The third home postponement of the season, the second at hideously late notice, due to weather leaves QPR 19th in the league and wondering when on earth our luck will change.

This article was originally going to be titled ‘random thoughts from the 1925’ but having found out our game with Watford was off at 1850, run to Shepherds Bush Market tube station from The Green, raced around the Circle Line at a snail’s pace and then sprinted like Linford Christie post substance abuse through St Pancras station I missed the 1925 by approximately six feet. I have since sat and spent £7.80 on a muffin and a coffee served to me by some pigeon English speaking moron who initially charged me £5.20 (which I thought was expensive anyway) and then laughed when he realised his mistake. Yeh, really fucking funny mate. At least Man Utd are losing.

With no midweek match report to write and consequently no copy to post on the now more opinion, rather than news, focussed LoftforWords a ‘This Week’ column would seem to be in order. Sadly as much as I tried to sit on the tube, that went just slow enough and waited for just the right amount of time at Edgware Road to cost me another hour of my life at St Pancras, and come up with some ideas and opinions nothing is really happening in my increasingly alcohol withered brain at the moment. I think it may have fallen out with me - it has after all spent the last five days trying to work out a budget for February and March that won’t see me into my overdraft at the end of it all now HSBC have been in touch warning me that paying £1200 in every month and removing up to twice that is not a viable situation to continue with. Spending another £32 on a train ticket only to be turned around and sent home again by our farcical football club and it’s pitch that floods whenever a footballer empties the contents of his nose onto it seems to have caused some sort of a stroke so rational, coherent thoughts are clearly beyond me. Can I lift my arms up and keep them there? No.

And so my plan goes like this. I have a 90 minute train journey ahead of me and rather than try and write considered, continuous prose about the increasingly desperate situation at Loftus Road I am simply going to sit and try and address the four or five stories circulating around QPR at the moment and offer my opinion on each of them. Whether this article will ever see the light of day remains to be seen but it shall pass the journey as we emerge into the sodden London night from under the St Pancras arch, a fierce announcement about the death penalty being imposed on anybody travelling with an advance purchase ticket on the wrong train ringing in our ears. So, yeh, anyway:

2015: Of course the reason I am on this train at all is because the game I was meant to be about ten minutes into by now against Watford was rained off. I’ve spoken before about how galling a late postponement can be for supporters, particularly those travelling long distances at great expense like myself, and there is a feeling that you’d rather have played the game and lost it than not played it at all. That subsides over the following days but there really are few feelings quite as disappointing as getting up for a game, even the way QPR are playing at the moment, and having it postponed at short notice.

Firstly, while of course accepting there is nothing anybody can do about extreme weather conditions, it does seem rather strange to me that QPR got for years and years without having a game postponed due to rain and then suddenly get two in a season after relaying the pitch. Especially strange when you consider that the biblical rain storm that put paid to the Palace match before Christmas didn’t do the same for numerous other games in and around the capital that night, including Chelsea just a couple of miles down the road. Similarly we were the only match off on Tuesday night as well.

Secondly I await the club’s apology for the total cock up on the official website tonight with great interest. Nobody can help the weather, nobody can help the odd game getting postponed, nobody is to blame - however to actually go out of your way between five and six to post a story on the official website stating that the game is definitely on despite the weather, only for it then to be called off an hour later is ridiculous. If you’re not sure then put that up, say there’s a pitch inspection and it’s in doubt. Don’t make a big point of posting a story saying “Game On” and then hide that away an hour later when it turns out to be a complete fabrication. That stalls were being packed up on South Africa Road at half six but we had to wait until 7pm for the confirmation, and that the official website posted a simple single line saying it was off, with no mention of the earlier ‘Game On’ statement, while Watford posted reams and reams of reaction and thoughts from their manager on their website merely serves to rub salt into the wounds. One wonders if the club is currently running a competition to see just how little they can get away with telling the supporters via official outlets - this is up there with the insulting ‘Wayne Routledge has left by the way’ statement that greeted his departure. QPR cannot stand up for falling down at the moment.

2027: So, Neil Warnock. Yes, to be perfectly honest I would be in favour of Colin being our new manager. In fact I’d brave the South London traffic to pick him up and drive him here myself. That may surprise you if you have read LFW before – I have been a regular critic of Warnock, his preferred style of football, his transfer policies, his tactics during Sheffield United’s one year stay in the Premiership and just about everything else about him.

