To be fair on Flyer, if his turning up depends on us winning he hasn't had much opportunity recently has he.
He certainly laid down a marker today playing for Rotherham today scoring a hat-trick as a sub with only 30 mins on the field. Considering the striker replacements we brought in - Maiga, Keane, Doyle along with Johnson & Zamora, perhaps we should have just kept him in the squad. please log in to view this image Tom Hitchcock scored a second-half hat-trick as Rotherham twice came from behind to beat Gillingham and secure themselves a play-off place. Kieran Agard put the visitors ahead before Adebayo Akinfenwa levelled and Myles Weston put the Gills in front. Loanee Hitchcock then levelled for the Millers but Bradley Dack's late goal looked to have won it for the hosts. Hitchcock equalised again a minute later and completed his hat-trick in stoppage-time with a curling lob. http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26796381
Once again, it is interesting to note that those looking on from afar tend not to view our current situation in the apocalyptic terms of the local fellas. Personally I think the doom-mongering has gone into overdrive once again and its the result of unrealistic expectations. Are the Derby fans this depressed this morning I wonder? Back to the game though and although Dunne has to be rested, you can't blame Redknapp for playing him yesterday. Who else did he have? Big Ned and Hughes were both crocked. All of us in his shoes would have started Dunne and Hill. Unfortunately the pair of them got roasted. Regarding Simpson, does anyone else think that he stands off his man about a yard or two too much? Yesterday the winger seemed to have loads of space to cross every time he went at him. Or maybe its just me? Hoilett is the most frustrating player since Abdul Tarabarabat (which is probably why COL likes him so much!). It sounded as though Harry was a bit peeved with him post game and rightly so. If its possible to bring back W-Phillips I'd give him a try between now and the end of the season. He can't be any worse. We need to tweak a few things between now and the Semis but overall I thought we weren't as bad yesterday as people are making out. Austin will pick up form and with that we'll become more of a threat. I think Wigan will take 3rd spot which means we just have to keep above 6th to avoid them. With a five point gap between 6th and 7th now, this may well be the four teams that compete. I'd fancy our chances against Reading or Derby so we've got to look to hold 4th or 5th place. As for people saying we'd be destroyed in the PL, that's nonsense. Last year Dull lost 13 games in the Championsh*t and they're having a great season this year. In the Semi's of the Cup and comfortable in the league. Palace went up with 72 points which we'll comfortably outdo this year and they're having a cracking little season too. If there's one thing I learned from our brief sojourn in the PL is that its overrated. Stan said it many times when we were there, that the bottom half of that league should hold no fears for a Promoted side as long as they hold their promotion winning squad together. Beat Forest next week which I expect we'll do and everyone will feel more positive.
Simpson is doing exactly what is written on the tin - remember what the Toon supporters said about him? Pretty solid defender, gives little going forward. Hull are doing well, but they have added wisely to their Championship squad - Huddlestone, Livermore, Jelavic, Long all automatic starters. Probably some others too. Take out the loan players and who in our current squad (and in contract next year) would you say are Prem standard? Leads us to the perennial issue, we don't need 4 new players, we need 14, and we've done that before and know how it ends up. However, if we get 14 players who will be around for 3 plus seasons, accept that a season in the Prem will be difficult and probably end in relegation, and focus on building a squad with style and commitment which will learn from the experience, its still obviously worth being there. I think the 'doom mongering' comes from a couple of things - perhaps expectations were too high, but I still think automatic promotion was a fair objective given the cost of our squad and management team compared to the rest of the division. But more importantly we are seeing a team with no consistency and apparently little confidence/belief. Our league position is a testament to the quality of the league - not doubting its extremely competitive, but pretty crappy as well.
With great respect Swords, abuse of individuals like this is bang out of order and you've let yourself down yet again. You might not agree with Flyer on a lot of what he says BUT he is only stating his views, which he has every right to do, as do you. Posts like that are what keep me, and I suspect a few others, away from QPR threads ( on a QPR board !!) after we lose. I thought better of you to be honest and I think an apology would be in order....If you are man enough of course.
