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Me neither, and that's what grieves me. Unless you grew up with QPR in the 1970s and 1980s, you can't really feel how much the game has changed for the worse in so many ways.
I'm repeating myself a bit because it bears repetition. At the start of play, we were level on points with them. Even now the debacle is over, we've still scored more goals than them at home, and have won the same number of games. To get a bit more granular, prior to playing us, they'd picked up a mediocre 8 points (2W, 2D, 1L) and scored a paltry 4 goals from 5 home games. So how does that result make sense? Somehow, however, and despite all the stats, we roll into town, and suddenly they're goal machines who look like Real Madrid.
In light of the above, what they paid for their subs bench is, if not entirely irrelevant, mostly unilluminating and, as I see it, just adding to the litany of excuses - which is strange to me in a review that thereafter (rightly and much more persuasively) attacks the culture of mediocrity at the club. That's where the thesis is.
We also went to West Ham, competed credibly, and were narrowly beaten. We turned over the top club pretty capably on our own patch. The injury situation isn't a red herring, but, at the same time, it's clear this is a team that did the business at Hull (who are seven points and six places higher than Southampton) with an identical level of squad availability. On which topic - I've never understood what it means to say to say teams are in 'artificially' high/low positions. Football isn't artifice, and, to dial a cliche, the table doesn't lie. Southampton are where they are right now because, regardless of their transfer payments and the size of their Prem parachute, they're mostly average. Hull are higher because they've been more effective. (Betvictor has them at 5-1 tonight to go up, with Southampton at 6.) We're a bit below mid-table because we're at the poorer end of mediocre, and seemingly aching to go on an awful run now we've all our excuses lined up like hooped ducks.
I think the main factors are the lack of conditioning, terrible lapses of concentration, and some kind of mental issue that JS seems incapable of addressing, coupled to a dreadfully negative set-up during too many away games. Nothing else can explain our ridiculous fluctuations from competitive and credible to inept and abject. It's not really injuries - as I've said, when we had a full complement of players to choose from, we were hardly tearing up trees. It's not really transfer fees - we've spent some good money on Kone, Edwards, and Saito ourselves, and the likes of Southampton haven't achieved any more than us this season - apart from this week.
I think it's far more down to desire, or a deficit of it. Fire in the belly. The bread and butter of belief. The players don't have enough of it, and the manager seems incapable of inculcating it. We win on Saturday, and somehow it's been a good week? Thanks for the merde sandwich, Julien!
I agree. There have been several games, or halves of games, that have been seriously unacceptable this season. JS looks far too comfy for me in the role, provides zero insights into games he mismanages, and has just got on record to say staying up is our first objective. I'm coming round to the view that he belongs halfway down the French league, not in a Championship team that has any aspirations to bettering itself.
If they're a 'very good side', how come both QPR and Southampton had 47 points when we kicked off? Does that not mean we're also a very good side - or (more probably) we made another mediocre side look like PSG?
We were playing, as I pointed out, a team that started the game with the same number of points as us, having scored three goals more. Why doesn't Tyler start with that in his interview just to dispel some of the bullsh*t about how well resourced they are in advance?
I don't deny Madsen's departure helped to hasten our demise, as did our reversion to terrible defending and serious culpabilty from Walsh, but I don't remember anyone whining about injuries after the Coventry game or, for that matter, at Hull. The truth is we've had very mixed results and showings virtually all season. A decent win, a spawny draw or two, a bad loss. Rinse and repeat. You just don't know what you're going to get from this team, whoever is playing. Even when we had a fullish squad to choose from, we were hardly tearing up trees. It's worrying and wearying in equal measure.
In fact, Southampton, the Premiership parachutists, and supposedly a cut above lil ol' QPR, were actually exactly level on points with us at the start of play. That's the thing I really object to in our manager (and one or two posters) - excusing our thrashing by talking them up. I've no idea what JS is trying to achieve by saying a team like 'this kind of opponent' can really punish us apart from more or less saying we saw this coming/can expect it, or what the hell he means by saying the performance is 'probably his responsibility', and what, if so, he's apologising for. In short, his post-match talk is as much a car crash as his team's performance - mealy-mouthed, evasive, and basically bullsh*t.
PS I guess I've had second thoughts about my second thoughts!
To be truthful, and though I'm probably never going to warm to JS, it surprises me (and may surprise others) that I find a measure of decent sanity in what you say here in the proverbial cold light of day. I'll have a bit of a think - but just a bit ;-)
That looks logical and plausible, Northern (and I've noticed you like to repeat it), but it could use a lot more critical unpacking, I would suggest.
First, it assumes managers are independent variables, whom one can somehow analytically separate and say, therefore, they're the problem or they're not the problem. But they're not - they're part of a systemic structure (recruitment, budgets, ownership etc.). Different managers, moreover, may all fail for different reasons. That doesn’t prove the manager role is irrelevant, or there are no differences between good ones and bad ones — just that the environment may be overpowering them, or that they're not good enough at their job, or both.
Second, our managers may be badly chosen for different reasons - or (which would be very QPR) the same reasons. Neither Cifuentes, Beale, Ainsworth, nor Stephan had any experience of coaching in the Champ, for instance. Does that give anyone at the club even a spoonful of food for thought?
Third, correlation is not causation. If the flawed pattern of hiring is the same, the club isn't really testing whether managers matter as much as blooding them within the same broken structure. It's 'rinse and repeat' - but not in a good way.
Fourth (and this is, of course, a wider problem in football), there is the question of time. If, for example, our management model is tethered to youth development cycles, a good manager needs time so that his methods can be properly evaluated. In this case, I would suggest, we still need to see evidence as quickly as possible that the manager is helping players to improve, telling it as it is, at least trying to play decent football, and enhancing the culture of the club, none of which I see with JS.
Fifth, the myth of monocausality (i.e. one factor is or isn't the problem). I think there are a lot of things wrong with QPR over a long period - disinvolved/inexpert owners, a culture of mediocrity, (very) mixed recruitment, financial problems, medical/fitness issues, and/or tactical failings. It might not be 'either-or' as much as 'both-and' - the club hasn't been good enough, and neither are our managers.
Clearly, as well, many of these factors may overlap.
In the end, what this means is, I think, our problems could indeed be (and almost certainly are) systemic, but this does not mean that the choice of manager is irrelevant. A good coach, given time and resources, could still succeed, or at least do better, than what we've been seeing in recent years. Even if that looks a forlorn hope this morning.
Please stop embarrassing yourself! I acknowledge the quality of our goals and ask a question of the fans who attended as to their view of how much the win was down to our quality and how much their deficiencies. I have also written positively about the result elsewhere.
Your reading of my post has little or nothing to do with its content, and everything to you with what's in your own head. As for my own feelings as a fan, I'll continue to say it and see it as I see fit.
I don't know about the latest crop, but I never really liked 'Mottie'. He reminded me of an overgrown Cub Scout, and rarely said anything interesting about the game. Barry Davies was far more intelligent and eloquent.
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