QPR Post Match Thoughts

[DerekMiller]

I explained my thoughts on MT on the replacement for Taylor thread which you asked me to.
I don’t think it’s that we can’t get anyone better or we’re only Rotherham for me i go back to other managers who have tried to keep us up at this level.

All have either struggled or just about managed it. My feelings are that MT is capable of keeping us up.
Injuries/ poor selection bad luck have all contributed to our league position.
I feel at the moment that some are that convinced he’s got to go it’s like no I want a bike for Christmas and nothing else will be good enough he’s just got to go hasn’t he.
If we win Tuesday it still won’t be good enough for some.
I’m genuinely interested with our budget where in the league people think we should be.
I would say bottom 5 well we’re only a win and other results go our way and that’s where we are with a game in hand to.
The table is where our budget should put us. The tactics I understand people questioning but would the outcome be different maybe a couple more points but overall I’m not sure.

Since King Ronnie got us to the second tier back in 2001, we have played 13 seasons in the Championship. We have been relegated 4 times. Three of those were under Paul Warne, although I only think we can attribute two of those to him. His first season he took over from the Stubbs/Jackett fiasco and had never managed a first team game in his life so it was a foregone conclusion. The only other manager to take us down since 2001 was Mick Harford, and that was after taking over from a chaotic goodbye to Ronnie Moore's first reign. Harford tried to change the style we played. He adopted a passing game that was slightly prettier to watch and took us all the way to 24th in the table.

Ronnie, Evans and Warnock all kept us in this league by playing a well drilled, high press, blood and guts style that was never going to get us promoted but ensured we survived. Warne, in my opinion, just fell short. He played the same way, and in those two seasons that it was all his team and tactics, we fell short mainly because he kept a small squad that ran out of steam in the latter half of the season. This was a problem even in Warne's promotion seasons from League one and left us with nailbiting finishes. The reasons for the small squad are still debated to this day, with some saying TS didn't back Warne in January, others (including Warne himself) saying Warne didn't like a big squad and didn't want to sign more players than he felt comfortable with. Either way, for me that was Warne's undoing in the Championship.

So, your analogy about previous managers doesn't really hold up given that we have survived 9 of our last 13 attempts at this league with the same, or less, budget. For Taylor to achieve the vision of progressing us to the next level as a club, survival is a must. It's a basic criteria that we need to achieve as a minimum every season to allow incremental build.

His style of play is not working. He achieved an average of 1 point per game last season, which in fairness would have kept us up had he been there from day one, but only because Reading had points deducted. This season, his points per game tally will see us reach 33 points unless there is a massive turnaround in performances. For that to happen he needs to ditch this 4-3-3 nonsense with only one attacker on the pitch. But he has shown he is not willing to do this in must win games. Based on this, I genuinely can't see how he will turn it around. He's clearly not a motivator and his tactics have left us all baffled and frustrated.

I did read your comments on Taylor on the other thread and saw nothing to convince me that he can turn this around. One thing I did agree with though, is that he's found the Championship to be a shock and much harder than he realised. But I've not seen a single thing in the last year to make me think he's started to adapt