame before the first ball is kicked. Whilst insulting them makes for popularity trying to understand what Ecclestone & co are doing and why is more helpful to the support.

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Northernr added 00:14 - Jul 25 Is the 'actions speak louder than words' approach not what I've done here? Secure in the Premiership, Taarabt staying, new signings to come - fantastic, now go and do it. If they think Danny Gabbidon, Brian Murphy, Danny Webber and Kieron Dyer are going to keep us up they're wrong. If the other two signings are better than that then great. Let's see. Dare I say that the truth of the matter is had I put out an article headlined 'actions speak louder than words' or offered an opinion on what Ecclestone and co are doing and why you'd still have disagreed with it?

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Eltham_Ranger added 09:14 - Jul 25 We're all aware of how are owners weren't going to open their cheque books this season. I know we love to believe that it would have happened but lets be honest as soon as Bhatia and Saksena left we were in trouble with regards to the clubs transfer policy. I think we all expected Naughton, Routledge, Bullard, Bothroyd and Upson as definites under the last owners but I would expect that all those players would become our best players which includes Taarabt. So our board were never going to buy all of them were they? I can see the conversation now "you can have one mr. warnock, bothroyd he's free - take him" In a a bend over a take it conversation. Well that's the doom and gloom. What about the positives? Postive one: I believe that Norwich and Swansea's teams are still weaker than ours (despite the investment) Clive, you touch on it in your piece there about Norwich. Positive 2: Speaking to a West Ham season ticket holder he was saying that Gabbidon was his favourite player a couple of seasons ago. He says he should stay fit he should be excellent for us. (However he did laugh regarding Dyer) Postive 3: Team spirit is all there to see. I believe that a team of Kenny, Orr, Shittu, Gabbidon, Hill; Derry, Faurlin; Buszaky, Taarabt, Smith; Bothroyd. Will stay up. Positive 4: We're premier league!! Who'd swap our position with anyone else's in the football league?

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LambournR added 11:33 - Jul 25 Clive, I don't expect anything less from Ecclestone, who lets face it, is a nothing more than a canny politician. But at least we have Taarabt back, which has lightened my mood significantly - I believe that if we keep him and he plays like he did last year we will confortably stay in the premiership, as his goals and assists will allow us to compete. My worry - which you and everyone else seems to have missed here - is that we don't have any cover at full back and central/defensive midfield. Missing out of Naughton is a big disappointment. Orr and Hill at best help keep things tight, but will struggle in the Premiership - and there is no cover (Connolly?). Ditto Derry - and what happens if either Derry or Faulin get injured (Connolly again?). No trialists in these positions on the tour to Italy - has Warnock really overlooked these areas?

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Northernr added 11:40 - Jul 25 Overlooked here maybe but certainly not in past articles. I think given the budget Warnock is having to prioritise. He'll know where we're short. This protracted pursuit of Brian Murphy, a mediocre goalkeeper who would only by our third choice, puzzles me though.
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Spaghetti_Hoops added 11:41 - Jul 25 It's the all pervading negativity that gets to me. The kick the owners whatever they do attitude. Criticism doesn't have to be negative and destructive. DylanP made a perfectly reasonable case for the alternative point of view. What do you do.... leap at him with a ...."how dare you be positive" bit of nonsense. Well if the message board is exclusive territory for the boo-boys just say. My experience of message boards in other fields is that the best ones are inclusive and respectful. Don't get me wrong Briatore is hopeless and Ecclestone only seems interested in collecting his winnings, but my opinion of them overall is they are on a par with most of the owners QPR have had in my time. Deserving no praise but deserving balanced appraisal. The outcome of their tenure could be a debt free yo-yo club rather than a relegation and liquidation haunted hulk slowly sinking into League One with a decaying stadium. A large part of the support probably prefer the former and are prepared to pay more for it. Lucky them, or more fool them, some on here may say but my guess is they are in the majority. Their opinion deserves some respect. Your articles would be better for some balance.

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PinnerPaul added 12:10 - Jul 25 As Clive knows I am also a passionate hater of the "pervading pessimism" amongst (on line at least) QPR fans and started reading this article expecting it to be (another) attack on FB/BE but I actually think it is one of Clive's best and this from someone who hasn't been slow to criticise some in the past! Clive is spot on to compare AT with other transfer sagas this summer, the difference being that AT is no where near as good as the other 'stars' who want to go so have never been convinced that there has ever been a long list of suitors waiting to pay us £15M plus for him. He will be gone by Christmas in any case - if he is a star he will get his dream Premiership move - if he is marked out of each game and barely gets a kick then he will throw a strop by October anyway. I would like to think that NW has finally made them realise that money is needed to be spent and this is a clumsy face saving exercise on their part with the end result being we WILL see some money spent but agree 100% with Clive in that the proof of that or not will be what happens in the next few weeks. Don't think NW will walk out - for one reason and one reason only - money. I'm guessing he has in excess of £2M left in his contract and he will (quite rightly!) want that in his retirement fund! The debt is far more complex that many make out but 2 points 1) Premiership money paid in instalments, last (25%?) won't be paid until May so there is no "£40M" just sitting around to be spent as far as cashflow is concerned. 2) ABC replacement loan IS secured against ground and if FC default, LR is passed to a company 50% owned by FB and 50% owned by Mr Mittal.

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