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Reply | Is Nourry that bad?
at 11:44 11 Apr 2025
I'd probably lock this thread now for another eight months, by which time everyone will have much a clearer picture of Nourry's work. It'll be two years into his QPR "project".
If Marti is still at QPR come next winter and the squad has been improved by coaching/analytics committee, is clicking, well, great. What were we worried about?
If there's a new coach and a squad filled by CN's recruitment team...well, then, that'll be all on him. We can judge his work appropriately in that light.
For now, too soon other than to have misgivings based on this season or hope based on what you believe awaits. Jury out, awaiting final testimony. |
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Reply | Match Thread - Not on my Manor (anymore) - its the Kassam
at 10:58 10 Apr 2025
It'll do for Nourry quicker than any other decision he makes. I can't remember a manager's name being sung as often as Cifuentes'. It's a catchy number but still: you only sing something that often if there's genuine affection. Last night, I'd say it was 70% Marti's Estrella song, 20% Varane - I just don't think you understand (I'm watching him, and I think I do), 10% misc.
First sign of trouble under a new manager, the Cifuentes song will come out on repeat. And Marti will be held in higher esteem and with more love the further from the club he is. He'll do those interviews Steve W6 says he hates doing, and it'll sink Nourry unless we're flying high under a new guy. |
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Reply | We need a Director of Football
at 14:59 9 Apr 2025
Yeah, agree but the people who gave you Les Ferdinand as a Director of Football when the kitchen got a bit hot for them could easily give you Paul Furlong as First Team Coach (or Bircham, Gallen, Clive Allen, or whoever as DOF) now the kitchen's going to get hot again. |
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Reply | We need a Director of Football
at 14:09 9 Apr 2025
Reading all the hints from 'SteveW6', these outcomes seem likely to me:
They will edge out Cifuentes, but the need to at the same time give with the other hand to the fans very generously will be vital.
They will have to bring in someone to QPR who already has his own beloved song. I am serious about this. Otherwise, Nourry and whoever from the board still comes to games will be sitting there in the directors box bottom of the league in November with another interim in charge listening to 10k singing the Cifuentes Estrella song on repeat.
So, to great fanfare, they will install a club legend in an important-sounding job nominally overseeing football biz, but it will be ceremonial and Nourry continues as is while this new fella does lots of public-facing PR. He'll have to have his own song already (like Kevin Gallen), but be totally obedient (probably not Kevin Gallen).
OR...they replace Cifuentes with someone who ticks all those boxes that Steve W6 says Marti does not - eg, understands the league, the club, the budget,the set-up through the teams, 'the culture' yawn - but crucially does have his own song, commands external/internal respect and would view the job as a step-up.
Someone like Paul Furlong. Ticks all the boxes and might buy the board a month. Might not. But has a good song.
The Development squad being cup semi-finalists is not harming this theory, which is otherwise unfounded. |
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Reply | We need a Director of Football
at 15:25 8 Apr 2025
We didn't really get relegated at the worst possible moment. We could've easily stayed in the second tier for a couple of years under prudent management, grown steadily and gone up in 97 or 98. It would have been good for the club, QPR may have learnt something important if serious people had taken over then, made different choices. Being in the Prem in 96 to 99 made zero difference to comparable clubs then.
I mean,
1996, we passed Sunderland and Derby coming up on the way down.
1997: Bolton and Barnsley were promoted to the Prem, along with Palace.
1998: Middlesborough and Charlton went up. And Man City went down to the third tier.
None of these clubs had their destinies moulded by being in the Premier League in the mid-late 90s. Some of them went bust. Some are now in a lower division than us. Only Man City other than QPR were bought by multi-biliionaires *after* being relegated.
The QPR mismanagement and missed opportunities are myriad and mind-blowing. But they all occurred long after Richard Thompson sold up (or took lots of money for a centre back desperate to leave). |
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Reply | We need a Director of Football
at 16:19 7 Apr 2025
I totally agree with this analysis of Richard Thompson (and the contrast with Nourry is as you say stark), but the only other person I've ever read this opinion from is David McIntyre.
