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Post by Ashdown_Ranger on Jul 11, 2020 19:08:41 GMT
MW isn't suddenly a bad coach. We've missed Nakhi Wells big time (Hugill doesn't have the same impact - even if/when fully fit). Grant Hall is another huge hole. I just don't think we can simply play as we had been (ie, possibly looking at an outside chance of a play-off place) with such key players out of the picture. The speculation about Eze and BOS can't help but distract them both and, sadly, I think we'll see both leave in the summer - probably ludicrously under value - but I'm guessing needs must. So let's not get too p*ssed off with MW, he's doing the best with what he's got. Give him the summer window and a fresh start with what will almost certainly be a pretty different looking team next season. Of course, if MW goes, Lee Johnson will surely be on the shortlist for a replacement...
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Post by londonranger on Jul 11, 2020 20:47:15 GMT
But before the virus break we were doing quite well.
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Post by rickyqpr on Jul 11, 2020 21:37:36 GMT
Yep the way I see it... We are short of confidence and conceded early We do not have a recognized striker and have little idea how to chase a game Some of our players are not going to risk injury Everything goes through Eze and if he is cruising we have little creativity. We have lacked leadership all season and have lost the leader that we had Some of the fringe players are getting game time and learning Amos & Cameron are putting in a shift more than some - but don't they give the ball away a lot? Lumley had no chance with the goals - the 3rd one was a tremendous strike. We are not playing as a team and Pugh was worth more than I thought at the time. We all know that we are going to have to start all over again next season and it will be bloody tough without Eze! Keep the faith - very poor performance, but better with Warburton than without him!
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Post by Marc on Jul 12, 2020 8:40:14 GMT
Seriously though I have been asked if this is the same team that went 6 games unbeaten and were looking at play-off possibilities before the break. My answer is no. Why and where are we really.? 1. We have lost a couple of experienced players, and now through injury have lost our one and only striker. 2 We have a couple of key players who are playing on contracts that have just been extended probably against their will as they could not agree new terms, loan players who know they will have no future with us and others facing the reality of having to either leave or play on minimum wages next year - are they fully committed? 3. Our squad is at the bare bones with youth or u23 players I had never heard of making up the squad. We cannot even field the full complement of substitutes and we are switching formations styles and positions to experiment and just to field a team. 4. The break resulted in us losing the momentum and organisation that had us going on a good run - we have seen that before with international breaks. 5. We are one of the clubs that expressed deep concern about trying to get the team back together in 3 weeks - it seems we had the players doing fitness work but not much else during the lockdown while a few other clubs, notably outside London and the south seem to have keep some form of team work going - maybe stretching lock down rules in the process. 6. Having lost the first game back our play-off hopes were gone and seemingly fears of relegation also, so motivation may not be at it's highest. 7. We have one of the youngest and least experienced teams/squads in the championship who may be having difficulty with the circumstances and distractions of the virus, BLM, playing behind closed doors etc. Especially the young players need the encouragement of the crowd and they probably miss it while the much expected rapid return of the calls for a "taxi" for the manager have no benefit at all. 8. We and the club all know that the players we are left with at the moment, especially after we lose some loans, will not be good enough to survive next season. The job now is to try to keep our better players although finance may force our hand there, while picking up some experience and developing talent on free's during the summer. Not an easy task. 9. Obviously our bad restart does not breed confidence and the consequence is showing in our performances and results. 10. At the end of the day there are still 8 teams below us. I look at clubs like Boro. Bigger than us in stadium, support , finance and strength of their squad but they are below us and facing the drop. In comparison have we got so much to complain about. Before the break many on here were saying that this season we have played some of the best football we have produced in years , we had done wonders on and off the field with limited resources and had hope for the future with young talent developing and finance coming under control. 11. If we lose all our games Barnsley and Luton still cannot catch us (unless Luton can turn around a 20 goal difference in 3 games.) Hull can only catch us by winning all their games and Wigan depend on overturning their points deduction to stay above us. With other games between the bottom teams we are 99% safe so seeing some the young players being given a chance is the right thing to do (and is currently all we can do). The downside is in the performances and results but the benefit is that some are showing they are not up to it yet or maybe never will be, while some loans have no future with us. The other benefit of course is that some now being given a chance will be good enough and are gaining valuable experience. The manager and backroom staff are getting a good view of what we have and what is needed and by now must have reached many conclusions. The issue that we and many clubs face is that the financial side of football has changed for ever and so must our approach to team building. Changing managers now or at the end of the season will achieve nothing other than give a new man an extremely steep learning curve just to catch up with where the current management team are. The truth of the matter is that in the space of 3 weeks and five games (admittedly with poor performances) some fans have gone from optimistic play-off talk to "sack the manager and start again". We have been through that so many times and I would have hoped we have learnt the lesson that it does not work. We are living in changed and very uncertain times in life in general, including football. Nobody knows what is around the corner other than that it will not be the same as it was 3 months ago. Get real, support the team and let's see how we and the rest of football develops in the months or probably years to come. If it helps focus the mind, especially for people in my age group, would it be better to watch us struggle near the bottom of the league next season or to be in an induced coma in hospital on a ventilator ...or worse. I know which option I would choose. Yeah, but "bread man"
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Post by bowranger on Jul 12, 2020 14:18:39 GMT
'Yeah, but "bread man"" No idea what that means but assume it means we have different opinions. Don't think they're disagreeing, think they're pointing out how, no matter how well or eloquently you make the argument, some fans are always just going to call for the manager's head and bang on about "bread man".
