Why Alan Shearer is wrong…

I thought it was strange to watch Match of the Day on Saturday night and hear Alan Shearer’s comments on Rio Ferdinand. I’m not how much of the game Shearer watched but by his quote about Ferdinand having “one of them afternoons” – I’m going to hazard a guess at not much.

Ferdinand looked classy, very classy. As expected he started in the middle of the back three, playing as a sweeper and often the deepest of the trio. Yes, he lost James Chester for Hull’s winner and yes it happened again on the next corner…but the 35-year-old will still be an asset over the course of the season.

A sign of a good defender is not necessarily one that is diving in making last-ditch tackles or blocks but one that can read all the signs of danger before it has even happened. The Italians have it perfect. Why jump around flinging yourself at everything, when you can leave the pitch as clean as when you came on?

Ferdinand managed to do this time and time again, one of the most impressive times happening when Andrew Robertson’s – who looked impressive and a snip at just under £3 million – cross was taken off the toe of Nikica Jelavic by the former England defender who then looked to start a Rangers counter.

His leadership qualities shone through too, communicating and organising the defence throughout and he had his work cut out with Armand Traore and Danny Simpson. The look of horror on his face as Traore decided to stop playing and instead argue with Jelavic over the forward’s penalty appeal whilst the game was still going on really was something to behold.

Ferdinand had an impressive game no doubt about it and the stats back him up too.

He won the most amount of tackles on the pitch – in fact he didn’t lose a tackle. He won the ball every time he went to win it. To put that into perspective, Curtis Davies who also had a decent game only won 50% of his tackles, Ferdinand attempted double and won them all. He also made the most ball recoveries for QPR and the second highest on the pitch(which points back to my earlier point of his reading of the game). He also didn’t commit a foul or lose anything in the air.

Along with this, Ferdinand had the highest pass completion percentage with 89% – almost 10% more than any player. Of course, it’s easier for someone like Rio to pick a pass when he has all the time in the world and no pressure on him than someone like Ali Faurlin in the middle of the park but of the four passes he failed, three were in the attacking third and the other was in the middle of the pitch – were he made 29 other successful ones.

Hull obviously fancied their chances of Ahmed Elmohamady being up against Armand Traore . So much so, McGregor to the Egptian was one of the most frequent pass combinations of the afternoon along with Huddlestone to Elmohamady. Thankfully for Rangers, every goal kick that was aimed towards Traore, he won. All 11 times it was tried – he came out on top.

Despite looking defensively solid, QPR looked pretty void of any attacking flair in the new 3-5-2 formation. The most frequent pass combination for the home side being Ferdinand to Caulker, who then more often than not looked to his right towards Simpson, who  was often wasteful when in possession completing only 64% of his passes.

Jordon Mutch played and looked promising although slightly rusty in the more advanced central role with Joey Barton and Faurlin behind him. I thought the Argentine looked for the spectacular pass a little to often, playing off of his left foot and looking for the channel ball between Chester and Elmohamady and it often didn’t come off. Barton said himself that his corners were poor, but he also attempted 13 crosses in open play and was successful just twice.

Charlie Austin worked hard and created problems for Chester, Davies and Alex Bruce. He does look a little more bulky and it does seems to have made him slightly less mobile, he wasn’t the most agile in the first place so he will have to be careful but his tireless work rate will always create him chances. He mustered 5 attempts on goal and the only one on target was the penalty which was saved. Statistically his passing was slopping too but he can be pleased on the whole with his first performance in the top flight. He struggled for any real service all afternoon.

His partner was the man of the moment Loic Remy, whether he stays or goes is another matter but despite looking like he was blowing after the first 30 minutes, Remy was at the heart of everything good QPR did going forward.

He had three shots on target and should have finished his last one, turning substitute Paul McShane before firing at McGregor from 12-yards. He could have put it anywhere but he fired straight at the Scottish keeper, he has to score in that position .Get him fit and if they can keep him, they will stay up comfortably.

They won’t face many teams worse than Hull this year and really should have picked up some points, despite being praised for creating 19 attempts you really need to put the chances away and Rangers suffered by not doing that.

Another little final gripe from the game would be starting Richard Dunne. Surely, if you are playing with 3 centre backs you need the wide two to be able to be comfortable playing full-back and be able to play. I don’t really see how Richard Dunne offers any of that, especially with Nedum Onuoha and Clint Hill sitting on the bench.

