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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 14:49 21 Nov 2024
Dave, come on.
We were in administration and Division 2 because Chris Wright did exactly you're saying you wish Richard Thompson did. He spent money on players we couldn't afford, then we couldn't sell (because they weren't worth what we had paid), signed every remotely promising youth player on long contracts, threw good money (ours, not his) repeatedly after bad, etc etc. He put the club at risk. that's why we missed boom time! Fulham did OK coming up while we imploded under Wright. RT oversaw consecutive top twelve finishes with a bottom three attendance. Not perfect, but prudent and successful. They were the QPR glory years, not a missed opportunity.
The only chance for QPR since the late 70s has been to do what Thompson did, what Gregory did: buy wisely, sell when at their peak (and fans demand you don't), then reinvest. You have to be good at it and we were, for decades: C Allen, Fenwick, Sinton, Ferdinand, Peacock etc.
If you buy Darren Peacock for £200k and sell him four years later for £2.75 million you are not asset stripping any more than selling Eze for £20 million is. It's economic management of an otherwise loss-making business. We should have been celebrating rather than sitting in. It's the only way for QPR, then, now, always. We tried a sugar daddy and it nearly broke us again.
We should remember the facts of our history and choose protests wisely (FPR, Winkleman: both vital). Because history suggests that whatever comes after Ruben Gnanalingam is likely to be considerably less benevolent. |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 19:50 20 Nov 2024
But Wilkins was given the Les money and bought those two midfielders needed: they just happened to be Osborn and Zelic. They still cost £2.5 million! He also spent 1.25 million on Hateley, of course.
He spent £5 million quid that summer and they were all duds. Ironic that the one year we spent significant money we were relegated.Wilkins was a good man, great captain, one of my favourite players, may have been a good coach, but he shouldn't have been given that money with the ownership in flux.
It was less about investment and money, it was always about the people doing the recruitment. Same as now, really.
Re Cole: obviously, with hindsight, you'd spend £500k on Andy Cole in 1992 if you could go back in time. But he'd played one game for Arsenal. Went down a division to get games at Bristol C, played for six months, scored loads and Newcastle bought him. I listened to a podcast with him and he said he had other offers but knew someone at Brizzle and was guaranteed games. QPR came fifth that season with Les Ferdinand, Bradley Allen (who had a great season), Gary Penrice, Dennis Bailey, even Garry Thompson. Devon White too! 20 year-old Andy Cole may not have got those games he needed had he joined, and probably wouldn't have signed for that reason...
Ifs, buts and maybes.
Enjoyable debate, everyone. Totally kiboshed my work deadline. |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 18:38 20 Nov 2024
Chris Wright was an absolute disaster in 1996 and would have been a disaster in 1993, too. What in his CV or work suggests otherwise? The worst chairman/owner we've had. More ruinous than even Fernandes. Every decision he made was a calamity.
I mean, in one respect I guess history might have been different if Wright was in charge in 1993: he may have been able to sell his dream of a joint QPR/Wasps 40k stadium somewhere beyond Heathrow as the next big step that would have allowed us to compete with the big boys. What fun.
Meanwhile, "Blackburn won the league signing players from Southampton, Norwich and Middlesbrough."
Or, Blackburn won the league because they were bought by a man worth £600 million and broke the British record signing Shearer from Southampton, while spending the same again on Sutton, Ripley and Sherwood, never mind Wilcox, Le Saux etc...
It's fantasy to imagine QPR were anywhere near that. Walker spent tens of millions, while we were losing a million quid a year.
We had a bad season, fuelled by Wilkins's rotten buys. Happens, as you suggested may happen to Brighton. The 'what if' moment was the next period: we had the squad to come back up quickly, few adjustments and right coach needed. Just in time for boom time. Chris Wright wrecked that, chasing bad decision after bad decision until the club went bust.
Surely none of this is controversial. It's all historical fact! |
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Reply | Injury Updates
at 17:43 20 Nov 2024
Squad is completely fcked, though. |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 17:37 20 Nov 2024
Here's a thing about P.O.R.T. Whole thing seems a bit Life of Brian (no relation, obviously!). Splitters!: https://www.indyrs.co.uk/2011/07/when-rangers-fans-vented-their-anger-at-qpr-cha
We live and learn. I think if there'd been no protest and he'd stayed he'd have fired Wilkins that winter of '95. Who know who he'd have got in, but he was much more shrewd with hirings and transfers than Wright.
That interview with him above pretty much mirrors what I thought was going on. It chimes correctly. Fundamentally, it comes down to protesting against this:
"When you look at the player departures under you, you can list them out, Seaman, Parker, Wegerle, Peacock, Sinton, Ferdinand, at the time you were accused of asset stripping, how would you defend that?
RT: The club was always losing about £1m a year, then you had the capital expenditure on the stadium which was probably another couple of million or so. There's no question profits were made on players, although we did replace them all we absolutely had a big surplus come back into the club. If you take the losses and the CapEx that surplus probably covered that sum, it wasn't any more or less if you look at the numbers in real detail.
We did spend money on players too, of course we made some bad mistakes with the likes of Ned Zelic and Mark Hateley. I would always argue there was no asset stripping, it was just funding the losses of the club and of course players were brought in too, so it wasn't all one way.
