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Reply | Team for Cardiff
at 10:33 4 Apr 2025
It’s quite a big dependency given our injuries and the performance of our Performance Department. |
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Reply | Chris Willock
at 10:18 4 Apr 2025
Well, call me a madman, but I would start by having someone lead the show as CEO who has a career background of managing large numbers of people, and instilling positive cultures in those workplaces.
We have not gone down that route.
Beneath that, you absolutely must have standards/parameters that do not budge for short term benefit. At QPR we always prioritise the short term over the long term. Ever since Fernandes took over that has been the approach.
He wasn’t perfect but the only person focussed on the medium-long term was Les Ferdinand since 2010. He had is faults (possibly not the smartest in negotiations, misjudged a few players, oversaw some dodgy signings), but he did get the culture side of things and the long term impacts. He began by setting principles of behaviour that applied to all players and coaches and having that put up on the wall at Harlington. He publicly (inside the club) called out those that stepped out of line. If he wanted people to put in extra yards in training, he’d turn up and do it with them (Matt Smith). His falling out with Warburton, from what I have heard, he was completely in the right based on the standards/culture point, when Warburton wanted to do what was best in the immediate short term. Got his way. Backfired. And he paid the price. I think a lot of what went wrong the following season stemmed from that dressing room impact of what happened but wasn’t ultimately punished. It undermined the standards. Beale got what he wanted too, and it worsensed.
Players cannot have the whip hand. They can be your best player, but if they step out of line, piss over your values or principles or what you stand for, out they go.
If you’re playing well, winning, injured players shouldn’t walk back in, they need to win their spot back through the minutes they do get. That instills standards and a sense of fairness.
We don’t do that. Chair immediately came back in for Saito who was playing really well in a winning team at that point. This isn’t about Chair, it’s just an example. We all know the Dom Ball/Jeff Hendricks farce. This sort of thing pisses players off and bitterness seeps into the dressing room.
I’m sure there are many more examples.
Finally our communication is cr*p. What is our ethos and identity? Clive could accurately describe another club’s, one with a lower budget. But the club we support, what is it? IF one exists, and it is consistent and makes sense, why are we a) not communicating it to fans so the club as one can be united in who we are (think back to the Holloway days - he was brilliant at that, but so was everyone at the club). I think it could be because not everyone lives and breathes that ethos and they’re allowed to get away with it. That or we haven’t actually defined one (see my first comment). And, b) why aren’t living and breathing it? Probably because the players know it might change if Nourry gets his way and sacks Cifuentes to bring in his own man…so why bother?
It’s not easy to instill a great culture. It isn’t. But it’s not impossible. At QPR we do so much wrong about it though. |
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread
at 23:28 2 Apr 2025
It’s almost as if genuine “man-managers” who can organise and inspire a group of limited idiots are comparatively good at this level.
Paint me shocked. |
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Reply | Charlie Kelman’s Leyton Orient
at 21:45 1 Apr 2025
Cook has, himself, not been playing at the same level for after his injury.
However, the point both I and Clive have tried to make is that Cook and Field add value outside their personal performance. They instill the standards in this team in terms of positional discipline, work rate, physicality. They aren’t perfect. They have the odd bad game. Field’s passing is mediocre and Cook’s legs are going. But watch how they interact with their teammates during games. They are constantly talking to teammates and pointing where people need to be. They organise everyone around them because they read the game, especially when we don’t have the ball, so much better than everyone else in the squad. You spend half the game without the ball so these leaders, organisers and standard setters are critical.
Without them, everyone just coasts. |
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Reply | Injury hit, on the beach and checked out, QPR soundly beaten – Report
at 12:44 31 Mar 2025
Quite. And, as we know from Gallen and Dave Mc, many other teams did go and watch him in the flesh because of his stats and subsequently gave him a wide berth. Whether we did actually watch him in person or not, I don’t know. I fear we used our new fancy data analytics tool where you can watch lots of live footage, and thought that was equivalent to being in a stadium, seeing the whole pitch at once, what all 22 players are doing, and then assessing.
Why do the kids like Nourry? TK1’s line about burning down the past and optimism being fun struck me. Is it just that? Is there something else? Is it simply reinforcing every young generation’s naive view that they should be running things? |
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Reply | Injury hit, on the beach and checked out, QPR soundly beaten – Report
at 09:44 31 Mar 2025
I’ve said it before, if you take Sam Field and Steve Cook out of this team you take out the bollocks, physicality and standards.