Had you asked me two years ago when Luigi De Canio was the manager if I would like Warnock instead I’d have said no. If you’d given me a choice between him and Dowie I’d have picked Dowie, if I could have replaced Sousa with him a year ago I would have said no. However if a proven, experienced Championship manager who has won promotion from this division before and done a remarkable job in trying circumstances at Crystal Palace over the past three seasons is genuinely interested in coming here, to our circus, then frankly we should catch him in a big butterfly net and chain him to something before he comes to his senses. I’ve seen fans on message boards saying they don’t want him, or Curbishley, or Coppell – presumably still labouring under the deluded misapprehension that a Mourinho or Hiddink, or even a bloody Boothroyd or Pardew, would be blind to our recent history and take on this pig of a job just for shits and giggles. Before writing off Warnock, or anybody else, please do try and remember that we’ve just replaced Paul Hart with Mick Harford.

Palace are in administration, something Warnock is very unhappy about, and the suits running the joint are negotiating a takeover with Ron Noades who will appoint Steve Coppell as his manager should he take over. It could be a case of any port in a storm for Warnock who has intimated several times recently that he intends to retire shortly – six months of work followed by a big pay out, even if it is six months working for the idiots that run our club, might be just the job.

Or perhaps Warnock has been tipped off about developments in the boardroom at Loftus Road. Manchester United have scored, bastards. Rumours, that I will address shortly no doubt, of Amit Bhatia and Lakshmi Mittal buying Flavio Briatore’s stake in the club are gathering momentum and have overwhelming support among the QPR fans. The chance to manage a QPR side with potential, backed by the Indian duo’s millions, with total control of team and transfers would surely appeal to any manager in the Championship? Maybe that’s why Warnock is denying he has been approached by QPR – maybe he hasn’t, maybe he’s been approached by Bhatia to see if he would be interested if they takeover? Perhaps the potential appointment of an old style English manager to do everything might explain the sudden stories of Gianni Paladini’s demise – the shocking state of our playing squad and wage bill would make any man even partially responsible for it resign in shame under normal circumstances but I’ve a feeling our Sporting Director may need to look up ‘pride’ in the dictionary so we’re stuck with him until a change like this is enforced.

The stories say Warnock will cost us £1.5m. Without wishing to be crude, and bearing in mind Palace have just sold a winger worth at least £6m to Wigan for £2.5m of which they’ve seen nothing, my arse.

The appointment of Warnock would bring a proven and experienced manager into the Loftus Road dressing room. It would signal a change in policy on buying players, because there’s no way Warnock is going to sit behind a desk and wait for Paladini to present him with the next Patrick Agyemang. It may also bring an end to the player power culture that apparently riddles Loftus Road and has already done for Jim Magilton and Paul Hart. I cringed when I heard that Mick Harford is “a lovely fella” in a recent QPR Player interview because with our players currently playing so far within themselves it’s embarrassing to watch them the last thing we need is a ‘lovely fella’ and Warnock is certainly not that. If they ant to keep their ‘lovely fella’ in charge then they better start playing a whole lot better than they have been doing for the past couple of months otherwise they should take the manager they’re given and shut the hell up for a change. You cannot lose every match and play like idiots and then get all upset when the board brings a less than friendly manager in to sort you out. Still, the problem in modern day football is that the players hold all the power and if they simply won’t play for a manager there’s not a lot you can do. It stinks.

Curbishley, Coppell or O’Driscoll would still be my preferred choices but if Warnock’s available and willing to come then for Christ’s sake get him in here and let him get on with it for the next three years.

2047: Half time, QPR 0 Watford 2. Boo, rubbish, get off.

2100 Takeover rumours have been floating around this week as well. Amit Bhatia and Lakshmi Mittal are said to be keen to buy Flavio Briatore’s stake in the club and run it, hopefully, a little less farcically. This has been the dream ticket for many QPR fans for many months but I would suggest caution on a couple of fronts. Firstly we’ve been told for many months now that Bhatia and Mittal wouldn’t be interested in taking over from briatore, that they were backing away from QPR having initially seemed very keen indeed, and that they are in fact looking at investing in Leicester City instead. Now, suddenly, all that has changed. Why? Has it really? Did they ever lose interest in the first place?