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Post by rickyqpr on Jul 12, 2020 15:31:51 GMT
Seriously though I have been asked if this is the same team that went 6 games unbeaten and were looking at play-off possibilities before the break. My answer is no. Why and where are we really.? 1. We have lost a couple of experienced players, and now through injury have lost our one and only striker. 2 We have a couple of key players who are playing on contracts that have just been extended probably against their will as they could not agree new terms, loan players who know they will have no future with us and others facing the reality of having to either leave or play on minimum wages next year - are they fully committed? 3. Our squad is at the bare bones with youth or u23 players I had never heard of making up the squad. We cannot even field the full complement of substitutes and we are switching formations styles and positions to experiment and just to field a team. 4. The break resulted in us losing the momentum and organisation that had us going on a good run - we have seen that before with international breaks. 5. We are one of the clubs that expressed deep concern about trying to get the team back together in 3 weeks - it seems we had the players doing fitness work but not much else during the lockdown while a few other clubs, notably outside London and the south seem to have keep some form of team work going - maybe stretching lock down rules in the process. 6. Having lost the first game back our play-off hopes were gone and seemingly fears of relegation also, so motivation may not be at it's highest. 7. We have one of the youngest and least experienced teams/squads in the championship who may be having difficulty with the circumstances and distractions of the virus, BLM, playing behind closed doors etc. Especially the young players need the encouragement of the crowd and they probably miss it while the much expected rapid return of the calls for a "taxi" for the manager have no benefit at all. 8. We and the club all know that the players we are left with at the moment, especially after we lose some loans, will not be good enough to survive next season. The job now is to try to keep our better players although finance may force our hand there, while picking up some experience and developing talent on free's during the summer. Not an easy task. 9. Obviously our bad restart does not breed confidence and the consequence is showing in our performances and results. 10. At the end of the day there are still 8 teams below us. I look at clubs like Boro. Bigger than us in stadium, support , finance and strength of their squad but they are below us and facing the drop. In comparison have we got so much to complain about. Before the break many on here were saying that this season we have played some of the best football we have produced in years , we had done wonders on and off the field with limited resources and had hope for the future with young talent developing and finance coming under control. 11. If we lose all our games Barnsley and Luton still cannot catch us (unless Luton can turn around a 20 goal difference in 3 games.) Hull can only catch us by winning all their games and Wigan depend on overturning their points deduction to stay above us. With other games between the bottom teams we are 99% safe so seeing some the young players being given a chance is the right thing to do (and is currently all we can do). The downside is in the performances and results but the benefit is that some are showing they are not up to it yet or maybe never will be, while some loans have no future with us. The other benefit of course is that some now being given a chance will be good enough and are gaining valuable experience. The manager and backroom staff are getting a good view of what we have and what is needed and by now must have reached many conclusions. The issue that we and many clubs face is that the financial side of football has changed for ever and so must our approach to team building. Changing managers now or at the end of the season will achieve nothing other than give a new man an extremely steep learning curve just to catch up with where the current management team are. The truth of the matter is that in the space of 3 weeks and five games (admittedly with poor performances) some fans have gone from optimistic play-off talk to "sack the manager and start again". We have been through that so many times and I would have hoped we have learnt the lesson that it does not work. We are living in changed and very uncertain times in life in general, including football. Nobody knows what is around the corner other than that it will not be the same as it was 3 months ago. Get real, support the team and let's see how we and the rest of football develops in the months or probably years to come. If it helps focus the mind, especially for people in my age group, would it be better to watch us struggle near the bottom of the league next season or to be in an induced coma in hospital on a ventilator ...or worse. I know which option I would choose. Yes, a lot of work gone into that post 75 and I agree with most of it, probably all. I think the point that Marc was making is that football message boards are somewhat binary. We win so we will be promoted. We lose and the manager is to blame and should be sacked. I think we all suffer similar mood swings, when we win and win well, life seems great. When we lose, it is another nail if the coffin of whatever. Perhaps if we had not kicked off with 50 points on the board there may have been more fight or purpose, but I think given our post lockdown resources, i am grateful that we had enough points on the board. This season is over for QPR fans and it is a shame that we were not treated to a great live Eze & Bright cameo before departing. But I wish them well for the future and thank them for the entertainment and the cash that they will generate for the club. We will probably struggle even more next year so there will be many 'taxi for the bread man' to come. There are many supporters, at most clubs, who believe a defeat is punishable by a sacking. But management should not be that binary. Circumstances have to be taken into account first.
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Post by Marc on Jul 12, 2020 16:03:21 GMT
'Yeah, but "bread man"" No idea what that means but assume it means we have different opinions. No mate, we are of the same opinion. I was parodying certain "fans" who only ever share their opinion when we're on a bad run. You know the ones, those who you didn't hear a peep out of when we were the 2nd most in form team in the Championship prior to lockdown.
