 | Forum
Reply | Dunne new captain
at 21:24 14 Jul 2025
The classy thing would have been to make Cook club captain and Dunne team capt. From the fog of memory I think Glen Roeder was given this title when Fenwick became capt (and incidentally replaces him in the team as well I think). |
| Forum
Reply | The QPR summer transfer rumours thread
at 21:16 14 Jul 2025
Also fair comments Dennis.
Re the box to box midfielder, Madsen is far too languid (read: lazy) for me. His late flurry of assists flattered his contribution over a season during which he was largely woeful. He can't/ won't tackle and doesn't make himself available when Varane and Field are rabbit in the headlights looking for a forward ball.
Morgan I like but was overplayed (out of necessity) last season and don't think we should be putting under too much pressure.
Vale is the unknown quantity, you can't argue with the pedigree (whatever we think about Chelsea) but is even less experienced than Morgan.
This is basically the player to build the team around. If Eze money does become available I hope this is what it is spent on. |
| Forum
Reply | The QPR summer transfer rumours thread
at 20:15 14 Jul 2025
Unless there are departures I don't see many gaps in the squad in terms of numbers (whether fans deem these players good enough is a separate issue). As such just don't see many more incoming. When Nourry was asked about further transfers, he gave the strong impression that any further business would be re-active (ie responding to an approach). We currently have 5 strikers, for example, for in most scenarios one starting place. Our left back options have been questioned, but again, we have two players for that position with Vale able to stand in. Only position we are obviously short IMHO is a box to box midfielder, but even there the club might argue we have Madsen, Morgan and Vale (not proven enough in my view given how vital this role is to get us passing forwards, but again from a numbers perspective we are arguably not even that short here). No point stacking the squad with more mediocre bodies. Unless we can get someone significantly better than what we have, I'd rather stick (nervous as I am that we don't have enough battle-hardened Championship leaders in this squad). [Post edited 14 Jul 20:17]
|
| Forum
Reply | Dunne new captain
at 14:08 14 Jul 2025
Hopefully the club spoke to Cook and said it was no reflection on him but that his game time needs to be managed and we want a captain out there on the pitch week in week out. it would have been nice if the club announcement could have included thanks and a positive line about Cook's value to the club the season ahead. None of this takes away from Jimmy being made capt is an excellent appointment. |
| Forum
Reply | Kolli
at 14:04 14 Jul 2025
Baffling why goals against teams below us should count for less. Its not like we were typically banging in 3,4 or 5 goals against such teams. If anything more important to score a goal against a relegation rival that might land us some points than a consolation goal against a promotion chaser. |
| Forum
Reply | season not looking good
at 14:43 13 Jul 2025
I would far more understand the annual lament for a striker if we didn’t have Kelman. If we had just signed the top scorer from League One we would be delighted. Am also excited by Koli, fitness notwithstanding.
For me midfield far more problematic. Varane and Field can’t “progress the football” which means we must play with a third midfielder (Madsen - anonymous bar the occasional
admittedly impressive assist; Morgan - does everything OK but nothing brilliantly as yet; Vale - potentially the solution but a complete unknown, both in effectiveness and ability to last a Championship season.
I think our striking/ number 10 options are probably par for this league, perhaps even a notch better.
But our midfield is where all our problems start. A dynamic “box to box” midfielder would transform this side. |
| Forum
Reply | Rest of the Championship thread 25/26
at 20:22 9 Jul 2025
But here’s the thing: the up and coming players you say are not ready to sell; the “upped and come” you say we have left it too late.
You don’t want to sell anyone it seems. But to get a conveyor belt going you do need to sell SOMEBODY. |
| Forum
Reply | Amadou Mbengue confirmed (n/t)
at 08:54 28 Jun 2025
These are largely reasonable points but considering you are so strongly in the Nourry camp - and are so keen to contrast his record with that of the ancien regime - could you please at your leisure address my point that relative to budget the Madsen and Cellar signings were monumentally on the negative side of the balance sheet? Doesn’t mean there are not plenty of positives, particularly around youth development and more commercial savvy around sponsorship etc. |
| Forum
Reply | Colback and Fox - Are they gone already ??
at 08:42 28 Jun 2025
Surely Coleback and Fox have left the building.