It was obvious before the opener that Rangers need legs in midfield and nothing has changed – that was always obvious. I’d imagine Fer will sign before the Spurs game. Another striker to add some depth will no doubt be brought in, hopefully Vargas, and a number 10 that can thread passes and create a little bit of magic. I like Mutch, but can’t see him staying in the ‘hole’ for the duration of the season. Perhaps that slightly portly Moroccan will still be here come the end of August – he’d be perfect.

As usual, please do tell me how wrong or even right I am by commenting or tweeting.

You can find me on twitter here: @JordanJFoster

QPR’s Youth and Scouting Setup

I watched a lot of the EDS last year, it was actually quite an enjoyable experience on the whole, despite Harlington being one of the coldest places on earth. It’s good ground for me a I look to get some experience as a journalist and I find talking to the young lads easy as we’re pratically the same age.

It’s come to a point now, where I think investment is needed in the youth and scouting setup. But it has to be proper investment. Unfortunately the majority of the lads in the EDS last year won’t go on to have a career in the game. That’s the harsh truth of it. Hopefully some might make good League 1 or Championship players.

Towards the back end of last year the likes of Sam Magri and Emmanuel Monthe were sent out on loan to get some experience playing first team football, Magri went to Nuneaton Town and Monthe to Southport. Hardly players that you would call on for the first-team.

Even the best players that are currently in the setup (the Petrassos, Ehmers and Sutherlands), aren’t good enough to make it into a Premier League squad, so something needs to change.

There was a lot of clamour for Mike Petrasso to be involved towards the end of last season. But as a well respected former player once said to me: “You can’t just throw the players in, if it doesn’t go well for them it could ruin them. But are they really good enough, or are we just holding onto that belief because they are all we have?”

The Canadian is a pretty good example of this. Is he really good enough? He is without doubt an exciting young player and at one stage he could have gone elsewhere when his contract was up. We are in a far stronger position with him, but realistically will he break into the first-team? Probably not.

I’ve watched an awful lot of him and when he is in full flight he is a nightmare for defenders in the Under-21 Professional Development League 2 – which isn’t the greatest standard for young players to develop – but whether he would bring that into the first team is entirely different.

Petrasso was signed along with Dylan Carriero, who was released recently, in 2012 from Toronto. The move was manufactured by Marc Bircham after the pair impressed him whilst coaching with the Canadian national team. Recently released Tom Hitchcock was signed after his contract at Blackburn was terminated and his father, Kevin, had just taken up the role of goalkeeping coach at the club.

Sam Magri was signed for a low fee in 2012 after Portsmouth went into administration and despite representing England at youth level, the 20-year-old never progressed as was expected and was released this summer. Mo Shariff was playing in the Calor Gas league for Slough Town as a 17-year-old and was spotted by a scout. He then impressed on trial and signed a one-year deal in 2010 which was subsequently extended until his release this summer.

Max Ehmer was signed as a schoolboy after his father put money into the club – although he has proved his worth and could go on to have a decent career.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Where are the scouts getting the young players in from the ages of 7,8 or 9? And if they are there, why aren’t they staying?

Despite Steve Gallen doing well with the EDS and leading them to the play-off final for their division, they were ultimately undone by a Crewe side that in Gallen’s words had “invaluable first team experience”. Having experience is one thing but the Crewe EDS team that evening boasted a combined 100 appearances for their first team.

Tony Fernandes has often said he wants to focus on youth but little has been done in the time he has been here to improve it. The club still has one of the smallest budgets in the area despite his promises that youth will be the main focus once the training ground is up and running.

An ironic thing about Warren Farm, the proposed/not so proposed new training ground, is that it isn’t where QPR are making a name for themselves at the minute, but their rivals Brentford are. Miguel Rios, a former school teacher in Notting Hill who worked in Barcelona’s youth system, along with ex-Arsenal coach Ose Aibangee and Shaun O’Connor who discovered Jack Wilshere make up the three pillars of Brentford’s youth setup.

Rios will watch up to 10 games at the Ealing based site every Sunday morning and has 14 scouts reporting back to him on a casual basis. He is well known, liked and trusted among the coaches on a Sunday morning and arguably has the monopoly of the market thanks to his extensive list of contacts and endearing personality rather than the promise of a fancy training ground.

A awful lot was made about how Warren Farm was going to be this magnet for young players and QPR would suddenly start a conveyor belt of talent, hoovering up all the best young kids in west London – the Warren Farm plans have been put on the back burner recently.

