TF and the board have done all that has been asked of them. But the squad HR has put together this year has been so unbalanced its ridiculous. 3 strikers - 2 of which were Zamora and Johnson. Then moans he has 1 fit striker. Today he took Hoilett off for Maiga which then meant we had no winger on the right which left us so unbalanced again. I agree Maiga coming on was obvious, but to leave us with no winger and not put anyone in that position was stupid. As was taking Doyle off. So imo the problem is coaching, or the lack of from our management team. What do they do in training?
Trouble is, there are no coaches. There's a lot of people who wear red jackets on the payroll but they're clearly not doing any coaching. They've no idea of tactics, the players are clueless, individually they don't improve or develop the players and we clearly don't work on dead ball situations. HR's solution to any problem is not on the training ground but in TF's cheque book. A decent clued up coach would get more from this squad. And a brighter manager would stop bringing so many useless, hopeless wasters. HR's taking TF for a ride and he should have the sense to see it.
The OP asked what the problem is? My thoughts are simple. In October we were flying and Derby were crap. Now Derby are flying and we are crap. Is there a link?
We might have been winning, but I'd take issue with the "we were flying" suggestion. There is a general consensus that we have struggled to impose ourselves on teams all season, not just recently - true, we did grind out results, and I'd agree that may well be due to Steve Maclaren - however I would argue the difference of late has been creating and more importantly finishing chances - possession wise, apart from Reading, we have been able to keep the ball, just with little actual product.
Whilst I think it's easy to point fingers at HR & he does deserve criticism & probably should be doing better I'm sure he didn't want to go through the season with just the 3 strikers with 2 injury prone. None of us actually know what he asked for or who he wanted but IMO TF and the board could & should have done more if serious about promotion. The pre-season was more about offloading the players we didn't want rather than building for the upcoming season & the transfer window was about getting numbers in rather than quality. Remember at the start of the January window we were ahead of Burnley firmly in 2nd place so the real mistakes have been since then plus a bad number of injuries to key players.
Whatever the outcome, play-offs or missing out altogether, Harry will blame the injuries as costing us when we all know it's his fault, he's the master of passing the buck...
The OP asked a question that is far from straightforward to answer. Firstly, it depends on what are your personal wishes for the present & future of Queens Park Rangers. If you are of the view that promotion is all that matters you will have a different stance to those that want to look to the future. Therefore, we must look to all of the management structure & ask have they acted in the best interests of the club? TF & the board are certainly at fault for their managerial appointments & not knowing whether to install a clear structure of what is required. During the summer TF stated that we will no longer sign older players & look towards youth., only to let HR then do the opposite! Instead of giving the media's favourite a job in November 2012 we should have started rebuilding for the future. PB is to blame for offering the contracts that he did. If you have to offer fantastic incentives to gain a players signature you should be asking yourself if they are the right player for the club. I do not blame the players for accepting & holding the club to these terms but over the last two seasons I have seen far more than one of these players not offering 100% effort. That is unforgiveable. HR, JJ & KB are to blame for not having any idea on how to send out a side to win a match rather than trying to avoid losing. The "football" that we have played under this trio is the most dull I've seen from Queens Park Rangers since I first watched them in 1967. The quotes after yesterday's match from Bond that we chucked away a point in not drawing 0-0 said it all! I want to watch a team play that will try & want to win matches. I don't mind if we have to spend another decade at this level or below providing we are striving to improve & build for the future.
The same could be said of us these days:- Portsmouth boss Richie Barker told BBC Radio Solent: (after losing 5-1 at Scunthorpe) "It is (hurtful) to see a performance like that from the side because they've done everything that was needed to be done throughout the week. "They picked up every second ball, they were just more ruthless than us and they look like a team who obviously are mentally in a good place, but that's no excuse from us. "We were outworked today by Scunthorpe - irrelevant of the playing stuff, outworked. They won every 50-50 challenge, they were stronger than us, they competed better than us."
No don't agree about this theory of parasites and pretty sure in time more and more will see they were good footballers ... maybe the best we have had for some time. Harold spun a complete pack of lies and it went his way. Austin and Phillips still not of the standard we had. Noted that BAE is slowly moving into Bosingwa territory now QPR's heritage is at a all time low and suffers from the same bad press that City gets when they play bad now of course on a lower scale but the same thing ... we all signed into the fact that we needed to bring in and buy a team ... looks like it harder to do that without team spirit
Totally agree. Footballers are the same all over, want money and cred like anyone else. It has been poor Management (Hughes and Arry) that has failed to get the best out of them as a unit. In Arry's case i think his consatnt changing of team formations and players, and his failure to get the best out of Adel and others that is the main problem.
Hi Terry mate, I agree completely with this. Have a look at this thread I posted back in August just before you joined us. I still stand by what I said back then as I do now. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/221122-The-Problem-With-QPR edit - My apologies, it was actually last July.
I started this thread in the knowledge that the question I asked is far from easy to answer. Most people have blamed Harry and his selections, but yesterday I think most of us were happy with the team selection and happy that Harry had had the balls to drop the awful Kranjcar and far-too-casual BAE. The side was balanced, with two wide players and a midfield that looked capable of passing the ball and retaining possession. Was Morrison's failure to put away a couple of very good chances Harry's fault? Was it Harry's fault that Maiga failed to put away his excellent chance? Was it Harry's fault that Green let a soft header drop between his legs and into the net? Had all these players done their jobs, we would have been celebrating a win and congratulating Harry on his team selection. Now, could it be that the players aren't really up for it because Harry can't motivate them, due to the fact that he doesn't really want to be here? I suspect this to be the case, but injuries and bad performances from players can't all be laid at Harry'd door, can they?
Nines, thanks for posting that link. I just regret that we have wasted the chance to rebuild in the last eightenn months & will have to start from a worse position than we were then in. However, it is never to late to start afresh provided that the whole club is behind that ethos.
