I firmly believe we can turn this around and stay up but lets identify where the failings have been this season, my bakers dozen of self-induced cock-ups - 1. Bernie & Flav hanging on to sell the club thus missing key signings last season 2. Bolton & Wigan - First 2 games where we just didn't turn up meant we started our season 2 games behind against relegation opposition 3. Effectively having 3 squads this season. I've read over the weekend we've started more different players than any other side, 35 I think? No continuity 4. Barton - love him or loathe him captain or not he's not lived up to expectations. Please can he stop taking set pieces? My Mum can at least cross a ball past the first man 5. Faurlin's terrible injury 6. Barton & Cisse getting sent off - effectively losing us 6 points (maybe). I am especially annoyed at Cisse, bought in to do a job at a crucial time he acted like a rank amateur 7. Regularly going missing for 45 mins - See Vanilla & Blackburn away 8. Fulham away - honestly a day to forget 9. ACoN - so we lose Tarararabat & Traore 10. Diakite - Hey I've got a great idea, lets sign a player who can't play in 3 key matches!! Brilliant idea 11. Warnock & Hughes - different people, different ideas, different players, different systems - no continuity 12. Twitter 13. Another great idea, lets sell Gorkss, buy Perone, play him once and then pretend he doesn't exist?!? Not meant as a list of excuses but to highlight that yet again a 'normal' boring' season is entirely beyond our capabilities. Our propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot is legendary. On the upside we beat Chelsea, acquited ourselves well against City and have shown the merest of glimpses of the real QPR. Helgusson too has proven me wrong, useless at nearly every Championship game I saw he has blossomed in the Prem. I have missed my annual pie at Barnsley though and the one at Wigan was truly shocking. In summation I put it to you that its SNAFU as per usual
Results wise it's been poor against the teams around us. Losing to Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Wolves and Sunderland (before the O'Neill factor properly set in) just isn't good enough given the players we have. I hate it when people/players/managers make excuses usually, but those 2 sending offs you mention against Norwich and Wolves could end up being the reason we go down, which would make relegation even tougher to accept. First time for a while that I honestly think we're doomed and I hate the feeling!
That's a pretty comprehensive list there Wubba! The only thing that I would add to that would be John Terry. There's absolutely no doubt that Ferdinand's performances have been badly affected by the whole rascism allegations furore. Which is totally understandable when you consider the kind of abuse and threats he's had to injure. I'm also pretty sure that in an act of over-compensating to try to take the heat out of the whole situation, the board managed to take all of the fire out of our cup game with Chelsea, and the atmosphere and performance at Loftus Road suffered as a result.
Changed the nucleus of the team too much too quickly, still doing it today but this time I think it's needed. Looking at the other two promoted clubs they kept to the same set-up, style and tinkered with it while we tried wholesale change. Speaking to my FPO (Southampton supporter), she pointed out that the seasons where they were safe and not in danger were really boring for the supporters, so obviously the club has decided to reward us this season with a real entertaining nail biter where we survive on the final day of the season, next season will be boring middle of the table stuff.
Good post WBA, we just can't have a "Normal" season. Still think we have a lot going for us. We have good new owners, a reasonably experienced manager in MH and IMHO a better first team than 4-5 other teams. I think it will be very tight but have this feeling in my gut that we will be OK. After a couple of weeks away finally getting a chance to train together as a team, i expect a big response in our next few games.
Hard to add much to that comprehensive list WBA2. I'm afraid I mostly blame Flavio and Bernie. They played with QPR like a business thing (while Bernie spent £120m on his daughter's California home). Had they given Warnock a decent pre-season and not having to rush to buy the end of sale rejects (sorry SWP and Joey), we might have ended up with Danny Graham and a defender or two also. It's all conjecture. We are where we are and only points will make any significant difference. One thing I do feel certain about. IF we survive, next season really will be very different indeed! BTW, can we call you 'W' for short?!
It went wrong an hour before we kicked off against Leeds and our title-win was confirmed and the greedy Goons started rubbing their mercenary hands...
I'm sorry Kitchen but that's pure nonsense. If the idiot had've done the right thing and accepted his post-match apology then the whole furore would have been avoided. Talk about needlessly bringing a whole load of sh*t down on top of yourself. And its certainly no excuse for his rubbish performances. No, kitchen, its not understandable at all! Good list there Wubba. I think the Goons destroying our ever so vital pre-season and COLIN being forced into last minute panic-buying sowed the seeds of failure. Thankfully there's still a chance we can pull it out the fire.
What the **** has Ferdinand done in the whole Terry affair to deserve to be called an idiot? If he accepts the apology and Terry's then found guilty, Then people are going to think that racism doesn't hurt anyone and should be taken as a light-hearted joke. Ferdinand's received enough death threats and abuse to last fifty lifetimes in the space of four months, don't add anymore to that.
Great list WUBBA, but I think our problems started years ago. Flavio and Bernie never built for the future, they threw managers and players together hoping for a miracle, and when it didn't materialise they blamed the manager, sacked him and started again. By some extraordinary fortune and the shrewd appointment of Warnock, we lucked out and found a formula for championship success. But even then there was no forward planning, no youth policy, no future beyond the Faurlin verdict really. The goons deciding to sell up last Summer says it all. No doubt they think we're ungrateful. We deserved better though, as did the team, so I think it went wrong before the season started.
Good list mate. my opinion is that we continued to play championship football even when promoted. norwich and swansea played a more premiership style of pass and move last season which has enabled them to adjust accordingly. we played a more direct game which was effective but not at this new level.
Much ado about nothing Bill. Ferdinand's OTT reaction ensured this whole thing would escalate out of all proportion and may well have destroyed his season (and partly Rangers' as a result). Seen it coming, said so on the very night of that match. He wasn't shrewd enough.
How can we all be so sure that blame for the timing of the sale of the club to Fernandes, and consequently the delay in acquiring and assimilating new players at the start of the season, should lay squarely at the feet of Bernie and Flav? For all we know, the process was delayed because of the negotiating position of the buyer and not the sellers. How do we know that Our Tony didn't play hardball over the terms, didn't drag his feet over the due diligence, didn't take longer than anticipated to get the funds in place for the deal, didn't go for some last-minute price chipping? Hey, I'm no lover of the Goons either. I've got a copy of the Four Year Plan. But we're on the outside of this one and we don't know for sure. It's just convenient to blame Bernie Blue-Shades and The Diminutive One because we don't like them anyway. But let's not forget that they saved us when they came in and, whether we enjoyed much of the ride or not, they delivered promotion to the Premier League just like they said they would. [As for what the Oompa Loompa lavished on his daughter's Cali home: I'm no expert, but presumably he's free to spend his own money on whatever he chooses, isn't he?]
OTT reaction? he only said he had "very strong feelings" surrounding the subject. He never said he wanted to have Terry locked up right away, he never said anything bad about Terry or anyone who supported him and he never complained when the court case was delayed. The OTT reactions are the chavs who are dishing out death threats because somehow in their tiny little air bags where their brain is meant to be it's all Ferdinand's fault.
The trouble IMO was that we never had a proper pre-season because the players all joined once the season started. This as meant virtually no team spirit. I hate Norwich but the are doing so well because they have a great team spirit and all work for each other.
Agree, the loss of team spirit has been a massive factor, you cannot underestimate how far that gets you. Countless relegation fights in the championship, and our title winning year were built on that. Appointing Barton as captain was a massive error in my eyes. We started the season well and performed excellently against Chelsea and City. But that seems an awful long time ago now.