Hull, Palace and every other promoted team had plenty of players that their fans and probably a lot of others considered were not Prem standard. Yet when you're up there you realise that they're well capable of playing at that level. In fact, I'd agree with Dunne who said the other day that our squad would almost be more suited to the Prem than this hatchet man's league. Besides, as you say, a lot of our chaff is out of contract so wouldn't that give us a great opportunity to bring in some better players? Hull added some quality to their squad but why couldn't we? I'd expect that's precisely what we'd do too. You can't have it both ways though Stan, simultaneously saying that our current squad wouldn't be up to the task but a newly built one wouldn't be either. Keeping the core of your promotion squad together and then adding some quality additions has been proven time and again to be the recipe for success in the PL. Have you forgotten how crappy the standard was in the two years we were there? You were the one who kept on saying it! Your second paragraph is fair enough but we could just as easily have done a Wolves or missed out on the Playoffs altogether. Yes this is a sh*t division but any relegated team that makes the Playoffs the following year has done a decent job. Reading and Wigan were, in my opinion at least, much better equipped coming down into this division than we were yet we're still ahead of them both. The competitiveness of this league, particularly every team raising their game against the big sides (including us), is one of the reasons why the step up shouldn't unduly concern promoted sides. In the top tier you can play your football because you're coming up against teams that are trying to beat you rather than sitting in their own half and making your life hell. There's no "game raising" teams when they play little old QPR in the Prem. In fact, we'd find ourselves relishing it in the pressure-free environment of the underdog. Its a totally different type of game that's played at that level and one that would fit around us perfectly. I believe we'd be in a far better position going up this year than we were last time to be honest. We'd crucially have a steady preseason with a Chairman willing to back us completely and a very experienced Premiership Manager who'd know who to bring in. The difficult thing is in the getting back up, but once there, I honestly don't think we'd ever come back down again.
Swords, I do agree with you that the view of people having paid to watch our team "play" probably have a different view on our position than if we have watched them on a free stream. You claim that this gives you objectivity. I would say that by paying I expect to be entertained. BTW, what happened to the easy win we would get at Bournemouth you were telling us about last week?
That's a very simplistic view of things Swords. The reason so many of us are so pissed off is that there is no set way that we play, every week we are playing uninspiring, boring and very poor football. There is no playmaker who dictates play for us, it is sideways passes until we give the ball away, no incisive cutting edge and whoever is the striker tends to spend a lot of time watching the grass grow. So many games have been poor tactically with changes made at half time or later improving things slightly but nothing is learned from this. When we finish a game well the team is changed the following game producing more of this endless dross. The players we have are not good enough to get us out of this league let alone survive in the PL. The reason many of them are with us is because they're not good enough for the PL so don't expect them to suddenly emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis if, by some miracle, we go up. Hull and Palace have improved vastly but the real key is they have midfield players that are clearly PL quality. Huddlestone and Livermore were probably the two best signings of the season by Bruce and Palace have Jedinak who was the best box to box midfielder in the Championship last season alongside Dikgacoi and they are a formidable pairing. For all our midfielders, none are really any good on a consistent basis, which is why we are where we are. Midfield balance is the key to any good side, look a Southampton, who went up the previous season, Cork and Schneiderlin are the unsung heartbeat of what is fast becoming a tremendous young side, we need to get that department right before we will get anywhere and I don't see any of our current midfielders being worth retaining...
Why don't you go to the cinema or a belly dancing show or summat? This season ain't about entertainment, its about promotion and that's all the entertainment you need. Its still on so quit your grumbling and look forward to the Playoffs with confidence son. Now you're being naughty Tel! I never said it would be easy but yeah, I thought we'd win and you know what? We could have done. I said last week we'd beat Wigan but you blokes mugged me off. Yes, we lost yesterday and that's two poor results and I'm disappointed but with 6 to go I reckon we'll get to around 80 points. Now who in their right mind would have turned their nose up at that at the start of the season? Last year that would have won you an Auto slot FFS!