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Post by bowranger on Jul 13, 2020 10:06:11 GMT
Thanks for clarifying that folks - sorry I did not pick up on the parody. Glad we are on the same page. One point I forgot in my original post is the Pugh and Hall situation. Both seemed dedicated and I'm sure Pugh at least would have given his all for the last few games. Hall may have protected himself more with his injury record but I wonder why we did not extend one or either of them for the last few games. We miss both especially when it appears others (and I include Eze here) seem to be drifting through hoping to avoid injury and looking to be elsewhere next season. I may be wrong just an impression and I would have thought we could afford Pugh for a month. Also forgot to say I heard from the ever patient taxi driver - he gave up waiting and sold his cab after losing all his business due to the virus. I think on the Hall and Pugh situation, it isn't so much us not being willing to pay them for an extra month, it's the impact on future deals. Playing Pugh would have triggered a contract extension (I believe for another full season), which we publicly decided we didn't want to do. Hall was at the end of his deal, he didn't like the new deal we offered (presumably a wage cut), so he decided to take his chances on getting a deal at another club and not risk injury. So the option wasn't there to only have them for another month sadly. I agree they could have made a difference. I'm still not at the bottom of it. One thing that isn't new is that the system we are drilled in, that suits that group of players, only works when players give 100%. You drop intensity and you lose what makes it work - fast passing, incisive runs, high energy. Sometimes form nobbles that, as we saw already - if we aren't on it, our soft underbelly gets exposed. But we largely take that on the chin cos so many of the squad are young and when we were 13th, you could say we're an exciting, if erratic team, that's fun to watch. What's so frustrating is that had we even drew the remaining games and we let the season draw out to a safe, if boring, conclusion, we'd have forgotten about it in a few weeks. Safe, midtable, time to rebuild. But now, we've turned in some absolutely disgusting performances. I genuinely think the Sheff Wed performance was the worst I've seen us trot out in years. I have no idea what is going on internally - I can only start to guess that in 13th and basically safe come lockdown, we essentially switched off. The attitude is rotten and unrecognisable from a few months ago and it's turned a limp end of the season into a worrying one. Fundamentally Warburton has enough credit in the bank with me to let him try and sort that out - for all the reasons others have put and the financial situation he is dealing with. But he needs to light a rocket under them and see us get to the end of the season with a bit of dignity. Otherwise you've got a situation where the start to next season, where we are likely to see a bunch of new, probably young, players to bed in, becomes a moratorium on Warburton. Which is probably not useful for anyone.
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Post by harr on Jul 13, 2020 10:10:11 GMT
Thanks for clarifying that folks - sorry I did not pick up on the parody. Glad we are on the same page. One point I forgot in my original post is the Pugh and Hall situation. Both seemed dedicated and I'm sure Pugh at least would have given his all for the last few games. Hall may have protected himself more with his injury record but I wonder why we did not extend one or either of them for the last few games. We miss both especially when it appears others (and I include Eze here) seem to be drifting through hoping to avoid injury and looking to be elsewhere next season. I may be wrong just an impression and I would have thought we could afford Pugh for a month. Also forgot to say I heard from the ever patient taxi driver - he gave up waiting and sold his cab after losing all his business due to the virus. I think on the Hall and Pugh situation, it isn't so much us not being willing to pay them for an extra month, it's the impact on future deals. Playing Pugh would have triggered a contract extension (I believe for another full season), which we publicly decided we didn't want to do. Hall was at the end of his deal, he didn't like the new deal we offered (presumably a wage cut), so he decided to take his chances on getting a deal at another club and not risk injury. So the option wasn't there to only have them for another month sadly. I agree they could have made a difference. I'm still not at the bottom of it. One thing that isn't new is that the system we are drilled in, that suits that group of players, only works when players give 100%. You drop intensity and you lose what makes it work - fast passing, incisive runs, high energy. Sometimes form nobbles that, as we saw already - if we aren't on it, our soft underbelly gets exposed. But we largely take that on the chin cos so many of the squad are young and when we were 13th, you could say we're an exciting, if erratic team, that's fun to watch. What's so frustrating is that had we even drew the remaining games and we let the season draw out to a safe, if boring, conclusion, we'd have forgotten about it in a few weeks. Safe, midtable, time to rebuild. But now, we've turned in some absolutely disgusting performances. I genuinely think the Sheff Wed performance was the worst I've seen us trot out in years. I have no idea what is going on internally - I can only start to guess that in 13th and basically safe come lockdown, we essentially switched off. The attitude is rotten and unrecognisable from a few months ago and it's turned a limp end of the season into a worrying one. Fundamentally Warburton has enough credit in the bank with me to let him try and sort that out - for all the reasons others have put and the financial situation he is dealing with. But he needs to light a rocket under them and see us get to the end of the season with a bit of dignity. Otherwise you've got a situation where the start to next season, where we are likely to see a bunch of new, probably young, players to bed in, becomes a moratorium on Warburton. Which is probably not useful for anyone. This 👍
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