Listened to Clint Hill earlier with his post match interview and i agreed exactly what he said particularly about how the Championship winning team didnt get a fair crack of the whip, the likes of Tommy Smith, Kasper Gorkks, Hogan Eprahaim etc. We were a team under Neil Warnock and a team proud to support because every week the whole team put a shift in whatever the result and you could see every player gave everything. This has been sadly lacking for 18 months. Norwich and Swansea did it right, kept their promotion teams together, didnt panic when a few results went wrong and just added 3 or 4 players to their squad and slowly improved.Neither have really looked likely getting relegated in the last 2 seasons. Should we come back to the premiership in the next 2-3 years this lesson should be remembered. Come on you Rs roll on Barnsley Bournemouth and Peterborough in August and lets see what happens.
I don't think there were many on here who thought the Championship winning team was anywhere near good enough for the Premier League tbh. The 3 you mention.........Smith, Gorkks and Ephraim definitely weren't imo. We simply made too many changes too quickly. Garry Neville had it spot on imo. Clint's comments showed just how big a split there's been though. That's got to be sorted asap!
I thought Smith wasn't given a fair chance IMO and Ephraim certainly hasn't. Gorkss has helped Reading and Wolves go down in one season.
Alas we've had the same problems for 6 years. We start the season with one manager, who has 'his' players, things start to go wrong, managers sacked, new manager comes in, replaces half the team, things start to go wrong etc etc etc. It means as we stand the longest serving player at the club is adel by virtue of his loan spells with us. All managers will want to being in their own type of players, but until we stick with a manager so he can slowly build a team, so that those players play for several season together and become qpr, then we will have no soul or leadership. Hughes is the most guilty, by trying g to replace the whole team in one go, and then by relying on several players with bad injury records, or those who were stepping down in order to play at qpr. None of which was going to work. Some of the players have been reprehensible, but I can't being myself to criticise them entirely. Who's hope being experienced professionals they would want to win every game, but without a club captain, any leaders, or anyone who's got the club at heart then it was always going to be hard for any new player to fit in, especially when things got tough, who do you turn to? But you can point to a thousand different things, it's all irrelevant now, it's happened and we move on. I know most people want to see the back of all the recent signings, but then we'd be making the same mistakes all over again. I'd rather we keep as many as possible. The only ones I'd really get rid of is Zamora, only because of the injury, park as he's already said he's going to retire, and the mono brow Chelsea Cnut. The rest I think could still do a good job for us in the championship, just need to add a few hungry or committed players. Then just let them do their thing. But we just can't afford to keep getting rid of managers and players or we will continue to slide.
Actually I believe that we came up too soon and weren't ready as a squad. In the year that we got promoted we were a fairly average side blessed with Tarrabt that tore the Championship up that year and almost single handily brought us up. We then came up with players that were way off the mark in terms of quality and Tarrabt couldn't have the same affect in a far higher level of football. So we had to make massive changes......totally ripping out the average side that got us promoted (who lets be honest would have been relegated as well, but would have just gone down fighting) and replaced them with "big names" that had gone past their best and didn't really care anymore. You then had a divide between the hard working rubbish players and the highly paid over the hill players that Hughes brought in. You can compare us to Swansea and Norwich all you like, but they had a good squad worthy of competing in the top flight and we didn't. If Clint Hill believes that players like Tommy Smith, Derry, Ephraim, Hulse, Hall, Buzsaky, Chimbonda, ****tu, Connolly etc would have kept us in the Premier league then he is way off the mark.....he himself isn't good enough and yet remains in the back 4.
To be honest, I would rather go down fighting with the previous lot than what has been served up this season. Now its a case of what if. The old squad going down fighting would have at least left us with a bit of pride.
I disagree. We were a super side our championship winning season. We had continuaty in Neil Warnock from the back end of the previous season. We were a joy to watch sometimes. Classy wins at home and battling grinding out away wins and draws. We had a fantastic team spirit and we just needed 4 or 5 players from the premiership with experience that could perform at the top level that could add to our team. Tommy Smith was a case in point. Scored a blinder of a goal at Everton in a 1-0 win and then got dropped. Worked his socks off for the team and then we got a game later on in the season scored a blinder against Wigan. Our squad that went up was every bit as good as Norwich and Swansea which is why we were worthy champions.Still no point reflecting for long as we now have to look forward.
