The Dof

[CroydonCaptainJack]

Proves my point on the "Good news coming" thread

Dos this now make you hits' 'fiancee' then Dave?

[hal9thou]

I understand Hits' frustration.

I think most people would accept that Les's appointment was questionable and reactive. It was really Uncle running for cover with a sore backside after heavy agent predation.

It just seems really odd that having decided on that course of action, he chose someone with absolutely no experience of the role.

In doing so, he arguably compromised our ability to secure quality management (which might have obviated the need for DoF in the first place).

[davieqpr]

I think we need a talisman back. I see that Adel is still without a club.......

And why?

[klonk]

I understand Hits' frustration.

I think most people would accept that Les's appointment was questionable and reactive. It was really Uncle running for cover with a sore backside after heavy agent predation.

It just seems really odd that having decided on that course of action, he chose someone with absolutely no experience of the role.

In doing so, he arguably compromised our ability to secure quality management (which might have obviated the need for DoF in the first place).

On the other hand, you could strongly argue that the board spent and lost a lot of money backing a series of 'quality management' types - the beloved Colin, the never-been-in-a-relegation-scrap Hughes and Mr triffic. Each change of manager involved getting rid of large chunks of the old squad for peanuts and expensively assembling a new squad.

a difficult should bring along a longer term strategic view (and arguably has done).

In my view, it's not a coincidence that ferdinand's arrival began the process of the accounts improving.

[QPRDave]

On the other hand, you could strongly argue that the board spent and lost a lot of money backing a series of 'quality management' types - the beloved Colin, the never-been-in-a-relegation-scrap Hughes and Mr triffic. Each change of manager involved getting rid of large chunks of the old squad for peanuts and expensively assembling a new squad.

a difficult should bring along a longer term strategic view (and arguably has done).

In my view, it's not a coincidence that ferdinand's arrival began the process of the accounts improving.

Er Colin as you seem to flippantly call him won us the title, if anyone on here is a colin it's you.....
Mr Warnock didn't spend anything like the other two, but facts eh, not something that matters to you

[James1979]

On the other hand, you could strongly argue that the board spent and lost a lot of money backing a series of 'quality management' types - the beloved Colin, the never-been-in-a-relegation-scrap Hughes and Mr triffic. Each change of manager involved getting rid of large chunks of the old squad for peanuts and expensively assembling a new squad.

a difficult should bring along a longer term strategic view (and arguably has done).

In my view, it's not a coincidence that ferdinand's arrival began the process of the accounts improving.

I don’t see how any Qpr fan can have a dig at Warnock and imply that Les has done more than him. When Warnock took over we were just outside relegation zone of the championship. I’m just over 1 season, we were promoted to prem as champions. We’re still surviving off parachute money from the Prem. Cutting costs is easy. Cutting costs but improving our league position now that would deserve praise.....we don’t seem to be able to do that!

[klonk]

I don’t see how any Qpr fan can have a dig at Warnock and imply that Les has done more than him. When Warnock took over we were just outside relegation zone of the championship. I’m just over 1 season, we were promoted to prem as champions. We’re still surviving off parachute money from the Prem. Cutting costs is easy. Cutting costs but improving our league position now that would deserve praise.....we don’t seem to be able to do that!

i wasn't having a dig and i didn't imply that les had done more... what i was saying is that there was no strategy or sense to how the club was being run pre-dof position.

regardless of who the dof is, it was absolutely mental to continually buy players for big money that we then struggled to offload after we sacked the manager that had bought them - which was happening once a season.

we tend to bawl our eyes out at the fact that we sold, say, smithies at a criminally low price. but smithies, a ferdinand-era recruit, even at £3m still represents a decent profit on a £1m fee. overall, if smithies was on, say £15k a week, then his overall cost for 3 years (wages + transfer fee) was £3.25m, so we recouped nearly every penny spent. maybe, it's not great business, but arguably it's better than...