Probably just waiting for a gap in the currently v busy comms plan to announce it - or maybe to give them a bit of time to find a new club as a statement announcing a player’s release to nowhere must feel like a bit of a public kick in the nuts |
| Forum
Reply | Colback and Fox - Are they gone already ??
at 08:39 28 Jun 2025
Richards I get but why EDB? Is there any suggestion he is a “bad egg”? Always seemed likeable to me.
Probably doesn’t have a future here but stranger things have happened to players than the new coach coming in and taking a shine to him… |
| Forum
Reply | Centre forward
at 15:20 27 Jun 2025
Sure to be in instalments and don't think we should assume it will all go into transfers (the board has talked, optimistically, about making the club self-sustaining).
But assuming we do have significant budget am not convinced another centre forward is a priority before selling at least one and sending another on loan. If we had bought the League One top scorer for 3m we would all be delighted, so why not look forward to the prospect of someone shining who is already here? Frey does a job. Am excited to see more of Kolli. The 20 goal a season Champ striker is something of a myth these days.
If we were to spend serious money on one player, much more transformational would be a midfielder who could actually pass forward - just image, someone taking a ball from Field or the centre half on the half-turn, jinking past a player or knocking a defence-splitting pass (or even just nudging it 5 yards forward to someone in hoops). Isn't the absence of such a player the root of so many of our complaints from watching this team?
Genuinely struggling to remember: when was the last time we had such a player? |
| Forum
Reply | Amadou Mbengue confirmed (n/t)
at 21:10 26 Jun 2025
Surely its for others to judge whether you made a fair point? In my judgement you made a partially fair one.
The team v Preston should be stronger than the abysmal one that opened against Watford a couple of years back.
But Nourry's first summer window coincided with the first year in the 3 yr FFP cycle whereas that Ferdinand one was at the end of a cycle when our budget was smaller than that of the Swiss navy.
Relative to spend, Madsen and Cellar must be two of the least successful signings we have made since Premier League days. Relative to the years they were here, Ferdinand/ Hoos didn't buy too many players at those prices (on huge long contracts). Last summer's window contained some good signings, but the lion's share of that budget was on Madsen and Cellar. That window was, for us, a huge opportunity with our biggest budget in years (and probably for two or three more years to come). I wouldn't quite say he blew it, but it should have been much, much better.
From vague memory we were injury ravaged for that opener at Watford so not an entirely accurate reflection. For balance, Nourry's squad had so many holes Marti had to play work experience lads like Morgan, Kolli, Lloyd, Bennie.
Nourry has done plenty right. And unlike most on here I really don't give a toss about the lack of tranparency; results and success are all that matter. But having to pay off a manager he had only recently renewed was a debacle, as have been his two biggest transfers. Maybe he is learning, but the record to date is probably best summed up as "mixed".
I leave others to decide whether this is a fair point. [Post edited 26 Jun 21:17]
|
| Forum
Reply | Varane being sold?
at 15:01 20 Jun 2025
But if you are a selling club you do have to at some point actually sell a player. |
| Forum
Reply | Marti on today's defeat
at 15:22 22 Apr 2025
I just think on the balance of probabilities a new manager would do either the same or worse, at least initially (and in football, "initially" is the only time you sometimes get).
If you take this season:
1) A different manager would have had the same injuries more or less (I think Marti over-played Cook, albeit with limited alternatives)
2) A different manager would have had a similar squad, with the same questionable summer signings, seeing as transfers are decided by committee
3) A different manager couldn't have done much more to blood youth players (bar Kolli early season, but that might have been more due to contractual reasons above his pay-grade).
Possibly Marti could be criticised for not solving our perennial problem of being unable to progress the ball through the midfield, with the repetitive and reductive passing backwards, but maybe that's more about the limitations of the players? An open question perhaps.
With the possible exception of Danny Rohl am struggling to think of another manager we have come across this season where I've come away thinking "if only we had him, he would transform our team." And even then there is very little in it. Ironically Swansea were perhaps such a team who played as Marti would like us to play, but their manager has yet to prove himself over a longer period. |
| Forum
Reply | Marti on today's defeat
at 14:20 22 Apr 2025
OK thanks for clarification mate. Yes not sure any of us were in the finest mood after that display.
If Marti gets a better offer then fair enough.