That's fine...I don't agree with you though. We were an average team IMO boosted by Tarbs. Had we kept that side in the Premier League we would have gone down.
Spot on. And even Colin was very up front that he wanted to rebuild the squad for the Prem, but wasn't given the funds, hence DJ, Boothroyd and that old CB who's name I can't remember. And then the panic buying - Barton, SWP, Ferdinand, Young, Puncheon on loan. If we had kept the original squad we would have been relegated last year. At least that would have spared us the train wreck of this season.
Even though we won the championship, I believe norwich and swansea both played better football than we did. We heavily relied on Adel. We didnt have the abilty to keep possesion like the other 2 teams and there in my opinion was our downfall. Who can know if that team would have kept us up. Hughes was a disaster, and harry took on a sinking ship. Players have to take the main responsibility for performance but who is it agreeing to pay these silly wages! Onohua looked 10 times better than 12 million odd pound samba! We should keep the likes of green, onohua, traore, jenas, adel, mackie, bothroyd, dj campbell, faurlin. Hill derry and ben haim should be squad players and one suprise that I hear myself saying is swp. I think he will find his true level at championship and have the same effect as what routledge did. Hoillet can go, aj and zamora paid off!! , bosingwa offer a free, remy and samba take the most you can get, same with caesar. Granero, toss a coin, mbia paper, scissor, stones and diakite....who? Buy 2 decent defenders, a decent midfielder and striker and we could quite easily make it back at the first attempt.
We had a team in the NPL... others around us have showed how the team unit is more valuable that marquee signings. I find it amazing, uplifting and somehow saddening (for us, not the Swans), that Britton of Swansea has now played in all 4 divisions - because it proves that sometimes you just need to give players the opportunity and they will step up. Who gave Hill a chance at the beginning of the season? And yet, for all his weaknesses, he has been one of our better performers (when played at CB and not utterly ****ted over when at LB). Derry worked his socks off when given the chance - Mackie for all his headless chicken at least looks like he gave a **** - compare that with #19... there just isn't any comparison, and it's truly maddening given the wages reportedly paid out. I don't give a **** about trophies... actually I do a bit, but if I did big time I wouldn't be a hoop (I'd be a glory hunting Manc or a plastic Blue or a frustrated gooner)- but I do care about my team, and I want them to be just that... a team... and anything more than that is a bonus which while nice, is generally unexpected.
We have a lot of re-building and re-structuring to do. I cant see us getting promoted next season, but hopefully we can build an exceptional Championship side, that can get promoted and then come up properly, where you add players slowly. If we bounce back up relying on Tarrabt again it could be a similar situation.
We had a good team that won the Championship, but for survival in the PL it needed strenghtening with the 4 or 5 not very expensive players Colin was after that summer. That he didn't get the funds he needed early summer nearly 2 years ago was the start of the miserable catalogue of mistakes made by both sets of Owners then and now, and by Management, mainly Hughes, that has sent us down today.
Cant believe people mentioning Ephraim, shocking footballer who has done sod all here in 5 years. He refers to Gorkss, Smith and HH. Gorkss is better than Ferdinand, Smith is better than SWP and HH is better than Bothroyd. While they arent starters, they are good enough for the subs bench.
Bang on rude boy. A lot of sense being spoken on here. I don't think the promotion winning squad would have kept us up unchanged, but they had heart. They would have fought and, undoubtably, improved. They would have understood what earning our place in the premier league meant to us and they would have felt each defeat. I'm struggling to imagine too many of our lot feeling devastated about our relegation.
Francster..you definitely "own" this thread!! cannot disagree with a single word you have posted Top Man
I agree with all of that EXCEPT the first bit about our Championship winning side. I think something of a myth has sprung up concerning that team and it's possibly because someone like NW was in charge of it. I remember an awful lot of excellent football from that season. Taarabt. Routeledge/Smith HH and Mackie all interchanging in the front 4 positions. That fluidity and movement was key to our success imo. We kept possession well enough through Faurlin and Taarabt, with the latter simply mesmerising. It was great to watch and it was only towards the end of the season, when the points deduction was hanging over us, that we started to grind out results and not play so well.
