David McIntyre Blog

http://davidmcintyre.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/making-a-dogs-dinner-of-things/

Making a dog’s dinner of things
By davidmcintyre

I’ve often criticised QPR for putting out confused or misleading information, but in my sleep-deprived state I’ve been guilty of doing exactly that.

My ‘week off’ has been spent being terrorised by Lucy, a Portuguese water dog puppy who’s run me ragged during my attempts to toilet-train her and prevent my house being destroyed.

Lucy is the canine equivalent of Dominic Iorfa: entertaining to watch, with a loveable personality and absolutely blistering pace, but always in the wrong place and misses the target time after time.

Butter wouldn't melt, but she's a terror

Before settling down for a week of sleepless nights and apologising to neighbours, it was suggested to me by a colleague that I do a story about QPR planning a bid for Danny Graham.

Won’t happen, I insisted. Was I sure? Absolutely. They won’t bid for him before the end of the month.

A couple of days later, as Lucy was stampeding through my living room (I dread to think what she’ll do when I’m back at work), I noticed Sky Sports News reporting a £2.5m bid from QPR for Graham, which despite not having time to verify myself I have no doubt was true.

My incompetence didn’t stop there.

In my last blog post I suggested the Mittals might soon become more influential at Rangers – genuinely this time, as opposed to the ploy last year to placate fans and attract a heavyweight manager.

Taking a break from cleaning up puppy wee while having my hands and feet bitten to shreds, I checked Twitter and Facebook and had a few messages asking for an update on the situation.

As I was totally out of the loop, I tweeted that I knew nothing of any developments.

Unbeknown to me, in the outside world there were rumours that the Mittals had left QPR, so my reference to “developments” caused some confusion.

I attempted to clarify with a follow-up tweet, but the damage was done.

One un-amused follower – maybe now an ex-follower – made their disgust clear. The gist of his tweet was that I knew nothing. Which was absolutely right. That was supposed to be the whole point.

I often use Facebook and Twitter to link to stuff I’ve written, which people might not otherwise realise is by me. I might be a rubbish journalist and a negative so-and-so, but the common allegation that I don’t say anything new isn’t accurate, honest!

Having finally found time the previous day to circulate a story about a possible buy-out by the Mittals, I assumed an article that appeared the following morning was mine, so linked to it without really checking.

A couple of minutes later, I was back on Twitter pointing out that it wasn’t actually mine, although it was similar. No skin off my nose – just less food for Lucy this week – but further proof that I had lost the plot.

Given that, you might want to treat with due contempt my take on some of the confusion out there regarding the ownership of the club.

It’s an issue, like several others, that QPR has tied itself in knots over.

Implying last year that the popular Mittals had in some way ousted the unpopular Briatore made it difficult for them to explain Briatore’s subsequent transfer of shares to Ecclestone. So they didn’t.

Then in March, Rangers released a statement effectively confirming a report that the club were in talks with a potential buyer. That was all a bit silly.

Since then, the impression has been that Rangers are yet again up for sale and the owners want out, which isn’t really the case.

There has been some interest. I thought an Indonesian-based group who seemed seriously interested might make a formal move, but they didn’t.

Calm before yet another storm

Beyond that, the notion of an imminent sale was a bit daft. I wasn’t and am still not sure what it was all about.

I’ve been told that Briatore is particularly keen to sell his British-based business interests, but don’t know whether that’s accurate.

And while this is second-hand information because I’ve never spoken to Ecclestone since he became involved in Rangers, people who would know immediately told me that he had no interest in selling unless he received a ridiculous offer.

That was borne out by a subsequent comment by Ecclestone that he wanted £100m for the club.

In light of QPR’s statement, his words were read by many as ‘I want to sell QPR and want £100m’ when it was more along the lines of ‘no, I’m not looking to sell. Not unless it’s for £100m.’

Confused? That‘s hardly surprising. After all, it was Rangers’ own statement that fuelled the reports the club was up for sale.

