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Reply | Next block of seven games
at 11:50 9 Nov 2026
That’s a fair opinion Bri. I don’t agree with it though.
I don’t think anyone said it was a good draw as long as we beat Lincoln.
I also don’t think being realistic is lacking ambition. I have a lot of belief we can get in the playoffs but I just don’t think losing or drawing the odd game will prevent that. I also think you can understand why players have off days after playing five matches in a couple of weeks but then expecting a reset after you’ve had a week off and a better performance.
I personally think we spend too much time looking back too. Warnock is the past. Football is different. The financial landscape is different. I think that holds us back more than just not getting too angry about getting a draw against Burnley. It’s made fans demand us signing Austin and Johansen on big wages for the push and then setting us back more than a couple of seasons because of that overspend.
I like the realism. I want pragmatism. I like Stephan’s not getting too down when we lose or too overconfident when we win. I think he expects high standards but recognises the realities too. But I know that’s a minority view on the Board and I accept that. More people agree with you and that’s fine. |
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Reply | Next block of seven games
at 09:30 9 Nov 2026
I’m not sure that’s true though Brian, although as always I respect your opinion!
The reason we end up mid table IMHO is not because we lose or draw the odd game we should’ve won: just look at West Ham, Middlesbrough and Southampton last weekend. It’s because we’ve traditionally gone on streaks of poor form. So we’d not win for five or six matches.
For automatic promotion I agree you need to win pretty much most of those games but to get play offs you can afford to have the odd Burnley provided you then beat Lincoln.
The reason I don’t like it when we get so down on the team when we don’t win one game is because it leads to such a crazy rollercoaster of ‘we’re so terrible’ to ‘we’re definitely going up’ depending on whether we lose or win one game. It’s exhausting and counterproductive for my mental health!
I’d say we need to win just under half of our games to get into the playoffs. So we’re probably one win short with 6 out of 15 so far, but we’ve slightly made that up by being hard to beat with six draws compared to many teams’ four draws around us.
With Madsen and Burrell back hopefully we will on average win that extra game in our next tranche of games!
Incidentally we’re five points ahead of where we were last season. And tracking our PPG we’d get 74 points, which is bang on for the average points required for sixth place over the last few years. |
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Reply | Five points off the Top after 15 games and in a Playoff spot.
at 09:07 9 Nov 2026
And Burrell and Kone for large parts of it because Kone has only really been fit in the last few matches.
I also think losing Kemper was a big loss. It meant we played Lamptey for more minutes than we would have ideally as well which may have led to his injury. And I don’t think we’d have brought him on at West Ham if Kemper had been fully fit.
I must admit I’m quite surprised we have maintained our position without Burrell, Madsen, Chair and Kone. Stephan has largely done an excellent job shuffling his pack and Adamson has saved us deputising variously for Lamptey, Kemper, Cirkin and Mbengue before actually making RB currently his own. |
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Reply | Next block of seven games
at 15:54 8 Nov 2026
Trouble is with Ronnie, apart from how valuable he is to our team, he cost us £4-5 million plus agents fees. Then Southampton have a 30% sell on clause. So selling him for £10 million is a teeny profit considering how good he is. |
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Reply | Madley the ref
at 15:50 8 Nov 2026
It’s a weird sort of rules though where if someone with the ball stops short and gets an inevitable gentle bump in the back from the defender behind them it’s ALWAYS a free kick however slight the impact but a barge in the back or using the arm to forcefully shove away a player on the ball is not a free kick. It baffles me. |
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Reply | Lincoln Reflection
at 12:49 8 Nov 2026
Obikwu was a bit bizarre yesterday though not so much against Burnley.
But I can completely understand why he’s hesitant to play Kolli. He’s got only 66% pass completion this season, the worst in the squad. He’s also given the ball away that’s led to a goal. He’s scored no goals or assists and missed a big chance. I know stats aren’t everything but just from my own eyes I don’t think he’s been playing that well, although to be fair Chair should have scored from the cutback he made against Burnley.
