From HITC sport: QUOTE QPR were beaten 3-1 by Manchester City this weekend, the team they ultimately want to emulate. After the horrific result at home to Swansea I feared Manchester City would put on a great show against us; thankfully they didnât play as well as they could. Mark Hughes has brought in 12 new players and all will need time to settle; but this is the Premier League and âtimeâ isnât given. Some QPR fans really make me laugh when they say, âSack Hughes as he doesnât know what heâs doing!â At the home of the Champions we were outplayed for two thirds of the game but there are a lot of things to take from the game. Granero, who signed just 24 hours before kick off played a great game and I can see both himself and Faurlin getting a great understanding. Fabio played his best game in a hooped shirt since his loan started, but being a Manchester United player he must have been up for the challenge. I would like my team to follow in Manchester Cityâs footsteps and from what I can see thatâs what weâre doing. Our subs bench yesterday had cover in every position; I canât recall being able to say that last season. Itâs commonly known Iâm not Robert Greenâs biggest fan but when he plays in goal for us Iâll back him and yesterday he made a couple of great saves. The problem is his confidence is on the floor. Every time a ball was crossed I had my heart in my mouth. He seemed to be stuck to the goal line and I donât know if he was meant to do that or it was just fear. I donât normally like the idea of an International break but this time I do; our players need time to get to know each otherâs game and training can only help. If there was one thing Iâd pull Mark Hughes up about yesterday itâs his subs or rather the timing and who he brought on. Both Mackie and Cisse scored at City last season and yet he brought on Kieron Dyer. Finally he brought Cisse on who hardly had time to break a sweat; he needs at least half an hour and against a tired defence he could have changed the game. I guess thatâs why I write about it and Hughes gets the big bucks; and the pressure. Time is something that fans donât have a lot of and in two weeks time we have a West London derby; a must win game for more than just three points! UNQUOTE Quite a reasonable article, I thought. We must be looking to get a win against Chelsea.
Yeh, agree with that, especially about the substitutions. But will the International break help the gell? I think a few of the better players who need gelling will be fixing their hair oversaea with their national teams.
My recollection from last season is that we didn't perform well after any sort of break!! Surely in order to gel, the more high pressure games they play the greater the intensity and the quicker they get to see each others strengths and weaknesses under pressure? Having said that if the break does indeed mean that they return with greater focus and understanding of each other man to man I'll be absolutely delighted.
I'm actually really happy our next games are against chelsea and spuds. Give our guys as much gelling time as possible before we play games we're expected to win.
I dont think any manager likes the International break but it should give the majority of the squad more time to play together Chelsea will probably have all the first team involved in internationals so it maybe is better for us than them
Until the Super Cup game on Friday Chelsea weren't looking bad at all. However the way they break will still worry me until our back foiur have had a lot more time together. So maybe Chelsea isn't the best next fixture - and then we go to the Lane......... I'm looking forward to 8 points in October though !!
Will they though? How many of the players who started on Saturday will be playing in the internationals? Not more than a handful, surely? I might be wrong, but I think of the starting line-up and subs last weekend only Nelson is likely to play in the internationals (if NZ are even playing). I guess Green could be in the England squad, but he won't get game time. Ferdinand, Onouha, Park, Johnson, Wright-Phillips, Granero, Cisse, Bosingwa, Fabio, Zamora and Faurlin were the other players. I don't think any will play in the internationals. Mbia, Cesar and Taarabt are likely to be away though I guess.
Being a former National team coach for Wales MH will know how to maximise the players at hand and the others when they return. But as TIMK points out above there is only a handful that might be on international duty (you forgot Mackie though). And of those, Nelsen and Mbia are the ones that we would benefit most of having around the squad during the break, as Taarabt hasn't featured yet and Cesar might not be fit enough to play yet.
