Wes Tender

Quite. Some have said that other posters have left this forum for such reasons and others indicate that the grass is greener on the Ugly Inside. But I see few people disputing that this problem as described here exists.

My thoughts are with his family and I hope that he makes a complete recovery. As for the Echo scum and their totally insensitive reporting in the last couple of paragraphs, well, it really does beggar belief. They truly are the gutter press.

Personally, I can't remember feeling so down in all of my years supporting the Saints as when Lowe came back in tandem with the Quisling. But still, if others feel that they reached their lowest ebb after losing to Walsall, then everybody is entitled to have their own lowest moments.

And then all of a sudden, this great pillar of QPR's success becomes surplus to requirements for them. Nobody knows for sure the ins and outs of the dealings for him, whether they wanted too much, whether the medical identified any potential problems, whether he wanted to be here, or whether he saw eye to eye with Adkins, etc. Made welcome to whom? Ah, the fans. Those founts of knowledge whose judgment is to be taken over that of the people on the inside, the experts, those who do this as a profession. So Gorkss and Jemel would have been fantastic signings, whereas because Celtic mongs say so, Jos will be crap. I see.

And all of this evidence is the accumulated ramblings on a fans' forum. I despair.

A very balanced and well reasoned post IMO. Probably far better to have reposted those wrist-slitters who prophesised that we had blown our chances of promotion when we had sacked Pardew and when Adkins had just arrived and not unaturally took a few games to begin turning things around. But what riles me are posts that draw conclusions about these transfer targets and the reasons why we didn't land them, without an ounce of substantiated evidence to back them up. People are happy to believe posters to rival forums who are most likely to have a similar mix of idiots as ours, disgruntled managers and agents with an agenda, or friends of the office cleaner's hairdresser. Many times already under the new regime at the club, players have been signed right out of the blue, from under everybodys' radar. Generally speaking, most of the signings have been effective in improving the team. Yes, we could do with cover up front, but are able to bring in a loan. There is not a frantic urgency to do so, so we can wait until we get somebody of the calibre that will make a real difference to us. The naming of the Premiership squads will highlight a number of potential candidates, but equally no doubt, our scouting network could bring in somebody from abroad. The idiots are those who place blame on the club management for not signing certain players who price themselves out of the market, don't want to be here, or aren't better than what we have. Personally, I have seen enough instances of good practise by Cortese and Adkins to convince me that they deserve our confidence and the benefit of the doubt at the very least. Some of those who went off half-cock in the early days of last season had to be reminded that the season was a marathon, not a sprint. Having in retrospect been made to look stupid when we gained promotion, is it too much to ask that they think back on that and learn from it?

This is the only one I could find and he is 1) a midfielder and 2) does not appear to be better than what we currently have. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Bean

The bit you highlighted wasn't aimed at you, Hypo, but at the many others who made the snap judgement that as Celtic fans weren't complimentary about him, he must be sh*te. In much the same way that you were pleased to have been proved wrong about our prospects following the Walsall reverse, (because it meant that the team was ultimately successful), I sincerely hope that those who made knee-jerk reactions following yesterday's signing will also come to realise that they went off at half-cock, because the lad had made them eat their words.

Mature individuals learn from the benefit that hindsight gives them; they learn from their mistakes. Anybody who does not take on board the lessons of experience and makes the same mistakes again and again makes themselves look a fool. This is especially true on an internet forum where something said in the heat of the moment can come back to haunt you if it is still in the public domain and so can easily be dredged up again. Therefore, if one is prone to knee-jerk reactions, perhaps a good idea to wait until the morning after the poor result, or whatever was controversial when it happened and sleep on it. Many have passed judgement on our new Dutch signing based on the internet opinions of another forum, without making an informed judgement based on the evidence of their own eyes. One only has to be reminded from past errors of judgment that there is the distinct possibility that they will have egg all over their faces once more, having learned nothing from previous experience.

play-offs

Well, you didn't express yourself very well, so that is the reason why both RobM and I argued the point. But nevertheless, it is still very valid for us to comment that the difference between Jos and Forecast and Pulis, is that at least he has had quite a decent past record, whereas neither of the other two have covered themselves in past glories.

Don't be silly, Messi probably couldn't defend to save his life. And he's a midget to boot.

This can't be so. Turkish equates it to a person changing jobs from Tesco to Asda if they were offered an extra quid an hour, so apart from Beckford, why didn't these players come to us?

No you couldn't. Seems to me that apart from a hiccup at Celtic, Jos had quite a good career formerly. Pulis and Forecast had done very little of note before we signed them. Perhaps an example or two the other way around might be more apposite. Scott McDonald had done little here and was released by us, but shone with Celtic playing in the Champions league. Kevin Philips is another example. You see, it is possible for a player to crap at one club and to do well at another.

The number of instances where a player doesn't do well at one club then sets the World alight at another are legion. Christ, there are a substantial number of posts on here listing the players that we discarded, who went on to distinguished service at other clubs, many of whom are Premiership regulars today. So any intelligent poster is entitled to pre-judge the potential success or failure of a new signing based on his performance at another club, but will also accept that until that player has played with his new team mates for a few games, it is impossible to say how he will perform for us. If some posters are upset that in their opinions we have not signed players from some glory team for mega bucks, then that's up to them. But I personally have some faith in our manager and our scouting team that they might have the capability to pick a rough diamond and polish it. We'll just have to wait and see and perhaps those disappointed posters will have to eat humble pie by the end of the season.