I can have it both ways and frequently do. We don't need a 'few quality additions' we need the majority of a squad unless we offer Zamora, Johnson et al a new contract and can persuade Cesar, Granero, Adel, Remy to come back. We have no foundations Swords, the current squad was built purely to get us up this year, then we start again. And as Redknapp clearly has no interest in the long term, I expect more of the short termism next year, if he is still around.
The problem with that swords is that I expect us to win the play offs! Every season is about entertainment & enjoyment or else you will find attendances heading back to the level we used to have. The problem is that a fair amount of us would rather spend as long as we need in the Championship before being promoted. Therefore, we are not happy with what we have endured this season. We don't accept the argument that promotion was the b-all for this season. It is for HR but TF stated lasst summer that it was not imperative. I 'm fairly sure he didn't mean that, but promotion or bust is the only rational explanation why HR was not back on the job market last summer & we have suffered at least 30 awful performances in the 40 league matches played. That we are in third place is a reflection on the division rather than our own ability.
I'm trying to be optimistic, but tbh it's f*kkin difficult. Saturday nights and Sundays are becoming the worse days of the week! Yepp, bee happy "We are inthe Play-offs" - Great! Errrrr, but we aren't even sure of them even yet are we. I think we'll just scrape into them , but be closer to 7th than 2nd. The Play-offs themselves will be totally different think, possibly the ones Arry chooses to play will be really up for them, and just maybe we'll cause a surprise.
That's a fair point and you're right. That must be incredibly frustrating for the guys that go to the matches. They have my sympathy but I guess what I'm saying is it could be a lot worse. That reminds me, I like Benayoun. Every time he got the ball yesterday he immediately went forward with it with pace and some purpose about him. You'd think that'd be a given from your players but not in this team. Everyone else just wants to go sideways or backwards which is quite bizarre. What the hell is Jordan and Co doing with them on the training pitch? This is where I disagree with you because by your rationale, Hull and Palace and every other team that goes up is full of players not good enough for the PL because they weren't in the PL before they went up! That doesn't make sense. And if they improved vastly with their additions, why couldn't we do likewise? Again, that's precisely what I'd expect us to do if we do go up. We'd have a great template to work off with so many wasters on their way out the Club.
Sorry Staines, I must have missed your post earlier. Yeah that language is out of order alright. I shouldn't have used it but Match-Day threads can be quite emotional and are slightly different to threads during the week when everyone is nice and calm. Look at it like this. You probably can't stand Andy King or other teams fans coming onto our Match-Day threads and gloating when we're losing or when we lose. COL and others repeatedly tell them to "fu*k off" and worse. To me, Flyer is worse than that because he's supposed to be one of us yet extracts immense pleasure every time we lose and pisses all over those threads with a perverted sense of delight. I mustn't be the only one who thinks so because two posters quoted me above agreeing with that expletive-filled rant, distasteful and all as it was. As for apologising to him, there's no point because he wouldn't see it. He has me on ignore. In fact he wouldn't have seen that post of mine if you hadn't quoted it. So if anyone should apologise to him it probably should be you
You're missing my point. Palace's midfield pair were PL class in the championship and they also had Zaha, those three were the principal reason they made the play-offs and subsequently won them. They had the basis to build a team around and Ollie f*cked it up, Pulis has come in and organised them well and they'll stay up. Hull were workmanlike at best but Bruce pulled a masterstroke bringing in Huddlestone and Livermore who already knew each other's game and have given a well-organised team a new dimension. My point is Harry has had every opportunity to get players in that would give us a new dimension both in midfield and attack and what have we got? All his exes or rubbish like Maiga and Keane. I just can't see us beating any of Wigan, Derby or Reading over two games let alone winning at Wembley...
Wigan and reading are on fire and derby are struggling like us, the perfect scenario is for Wigan to get third and we get fourth and derby at 5th. Then a final is anyone's game if we get past them. I can't see us doing Wigan or reading over two legs because they will both cheat their way to a win. Wrong pens and reds cards are guaranteed.
Can't agree that Reading are on fire. They are great one week and terrible the next. I'd like them in the semi, plus I could go to both legs!!
