Blogs

This has been a very odd summer for Rangers fans.  Hardly a day has gone past without us being linked to some player or another, and yet the total outlay on transfers this summer has been: zero, nada, nothing.  To put this in perspective, that’s less than last year when we were broke.  And that’s led to a number of very frustrated Rangers fans, including the normally thoughtful and placid Dave Thomas’s Socks, venting their collective spleens on the message boards.

I think the problem for this frustration is two fold.  Firstly lazy journalism – so and so is available/likely to move on and QPR have some money so let’s put two and two together, and who cares if it makes seventy three. But secondly, and I think this is where most of the blame lies, has been our own expectation.  We now have the propensity to buy just about whoever we please, and yet we’ve seen very little come in.  never mind the fact that Cerny and Ramage both played in the premiership last year, therefore getting them for free is good business, we want multi-million pound signings of players who even my Mrs has heard of.

We should, however, remember two things.  Firstly we spent £5-7 million (depending upon sources) on Vine, Buzz, Dave Agymang, Connolly, Ephraim and Mahon in January, with another £900k on Legs back in September.  Compared to the scratching around of the last 10 years, that’s nothing short of amazing.  Secondly, it’s the stated aim of the owners to get to the premiership in THREE years.  Lets say that again for emphasis – 3, three, or the number that King Arthur couldn’t say in the Holy Grail.  Somehow, that’s got translated into “if we don’t go up this year Dowie is out of a job”, probably by those same lazy journalists who cant do simple arithmetic, or message boards in mid venting of useless body parts.

Should we be worried about the lack of new players?  Perhaps not.  Don’t forget that the team finished last season in play-off form, and that few of the other teams have been making big signings, other than those promoted/relegated.  Who have Charlton bought?  Watford are selling all their decent players, even Colin has only bought one striker and he came from Boreham Wood!!! I like the fact we are not trying to buy the league and are being sensible with our money.  It suggests long term stability, something we haven’t had for a while.

All I am saying is panic not.  The loan market hasn’t even opened yet, and there is still plenty of time, another two years in fact. I also reckon that someone will join before the end of the transfer window.  In the meantime, keep hitting the F5 button on the offish… just in case.

When I was a kid I spoiled one of the ‘big weeks’ of my life. 

I loved American comics, particularly ones featuring Superman.  One day on a trip to Peckham I saw a life-size Superman poseable figure and knew it was the best toy ever invented. I wanted it and nothing else would do. Over the next couple of weeks I nagged, dropped hints, sulked, pleaded and engaged in some utterly selfish kiddie behaviour. Eventually, driven to desperation, my mum told me she had already bought for me and I had ruined her birthday surprise for me.  I can remember sloping away feeling guilty, stupid and greedy.

The life of a QPR supporter in recent times has been filled with proverbial ‘big weeks’ for the club.  It’s been a mixture of sweet and bitter big weeks, with most of the sweeter variety arriving since September 2007.

Before then, the big weeks comprised police investigations, court cases, VAT winding up orders, take over bids fading away, kung fu fights with Chinese Olympic teams…oh you get the gist.

Since then our big weeks have included successful take-over bids that exceeded our wildest expectations, new managerial appointments (thanks for all you did LDC), some great loan signings and the type of permanent signings that once seemed forever beyond the reach of the club.

So will this week be a big week of the good variety. I have no idea.  But I want it to be. I want some of the promises I think we’ve been made to come to fruition this week. I want to see a Real Madrid defender come on board.  I want Watson, Shittu, Cook, Zamora, Evans or whoever else represents a serious step in the right direction to join our ranks. I suppose I want the bookies to be right in making us promotion favourites and I know we don’t have quite the right personnel to make that happen at the moment.

I’m not ungrateful - I appreciate that where we are now is fantastic in relative terms.  I suppose I just hope that our new owners are wily old souls. I hope they are telling the world it’s a three-year plan, whilst privately they are bursting to be in the Premiership by 2009-10. 

Maybe this week will be the big week, I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. But I’ve decided not to repeat the mistakes of my childhood.  If a metaphorical Superman come along this week - well that’s OK.  If they don’t I’ll be patient. Who knows what surprises might wait next week, or the week after that…