LondonBristolian

It feels ridiculous to say this given where they were a few months ago but you’ve got to start thinking QPR might be dark horses next season…

Said this on another thread but, if the plan is to only bring in two over the summer then I think there has to be a belief that three or four players already at the club will step into the first team squad. I’d have thought Stokes would be very much in the frame to be in and around the squad at a minimum.

Thanks so much! I don't know much about the U-23s but get the impression from what others have posted that Bell and Boyd have both got stronger prospects in their position coming up behind them so guessing they're not likely to be extended. I know Leeson and Francois are both players who looked like they had a pathway to the first team at one point but obviously haven't made much of a mark this season. Not sure if they'd be seen as young enough to be worth a couple more years to see what happens or if the club would decide it was time to move them on. From the little I know, Backwell is the only one I'd see as a good bet for a new contract...

Sorry - I meant specifically, who from the U23s is OOC this summer?

I was thinking earlier about what the contract status was of our U-23s and who is likely to leave in the summer. I know a few expire in the summer - I think Acey, HWB and a couple of others but is there a list somewhere either on the site, transfermarket or on here? Every where I've looked I've only seen the senior players and I don't know if the list is hard to find or if I'm missing the obvious?

The decent thing would still be to explain the reasons on sacking. Or alternatively keep them private entirely. Not telling the manager and then revealing it in public is outright poor behaviour. And suggesting the manager caused it on purpose is frankly odd without evidence.

If Pearson had wanted to push it, there's a massive question in terms of whether the club followed their obligations under the Equality Act, although that would depend if his back issue is something that'd last for 12 months or longer...

To his credit, I felt he seemed quite magnanimous. He was really positive about the club, the fans and a lot of the staff and I felt his view of his sacking came across a basically "it happens, it's shit but why rake up all the mud?". Like you, I don't honestly think Nigel would have got us that much higher in the table. I could argue we could have been 8th or 9th maybe but I honestly think 8 of the 11 teams above us have better squads than us and would always have been favourites to finish above us. There's plenty I'd criticise Tinnion for but I find it entirely plausible he was as surprised as everyone else by JL's deconditioning comment and then had to manage the fallout.

Really interesting points Allardyce makes about the confidentiality clause. Quite shocking that Pearson learned about the views and results on deconditioning via the interviews rather than anyone raising it before...

I think the problem is that, however many players you sign, there's always a risk of an injury crisis. Admittedly we are quite prone to them though! For me, a lot depends on some other questions 1) Are Murphy and Stokes part of the squad next season? 2) Is Knight-Lebel seen as a long-term squad option rather than a short-term bench filler? 3) Is Backwell, Seb Palmer-Houlden, Yeboah or anyone else going to be becoming part of the squad? 4) Can we get Naismith, Atkinson and Benarous fit and playing regularly? 5) Will Conway stay? In theory two new additions could take us to around 27 players and that could be enough. Certainly many more than 28 and the squad starts to be over-filled with players who aren't playing if there isn't an injury crisis and that can be a bad thing. I think two players is enough if there are no departures beyond James and King, we're confident on Atkinson and Naismith's fitness and four of JKL, Murphy, Stokes, SPH, Benarous, Backwell and Yeboah (or others) are ready to be squad players. But if we're not able to get the numbers up through those players who are missing or not ready, two won't be enough.

I'm going to play Devil's advocate a little here. Whilst there's plenty of good reasons to be sceptical of the board's willingness to spend, bringing in "one or two" doesn't automatically equate to spending less. The "one or two" are presumably a striker and a permanent solution to the Twine loan (i.e. either Twine or a player who can play the same role). Strikers and attacking midfielders are the two most expensive positions to sign and there is a valid argument for saying "let's concentrate all our resources on those two positions" rather than spreading the budget thinly and therefore spending less of the budget - whatever that budget is - on the two key positions. With Bird coming in and if no departures, I honestly think that our defence, full backs and midfield are not in urgent need of signings and - whilst there is certainly a case for competition for Max O'Leary, I think O'Leary is good enough as a goalkeeper. Everyone is upgradeable of course but I'd be relaxed going into next season with our current defence, our current goalkeeping options and our current midfield (plus Bird, less one of James or Williams, with a possibility Murphy or Stokes will be ready to compete for a place). However I think we need to get the striker and attacking midfielder correct and I think doing that is far more important than several signings. Obviously all this depends on how much the board are actually providing as a budget and if it is sufficient but I'm going to judge the club on how much we're prepared to spend rather than how many players we're prepared to spend it on.

If Conway signs a contract, brilliant, but I think the more interesting question for me is what we do if he doesn't. Do we cash in now, when his stock possibly isn't at its highest, or do we give it a year and hope he has the kind of season that pushes a tribunal fee up to the level of what we'd currently get, whilst taking the chance that a move to Scotland or abroad would mean losing compensation entirely?

The problem with James is that the only people who thought he was good enough as a footballer were multiple Premier League managers, multiple England managers and the professionals who voted him into the PFA team of the year on three separate occasions. And what do those idiots know?

I always wonder if there was a hidden mental health component. Coppell had quit Reading a year earlier and I remember the Secret Footballer - quite possibly Dave Kitson, who was back on loan at Reading in the last months of Coppell's tenure- talking about playing under a managerial legend who'd fallen out of love with the game. I always felt him joining us was a final test to see if he could rediscover his love for management, which he obviously couldn't. I actually think a bit too much is made of the David James signing. Yes, Lansdown went all in for a player without talking to the manager but I'm not convinced most Championship managers would be that upset their Chairman buying the (then) England goalkeeper. I wonder if the issue was not so much Coppell being over-ruled so much as he saw it as a lower profile job with a bit less pressure and then suddenly found us under scrutiny by the media as a dark horses for promotion.

“Would an assistant referee stood in line with play be able to clearly judge the attacking player to be closer to the goal than the defending player?” If yes - and the assistant isn’t in line with play or is but somewhat misses it - VAR corrects the decision. If no, there is no clear and obviously error and the attacker gets the benefit of the doubt. For me, it is the benefit of the doubt to the attacker that is the element that is lost. No decision will ever be 100% clear cut. But the role of VAR should be to correct things the ref and assistants should have picked up but did not rather than to try to add a level of precision that isn’t realistically possible to achieve.