We spent about £10m on the club in terms of buying it, investing in it and at that time that was quite a lot of money, people now probably think '£10m that’s nothing', but back then it was a lot. " |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 16:47 20 Nov 2024
Fair enough. But if we assume the point of the protests was to chase Thompson out and replace him with someone who could take QPR to the next level, can we agree that those protests were at best spectacularly unsuccessful? |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 16:20 20 Nov 2024
Fair play, we live in an era of disagreeing with facts. But those are the facts.
I definitely knew the protests were wnk at the time, too. It's not revisionism. I remember meeting a Leeds fan I worked with and his mates after the Leeds game. There'd been a pitch sit-in and loads of leaflets and protest outside after. I was young and slightly in awe of the work guy. In the pub he asked "what was all the protests about?" I replied, "They're annoyed we sold Darren Peacock..." and they all just laughed in my face and took the mick. It all seemed so tinpot.
Interestingly, the fans group who organised the protests that day was called QPR P.O.R.T = which stood for Piss Off Richard Thompson. The forebears of QPR F.O.L.F = FcK Off Les Ferdinand, no doubt. Another great protest group. We got rid of Thompson for Wright, Ferdinand for Nourry. Who will step in to write Ruben's cheques when he's chased out, I wonder... [Post edited 20 Nov 16:25]
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 16:06 20 Nov 2024
"It could and should have been a lot better": mate, other than one season in 1975/76, it's never been as good before or since, and it will never be as good again. But somehow it still wasn't good enough for you. That's tragic. That was my favourite QPR era.
Who did you want to invest? It wasn't the fans, was it? Because we couldn't fill a 19k ground. We had to sell players to invest.
Other than Marcus Gayle, QPR would not have been in with the remotest shot of signing Walker, Townsend, G Peacock or Beardsley then because they were joining much bigger clubs. It's also why players needed to be sold: generally, players want to play for the biggest clubs. It's why Peacock, Ferdinand, Sinton etc left too. They asked to play for a bigger clubs. I mean, you say we could've convinced Peter Beardsley to chose QPR over Newcastle?!
Anyway, well done everyone. We chased out Richard Thompson, got in Chris Wright who showed "some ambition", invested money neither we nor he had and broke the club, probably for good.
(All this is just to say, history should always teach us to be careful what we wish for). |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 14:52 20 Nov 2024
It sounds ridiculous because it was. It was the walking, shouting, bedsheet-holding 3-D definition of hubris and ideas above one's station.
A loss-making top tier team with a 14k average attendance which came (checks notes) 12th, 11th, 5th (London's top club: Thompson out! Incredibly, this is the season the protests really kicked in), 9th...
We bought Peacock for £200k and sold him four years later for £2.7 million. This is exactly what QPR should have been doing. It's what Brighton does now, sell their best players every season and restock: we sold Sinton for £2.5 million and bought Sinclair for £600k.
Incidentally, the season after we sold Peacock we finished a place higher in 8th (above Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham and Palace: imagine what those fans thought of the protests) and got to the FA Cup quarters, so not the disaster you describe.
It's what we should have always done! The protests meant RT totally checked trying to get shot of the club before 95/96 and allowed Wilkins to disastrously attempt to both play for and pick the team, while also wrecking the biggest transfer budget we'd had. There was no oversight, because QPR fans wanted Thompson out! 'OK, if that's what you want...'
None of this opinion. The facts are there, and were apparent at the time. Be careful what you protest for. |
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Reply | Ben Doak - Cifuentes Tactics & Team Set Up
at 09:35 17 Nov 2024
Little context: Ben Doak absolutely destroyed £70 million-quid, Man City left back Gvardiol playing for Scotland against Croatia on Friday. Entirely responsible for their win, and with a decent striker he'd have set more than one. It looked like he was playing against QPR again.
Probably of no comfort to Santos or Marti. But he's going to have a big career by the looks of it. |
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Reply | Fan Mobilisation - Nourry Out
at 16:52 15 Nov 2024
Do you think if Ferdinand had, in fact, not resigned, stayed, and worked with Marti - who he tried to hire earlier, despite Lying Christian Nourry trying to claim exclusive credit - QPR would be better or worse off?
I think we'd be much better off, if not thriving. The summer transfers would have been managed so much better and lines of communication would have remained open. But no, clown memes, and we literally hounded him out. And here we are.
Hoos needed to go. He was wrung out, as he good as admitted, tired, wanted to retire. We needed a new CEO for club facing business. The football side only ever needed the right coach.
Now, we probably need a CEO and DOF, but first we'll end up looking for a new coach because...QPR. |
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Reply | Ownership of QPR
at 14:14 13 Nov 2024
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. |
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Reply | Is this season written off already?
at 09:40 11 Nov 2024
The next seven games look season defining:
Stoke (h)
Cardiff (a)
Watford (a)
Norwich (h)
Oxford (h)
Bristol C (a)
Preston (h)
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. |
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Reply | Steve Gallen
at 22:36 10 Nov 2024
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. |
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Reply | Is anyone else a bit done?
at 12:18 10 Nov 2024
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. |
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Reply | Fan Mobilisation - Nourry Out
at 11:24 10 Nov 2024
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. |
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Reply | Nourry should walk.
at 11:39 8 Nov 2024
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. |
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Reply | Nourry should walk.
at 11:23 6 Nov 2024
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."
https://www.westlondonsport.com/qpr/qpr-unsure-when-frey-might-return-and-are-as
I suppose the big question posed by that is: is 'the model' working and who bears responsibilty? (I know the answer. Marti knows the answer). |
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Reply | Kolli Dad Interview
at 14:39 28 Oct 2024
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. |
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