Under Mark Hughes we always seemed to adopt a safety-first attitude which quite often meant games ran away from us before we'd try Plan B, if there was one. Under Harry, I'm sure he'll look at our attacking options and shape the team and tactics towards taking the game to the opposition, I don't seem to recall Harry ever taking safety-first as his preferred option so will be expecting to see us going for Sunderland, who must be down on confidence, and that might just surprise all of us...
Sorry Sooper. Your points got me thinking and the outcome was the thread of the title! Too long to be a post replying to your excellent OP.
One of the best posts I've ever read on here, completely emphasizing exactly how the majority of R's fans are feeling at the moment. I too like you have had that deflating feeling at the weekend's when we have drawn and lost this season. Not wanting to acknowledge anyone in the family, just wanting to be left alone to dwell in my misery, of how exactly are QPR going to get out of this mess. I only go to Loftus Road twice a season at best, so for thoise of you that are there game in/out homae and away, you must be right on the edge Brixton, I agree with your post, I really think that the difference is going to be that 'Arry is more of a man-manager, most articles I've read in the past on him have said how he gains the respect of players and they want to play for him. I really hope that he can turn it around because we have a real big game on Tuesday, not only that but I think Villa play Reading as well so we need something positive to stop falling further behind. Watching his interview on the Offish, he said the players are the ones who have got us in this mess its upto them to get us out..simple things like when a player loses the ball then show some heart to run back and win it back...if he can drum this into some of the numpties we have in our team then he's done something Hughes couldn't do. I'm convinced we can do it, maybe I'm a bit of a dreamer but let's face it we have the manager at the helm, who I would expect every prem team (bar the top 4) would want in charge. Again brilliant post !
I agree your main point Sooper. You have to attack and score to stand any chance of winning games. The common belief is that 'Arry don't do tactics - but I can't remember ever seeing an 'Arry side that didn't strike out. Well if that ain't tactics, I don't know what it is. If I'm sure about anything relating to 'Arry, it's that we'll be watching an attack-minded Rangers for the rest of the season.
"Don't do tactics" is a quote from the man himself Brix, though obviously disingenuous. The Sunderland match will be fascinating - they have only won 2 in 20, and O'neill is getting almighty stick on the Mackem board, plus rumors swiftly countered that he resigned (he does have a history of walk outs). Real pressure on them, but how fickle ( to plagiarize our mutual friend) are football supporters? MON was a god to them a few months ago.
Interesting that about O'Neil Stan. The Villa fans bemoaned his unadventurous style towards the end there. I've rated him in the top five UK managers since his Leicester days. A studious man who's maybe lost touch with Clough-ism and found other interests... Anyways, chins up for Tuesday eh?
That is the most obvious difference between yesterday's performance and last week's. When Mackie scored we had 3 or 4 players in the United box. last week we hardly ventured into the box at all and when the ball went in there was one man there surrounded by 4 or 5 Saints. An even more interesting comparison is with the game at United last season where in spite of being behind after 7 minutes due to the outrageous dive by Ashley Young we only had one long range shot from Taarabt which was blocked, looped up and almost went in. That can only be because Hughes was happy to walk away from OT with his team not taking a drubbing. Just think how much better we might have been served had we gone for an equaliser. We would almost certainly have still have lost but the next away game? Would we just have rolled over like lambs to the slaughter.
