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Reply | Isaac Hayden
at 19:55 26 Aug 2025
e: double post [Post edited 26 Aug 19:55]
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Reply | Isaac Hayden
at 19:52 26 Aug 2025
Fair enough to be cynical about what footballers say in official interviews, he's hardly about to pop up and say well the club's crap and obviously going down but they offered me more than anyone else, but the bloke was very publicly lobbying for a return here last season (when it had no financial impact on him at all) and has kept in touch with players from his time on loan. Being in London can't hurt for someone who was in the Arsenal youth set-up, too. Does he just love QPR that much that he couldn't bear going anywhere else? Probably not, but I can absolutely believe that if he thought there was an offer available from us he was going to see if he could get it rather than rushing to the first club that rang up his agent.
He was committed and interested on loan last time, and god knows we need more heft in the middle. He seems to have a realistic idea of where he is in his career, a desire to play, but also a consciousness that he's partly here to help the younger lads coming through. He's not the most dynamic passer but I remember him as being decent on the ball too - better than Field in that role in front of the defence, and that frees up everyone further forwards. |
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Reply | Saito signs
at 18:14 25 Aug 2025
Can't agree that it's not a position we need. With our fitness team we need to be signing 1.5 wingers a week throughout the season just to field an XI.
Beyond that - we've got a player who already knows most of the team and has a year's experience of the league, who was 100% committed last season as a loan player, was fit and available every game until the last 1.5 of the season where he got bulldozed and dislocated his shoulder, and who actually wants to be here. Yes, we have more pressing needs at CM and LB, but I'll never be upset at signing a player with the attitude and work rate of Saito. |
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Reply | Julien Stephan - Word of warning
at 21:56 17 Aug 2025
Yeah, and even putting aside whether it was a good idea to want Larkeche to be your starting left back for the season, the bloke doing his ACL the week before your first game is horribly unfortunate. |
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Reply | Familiar learnings and fresh frustrations as QPR lose at Watford – Report
at 21:35 17 Aug 2025
I didn't think he was good, but I think it's as much about being put in a role he isn't good at against a team that's a lot better set up than ours is - in that formation we're asking a duck to bark and being surprised he keeps quacking. I guess my point is that we've seen where he can be effective at the back end of last season, and it isn't playing as the deeper one of a two, and he does at least seem to be trying whereas his really rough run in the first half of last season he didn't even seem to want to be on the pitch. |
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Reply | Julien Stephan - Word of warning
at 21:27 17 Aug 2025
Fully agreed. Mbengue wasn't great at left-back, but it's not like the manager was left with many choices. You know Watford have an excellent and quite physical winger who normally plays down the right, and the squad you've been given has a single left-back in it who's currently fit and available, and he's 17 and has played one game of league foobtall in this country ever. The only other option would have been Vale, but he was indifferent there against a much worse side on Tuesday. Mbengue is at least a physical match for Baah and has plenty of experience; in another world we could equally be sitting here talking about the naivete of starting Esquerdinha out there to get ripped apart. |
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Reply | Familiar learnings and fresh frustrations as QPR lose at Watford – Report
at 21:16 17 Aug 2025
In the two games this season I honestly don't think he's been that bad, and you can see the logic of what Stephan is trying to do by sitting him deeper and using him to take the ball from the defenders and pass it forward with some intent. To my eye he is at least trying to be more involved, and against Watford even won a couple of headers - not exactly setting the world alight but he does seem to have remembered he's 6'4" finally. The problem is that in a two-man midfield with him and Field we're damned either way - Field can't progress the ball well enough and Madsen doesn't defend well enough, so whichever way around you put them in it's dysfunctional. That's the difference Varane makes. |
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Reply | Analytics
at 07:49 15 Aug 2025
It's explicitly part of the strategy. Nourry has mentioned it a few times. It's about identifying which positions are currently underpriced in the market and picking those players up now expecting the value to increase.
As a simplistic example, imagine all the top teams have 29 year old defensive midfielders. Right now that type of player is probably cheaper than normal, because none of the big teams need to buy one, but in 2 years' time they'll all need to replace them. So you buy a 25 year old now who fits that position and then he ought to jump in value massively.