The last talent QPR produced was one of the bright sparks for England in Brazil this year. Raheem Sterling left Rangers to sign for Liverpool back in 2010 as a 15-year-old for an initial £500,000 fee but the EDS boss says it wasn’t any facilities that made the England international but what was on the inside.

“I don’t get it when people say this about the new training ground, what made Raheem so good was something on the inside made, it wasn’t about what pitches he was playing on,” he said.

“Raheem had this natural talent and hunger to win. It was desperate, he hated losing. All he wanted to do was win.

“Manchester City, Spurs and the likes will have a better training ground than the one we are going to get so that won’t make them sign.

“What will make them sign will be the support we can give to players.

Gallen also says that having a good relationship with the players is paramount to them not only enjoying their time at the club but can be paramount to a player resigning with them.

“The case with Mikey Petrasso was like that, he was offered money elsewhere probably. But what got him to stay was the fact he knew all the coaches here, got on with them and knew he would be looked after.

“When Paolo Sousa was here, he called a meeting with me and two other of his coaches to report back on what we had done.

“The first guy spoke and said: ‘Paolo we’re missing this, this and this, the training ground is a joke’. Then the second guy went: ‘Paolo we are missing everything here, I can’t believe it.

“Then it was my turn to speak. ‘Paolo we’ve got a 14-year-old and he could be some player but we need to look after him.

“He came alive, he couldn’t do enough for me or him and we got Raheem training with the first team, we met his parent and brought him to games. We looked after him.”

“We then played him as a 14-year-old in a reserve game away at Aldershot, he was on the bench but we got him on for the last 20 minutes. These were professionals he was playing against and he stood out again.

Sterling has been and gone, made a name for himself and is living up to the potential that the coaches in W12 thought he had.

But QPR need the next Sterling to come through now and one they can keep. Players need to be brought in to the club at the young ages and kept, brought up with the ‘QPR way’ and hopefully either make the first team or can be sold on.

No-one is picking up the young players that aren’t good enough, they are just leaving the club on free transfers. When the club was relegated from the Premier League, it would have been the ideal time to used some of the youngsters, even if they were not good enough.

It would have helped them in the future, having on their CV that they played in the top-flight and made the first-team. It also would have helped QPR bump up their prices a little more, something that would be important to any other club.

The current crop of U18s have some very good young players though, Reece Grego-Cox is a tenacious forward in the Wayne Rooney mould and Darnell Furlong, son of former R’s forward Paul, is another good prospect. A pacey full-back who likes to get forward, but is also very good defending one-on-one.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I would love to have players come through that are actually brought through by the club and surely it would be a more economically viable route rather than the current method of signing any player the club can get it’s hands on?

Good start but let’s not get ahead of ourselves..

The signings of Rio Ferdinand and Steven Caulker looked to have put QPR in a strong position for next season but despite feeling like the two defenders add some much needed class and depth into a beleaguered backline.

I would have taken Rio on a one year deal and Steven Caulker should have arguably been in Brazil with England so to get both of them is fantastic business and Rangers can right lap up a lot of the praise that has been coming their way.

But last seasons success came from a squad made up of loan signings and an over-reliance on Charlie Austin. Had it not been for Zamora’s late strike, the season would have been a disaster.

The squad needs some serious work on it if the club is to stay up. Rob Green, who I don’t think is that great, will arguably be the main goalkeeper with Brian Murphy as his understudy. If it was as easy as fantasy football I would almost certainly bring in another strong, young goalkeeper.

Defensively, QPR probably have the most depth. Richard Dunne, Clint Hill, Rio Ferdinand, Nedum Onuoha, Steven Caulker, Max Ehmer, Jamie Sendles-White and Coll Donaldson could all play at centre-half alone. Harry Redknapp has said he wants to deploy a 3-5-2 this year, so you would hope the obvious choices for them would be Onuoha, Ferdinand,Caulker – which as I have tweeted is pretty formidable. With Ferdinand acting as a sweeper, his lack of pace would be made up by having two absolute units next to him, Onuoha has pace to burn.