This, if you remember, being the same club that took a break from the latter stages of negotiating the sale to the current owners to release a bizarre statement claiming the club wasn’t for sale. It’s never straightforward in QPR Land.

There is also the issue of who on the QPR board owns what. The individual stakes of Ecclestone and Briatore can seem a mystery, and the transfer between them fluid.

Since their takeover, I’ve always regarded their shareholding purely as a combined one. They’re a team. Who of the two owns what at any particular time is basically irrelevant.

The best way to view them isn’t as Ecclestone and Briatore, but Ecclestone/Briatore. They are one and the same. Seeing it any other way is splitting hairs.

As for the possibility of the Mittals taking control, I’d be surprised if it happened but it is at least a possibility, unlike last year when it had no substance and started as hot air generated by the pro-Paladini camp, who were keen to keep blame focused on the pantomime villain Briatore rather than their man, who they also believed would be strengthened by a Bhatia-led takeover.

I think there is still some of that going on, but there is also some substance this time around.

What this is not is a ‘boardroom battle’, the like of which was seen at Rangers in 2004 and again in 2005. Having covered both of those in depth, I can definitely say this isn’t comparable in any way.

That said, I’ve no idea where they are with the discussions they were meant to be having this week, or where Rangers are with enquiries about various players.

Having clearly misjudged the situation with Graham, only transfer story I’ve done in recent weeks was on Tottenham’s Kyle Naughton, who Rangers are trying pretty hard to get. I felt that one was advanced enough to do a story on.

Among the numerous others linked, Lee Bowyer is an interesting one because when his name first cropped up, Neil Warnock wasn’t interested in him at all and still wasn’t when I last checked.

Whether that’s changed in the last week or so, I don’t know. Often a deal for a player is done because it’s there to be done, and the idea grows on a manager the longer it‘s an option. So who knows.

Another name thrown at me on Twitter this week was Javier Saviola, who was apparently being linked with Rangers while I was introducing Lucy to worming tablets.

Those asking if I knew anything about the Saviola thing flattered me. I don’t. This blog is basically all about how little I know.

I’m pretty useless when it comes to overseas transfer stories. The only ones I’ve broken since 2007 were those of Parejo and Faurlin, and the almost signing of Sebastian Rusculleda (anyone remember him?), which collapsed at the last minute. I was a close second with Ledesma and De Carmine.

When you consider how many overseas signings Rangers have made, that’s a pretty poor return.

The way they happen and the people they involve means it’s hard for me to get there first with foreign signings.

A bummer that. And so too is having your furniture chewed to bits.

 

What a boring read , nothing that we did'nt already know.

 

Agreed.

 

If you pardon the pun, he's poo-pooing the idea of a Mittal takeover, Thanks a million (not)!

 

Well i had no idea he had a new puppy that was pissing all over his house, fascinating!

His quote of the week 'This blog is basically all about how little I know' doesn't exactly fill me with inspiration either.

 

I'd never heard of a Portuguese water dog - apparently they were bred to herd fish into nets!!! Is this a joke?

I expect to see David very busily herding sticklebacks in the River Brent with his new water dog very soon.

Can't wait to hear all about it.

 

As a recent consumer, the more I read David Mac's work the more I appreciate his love for Rangers and reluctance to count our chickens. For me, Mac's a rarity amongst hacks: honest, perhaps too honest for his own good.

During that week, the Hearing week, I was comparing his twitter stuff with that of smudge and the BBC man, and tbh if I didn't know of Mac's loyalties, I would never have guessed. He just wasn't prepared to speculate on such an unpredictable outcome. As frustrating as his no nonsense, self-depricating style may be, there's a great deal of integrity about the man and he recognises he has an audience to placate - even when he's on leave.

For me, this article was a hoot. Reading between the lines, Mac's telling us the score from his angle: 'Out of office reply: I won't be back at my desk until .... Speculation can wait. Now **** off and leave me alone. I've got smaller fish to fry (Cannock's sticklebacks no doubt!).

All told in Mac's inimitable style. Love it or hate it, that's blogging for you folks!