If you have an aging squad then doing nothing is an issue. We have a youngish side and they should improve in both consistency and quality with time (ie experience and pre seasons). We also have a few foreign lads who should be more settled this time round. We also have a team that, at their most dogged, competed with the best in the league season. We just need to find that consistency and belief and that's something a calm pre season will actually help with. There's still time to add a couple of players but I don't think we should want too much more than we already have. I feel optimistic about this season. If people want to pick out the worst from last year and predict the same or worse then you will be worried. If supporters of any team did that then they'd be worried too. Doesn't mean it will happen though.
All you Holloway kickers better beware, there are many who would slay you for such heresy! Apparently he didn't cock-up the last 8 games he was just changing things (consistency??!!) to get it right !! (but failed). God help us if we don't sort out this transfer window. Holloway says we need a number of them to get it right, it will be one more of this one doesn't get sorted.
I seem to remember after we went up via play-offs that he wanted to sign a new contract but we even messed that up.
Let's see let's see? Heard it all before Stroller. it's not his squad, let's give him until the end of the season, let's give him until Christmas, let him have a transfer window, let's let's....Oops we are relegated. Let's watch us in League One. If he stays it will all end badly.
Good debate and smart op Bob. Both sides of the argument have valid points. At this moment in the transfer market it's all guess work. Unless you're willing to pay Terry 80 grand a week to play championship football I'm afraid you just have to bide your time. The real issue is the ffp. Are the club/owners showing economic prudence only to appease the Football League, and as soon as it is solved they're back spending again? Or is it that the owners have had enough and are only going through the motions? Either way it can only be a good thing that the club are cutting it's cloth according to it's means. It will give the club a much better starting point whatever way it swings. It's boring, that's what gets me. I'm to impatient to give it the time needed to get our house in order to be competitive again. Only goal in the current climate our club finds itself in is survival this season. And hopefully we can see tiny signs of progression. It's the hope that kills ya.
I'm thinking TF and Newcastles' Ashley schooled together. The Cone of Silence is working overtime and not a player insight. Always love the run in to a new season! please log in to view this image
That's not how I remember it. I remember a couple of clubs offering under our asking price and we rejected them. I thought we offered him a buyout clause as well to try to keep him.
That was at a later date. I am talking about after we had just gone up and no one was interested in him then. This was Dec 2014 http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...austin-hints-at-new-rangers-deal-9935065.html This was This was Aug 2015 http://www.skysports.com/football/n...-queens-park-rangers-begin-new-contract-talks The fact is we should have sorted it out straight after the play-off final when he wanted to sign. We messed about and blew the chance. That is how it happened.
Maybe, unless it was in the 70's, I've got no real memory or concept of time. ( I still remember that Cameron & Mullen scored the own goals in the 8-2 win against Sheffield Wednesday in the league cup in 1973 !!!)
Never ceases to amaze me that the Austin transfer is always used as an example as to how stupid the board have been. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but since joining Saints in January 2016 he has played only 22 times and scored 7 goals, he's missed roughly 50 games (including cup ties) due to injury. From memory the club offered him improved terms but he refused to sign, so in the circumstances getting £4m for him in the January was better than getting bugger all once he became a free agent and given his subsequent injury history IMO we got a decent deal. Still all ancient history...... Might be time to start a thread about the line up against Reading!!!!!
In Tramore's defence Ellers, We wanted 15 mill for Austin but nobody wanted to pay that for a potentially injury prone striker nearing the end of his contract. We then kept him because we thought we had a chance of promotion from the championship. A gamble worth taking. Selling the Bowler kid to Everton, we had no choice. He didn't want to play here and wouldn't sign a contract if i remember rightly. Nothing they could do about that. Admittedly hiring Holloway was a duff move but we're hardly in a position to take our pick of managers are we?
Never ceases to amaze me how fans cannot see the ineptitude of our board. Charlies Transfer is just one of the comical errors they have made. If anyone thinks that a club our size can spend £250M, Make 5th position in the European debt league and are playing lower championship football. if they believe the board is doing a good job they really need think again.
Chaz I am talking about straight after the play off final in 2014 not after the disastrous season under Redknapp. I remember Charlie saying after the final that he wanted to stay at QPR and I believe he was ready to sign a new deal but we fluffed about and of course we went down then.
Actually I started by saying this and Charlie was only one point of my post. TBH I have also said that the rejection wasn't in 2014 when they should have sorted the contract out. I didn't blame Charlie for leaving when he did as like me he saw the club going backward. As for the lad that went to Everton, I don't blame him either as I wouldn't want to play under 'Hollow' if I had talent. Here is an interesting article from the Guardian after the Play-off final. The reporter says the way QPR needs to survive in the Prem is: Be streetwise over transfers, buy a striker, find younger talent, get contracts signed – and maintain team spirit Everything we didn't do. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...r-league-five-things-harry-redknapp-should-do
Ok, furry muff Ellers - but nobody really knows why a deal didn't happen then, it's just speculation. Perhaps he just wanted too much cash? Maybe the Board ballsed it, who knows. Regardless, I don't think anyone is really suggesting the board haven't done some very daft stuff but I think there's probably dafter examples than the ones you've given! Holloway I agree really feels like a desperate (and daft) appointment. TF talking up the stadium / training ground before anything concrete was in place was also daft. The chucking around of money we didn't have under Hughes - daft beyond compare. So on and so on. In their defence though they are trying to do things the right way these days but there's no magic solution. In each division there's one or two clubs getting it right, a handful of clubs getting it sort of right, the majority floundering around making a bit of a pigs bollock of it and two or three that are in self destruct mode. Sadly, currently, we're probably in the third category.
Agree, I just feel that all this messing around has cost us our long term future. We did the hard work by luckily going up at the Wembley game. For me, Redknapp should have gone after that Play-off final because I'd had enough of him by then. Then appointing Ramsey was ridiculous. The whole thing has had a domino effect and I see that continuing for some time. It frustrates me when I see the continual 'cock ups'.
The inclusion of Ramsey in the 'daft' board decisions category was one of the sitters you missed earlier! What a shocker that was. I also agree the club does feel like it's on a downward trajectory at the mo - and I'm a complete glass half full kind of chap.