Then comes the problem of the full-backs. A lot has been made on Twitter of the need to get another left-back in, I don’t think it’s fair on Clint Hill or the Premier League if he plays there. He is limited eough playing there in the Championship, the wingers in the Premier League would murder him. So yes, you would have to get another left-back in. Armand Traore is a strange one, he seems to have his head in the right place now but just looks to shaky at left-back, despite his obvious ability to get forward and YSY is naïve and shaky to say the least, I’d be amazed if Redknapp went with him for this year but has said that he wants to try and stick to players that he knows, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him go and get Danny Rose from Spurs – especially after they have signed Ben Davies this week.

Not a lot has been said about the right-back berth, which seems to be Danny Simpson’s all day long. I wouldn’t be so sure, although he is full of enthusiasm and an impressive CV, I think he’s actually a very poor right-back. It would be amateur not to replace him but suicidal not to bring anyone in at all to compete with the former Newcastle defender. Serge Aurier had a good World Cup, as did the American DeAndre Yedlin, Kyle Naughton from Spurs again could do a job. All would be more than capable of stepping up and doing a job in the Premier League. Aurier would probably be more likely with QPR having a scout inplace in France – hence the N’tep link in January but Redknapp does love a Spurs signing.

Moving onto midfield, the main problem has to be the lack of legs and physicality. Joey Barton whilst more than capable of doing a job has never got around the pitch quickly and it will be even harder as he is nearing the ripe old age of 32. Ale Faurlin, who has a new contract, after a succession of big injuries is a crowd-pleaser but he had obvious limitations in the Championship – which Redknapp knew leaving him out numerous times. Esteban Granero has said he wants to stay but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him leave for La Liga and Real Sociedad and Gary O’Neil has rightly not been offered a new deal. Leroy Fer has been targetted and would be ideal, he can get around the pitch a hell of a lot faster than the rest of our midfieders and has physcial presence being over 6ft. Fernandes has also talked of cherry-picking some of the best Championship players, Bolton man Mark Davies being one that coud do a job in an area Rangers need strengthening, so he could come in – perhaps on a loan deal rather than a perm.

Matt Phillips was one of the signings of the summer last year in the Championship and would bring a welcome injection of pace into the side. But Junior Hoilett has gone from being a good young player when we signed him to now just a fairly average player, I thought it would have been wise to ship him out when he was playing out of his skin at the start of last season – interest from Stoke was there – but Rangers kept hold of him. I would certainly look to replace him, the forgotten man Scott Sinclair must be looking for another move and fans favourite Andros Townsend must have a pretty good chance of returning if things are looking bleak for him at Spurs.

Charlie Austin certainly deserves his chance in the Premier League after his heroics last year, although I would go against the notion that he will be tearing up the league and on his way to the England squad. He’ll have a good year if he can reach 10 goals. Alongside him who knows, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson from Ajax has been in talks but seems to be faffing around a bit too much. Apparently Redknapp wants an English striker and seems to be after Troy Deeney. If the figures being banded around are to be believes I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole, but as mentioned here on WLS Deeney would jump ship at the first chance if offered top-flight football. I put the feelers out on Twitter a little while ago and it didn’t go down too well regarding the Watford forward but who knows.

Troy Deeney would be someone #QPR would look at, especially if TF wants to cherrypick best Champ players.

— Jordan James Foster (@JordanJFoster) July 20, 2014

What Rangers need to do is get pace and lots of it, they are lacking drastically at the minute and you will almost certainly be caught out without it. They’ve signed experience in the two signings they’ve made already and it’s a start but more work needs to be done otherwise it could be a long old season for them this year.

 

Feel free to tweet me and tell me what a load of nonsense I’m talking or alternatively leave a comment, I’m expecting it anyway!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog about QPR.

Unlike many covering QPR at the moment, I am only starting out. I am 20 years old and an undergrad at the University of West London, where I study Broadcast Journalism.

I mainly do work for West London Sport covering QPR and Brentford but have also done little bits for Trinity Mirror, The Kilburn Times and Sky Sports’ Soccer AM. I also commentate on all QPR home matches and will hopefully have a showreel of some kind to put up here as well.

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a couple of months now, but have never really got round to it for one reason or another but I feel now is probably the best time for me to set it up with the new season commencing soon.

I’ve put another page in with the ‘main’ stories I’ve done on QPR, I left out some of the EDS stuff as I wasn’t sure anyone would find it interesting, but I’m happy to put it up if someone says otherwise.

I’ll be blogging throughout the season on all QPR matters too, so feel free to leave a comment if you want me to cover anything.

You can follow me on Twitter here: @JordanJFoster