uRRRs blogWe don't know what we're doing... |
Posted: November 6th 2008
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Pontification. There’s a lot of it about on Planet QPR at present. As we all know, it’s a posh word for guesswork, and that’s what the fanbase is revelling in at the moment...more worryingly, so, it seems, is the Board of Directors...
Over the past couple of weeks, the players have kept playing, the coaches have kept coaching, and the supporters have, as ever, supported. However, there’s been precious little sign of directing from the directors...whilst we still have no manager to manage.
I was right in my last post about poor Iain Dowie’s fate...blimey, that’s three short sharp ‘failures’ in a row on his CV, arguably all for “reasons beyond his control”. The only thing I got wrong was that the F! Boys did the dirty before they went to Brazil.
So it wasn’t a surprise...except, clearly there was no replacement lined up. And with Flavor Flav refusing to hide the fact that he wants a say in ‘how his investment is being handled’ on the playing side, no one seems in a rush to put themselves in the frame...not even the usual suspects who hang round the Sky Sports studios inbetween jobs (Peter Reid must be having too good a time in Thailand...the mind boggles...)
There’s one thing that concerns me most. What’s kept many of us onside with the board in recent months through all the price rises, talk of global brands and boutique palaver, is the fact that our owners have a track record of “not doing failure”, and they’ve constantly told us they have “a plan” for the club.
Year One (last season) was all about staying in the Championship. The popular Gigi Di Canio achieved this with some style...and it seems we’ll never really know if he was always to be dispensed with after this. Dowie’s appointment, whilst both surprising and in most quarters not especially welcomed, was sold as bringing in a man with Football League / getting promotion credentials. But surely it wasn’t part of the plan to sack him after 15 games, 8 of which had been won, with the team within a whisker of the Play Off places and in the uncharted waters of the Carling Cup last 16.
Two weeks later, and we still have a bloke who started his coaching career in June running t’ings with, allegedly, our interfering Chairman breathing down his neck, and no sign of anyone else even being in the frame.
This isn’t a plan, it’s a mess.
There’s some serious flair in our current squad. On a good day, our defence can look wholly competent. The consensus on the messageboards is that we’re a full back and a striker short of a top 6 squad...and what we’ve got can certainly keep us comfortably top half.
My guess (and why shouldn’t I guess, it seems to be what everyone else, including the Board, is doing) is that we’ll stick with the Flav & Gaz Dream Team til, say, early December. If things are going well, we may well pursue this novel approach til the season’s end. If we’re slipping down the League, then maybe, just maybe, Flav will agree to back off a bit, get an experienced man in, let him manage, and give him a few quid in January to have a tilt at the Top 6.
Never a dull moment...
Nick Gordon Brown