QPR 2-1 Bolton

He didn't say most of the players though Rebel, he said too many.

Thought Mavies played well last night, good to see him getting back to his best.

Good performance against a very strong side and I thought we were unlucky not to get something from the game. Our attack may be weak, but we did score and hit the crossbar. White did OK but struggled a bit at times and didn't get the opportunity to use his pace going forward. He's a big lad for an 18 year old with a good engine and may end up in centre midfield one day, although he's going to have to work on his control and passing if he's ever going to try to emulate Patrick Vieira or players of that ilk. 
Jakob do dah looked OK but a bit lumbering and not blessed with the greatest of pace. Pratley did well IMO. Lee was tricky when he came on, but he can't shoot for toffee and I wouldn't be too upset if he is one of the high earners that is moved on. No end product these days.
All in all it was disappointing - not because we got beat, but because having expected to get twatted we came so close to getting something.
Won't get any easier away at Ipswich and we may slip into the bottom 3 for a while, but on this performance we look like a team that is starting to move in the right direction. If we can sort out the defence we'll be even stronger.

Only saw about 35 minutes sadly, but saw some good things and some bad things frankly, again thought Danns was our most lively player so was odd to see him go off.

White played ok, obviously naive at times, but at least he was willing to take a man on. 

couple of good runs from Mark Davies and a couple of really poor balls in bad areas so hit and miss from him.

main problem again was ball retention in the middle of the park and defenders without the ability to move the ball into the middle rather than hoof it.

but again short viewing. Tough against a team loaded with PL (spurs) reserves and top championship players.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Only saw about 35 minutes sadly, but saw some good things and some bad things frankly, again thought Danns was our most lively player so was odd to see him go off.

White played ok, obviously naive at times, but at least he was willing to take a man on. 

couple of good runs from Mark Davies and a couple of really poor balls in bad areas so hit and miss from him.

main problem again was ball retention in the middle of the park and defenders without the ability to move the ball into the middle rather than hoof it.

but again short viewing. Tough against a team loaded with PL (spurs) reserves and top championship players.

Main thing for me is that the team didn't look like the massive underdogs we were portrayed to be - and Dougie finally showed enough confidence to give an 18 year old kid a shot against this level of opposition, even though his hand was forced. Bodes well.

Are you Freedman's speech-writer, Lusty?

Breadman wrote:Are you Freedman's speech-writer, Lusty?

I says what I sees.
I saw a decent performance so I'm not about to jump on the anti-Freedman bandwagon led by the Chorley scab on the basis of that.
If we'd got battered as (incorrectly) predicted I'd have been honest enough to say it was shit.
But it wasn't on this occasion.

wanderlust wrote:

Breadman wrote:Are you Freedman's speech-writer, Lusty?

I says what I sees.
I saw a decent performance so I'm not about to jump on the anti-Freedman bandwagon led by the Chorley scab on the basis of that.
If we'd got battered as (incorrectly) predicted I'd have been honest enough to say it was shit.
But it wasn't on this occasion.

Morning Breadman and wanderlust. I thought we played better in parts, even quite well in some but that frankly the scoreline flattered us a little bit based on some extended footage a mate of mine sent me this morning. I personally feel DF got some things right but that the 'usual suspects' popped up at the worst time. I agree it was good to see one of the kids out there and felt he did ok but to be honest I saw nothing to suggest any great revival is about to begin. 

I may get yelled at now because in their defence I actually think this was a slightly BETTER performance than the Cardiff match. Perhaps we are starting to put the Reading debacle behind us but it's tool little too late from where I sit. I still think DF is NOT the right man for the long term and that we should look hard at who else is available come May.

Can you post a link to the extended highlights LPP?

Is the match report article accurate? If so then Dougies comments are ok. Did we play well enough to get something?

luckyPeterpiper wrote:

wanderlust wrote:

Breadman wrote:Are you Freedman's speech-writer, Lusty?

I says what I sees.
I saw a decent performance so I'm not about to jump on the anti-Freedman bandwagon led by the Chorley scab on the basis of that.
If we'd got battered as (incorrectly) predicted I'd have been honest enough to say it was shit.
But it wasn't on this occasion.

Morning Breadman and wanderlust. I thought we played better in parts, even quite well in some but that frankly the scoreline flattered us a little bit based on some extended footage a mate of mine sent me this morning. I personally feel DF got some things right but that the 'usual suspects' popped up at the worst time. I agree it was good to see one of the kids out there and felt he did ok but to be honest I saw nothing to suggest any great revival is about to begin. 

I may get yelled at now because in their defence I actually think this was a slightly BETTER performance than the Cardiff match. Perhaps we are starting to put the Reading debacle behind us but it's tool little too late from where I sit. I still think DF is NOT the right man for the long term and that we should look hard at who else is available come May.

LPP - I don't think the scoreline flattered us when you look at the chances created and the goals. Their first goal was just rank bad defending which Dougie is trying to address. You can't leave a player of Austin's quality alone to have a free header. Their second was a good strike through a crowd and Lonners claims to have been unsighted. But we were hardly battered as the BBC stats indicate. QPR had the majority of possession, but despite being the away team, we had more shots than them in total and an equal number of shots on target. Green had to make a few decent saves whereas apart from their goals, Lonners was relatively untroubled all night. If Cavies shot that hot the crossbar had gone in...
I agree it was a better performance than Cardiff and think that the team is showing signs of improvement, even though there's still a long way to go.
As regards Dougie's future, it's in the balance. He still has to get quite a few more players off the books, although Ngog is a good start. Whilst the focus has rightly been on defenders and strikers I think that's an oversimplified view of the team. Nobody mentions the midfield but where I feel we fall short is that our much-lauded "creative" midfielders like Lee and Eagles do a lot of running around but are impotent in front of goal. Their shooting is appalling and they seldom provide our poor strikers with quality service. Mavies is slightly better than that on his day. When Dougie moves Eagles and Lee and other overpaid players like Mears on and frees up some (serious) money to bolster the team we may see the next level of improvement - not just in shoring up the defence but hopefully in midfield too where you would expect not just creativity but a decent contribution to the goal tally.
That's partially why I don't get this obsession with playing two strikers - there's little point until the midfield gets a bit more potency. Maybe sorting out the defence will give them more freedom - but I'm not convinced the current lot do enough.
At the end of the day, the current managers job is about clearing out the high earners and rebuilding from scratch and given the financial restrictions he's working under and the silly contracts that far too many players are on I reckon he's doing an OK job, but it's too early to tell - we'll know more after the summer.