This. Also according to Merrington, there were further incidences of biased refereeing. For example, in the early stages their player landed a heavy tackle and got no punishment. Our player minutes later did something very similar and got booked. Then another of their players landed a similar tackle and got away with it. Merrington's opinion was that they were very similar, so why was one punished and not the other? Then followed the kicking the ball away incidents you describe, where Martin was booked and then subsequently they did the same and the referee walked away. As you say, it was only when there was a chorus of derision from our fans and the words from Harding in his shell-like that the referee deigned to yellow card their player. As Merrington said, refereeing consistency should be applied to both teams equally.

Evian is naive spelled backwards, by the way.

Had Lambert been the attacker instead of the defender, that push on him would have been a nailed on penalty. So why does it not work the other way around when Lambert was pushed in the box as the defender? The referee has dropped a major clanger in awarding the goal and deprived us of a point and the continuation our unbeaten run.

All of those who reckon that Fox impressed enough to claim a start at LB, appear to have forgotten the great goal that Harding scored to put us back in the match when we were two down. Easier to impress as a fresh pair of legs coming on late when you are battering the opposition than to shine earlier on when everybody elses' legs are as fresh and you are under the cosh.

Well, there goes the hundred percent record, although because of the way we played, I strangely feel my confidence increased that we can at least get a play-off place, or even automatic promotion, because I am of the opinion that we are the better team than Leicester. We gifted them their goals through naive defending and bad luck. It seems from what I heard on the commentary, that the Lambert goal should have been disallowed because Lambert was pushed onto the ball which then went into the net off him. Also, it sounded as if Kelvin should not have been beaten at the near post by Vassell. On the other side of the coin, when we came out for the second half, we were all over them and there were factors which meant that we should have at least drawn, if not won the match. Seemingly a decent penalty shout, at least three brilliant saves by Schmeichel and one off the woodwork and aguably a couple of the players were lucky to remain on the pitch following some nasty tackles, especially Pantsil, but maybe also Danns. Pantsil seems to be a very nasty piece of work, studs up against Connolly and Lallana and the impression was given that we were playing them off the park in the second half and that they cynically planned to slow down the players pulling the strings. Tactically, SGE got it right the first half, but Adkins made the changes tactically to totally change it around in our favour. Guly looked to have left us exposed on the right by not tracking back to protect Richardson and Leicester exploited it to give them the advantage. De Ridder coming on for Guly and Cork going to right back made it very difficult down that flank and I wonder whether Richardson was injured or just shown up for pace? So although defeated, I believe that in terms of our defence we defeated ourselves, but in terms of our attack, we caused the most expensive team in the division all sorts of problems and had Schmeichel still been suspended, probably would have put five or six past them.

Count me in with the delusional brigade, or perhaps accept my accusation that you are part of the delusional brigade for considering that education standards have actually improved. There are several factors that can be debated in this respect. Marking can have become more relaxed, less attention given to actual exams and more emphasis placed on course work, more frivolent subjects being included in the statistics, the GCSEs being devalued against the O Levels, any number of things. But still, you carry on believing it, because as a teacher you have a vested interest in believing it. Personally I believe that many of the current GCSE brigade would have difficulty with an 11 plus paper from the 50s. But what is important really, is whether the employers consider these exam results to be a credible and reliable guide to their applicants' educational standards, or additionally whether a degree nowadays has anywhere near the kudos that one had 20 years or more ago. If not, then surely educational standards have declined.

I'm reminded more of our former mutual favourite windbag on here, Nineteen Canteen and his various other aliases. He was certainly "challenged", but add to that Corpse's disadvantage of following the Skates and perhaps even being unfortunate enough to live amongst them and one can understand the additional shortcomings of his failure to comprehend basic simple English and the inclination to try and excuse the dubious characters associated with their crooked little football club and its resultant sordid recent history.

What the numpty doesn't seem to accept, is that in any negotiation, it is far less complicated when somebody wishes to buy anything for sale and finds somebody else wishing to sell that item. Such was the case between QPR and Reading. Uncomplicated, straightforward, a done deal in five minutes. On the other hand, the Gorkss deal was rather different, as he was proposed as a bargaining chip in QPR's bid for Puncheon, so naturally there is far more in the way of horse-trading as each party attempts to get the maximum advantage, both sides negotiating positions weakened because they wish to offload those players deemed to be surplus to their requirements. As I posted on that article, all very well the deal being finalised quickly from the point of view of the seller, whose opinion is that it is the best way to do business. But not the best way for an astute businessman to proceed when buying a product, unless they wish to forego due diligence and ignore caveat emptor.

It is all very wll bookies providing statistics as a guide to how they feel various teams might fare in the new season, but it is a total nonsense printing conclusions as being somehow factual. No doubt they might have said the exact same thing about Norwich's chances of successive promotions last year too. I am reminded of the statistical evidence at the other end of the table, the relegation zone, where if my memory is correct, we were the first team to avoid relegation from the Premiership having been bottom of the league at Christmas some seasons ago. Just because something has never happened before, does not mean it is impossible and things happen every year that have never been achieved previously. As mentioned by others, we have already broken several historical club records recently and obviously the bookies had not factored this in to their calculations. So in hindsight their predictions begin to look silly, although of course there is plenty of time for them to turn out correct by the end of the season.