Secondly this breaking rumour came with a qualifying ‘so whatever abuse you were thinking about doling out at the Watford game just save it for Saturday’ from those peddling it. Now I smell a bit of a rat there. I mean does Amit Bhatia not read newspapers? Have he and his father in law not been to a match for three months? Do they not speak to people? Are they totally unaware that Flavio Briatore has been copping increasing levels of abuse at home games for weeks now? If they are planning a takeover are they suddenly going to pull the plug on the whole thing because a few people shouted ‘sack the board’ during a Tuesday night home game with Watford? Do me a favour. One wonders if the timing of this sudden plea, and vague hints about lower season ticket prices and an end to the unpopular gold, silver and bronze pricing strategy for next season, coinciding with the first public, vocal and audible abuse for Gianni Paladini at a home match is more than sheer coincidence. Perhaps I’m being cynical.

If they really are interested in buying Flavio’s shares and taking over the club then thank God for that, let’s get it done as quickly as possible. While recent experience should tell us not to immediately fall at the feet of the first multi-millionnaire that comes along and Bhatia and Mittal could make just as big a pig’s ear of this “project” as Briatore has I would still be delighted to see them in charge. They know the club and have experience of what it’s been like over the past couple of years, they’re independently wealthy, far more so than Briatore, and they have made continued, concerted efforts to meet with supporters and talk to them rather than treating them like something they stepped in while out in the street like Briatore has done consistently. They would seem, on the face of it, to be a superb option for us.

The problem is a man as proud and ego driven as Briatore is not simply going to walk away from a disaster and lose face - expect him to either become more stubborn and cling on, or demand a handsome profit on his original investment to leave.

2123 Leicester. Just how important is the Easter fixture at the Walkers Stadium going to be? Marc Nygaard where are you when we need you?

2130 Ok that leaves me with a quarter of an hour or so on Sporting Director Gianni Paladini. I’ve actually had, in newspaper obituary style, the article for the day he leaves our club written for more than a year now and ready to go online at a moment’s notice. I was ready to go with it last week when the BBC reported he had resigned and his message board bum chums reported that the players had been told and were “in tears” at the news. Yet here we are a week later and he’s still here. The club denies he is going anywhere. It sort of leaves you wondering where the story came from in the first place - was it one of Gianni’s infamous fits of peak in the wake of the abuse he got at the Ipswich game? Who knows?

As I say, I shall write in inordinate detail exactly what I think of Paladini’s time at QPR the day he leaves, however for now I would say firstly the personal abuse he has had from sections of the support base is out of order and I think he did very well to beg steal and borrow enough to keep the club going as long as he did when chairman, and the players were never once not paid their wages. I do feel there have been people at QPR desperate for him to fail right from the start because of the way he took over the club from Bill Power.

However his insecurity when it comes to wanting the supporters to like him, the way he tries to manipulate certain supporters to spread his unofficial message, and the unprofessional way he drinks/socialises with/takes managers to meet his select, hand picked group of fans has done and continues to do huge damage to the club. It has cost us a manager who is currently fourth in this division with a Swansea squad shorn of its three best players and charismatic manager in the summer. I felt the way he was allowed to get away with calling Paulo Sousa a ‘c***’ to a group of supporters outside Derby’s ground before our match there last season, and then again after the home defeat to Ipswich, was a disgrace - particularly as Sousa himself was then dismissed for having a conversation about the club that then ended up on message boards and was not deleted when it should have been. Long term QPR fans and employees have been ostracised by the club while he has been here and that is a great shame. In my opinion he will always look to secure his own position first and foremost, whether it be for the good of the club or not.

Even if you ignore all of that the simple fact is the Sporting Director at QPR advises the board on the playing side of things, identifies potential targets and negotiates transfer deals. We are currently 19th, threatened by relegation and have lost our last five matches. We are essentially back where we started when Briatore first arrived here and have spent millions in transfer fees, wages, signing on fees, agents fees and all the rest besides getting there. Four of the signings made since the takeover were all bummed off in January, three of them on loan with us still paying portions of their wages. How the man at least partially if not wholly responsible for these signings can see his position as tenable is beyond me. The running totals on our season ticket renewal poll really should tell the club everything it needs to know.

2142 East Midlands Parkway. What a thoroughly odd place to build a mainline railway station. Still, what’s £32 between QPR fans and railway companies? We’ll try again on Saturday.

Photo: Action Images

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