Of course he’s young and learning and hasn’t played many minutes, but Obikwo is also young and learning and hasn’t played many minutes. I can understand with his height and his greater physicality he’d be given at least a chance especially once Kone had come off. |
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Reply | Match Thread: will QPR show NEW METTLE or will LINCOLN PARK the bus?
at 11:15 8 Nov 2026
I don’t know if I’m considered in the class of haters. I have been critical of him as I don’t think he’s playing at all to his level. I’d quite like him to have a bit of a reset to just come out of the team for a couple of matches like we did with Kone and Saito and rebuild their confidence. I know Stephan has been unable to do that because of injuries which is understandable but I think it would do him good. I have no doubt that he can come back to his best in any case.
Three things have been below par for me, defensively I don’t think he’s been pressing enough or helping out his FB. His passing is below what I’d expect for such a technically talented player - only Burrell and Kolli have lower pass completion rates and I’d like that to improve. After all he’s not the sole player that operates in tight areas and tries to create chances. Also and rather trickier to work on is goal conversion. He’s had four big chances and converted only one.
I’m not writing him off at all, he’s definitely got a lot of talent and maybe he’s just feeling the pressure of missing creative talent like Madsen and Chair and seeing too much weight on his shoulders. |
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Reply | Next block of seven games
at 10:41 8 Nov 2026
Yes. We could have an advantage if Crama and Leonard, their natural RBs are still injured and they have the young player Osei Tutu filling in as he can get caught out of position as a naturally more attacking player. Could be something Smyth could exploit down our left.
Unfortunately Millwall are expecting players like De Norre, Jensen and Coburn back in the team against us, which is blooming typical! In fact such is the curse I can imagine they’ll all be back after the international break! |
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Reply | Match Thread: will QPR show NEW METTLE or will LINCOLN PARK the bus?
at 08:46 8 Nov 2026
I’d say there’s a combination of things.
We’re missing arguably our best players: Madsen and Burrell (and Lamptey but we haven’t seen enough of him in practice to include him as of right), and certainly two of our players that are theoretically best at unlocking teams that sit back.
Across the season teams learn your strengths and try to nullify them.
We’ve played two teams who are in trouble and are focusing on not losing.
We’re also missing JCS who is a great option for being able to change it up by putting Ronnie in minefield.
We’re missing the pace of Mbengue and Burrell so it’s easier for teams to break quickly out of defence because Amadou has a proven ability to use his pace to get us out of trouble and Burrell’s pace makes teams think twice about breaking too often and losing the ball back.
We’re playing with a team that’s had to play more football than usual (i.e. not being able to sub them off) because of injuries to other players: Smyth, Adamson, Kemper, Kamara have not been able to be swapped out on days where they haven’t been at their best.
Every team has bad spells but what we’ve been able to do so far this season unlike other ones is for them to turn into long runs of losses. I’ve been impressed how we’ve bounced back after losses to Birmingham and Southampton at least in terms of grinding out some kind of performance and not losing again.
We’ve been playing a combination of teams at their absolute best on the day - Southampton and Birmingham both were - and teams that dig in that we’ve always struggled against in Burnley and Lincoln and managed to get four points.
Be interesting to see how we do against Millwall. I fear they will profit from the international break to get their act together after their own personal slump recently. Also they’ll be motivated to beat us as there always seems to be a bit of needle there. Also Norwich who annoyingly are starting to play well just as we’re due to play them. I’m curious how we do against teams like Cardiff and Wrexham who are mid table which we haven’t had much of recently.
None of this is to rip apart your post Rbee which wasn’t unduly negative. It just prompted me to look at some of the reasons. |
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Reply | Lincoln Reflection
at 20:05 7 Nov 2026
Adamson also prevented a certain goal for them with his goal line clearance. Such an important block. |
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Reply | Match Thread: will QPR show NEW METTLE or will LINCOLN PARK the bus?
at 18:47 7 Nov 2026
Yes. When West Ham lost to Blackburn, Southampton to frigging Preston (can you imagine the uproar? ) and Bristol City 5-0 at home to Norwich, us beating Lincoln at home seems a pretty tame thing to be upset about.