So I don't in fact think you're a club employee. |
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Reply | We need a Director of Football
at 12:45 7 Apr 2025
New posters suddenly appearing on fans websites to undermine popular managers when thin-skinned CEOs are under pressure for the poverty of their work: we've been here before.
Wouldn't it be better to just let the coach be interviewed by Loft For Words or attend an open fans forum? |
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Reply | Injury hit, on the beach and checked out, QPR soundly beaten – Report
at 16:21 1 Apr 2025
I do like the poetry of the Curbishley analogy, but it should be remembered that Curbishley turned down the offer of a new Charlton contract - he wasn't sacked or not offered a contract by a club who thought they'd gone as far with him as they could. It just turned out to be true, for both of parties.
His nose was out of joint that Steve McClaren had been appointed England manager when he'd been interviewed and thought himself the best senior candidate. West Ham had also been sniffing around him for years - encouraged I imagine by him, as were Liverpool for a bit. So, that was factor. He was managing WHU five months after his Charlton contract ended.
So, not giving Warburton/Eustace new contracts because we thought QPR could do better than the duo who'd provided QPR's most reliably high second tier placings in a decade was was our own, original hubris. |
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Reply | Injury hit, on the beach and checked out, QPR soundly beaten – Report
at 11:15 31 Mar 2025
I'm reading your conversation with some absolute idiotic maniacs on Twitter/X. Have banned myself from Twitter QPR as it's too mad, and your conversation is exactly why. Incredible stuff.
There's the (presumably) kids who love Nourry - and I get that, they want to believe the future is bright, burn down the past, why not, we've all been young but luckily for me Clive Allen was up front - and who seem to think we've a world class academy with "generational talent" playing there who'll be be international footballers soon (based on YouTube goal comps) and reply to anybody despairing of these long losing runs with "LMAO, who cares" type comments because they think the "fanbase" (mate, we're supporters, or fans, not a fanbase unless you're just on social media) are "so weird, man". That's the guy who made out Kevin Gallen was just bitter he wasn't Rayan Kolli, that was a good one.
Then there's the guy who thinks we're on the cusp of a brilliant summer of recruitment, that the finances are actually really good if you look closely, and next season will be incredible because we can get rid of the dead wood and Nourry's team can buy some more good players. That you're an idiot if you're not really optimistic.
This is the bit in Clive's report that really nails it. Whatever people thought of Les (and Ramsey), of some of their failed signings, there was always a sense that they knew what they needed to win games, of the mix required of Geoff Cameron-style dull experience with the kind of young players who might step up, that they knew enough people in football, had experience of dressing rooms, contracts at clubs, that between them and say Holloway or Warburton (even McClaren), they'd sign enough players like Barbet, Freedman, BOS, etc, players who could get the job done. (They only really messed up when Beale had a say too)
Next summer, likely Nourry and Belk will be choosing a new coach and most of a new squad. Each will be received on socials the way Madsen, Dembele, Celar were received last summer, like we'd signed prototype Mpabbe and De Bruyne, that they had the league sown up, "they ain't ready for Nourry": an actual quote after we signed Madsen. It's going to end in tears. Ours.
This is the kind of thing I can't reply to your thread on Twitter. But valiant effort, Dave. [Post edited 31 Mar 11:16]
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Reply | 2-3 wins
at 09:54 30 Mar 2025
Now, this has worried me. You have an incredible ability to deliver pronouncements from on high to us little people who go to watch QPR which, in fact, turn out to be as complete bollox as they first appear.
A couple of your lofty predictions that I particularly remember, as each was so deeply patronising:
1/ last February you told us all (slight paraphrase, can't face trawling through old posts) "that fans have to accept as the club have" that we were going to be starting 24/25 in L1, and were cutting our cloth to fit. Almost immediately, we started on the run that kept us up fairly comfortably in the end.
2/ that, "seriously", Ian Holloway would fired by Swindon before last Christmas because he's mentally unwell, the inference being that you'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise. Olly then then went on a great run to mid-table, earning manager of the month and now a new three year contract extension.
So, if you say QPR are "safe" with seven more games to go, one win in seven, injuries to all the key players, a pair of genuine six pointers next and six points distance to what is traditionally safety...well, as I say, I am now worried.
