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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 00:26 29 Jan 2026
Well Mr Pushy I am sure we could have less injuries if we took a lot less risks, plus only recruited players with a hard as nails physique and flawless injury record. I am also fairly sure that strategy would fail badly for other reasons, financial and/or results wise. I don't know if the performance function is doing a good job, a terrible job or something in between. Nobody on here seems to know either. They just think they know. The fact that the club brought back Williams and gave him additional functions suggests that they have faith in their man. They should know, we don't.
If you are already giving 100% just continuing doing that is all that can be asked. I don't believe anybody can give 110% strive as you might. Please see previous answer for whether we are giving 100%. I am all for the club being cleverer. Maybe we are doing a tad better because those making the decisions are cleverer, than has been the case (Warburton excused that criticism).
Some posters distrust data, intelligence, nerdy types. It's all a bit Moneyball. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 23:19 28 Jan 2026
First point I have no problem with being in a minority.
I am making no claims whatsoever. It is for those accusing the club, and particular members of staff, of a shocking record of injuries to justify that claim. IF there are a larger number of injuries than average over a season there might be a number of causes including the characteristics of players we are recruiting. I have no idea why one person is being pointed to by a few posters when the whole thing should be and seems to be a team effort. I have an open mind. I am intrigued to know.
As for putting someone in a leadership position who has limited experience of one, or several, of the functions that are his/her responsibility I am surprised that you seem to think that's unusual these days. He's not a doctor or a physio or a nutritionist either. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 21:07 28 Jan 2026
(a) You say our shocking record of injuries. I say our injury record seems typical for professional football. When I ask for hard evidence of a shocking record all that the comes up are anecdotes and “you can see it with your own eyes you don’t need numbers”. For me a sure sign of ignorance of the actual record and perhaps what’s happening in the rest of football.
Also I made the point that with new players we may be accepting a greater risk of injury in order to get better players within our budget and wage limits. Players come with a physiology. Again nobody knows.
(b) Your main point is not ignored it is dealt with in my last sentence. I would suggest that only those that know Ben Williams work, knowledge, ability and character well could answer the point. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 19:50 28 Jan 2026
So the position when he joined us was that he had worked for Ineos in cycling and yatching (Americas Cup), football (Nice) and basketball (NBA). He has now worked for us for two and half years, one year part-time. If with his background he hasn’t learned by now all he needs to do that job to a very high standard I would be surprised.
If you were ever right I don’t think it still applies today. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 18:07 28 Jan 2026
Of course not.
If all he brought to the table was an incredible knowledge of cycling he wouldn't be at QPR. Knowledge, brains, fresh ideas and analytical ability is what I assume we were after. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 17:07 28 Jan 2026
Sorry I don't think I do agree Hunter.
I like the idea that knowledge is spread between different sports. It is not as if only one person is analysing performance for QPR. I believe there are four of them? Also there can be few sports, apart from F1, where there has been such a concentration of performance analysis taking every conceivable variable into account as cycling.
On your other points, you can have whatever rhetoric you want. Other people have me down as a realist and I can do without my club talking anything up other than for morale purposes. Some players seem to play better when they are told they are wonderful. That's different.
I don't know if the performance or any other function of the club is doing everything it reasonably can do. I don't expect my club to have a world class manager or any other perfect employee. If they exist the Premier League would have gobbled them up.
As a realist I have to accept that I can come across as depressing and defeatist to some people. Possibly the sort of people who are football fans posting on a forum. However I do believe that the club is edging in the right direction, which makes a change. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 15:39 28 Jan 2026
When the club are recruiting within our limited budget and wages what do they prioritise?
Maybe the choice includes League One level players who will run forever, not tire in the second half, rarely if ever getting injuries or alternatively players of at least Championship ability but having a history of some injuries? You would think that a club in our position has to take risks sometimes. Again it's about judgement, pluses and minuses. Sometimes the risks will pay off and sometimes they won't.
Of course I want the club to get better in every way. I have been supporting it for 60+ years. I have £10,000 invested in the training ground bonds. However I see myself as a supporter, not a critic. Excessive criticism just drags everyone down. I take the view that professional football is about as competitive as it gets and anybody involved on the playing side is a competitive animal likely to be giving it 100%.
Perhaps you being closer to the club know different. These days we live in a low trust society completely different from the society I grew up in. Now nobody seems to trust anybody to do their job properly. I see a lot of that in this and many other threads. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 23:23 27 Jan 2026
Well the argument goes round and round.
Your argument is that injuries and fitness are a particular problem for us and we should be doing better. I say there are always a lot of injuries in football, giving some evidence from the Premier League. What hard evidence have you got other than anecdote and a feeling in the water?
As for the minutes we give players that is a matter of judgement and compromise based on the feedback you are getting from the performance guys and medics and what you think you need to win. What can you reasonably get out of the best players? What risks can you reasonably take? How should you manage the squad players?
There are no absolutes here, just judgement, whether it is the medics, performance guys, coaches or the manager.