shaun wright-phillips (a warnock era signing) - fee not clear, somewhere between £3-6m, no resale value, 3 year contract at roughly £50k a week (total cost to club approx £40m)

see also... armand traore, anton ferdinand, joey barton, kieron dyer, luke young.

hughes did the same - although he did at least bring in onouha

redknapp did the same - did at least bring in austin (maybe could also argue that remy and robinson were decent signings).

then look at the ferdinand era signings. sure there are a couple of supposed disasters - jet, washington, el-khayeti, gladwin - and some risks that didn't pay off - yeni, borysiuk - but there are also a number of decent signings - hall, manning, luongo, smithies, polter, freeman, wsolek, scowen - players who have performed well and who have increased in value while they were here.

you can argue that les shouldn't be dof, but to claim that we had a better, more sensible approach to signing players under the current owners before he came along makes no sense at all to me.

[qprjeff1882]

That is an excellent post and I struggle to see how some can't see the good he has done on relatively minimal experience in his role. However I think some may be looking at how we have let potential signings slip through our fingers (some we may never have been in for) and have recruited less and less as time has gone on although this may not be down to Les at all and might be down to the clubs finances of which Les and Lee have done a fantastic job to try and improve things since the Phil Beard days. I bet Les is as frustrated as any fan and would love to money to buy players better than we have been doing.

[James1979]

Warnock earnt the right to spend that cash as he got us promoted. It wasn’t those signings that you listed that bankrupted us. I do blame Barton for destroying the club spirit though and destroying players like Adel. Warnock was also rushed into signings given timing of takeover......he would have liked Routledge rather than swp i’m sure.

On Les - my issue is his choice of managers and fact that we had an opportunity to get Warnock back and we missed out. That is criminal. Look at Cardiff. Woeful side, yet got promoted and now enjoying riches of the premier league.

[James1979]

That is an excellent post and I struggle to see how some can't see the good he has done on relatively minimal experience in his role. However I think some may be looking at how we have let potential signings slip through our fingers (some we may never have been in for) and have recruited less and less as time has gone on although this may not be down to Les at all and might be down to the clubs finances of which Les and Lee have done a fantastic job to try and improve things since the Phil Beard days. I bet Les is as frustrated as any fan and would love to money to buy players better than we have been doing.

No - choice of managers has been my issue.

[QPRDave]

i wasn't having a dig and i didn't imply that les had done more... what i was saying is that there was no strategy or sense to how the club was being run pre-dof position.

regardless of who the dof is, it was absolutely mental to continually buy players for big money that we then struggled to offload after we sacked the manager that had bought them - which was happening once a season.

we tend to bawl our eyes out at the fact that we sold, say, smithies at a criminally low price. but smithies, a ferdinand-era recruit, even at £3m still represents a decent profit on a £1m fee. overall, if smithies was on, say £15k a week, then his overall cost for 3 years (wages + transfer fee) was £3.25m, so we recouped nearly every penny spent. maybe, it's not great business, but arguably it's better than...

shaun wright-phillips (a warnock era signing) - fee not clear, somewhere between £3-6m, no resale value, 3 year contract at roughly £50k a week (total cost to club approx £40m)

see also... armand traore, anton ferdinand, joey barton, kieron dyer, luke young.

hughes did the same - although he did at least bring in onouha

redknapp did the same - did at least bring in austin (maybe could also argue that remy and robinson were decent signings).

then look at the ferdinand era signings. sure there are a couple of supposed disasters - jet, washington, el-khayeti, gladwin - and some risks that didn't pay off - yeni, borysiuk - but there are also a number of decent signings - hall, manning, luongo, smithies, polter, freeman, wsolek, scowen - players who have performed well and who have increased in value while they were here.

you can argue that les shouldn't be dof, but to claim that we had a better, more sensible approach to signing players under the current owners before he came along makes no sense at all to me.