You cannot underestimate the importance of those things. We need more players of that ilk not fewer. They are the foundation upon which you build the house of fancy, soft, ballers. You earn the right to play football; they earn it for you.
Our recruitment last summer was naive. We cannot take that same approach again. We shouldn’t be re-signing Cook on his current salary level, but we must either re-sign him on a lower figure or sign some other experienced leader.
Colback needs replacing, not by some 24yr old Norwegian playing in Latvia, but by someone 5-6 years younger who is a better character, whose legs haven’t gone, who is experienced in this league.
I’d renew Frey because when he’s on the pitch we are rarely bullied. However, next season should be him, Celar, Kelman AND AN Other. That player again, needs to be physical and with experience of this level. That way you have two similar styled players in Kelman and Celar, and 2 similar styles in Frey and this fella. Gives us two ways of playing with back ups up top for both approaches. Lloyd needs a loan. Kolli is not a number 9. He should play in one of the wide attacking areas.
The approach this summer must be different. If it’s not, and we lose some of our more experienced pros, it’ll be a horrible season.
By my count we need 6-10 new players depending on whether Cook, Frey, Dunne renew and Saito signs. |
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Reply | Charlie Kelman’s Leyton Orient
at 22:45 28 Mar 2025
Stansfield is as £15m, wasn’t he? It’s mad.
But it puts into perspective Kelman’s potential value. |
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Reply | Gaffer on Stoke game
at 14:43 28 Mar 2025
Who are we to be told, Clive? Just turn up and pay your £20.
Oops, wrong bloke. |
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Reply | Charlie Kelman’s Leyton Orient
at 10:51 28 Mar 2025
Exactly. You have to give him opportunities next season. His profile is what we’d be clamouring to sign in the summer. In this instance, he’s already out player.
The contract situation could mean he walks for a free in a year but none of us actually know what the length of his deal is. |
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Reply | View from the outside – Column
at 23:02 26 Mar 2025
Great first half of the article, Dorse. Loved it.
Not sure I reach the same assessment in the second half though.
I think there is an awful lot of risk about this summer’s transfer/signing activity. I feel we’re closer and perhaps more likely to become an Ipswich, who shuffled around this league for f*cking ages under McCarthy going nowhere before eventually dropping down.
I don’t feel it’s “good” today, I feel it’s a bit “meh”.
The togetherness could be there, indeed, it’s on the table to be grabbed hold of, if only Nourry (and Hoos) would bloody realise it and change tact.
Instead, I suspect Marti will leave in the summer (mutual consent), most of our defence will leave, we’ll sign a load more U25s from the continent, and start the next season having doubled down on “the strategy” with some no-mark yes man as head coach bowing to Nourry’s whim.
Overly pessimistic, possibly. But whatever. |
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Reply | Oh dear Joey
at 22:51 26 Mar 2025
He was a f*cking awful passer of the ball, dreadful at set pieces and criminally overrated by many.
The only reason he was a Premier League player was because of his mouth and because he ran about a lot earlier in his career. |
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Reply | Oh dear Joey
at 17:46 25 Mar 2025
Quite possible too. Horrible situation for her to be in, in addition to being kicked in the head.
He’s always been a wrong ‘un, and our fanbase should have never chanted his name. |
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Reply | Oh dear Joey
at 17:04 25 Mar 2025
Or perhaps she’s a victim of coercive behaviour and domestic abuse and was too scared to say otherwise. Or perhaps not. |
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Reply | England 🏴 v 🇱🇻 Latvia Match Thread
at 22:14 24 Mar 2025
I think he’s a bit frustrated with the lack of game time he’s had over the last 12 months. You cannot tell me Bowen is a better footballer than him. Likewise, Gordon. He might be fast but Eze is so much more technically gifted. I also think he might be a bit frustrated at Palace. He’s had a stop start season and his career hasn’t taken off how it could have done. I fear a Zaha situation for him.
I love him, and he’d start for me in this England squad. Saka on the right, Eze on the left, Rice and Bellingham in the middle with Palmer at 10. Think they are our best attacking and technically gifted players. But it won’t happen. His game time will be limited. And all the while he’s at Palace it’ll be harder for him to put his case across as he’s not playing in Europe, and not playing for one of the big clubs in the Prem.
He needs a move this summer. |
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Reply | England 🏴 v 🇦🇱 Albania Match Thread
at 21:20 21 Mar 2025
Boo. No Eze. Foden was very poor. Rashford poor. Not really sure why Eze is in the squad if he’s not one of Rashford, Foden or Jones’ back ups. Hard luck if he sees him as Bellingham’s back up. |
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