As for Sheffield Wednesday we were only 1-0 up with 81 minutes gone, Burrell scored the goal but only lasted 21 minutes. If we had lost that match this forum would have gone bonkers.
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 20:49 27 Jan 2026
As far as fitness is concerned with Sports Science and the data clubs now collect I would have thought that the coaches and performance team would know exactly what each player's capacities are. Distance covered, sprint distances and speed and all the other metrics they collect. If a player is achieving below their personal capacity or performance is dropping off quickly they will know by how much in real time and probably have the reasons for that.
From Athletics we know that when athletes try to stay at or exceed their peak they becoming more vulnerable to injury and illness. Then's the importance of recovery which is talked about a lot these days and maybe that is where A-A-H teams are really hit relative to the H-H-A teams. Dealing with all this must be a matter of judgement and compromise, along with the players abilities, tactics and all the other factors.
Tell the club that the players must be fitter if you like but I reckon you are way behind the game in terms of what they know, what they can do about it and what's possible. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 19:41 27 Jan 2026
Injuries come with football. With the best conditioning, physical specimens, and medical support money can buy Arsenal had already had 27 players out with injuries by around this time last season. The average for the Premier League up to 25 games through the 2024/25 season was 15. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 16:06 27 Jan 2026
So what statistical evidence is there that our fitness and injury record is any worse than other Championship clubs?
I don’t mean anecdotes or feelings in the bowels. I mean hard evidence? |
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Reply | Form Guide:
at 16:30 26 Jan 2026
Well we are below our 12th league position on the Championship wages budget available table, which is anything from 16th to 20th according to the sources I've seen. Which fits with our current 19th place on attendances. Maybe someone is doing an above average job to compensate for the lack of money. I wouldn't have a clue who? |
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Reply | Form Guide:
at 01:58 26 Jan 2026
Its not an organisational failure, a lack of effort or any of the other daft theories that turn up on this board. What it is is the opposition want to win as much as we do and being of roughly equal ability they will win some of the time and we will win some of the time.
What's now called Profitability & Sustainability rules (the old FFP) ensure that most of us are recruiting from a pool of players of similar ability with the predictable result that we are all much of a muchness. With parachute payments giving some clubs an advantage, lucky ones overachieving for a while (eg Beale The Bullshitter's spell for a few short months), for the rest of us it's a tough ask. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 16:30 25 Jan 2026
Yet there were two 3-game weeks when we got 6 points. Average 2 points a game which is promotion form. I believe the manager is learning. It's never going to be easy including keeping the players fit and rotation which always involves compromises. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 14:50 25 Jan 2026
Well Keith Andrews is obviously well tuned into standard sports management bollocks.
If you could tune athletes to be able to withstand two attritional away matches, the travelling and time away and have no more affect than Wrexham's three home matches in a row I am sure we would be doing it and no doubt everybody else would too.
The thing is there are times when you are advantaged and times when things are against you. We tend to forget when we profited from the advantages and the deluded start to believe we are therefore better than we are. The disadvantages we might use as excuses, which is regarded as a sign of weakness, but that doesn't mean the disadvantages were any less real. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 12:50 25 Jan 2026
Apart from all of that the three games a week thing has been loaded against us. 6 weeks with two away games and only two weeks with two home games. So tough weeks made tougher still by the schedule.
Without an exceptionally clever owner like a Tony Bloom or Matthew Benham we are just one of twenty four clubs trying to fight each other up the greasy pole. |
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Reply | Traitors UK thread **WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS**
at 00:04 24 Jan 2026
That's the way I saw it too. Both Faraaz and Harriet (earlier) managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory having figured it out and uttered the magic words Traitor on Traitor for the Fiona v Rachel bust up.
Fair play to Rachel and Stephen though. Worthy winners. |
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Reply | Form Guide:
at 20:48 23 Jan 2026
Unrealistic expectations would include expecting to look good away at Stoke, or at Oxford in the wind, or winning away at West Ham, obviously. You can always hope but there seem to me to be plenty on this message board who are addicted to moaning and disappointment. I am enjoying watching the defence getting steadily stronger and looking forward to our best two attacking talents, Burrell and Chair, eventually getting back to give us a lift. |
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Reply | Form Guide:
at 14:09 23 Jan 2026
Unjustified expectations are a killer in sport.
I just go to a match hoping we’ll win and to be entertained. No expectations of winning however lowly the opposition. We’re a mid table team improving gradually with a stronger squad with more Championship level players. Unless luck goes our way and the players confidence grows I don’t see things changing much. |
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Reply | Form Guide:
at 13:54 23 Jan 2026
Fair enough Myke. We’ll have to agree to differ.
What I see is many people work back from results which makes up their mind as to how well we played. Whereas you can play OK and lose and play poorly and win. So often it’s just the run of the ball and a single incident or two that decides a match.
The other thing people, including you, do is assume that league position is a good guide as to whether we should beat an opponent. You’ve just done that. Watching the Championship all these years I cannot see why anyone would confidently make that assumption. It’s all much more random than that. |
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