And the ferdinand signings sold way under market value, by?....Oh yeah

[klonk]

And the ferdinand signings sold way under market value, by?....Oh yeah

usually market value is what someone is willing to pay for something... name me a player, other than charlie austin (who as far as i understood it didn't fancy moving to leicester... although i wonder if he now regrets that), that we sold for less than someone else was offering.

[klonk]

Warnock earnt the right to spend that cash as he got us promoted. It wasn’t those signings that you listed that bankrupted us. I do blame Barton for destroying the club spirit though and destroying players like Adel. Warnock was also rushed into signings given timing of takeover......he would have liked Routledge rather than swp i’m sure.

On Les - my issue is his choice of managers and fact that we had an opportunity to get Warnock back and we missed out. That is criminal. Look at Cardiff. Woeful side, yet got promoted and now enjoying riches of the premier league.

you're right, warnock's signings didn't bankrupt us (after all, we didn't actually go bankrupt), but not one of them generated a profit that i can think of. swp did cost us about £40m overall, for very little return on the football pitch. the contracts that were given out under warnock were generous and paved the way for the even greater madness of hughes and redknapp. it's worth remembering that warnock did sign some absolutely terrible players prior to uncle's arrival (chimbonda, leon clark etc) as well as afterwards... his record at places like sheff utd was similar and in many ways he was closer to the redknapp school than the direction that the club appeared to want to go in at the time of jfh's appointment. who knows what would have happened if he had stayed (apart, of course, from the 'les out' mystics)

to what extent any of the three managers should carry blame for their signings is debatable... the board agreed the transfer fees and the wages for all signings after all and they are the ones who should shoulder the vast majority of the blame. what i am arguing though, is that the approach to player recruitment and sales during the 3 managers was madness.

maybe ferdinand is not the best dof, maybe there are many better out there... but i just don't see, given what happened before we had a dof, how anyone can argue that player recruitment was incredibly successful before having a dof.

[hal9thou]

maybe ferdinand is not the best dof,

The point I was making was pretty simple.

TF need to ringfence himself from the sharks who'd been circling (and feeding) since pretty much the day he turned up. They saw him coming. As had Bernie re Caterham.

A DoF was deemed to be the solution. Irrespective of whether or not it was the right solution, under the circs it surely made sense to give the job to someone with experience in the role?

Fernandes didn't do that. I think when that happened I realised he genuinely didn't have a clue. Before that I'd only suspected it.

[James1979]

you're right, warnock's signings didn't bankrupt us (after all, we didn't actually go bankrupt), but not one of them generated a profit that i can think of. swp did cost us about £40m overall, for very little return on the football pitch. the contracts that were given out under warnock were generous and paved the way for the even greater madness of hughes and redknapp. it's worth remembering that warnock did sign some absolutely terrible players prior to uncle's arrival (chimbonda, leon clark etc) as well as afterwards... his record at places like sheff utd was similar and in many ways he was closer to the redknapp school than the direction that the club appeared to want to go in at the time of jfh's appointment. who knows what would have happened if he had stayed (apart, of course, from the 'les out' mystics)

to what extent any of the three managers should carry blame for their signings is debatable... the board agreed the transfer fees and the wages for all signings after all and they are the ones who should shoulder the vast majority of the blame. what i am arguing though, is that the approach to player recruitment and sales during the 3 managers was madness.

maybe ferdinand is not the best dof, maybe there are many better out there... but i just don't see, given what happened before we had a dof, how anyone can argue that player recruitment was incredibly successful before having a dof.

You can’t focus on swp and others without looking at Derry, Hill, Kenny, Adel, Mackie, Orr, Routledge......all top signings and provided us with a season that probably won’t be bettered in my lifetime. Warnock’s job, as every managers job should be, was to make us a better team and to progress. We went from 4th bottom in the championship to the premier league. And when we had a chance to get that same manager back, the dynamic duo that is Hoos and Les decided to go for good old Jimmy. Look how he’s done since.....

The damage financially was done after Warnock left not before.