I think Dougie is fair game for criticism last night. 

Danns for me was proving to be a hand full and he was taken off. He also had the chance to take off maybe a Pratley and put Juke and C.Davies up top together but decided to go like for like.

I thought technically we were outclassed in the short section i watched, QPR's ability to pass and move was evident and our inability the same. 

Matty Phillips and Kranjcar were a real handfull.

wander I do take your point about the midfield, in fact I couldn't agree more. I was roundly slated at the time but I said that Muamba was the perfect foil for the likes of Eagles, Lee and Mavies. He wasn't brilliant at passing or surging forward but he was a rock at breaking up the opposition play. We need another one or maybe two like him to get the pressure off the defence and let Lee and Eagles roam a bit. Both of them are far better going forward than back, Mavies likes to get up as well but you need a rock solid defensive midfielder to let the 'flair' players do their thing with confidence. 

I'm not sure if one of the kids from the development squad could do that but (and don't bite my nose off here) if we could find someone capable then we COULD play 4-5-1 without it being inherently defensive. With three men in the centre of the park, a decent tackler and two decent distributors you could let Chungy and Chris roam the wings and get the ball to the bye-line. A lone striker would then have support from one or two of the centre mids. I really think some old fashioned get it wide and ping a cross at the six yard line could work well.

bwfc1874 wrote:Can you post a link to the extended highlights LPP?

He sent it to me via e-mail mate as a complete file. I'll see if I can get the url off him because it's not in the attachment. Dunno why, maybe he downloaded the file to his HDD and sent me that. I've sent him an e-mail asking for the link, should hear back before 2pm, as soon as I have it I'll post it.

Okay thanks mate.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:I think Dougie is fair game for criticism last night. 

Danns for me was proving to be a hand full and he was taken off. He also had the chance to take off maybe a Pratley and put Juke and C.Davies up top together but decided to go like for like.

I thought technically we were outclassed in the short section i watched, QPR's ability to pass and move was evident and our inability the same. 

Matty Phillips and Kranjcar were a real handfull.

Dougie is always up for criticism about his tactics and selections and like most armchair managers I frequently wonder what he's trying to do - I question most managers.
That's perhaps why he may not be the right choice for the longer term - we'll see.
However our club is in crisis and the job he does in the short term is the priority - perhaps a job that nobody else would take on?
I'm not too bothered about tactics and selections or even results this season as long as we survive - which I'm confident we will.
What IS really important is that we get our wage bill under control and move on the players who are draining our financial lifeblood without contributing as much to the team as their salaries suggest they should - and replace them with players we can afford who will serve us well in the long term.
On that front, Dougie has moved Ngog on - and even got a few quid for him - and tried to move Mears on and will hopefully shift a few more in the summer. Putting aside the loanees he's brought on board to keep us going through the transition, he's bought a few prospects and shifted a whole bunch of kids he doesn't think will make it. We'll have to see how that pans out, but I like White and there are others with similar potential. So it seems Dougie is doing a decent job in terms of crisis management which IMO is key to our survival.
Time will tell, but either way Dougie is in for a rough ride - but I wish that fans would put his perceived tactical weaknesses in the context of the bigger picture. Survival and sustainable transition first, tweaks to the first eleven second.

Wanderlust, you say the most important thing is to get the wage bill under control.. well you could get any manager you wanted to do that. The managers job is to get the best out of the players he has, and earn results. Dougie is doing neither of those while also showing little signs of any sort of short or long term plan.

But Coyle's proved that's clearly not the case Guest. He was tasked with keeping us up whilst encouraging our transition to a cheaper wage bill and bringing youth through. What he left us with was relegation, next to no youth coming through and poor players on big wages. It's far from a job any manger could do, and I'd say so far in terms of sorting the squad out and bringing youth in Dougies doing a good job, it's on the pitch where we've got problems.

bwfc1874 wrote:I'd say so far in terms of sorting the squad out and bringing youth in Dougies doing a good job, it's on the pitch where we've got problems.

Absolute bollocks.

By Dougie's own admission at the AGM, the youth players haven't developed as he'd hoped and none are deemed good enough for the step up this season.

He's doing a good job of sorting the squad out? What a ridiculous statement, he's doing a bloody terrible job of sorting it out.

His permanent signings have been woeful. Baptiste is a liability (to be fair he is being played out of position), Tierney was another liability until he got injured, Beckford has been shit apart from a 5 or 6 game run, Spearing poor at best, ditto Medo. Could you say any permanent signing has been a success?

And while one or two loan signings have been better, they do NOTHING for the team in the long-term - all they do is gloss over how shite we are....as soon as McNaughton fucked off and Knight was brought back we started shipping goals left, right and centre again.

If he had been given the task of reducing the wage bill while getting us relegated why the fuck pay the dickhead £500k, they could have picked any person off the street to do that for free.