While having an annoying bout of insomnia last night something came to mind. Now I'm sure many of us are enjoying the scums current situation but it struck me that in truth we have something in common. The way that the players of both teams are underperforming in their relative leagues. Comparatively speaking, both teams have a quality of player that should be in far higher positions. What I couldn't work out was why this is happening. Is it managers, formations, poor officials, bad luck at key moments, moral, man management. Or possibly a combination of them all. Just musing really but thought I make the point. EDIT: Just realised, if I could work it out I could put my CV in to replace CR.
In a nutshell ........................ man management. The manager can either make a team or break a team ..............Jose' is a perfect example. From a players perspective, they either want to play for a manager or not.
I'd be inclined to agree but while I don't like him, Jose is good at it. Wonder what's different for him this time.
To compare our failure this season to Chelsea's is like comparing chalk to cheese. Watching them lose last night they had a lot of play but looked low on confidence. Many of their key players are not performing at the same level as last season and their results reflect that. At that level just a small drop in performance levels makes a huge difference. Conversely, look at Leicester, there's no way they should be up there but their form since January would put them in a Champions League place, only Arsenal have more points this calendar year. If management was the reason, sacking Pearson was the barmiest axing of all time, yet Ranieri has maintained their run brilliantly. It would be easier comparing us to Burnley, we both won promotion together yet their highest paid player earned £8k a week, we had players earning £50k plus and I doubt any earning less than £10k a week. Yet they were a far better team than us as the final table showed. The same is evident this season, so you have to say our 'team', the collective sum of our parts, is nowhere near as good as some on here would have you believe. We have some good players but we have too many average players and a few poor players at this level. Add this to unstable management at all levels of our club and it's a recipe for more of the same, a slow descent until real leadership on and off the pitch is brought in...
Have to agree. Also I don't know where people are getting this idea that our team is so superior in quality to everyone else's team in the league, it isn't. We have one genuine star in Austin, the likes of phillips, fer, sandro are just too inconsistent and/or injury prone to be real shining lights.
To be honest, I've never considered Austin a "genuine star" either. No arguing that he's scored goals but his general play is far from PL class, and he's hard to fit into teams not playing 4 4 2.
So here's the thing: you can buy success but only if you commit to it 100% and put unlimited funds on the line. However much TF and co threw money at keeping us in the PL it was small potatoes compared to how much Abramovitch shelled out on the scum and the untold billions the Arabs pumped into City. I think the Russian took his foot off the financial gas ever so slightly having won the league last season and there wasn't the usual round of buying the latest crop of players considered to be the worlds best as we have seen consistently for the last 10 years or so. And as soon as you do so you hit the wall created by having no team spirit or understanding. At QPR the board decided that they could also buy success but their investment was enough to get us previously good players looking to cash in but not enough to get the younger, hungrier players. Austin was probably the height of our ambition in that area and his lack lustre performance yesterday brought home that despite his talents he is not going to be among the world greats. And our lack of team spirit and understanding is now legendary of course.
There's absolutely no excuse for this squad to not be far higher up the table after 46 games. If any other team in this league had Austin, Sandro, Phillips, Fer, Onuoha, Angella and Green in their squad we'd be saying they were a shoe-in for the playoffs at the very least.
Well done....that is why CR got the sack. The players were not motivated. its up to NW to do this but give him a chance.......
Of course. My point is a they're mostly playing well below par. Probably a combination of their fault and Ramsey's. Seems like Warnock got a tune out of some of them.
Faurlin is our best midfielder IMO by some distance but I don't think we can play him every game. Previous managers have flogged him with it leading to a re-lapse of the knee. That was the whole point of the Toszer signing I thought. A novel idea would be to play Doughty.