But think it would be a massive call for Nourry to sack Marti. Nourry doesn't seem very sure-footed about PR, but he is no idiot and he'll know how popular Marti is with fans, and also that he (Christian) hasn't achieved enough yet to make his own position 100% secure. Unless there has been some catastrophic bust up behind the scenes (and I guess it is a bit like the marriages of friends: often fairly grim private mysteries that are hard to read from the outside) I think tactically it would be a terrible move by Nourry.
The next managerial failure would all be on him. Plus I just think between Nourry and Marti, a lot of institutional knowledge (apologies for the horrendous management-speak phrase) has been built up. Think it would be a major self-inflicted wound to lose a lot of that and start the old QPR merry-go-round again. |
| Forum
Reply | Marti on today's defeat
at 13:58 22 Apr 2025
That is a bold statement coming from someone who, as the guy who runs the biggest QPR fans forum, presumably has contacts at the club, despite the lack of official interviews under this regime.
Given that you have made such a statement - and the way de-stabilising rumours can grow as wildly as late night Trump X tirades - it would be really helpful, please, to know if this is based on anything not in the public domain? Obvs if it is based on private conversations I would not expect you to reveal your source (naturally), but I hope its not unreasonable to ask if this is actually based on a source, whoever that is, or if it is simply your impression. If the latter, can you point me please to the instances that give rise to that impression?
If based on purely "out there" information it seems a very categorical statement given what we (or at least I) know. I wouldn't claim to follow the nuance of every press conference or fans forum as closely as you no doubt do. So it could well be that I am missing some important hints/ tensions, but as just another regular, averagely informed fan I would count it as a major shock in Marti left (unless he were poached which is of course possible).
He has the best rapport with fans of any manager since at least as far back as Warnock IMHO (which is remarkable given results). No doubt there are frustrations about budgets, some transfer decisions etc (is there a club where there aren't such tensions?). But Marti was Nourry's appointment and, broadly speaking, seems in his image in a way that an Ainsworth type manager could never be.
Marti appears to be one of our most intelligent managers since El Tel so presumably understood FFP restrictions, the decision-making process for transfers etc before he arrived? I get the injury issue must be absolutely infuriating for him (as it is for fans) but if this is about the Ben Williams role, better medical facilities, more data science etc etc, surely a practical solution could be found there? I imagine someone as analytical and science-driven as Nourry would want improvements in this area as much as Marti as whatever it would cost would surely be lower than what it costs to keep a bloated squad expected to cope with 8/9 first team players being out for long stretches of the season.
But maybe the above is all very naive and I am missing some major undercurrent. |
| Forum
Reply | The Madsen rehabilitation thread
at 23:03 20 Apr 2025
Some good points here but the crucial one you don’t address, surely, is attitude: you say he “struggled”, suggesting we should be understanding and patient.
But where was the effort? The fight? The sense of responsibility? Even if no one told him the Championship was a pretty tough, physical league, surely after he had spent his first 10 or 20 games as a virtual spectator watching often technically inferior players brush past him with contempt, it surely must have dawned on him that he needed to pull his finger out just a bit?
I’m delighted he has shown some improvement but I won’t easily forget the lack of application for 90% of the season. Nothing you have said gives him a get out of jail free card for that in my view.
He is a long way short of the flair players mentioned like Mike Fillery, let alone the Weagerles, Wilkins and Curries. And in the current age of fitness and application we are not a strong enough team to carry someone who won’t track back or close down.
I would genuinely be delighted to eat humble pie about Madsen but so far I don’t feel obliged to take it out of the fridge, let alone eat any of it |
| Forum
Reply | Easter Bunny PNE Match Thread
at 14:40 19 Apr 2025
A good post and injuries and injuries go a huge way to explaining our season.
What I do suspect (don’t have stats to back this up) is that we must be one of the most extreme teams in terms of form, going back to the Warbs era. Periods of ten games - or even half a season - of absolute horror either followed or preceded by brilliant runs.
Would be surprised if the form of many other teams have swung quite as violently as ours, but maybe I just don’t study rival teams closely enough |
| | Stainrod
|
Site Scores| Forum Votes: | 676 | | Comment Votes: | 4 | | Prediction League: | 0 | | TOTAL: | 680 |
|
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.