It's a lot more complicated than that; they'll also be trying to predict trends, like everyone wanting a keeper who can play out from the back, and they'll be looking at much more detailed profiles than just vague positional ones, but you get the idea. [Post edited 15 Aug 7:50]
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Reply | Burrell
at 16:26 13 Aug 2025
I think his point was that "quick" understates it. |
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Reply | Making Friends And Influencing People
at 14:47 13 Aug 2025
Interesting one. Seems most likely that the club wanted Kone but needed Ba as a back-up and have been dragging it out waiting to see if the Kone move would happen. As soon as he's signed, out comes a spurious excuse about a medical for Ba. |
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Reply | Le Shrugs thoughts post Plymouth stuffing.
at 14:43 13 Aug 2025
I didn't mind the starting line-up last night - 3 of them (Vale, Kolli, Burrell) are likely to do serious minutes this season, Nardi should be, and despite where he is EDB ought to be one of the senior players and perfectly able to be starting in a League Cup game. Sutton and Bennie have already played for the first team too, Bennie was in most squads last season and got a decent number of appearances even if mostly for limited minutes. It's the bench that's troubling - none of the first team even travelling? You couldn't take a handful of them down to Plymouth to try and see out the game if it went well, as it was at half time? Plymouth are 3-2 up and we're bringing on 16 year old kids because there's nothing else to try and it's all about them getting debuts. What useful experience does Teddy Tarbotton (name like an FM regen) get from trotting about for four minutes in a game we've long since lost? |
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Reply | Burrell
at 14:29 13 Aug 2025
His pace is terrifying. There were a couple of occasions in the first half last night where balls that ought to have been comfortable for the Plymouth centrebacks/keeper to mop up turned into opportunities for us because he's so quick.
He's also shown some flashes of intelligence to go with it - against Preston there was one where he read the flight of a ball and stepped back suddenly, and left the defender chasing him to run on past while he got himself on it.
With him and Mbengue we have pace and power at both ends of the pitch - and we'd have it in the middle too if Poku hadn't done his hamstring. It's a huge change from where we were last season! |
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Reply | Foxes vs Owls
at 18:18 10 Aug 2025
Bannan suspended and Chalobah possibly injured for their next game. Grim stuff for them. |
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Reply | Preston Reflection
at 19:57 9 Aug 2025
Morgan looked much bigger (in a good way) and more confident. Thought he was very comfortable at right back and linked up with Poku well.
I thought all of the new players did well and Mbengue excelled. Fast and physical, played some good balls, wanted to be involved in everything. Him and Morrison looked quite exciting as a partnership; their styles compliment each other nicely. |
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Reply | Sell-on clauses
at 17:12 15 Jul 2025
You seem to be under the impression that the club is turning down better offers to get sell-on clauses which may or may not pay off. It's far more likely that the club is getting a lot of very similar offers and a favourable sell-on is what tips the balance one way or the other. We might like to try and ask for more money up front instead, but there's no guarantee a buyer would go for it, and even if they did how much more would they willing to pay - an extra £1m? An extra £5m? There really isn't any definite answer and it's not as easy as saying it would be "better to cash in for as much as we can" because there might not be any more money to be made on the initial sale. |
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Reply | Sell-on clauses
at 12:47 15 Jul 2025
It depends, basically. It comes down to opportunity cost and the club's estimate of how likely a player is to succeed - you'd be seething if we'd taken £21m instead of £20m and then Eze goes for £100m to someone and we'd have more than doubled our money, but equally if someone was offering £30m and we took £20m for a sell-on that never happened that also sucks. The club basically has to evaluate:
1) How much will we get and how likely are we to get it?
2) Are there realistic alternative offers to pick from? There's not necessarily one club offering a lot more money than the other, instead you might have a lot of similar offers and one stands out because they're willing to offer the sell-on
3) Where does the player want to go? It doesn't matter if Bournemouth offer £40m and Liverpool offer £30m if the player has no interest in going to Bournemouth [Post edited 15 Jul 12:47]
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Reply | Gab Sutton/LFW QPR summer deep dive
at 21:33 10 Jul 2025
That's not actually wrong; he didn't become permanent until now, the fan's forum announcement way back in September was basically 'we've got an option to buy after his loan ends which we've decided to exercise' just done incredibly early. Also for some reason they pretended his single digit appearances at the time had triggered something which seemed obviously made up but who knows. |
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