QPRnet Blogs

So that’s four games played, four man of the match awards and four goals and perfect symmetry.  In the short time he has been with the club, he has gone from unknown (even Seb hadn’t heard of him) to Crown Prince with his skills wowing everyone except Clive Walker and the Bristol City fans allegedly.  Already people are commenting that the transfer fee should be handed over now rather than next summer.

I truly hope we have our new genius to follow in the footsteps of Rodney, Stan and Les.  By heck have we needed one, as the number 10 shirt has looked less than magical on some of the recent incumbents.  However, I want to offer a word of caution before we start rolling out the red (blue?) carpet and beginning the coronation; it is only four matches!

Now yes, he has been impressive, but there are still a few wrinkles to sort out:

1 – lets cut out the diving for starters.  We don’t like it in this country, and its part of the reason the Wurzels are less than impressed.  What is more, its likely to get you a reputation, which means when you are really fouled, refs wont give them.

2 – While you are at it, please stop the rolling around on the floor.  This is a football match not an opera.  Its plain embarrassing.

3 – Let us not forget he is playing in a foreign country.  The weather is still (relatively) nice, but it’ll be different when we play Blackpool on a Tuesday night in January.  We can all remember many a Juan Foreigner going from hero to zero over the winter months as the temperatures drop and the pitches get heavy.

For the moment lets celebrate the fantastic start he has made, and let hope that my cautions are just that, and don’t become real life pains.  The potential is certainly there, keep our fingers crossed it becomes a reality.

To many at Loftus road this has been a disappointing start to the season, only six points from three games and progress to the 2^nd round of the Carling cup.

 
On the face of it, 5 more points than last year and reaching a point in the cup that some young fans will never have seen is a fairly alarming improvement. But it would appear that there’s a certain section of the fan base that will find anything less than total domination of the league unacceptable. They’ve bought into Flavio’s dream and are happily wearing the rich mans intolerance of failure.

 
I’m sure that to make it big in any walk of life you need to have a streak of ruthlessness, an ability to make difficult decisions quickly and to set very high standards.

 
The Observer has a neat little round up of Championship games; you get a quote from both managers and then one from a home supporter, probably a mate of someone on the Observer payroll or possibly a local fanzine contact.

 
This week, under a good report on the Doncaster game we were treated to the thoughts of one John Baker. He’s a Flavio man and he’s had enough of Dowie…I quote…

 
…I’ve really got no faith in Dowie-he was a bizarre appointment-and a 2-0 win over Donny isn’t going to change when Fitz Hall went off, but it’s really hard to get too excited.

 
I don’t think Joe’s alone, for as much as I’d like to think the general opinion would be, lets build something, lets do it carefully, correctly and with a view to ten, fifteen or even twenty years in the future, I’m afraid that there are too many Joe’s who want it all right now. 

 
Dowie might not have been my first choice, but at least he’s prepared to work and build something. Many of the names bandied around when De Canio departed were blokes who only work when there’s money to flash around. I don’t want someone to buy everyone; I want someone who’ll buy the right players.

 
There was obviously mistakes made in these first games, Sheffield sounds like a mare, but this is a newish team, lots of young foreign players experiencing English football for the first time and our best two players, Buzz and Rowly were sidelined. I think 6 points is a damned decent start.

 
I honestly think that an ideal situation would be a good competitive year, maybe a shot at the play offs? Get used to winning and playing together. Next season I’d expect us to really push for promotion, that way, should we be successful we’ll have a good solid base to build on, a real chance of surviving up there.

 
Dowie might not be the man to lead us in the prem, but there’s been precious little to suggest he’s not the right man right now. So until we are ‘big time’, lets have a little perspective, lets remember where we were a year ago and enjoy the relative calm of sound financial waters.

1. we are only three games into the season
2. we still have Rowly, Buzz and Vine to come back into the team
3. 7 of the team that lost (including subs) are new players and it takes a little time to gell
4. it’s a 3 year plan – not a 3 game one
5. we are 3 points and one round of the cup better off than this time last year
6. we have the capability to buy someone new if necessary and the transfer window doesn’t close for a while
7. we are not Southampton
8. the big screen looks nice doesn’t it (waddya mean you cant see it?)
9. er… that’s about it.

