Was away at a festival this weekend in Newark....where I found a life long Huddersfiels fan...and we got chatting. He told me about coming to Loftus Road, which he liked...and how we (in the second half) gave them a real game of it....and they were very lucky to hold on. I said I liked their away kit, he showed me there new away kit....a bit like our dennis the menance but "funkier". Then we got onto their players that we now own. Smithies:...Too small to be a proper goalie...good at stopping stops, bad positioning and useless at kicking from hand. He doesn't remember him saving a penalty. They were glad to see him go....and no, there is no chance of him going back. ...I said that is not really the Smithies we seemed to have bought...who is pretty good alround....and compared to Rob Green, is a maestro at kicking Then we got onto Joel Lynch, who he said the fans were much more angry to see go ...but...... So he said that the fans liked Joel Lynch, because he really tried hard, battled for 90 minutes...and was always there to make/try to make last ditch tackles and interception. They thought he was the backbone of the defence and there was outroar when he left....Wagner bought in two Germans, one from German league 2. But after a few matches, there was no need for panic and interceptions...the events did just not occur. So he had come to the conclusion that in fact it was Lynch's slow brain and bad marshalling and positioning that had caused the panics that he had to sort out in (sometime) heroic fashion....got to say that does ring bells with me. Since Lynch is in the team we do seem to be cut apart a lot more and the defence has got worse and worse...he does make last minute saves and interceptions....but perhaps he is the reason they happen in the first place Interesting chat Then he said his season ticket for next season is £199...and not gone up from this season!!!!!
It seems Smithies must be a rare example of a player whose game improves on joining QPR rather than disintegrating!
Or it could be he is good enough for a team with no ambition but not good enough for a team to gain promotion with..
I remember when they were in the old First Division back in the early 70s, Frank Worthington was their star player and Harold Wilson their most famous supporter...
Interesting info Beth. As we all know there is never a guarantee of a player improving and moving up a level when brought into a team from lower/some level. We are certainly not having our fair crack of the whip when it has come to transfers coming in, but we have had some good ones (Smithies, Hall recently; Austin in the recent past). It is certainly a risky business - but we have definitely been poor over several of the last transfer windows. It's time to learn from those mistakes and get some hungry and improving players in. I was interested to read Holloway's comments regarding 'the bomb has gone off' behind the scenes at the club - anybody got any thoughts on what he means? FFP ruling perhaps?