More than that, the demeanour and recent comments from Cifuentes about this being his hardest season by far, that Cardiff is his biggest game here (really? bigger than Brum last season? Wow) and the fact he is still being kept at arms length from us (when is that coaches' interview appearing I wonder) by Nourry says to me we are very from safe, in more than one sense of the word.
Cardiff is a massive game. Too big to say we're safe already, that's for sure. |
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Reply | Swindon
at 22:37 29 Mar 2025
Sacked by last Christmas latest.
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Reply | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 16:38 17 Mar 2025
Ha!
I think it would be worth collating publicly the questions sent in to the "Football Panel". That way we can all compare what was answered with what we know wasn't - it would be in its own way quite revealing. Plus it gives a tiny bit of leverage back to fans. But maybe on its own thread. |
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Reply | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 16:17 17 Mar 2025
The "ITK" stuff is neither here nor there. It may annoy, but objectively you either think it and the sources ring true or not. If you know the truth of something you can disprove or ignore them. We can't.
The only way to clear away conspiracies or rumours is to shine a light on everything, to be open with loyal fans as much as is practical. Whatever anyone thought of the Ferdinand, Hoos, Warburton axis, I think they got open communication pretty much spot on. They all let us in two or three times a year, sometimes together, sometimes apart. They faced up when it was tough, too. They were self-respecting adults about it.
Nourry could kill every rumour, every ITK stone dead with a proper, in-person, unfiltered Fans Forum with Cifuentes and himself. That he doesn't tells me everything. That he chooses to instead present a "Football Panel" whereby our head coach shares a platform with seven others including the Head of Methodology, Head of Performance Services and Head of Women’s Operations to answer vetted questions before an audience of just scholars and the women's team before edited answers are shared on "channels" should tell all more than any ITK rumour. It's laughably, transparently controlling. With due respect to everyone else on the panel, let's hear from the head coach and the recruitment on one panel please, the academy, methodology etc on another, and the women's on their own. It's insulting to think he believes fans really buy this nonsense. |
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Reply | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 10:46 17 Mar 2025
Well, it was said by Nourry. We'd all love to ask Cifuentes about that, about the squad he wants, about all kinds of things in fact - but Nourry won't allow that to happen unless he vets the answers.
You have to be able to draw a conclusion from that. |
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Reply | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 17:58 16 Mar 2025
He doesn't like a whinge though, does he? We do know that, we have the evidence of almost all his interviews I can think of. He's been largely uncomplaining throughout his time here, despite all kinds of adversity. He never really makes excuses and his mentality is always really forward-facing and supportive of his players.
Here he is simply saying this has been by far the hardest season of his career - he'd know. And he adds that it's not just about results. Anybody who's watched us regularly this season knows there's something wrong at the club, at a sporting level. At the very least, this is arguably the least well-balanced squad we've had since being relegated a decade ago. And we know who always takes the credit publicly for every signing.
Fundamentally, I disagree. I want them to air their dirty laundry. This is our club. I want to know what's happening. Because they'll be gone soon enough and we'll be left with the mess once more, wondering how it's happened under noses again. |
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Reply | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 17:37 16 Mar 2025
Yeah, had missed that. Pathetic, insulting. The only person you need to hear from is Cifuentes, plus Belk and Nourry at a push - but all together, in a room, with an audience. Let's hear the choir all singing together.
Embarrassing, really. Being that controlling is just so weak and unconfident, isn't it? Some time in the future, when he's left. we'll hear the true story from Marti. Make or break six months for Nourry, I reckon. |
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Reply | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 16:31 16 Mar 2025
Never did get that fans forum with him, did we? They've kept him at arm's length for a reason. I suspect we will soon enough learn who's a more valuable asset, Nourry or Cifuentes. |
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Thread | "By far the most challenging season of my career!”
at 09:21 16 Mar 2025
Saw this on the way to the game, Cifuentes describing how difficult the season's been, "not just the results", but "things the fans don't see" - particularly the last few weeks.
Interesting that he thinks this has been "by far" harder than taking over one of the worst teams I can remember last season.
Seems significant. I wonder what's been happening - and I wonder where that leaves him for next season.
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