This feels like the shortest summer ever. Was it not a mere few weeks ago that we were meekly surrendering to Norwich and kicking back to dream of the multi-million pound arrivals that would surely pepper our break.
Well something went wrong; perhaps wrong is not the correct word…something went awry! Not all bad mind, a summer of the freshly minted Rogue Jr and a very exciting Euro 2008 were both very positive though tempered by watching he endless rain and realising that every passport in our house had run out and we couldn’t afford to escape the misery.
But one subject stood out above all others…where’s the taint of flashy new money?  Where’s the embarrassment of trying to buy the league?
It’s almost as if the club is trying to be as low key as possible, as if all the ‘bookies favourites tosh’ has frightened Gianni and the rest into shutting up shop (in Gianni’s case no bad thing mind!).
Talk of Zamora, Shittu and Philips disappeared very quickly, the hammer headed Dowie was left repeating the mantra ‘Gorkss Gorkss Gorkss…’ until Blackpool finally got tired and said ‘oh alright then’.
But…
…And there’s always a but…
…The devils in the detail, in return Blackpool were to receive, not only the unfortunate Nardiello, but…and I never thought I’d ever get to type this…Zesh Rehman too! Now that’s what I call business!
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been totally against Zesh, always prepared to give him a chance, but enough was enough really. Personally I’ll always remember the 3-3 against Norwich and his contribution, an utterly pointless penalty conceded virtually over the dead ball line. I hope he has a good career and I hope he limits his mistakes to the odd one against us.
Then the floodgates opened, the return of Cookie, no finer news all summer. Like most I’m delighted, it’s a risk, but one I’m inclined to agree with, if only to thank him properly for his money…and like a lot of you I’d like to see him get it back now.
Then there’s the boy from Madrid…I’ll leave a pause there…oh yes…the boy from Madrid. When did you ever think you’d hear that whispered amongst the message boards? Naturally I didn’t believe it. The rumour was he was to play in the tournament at Arsenal. So I tuned in to the last half hour of Madrid and Hamburg. It took a while to realise it but there he was, a long streak of noting topped with an Alice band and your typical Latin floppy hair. He looked the part, though all I saw was an awkward youth hitting a succession of weak corners at the first defender. Ideal for our level but hardly a world-beater. Then he scored!
And now I’m a believer!
I know it was only a two yard header and I think I could’ve scored it, but fair do’s, he didn’t look the type to be throwing himself betwixt two fat central defenders so I’m impressed.
So is everyone else. Monday morning, ‘is it true you are buying the best young footballer in Europe?’ well…not buying exactly…
He’s here for experience, I hope it’s a good one, for my fantasy team if nothing else, I guess Gareth will teach him how to run on and off very fast and presumably Barker will sort out his turning circle.
So after a succession of unimpressive friendlies the new season is here. We shouldn’t get too excited either way after Barnsley. They are a decent team who we ought to beat, but given their recent record they might see us as another scalp…lets wait ‘til the end of September eh! Then we can crack the champagne or the safety glass, whichever is most appropriate.
Rogue Male
 

So 4 days to go until the start of another campaign.  I suppose that as a resident of Blogsville that means I am duty bound to stick my neck out and say what I think is going to happen.  As I was right about being patient over the transfers (whaddya mean you didn’t read it? – Probably because Ron didn’t give it front page billing, unlike the tanned Italian quote), these will probably be wrong.  Hey ho.

I get the feeling we are still a year away from getting into the Premiership, despite the bookies’ tag.  Most of our inwards transfers are young and talented, but inexperienced.  There is greater talent in the squad, but I don’t see us firing until Buzz and Vine get back, and I suspect at least one, if not two of the loanees will go tits up (Ben Sahar anyone?  We will be in the playoff mix, but that’s it – no automatic promotion for us, but at least a promotion.  Don’t know whether that will be enough to save Dowie’s job though.  My prediction – top 10 finish and a new manager this time next year.

So who do I think is going up?  Birmingham would be my favourites.  They have retained much of the squad that was unlucky to go down last year, but bought in some good (Championship) quality to add to that, plus they have the money to spend in January if things start going awry.  Joining them in the direct route will be Palarse.  As much as you hate him, you cant deny that Colin can manage a team.  They were unlucky last year in the playoffs, they wont make that mistake again. Just missing out on promotion will be Charlton, Sheffield Utd Ipswich and Derby.

Going down is a little easier to predict in my opinion:  Plymouth, Blackpool and Barnsley.  It is with regret I say Plymouth, as fellows of the class of 2003/4, but they have sold their best striker, midfielder and lost their keeper to stupidity and not replaced any of them.  Blackpool have also lost their best players and replaced them with Zesh and Nardiello – nuff said, whilst Barsley rode the shirt tales of their FA Cup adventure to safety, but without that, they are still a weak team, whilst those coming up appear much stronger.

Our player of the year will be Rowan Vine – his movement was outstanding, and he will be a key figure on his return, and there will be one more big signing in January –but I don’t know who.

So Mystic Meg impression over.  Lets see just how bad I really am in May…