We didn’t play particularly well although we had our moments but we have some definite quality in our team with Kamara, Ronnie, The Boy, Dunne and others. We also have other players who can be game changers like Smyth, Poku and Kone. We’ve got players getting back to their best like Chair and Cirkin. And we’ve got serious quality in the medical suite like Madsen, Burrell and Lamptey.
Since we’re back in the playoffs and on my calibration therefore slightly punching above our weight we should be pretty happy. |
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Reply | QPR pet peeves
at 22:31 4 Nov 2026
My pet peeve is taking that extra touch. At one point in the second half Kolli must have taken about five touches to get the ball under control or tweak it. Whatever, just pass it, dribble it anything but fart around with it and give it away.
Oh and I’m going to have another one: speak to each other. Yesterday you could hear Burnley players talking, giving instructions, communicating. We’re like blooming mice. There was the ball recently (against Southampton?) where Ronnie headed it but Charles hadn’t (presumably) called for him to leave it when he could have gathered it, it ended up with one of their players and I think they scored. Also another time Kone was behind Smyth and Smyth took the header when Kone would probably have scored. Just. Tell. Him. To. Leave. It. |
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Reply | 1-1....take that all day long.
at 08:31 4 Nov 2026
Just to say it’s not you personally! It’s just anyone starting a thread after the team lost when they started the previous one… |
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Reply | Burnley Reflection
at 08:29 4 Nov 2026
I think we miss Smyth on the wing when he plays up front. |
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Reply | Justin Obikwu
at 08:26 4 Nov 2026
Agreed. He looked okay. At least he was showing for the ball and trying to make things happen which is more than some of our team yesterday were doing. He was certainly not the only player to miss a decent chance either.
Obviously can’t say from just a brief cameo if he’s the messiah but he looks like he’s got some attributes that could be useful. |
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Reply | Cirkin
at 08:21 4 Nov 2026
I thought he looked good yesterday. He sometimes puts some decent balls in that no one gets on the end of which isn’t really his fault. He looked solid in defence and decent up front. Vale and Saito aren’t offering enough for us at the moment but that’s not our FB’s fault. They were given the ball enough times in decent positions but didn’t do enough with it.
Bit perplexed he’s the one being highlighted. |
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Reply | Burnley Reflection
at 08:16 4 Nov 2026
Kemper is carrying an injury and has played a lot since coming back from a fairly long injury. Chair has had a succession of injuries for the past two seasons and you think that both of them should have started? Righto…
You’re right that we have to be more realistic about whether we’re going to get in the play offs. Our first eleven has a very decent chance but as in the past injuries are killing us. But we don’t have some divine right to be in the playoffs. I still think if we manage it we’ll be punching above our financial weight.
However I am not writing them off every time we don’t get three points or toasting us with champagne and assuming it’s in the bag every time we do. It’s a long old season and we’re still within touching distance. |
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Reply | Justin Obikwu
at 07:35 3 Nov 2026
I don’t think the club should be putting out information if they think a player isn’t good enough. That would be ridiculous. It would be horrible for the player who’s an employee after all and deserves some degree of care. Also it doesn’t make any commercial sense.
Similarly why say he’s injury prone. Players after all can have a run of injuries and then sort it out so they haven’t got a crystal ball. The injury list itself is a different issue and needs to be resolved.
I would think the comms weren’t doing their job if they put out the kind of messages you seem to want. How is that going to attract other players. Of course they should be transparent about injuries but saying someone is crap would be crazy.
Transfers have always gone wrong at times - you just have to look at the list of players who’ve been on our books that none of us can remember now - but I didn’t want the club for example to say Celar was a massive mistake and he’s crap. Eventually we got something for him which is better than nothing. Sometimes you just have to read between the lines and not get too hot and bothered about it. |
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