stanthemanisgod

It's not hat we're 3 levels behind QPR just as we weren't 3 levels behind City when they started spunking cash like the world was about to end. But in this world money translates to ambition. Club's lik QPR can talk about ambition whilst offering decent players very good wages, and the players can talk about joining for ambition safe in the knowledge their bank account is about to look an aweful lot healthier. But there's no chance they're complying with the UEFA FFP regs, so it's a bit of a gamble these days if you ask me. It's yet to be seen if UEFA will have the balls to implement the regs properly, but if they do where would that leave QPR?

I personally can't see who'd come in and offer the kind of money it would take to make us sell like that. The club must know that selling Bent would not be well received regardless of who we sign beforehand. Think even Lerner must know he doesn't have that much goodwill left to play with. Not saying it won't happen because who knows what's going on, but I think it would take a big bid to tempt the board and I just can't see where that would come from.

Those replacements would have to be keeping Bent out of the team on merit if the club were to risk selling Bent, this site would literally explode if he were to be sold. Playing devil's advocate though you could argue there's little point having him in the side if he's not geting a touch of the ball, so if any newly purchased players are better suited to our style (whatever that may be) then there might be the opportunity to 'cash in' on bent and more importantly reduce the wage bill further. Big, big gamble though because the majority of fans would be against selling the one recognised top player the club has left.

I very nearly went to the game on Sat, in the end I couldn't afford it with travel and tickets and I'm glad I didnt, not because of the performance, as poor as it was, but becuase of the booing at half time. I ask any of the posters on here who are prepared to admit to booing (if there are any on here, although I suspect there might be) what the purpose of the boos were? Do you think you needed to highlight to the manager that the performance was not good enough, that he could not see that being 3-0 down was not what the fans wanted? Were you hoping to get somebody sacked if so who? Were you hoping booing the players would fill them with confidence and inspire them to perform better in the second half? I am seriously interested in the mentality behind booing a new look team, with a new manager at half time in the first home game of the season.

Thing is we don't know who we were trying to sign. Bennet might be the target now because options a,b and c fell through. Equally we could have been thinking e'd be ok and the last 2 games have persuaded Randy to spend more cash.

No I think they see it too, what we dont see is what they're trying to do about it. I would also add that as fans we tend to fear the worse more than we hope for the best. Our squad is unlikely to be winning the league but it's not that bad. The final pice is we dont see how good the younger fringe players are, Lambo may well have had a good look and said fine, I'm happy Baker, Clark, Herd, Gardner, Bannan etc can do a job when asked to. The other thing is they're hardly going to come out and say yep you know what the squad is absolute dog shit, Ireland pisses us off too and the kids are never going to come good! On the West Ham game, yes chances were sparse but look at the side, new look back 4, N'zog the only regular starter in midfield, 4 players making their league debut? Combine that with a new manager and what seemed to be a new style of football and you can't expect it all to fall into place on day 1 of the season.

Thing is with players like Hutton and Warnock there's an emphasis on the player to buy into any proposed move. Club's will be interested in these players, and if we're desperate to get rid they'll probably be available tto them at an attractive price. But the stumbling block is more than likely their wages. Now the question is will these players accept a drop in pay to play somewhere else? Lambert clearly thinks that by stating in as clear a way as possible they're not getting anywhere near our first team that will force them to reconsider their position and be more willing to move on. Of course as we have seen with Beye for example some players are happy to get paid for doing nothing more than turning up to training. Without knowing either player personally it's impossible to tell what they're going to do, but their options seem clear. All we can do is hope they're bothered about actually playing and are thereofre participating in negotiations in good faith.

I blieve it's the wages that are the issue though. Think if Lambert identified a striker who would cost £15m but would sign on for £10k a week there'd be no issue. But we simply do not have the capacity to add players that would sit amongst our top earners without freeing up some room in the wage budget first.

Whilst I do agree that as a rule we should be looking for younger, 'hungrier' players, we're not in a position to discount players that clearly would improve what you consider to be a squad in the bottom quarer of the league in terms of quality. Andy Weiman is young, determined and 'hungry' but with 20 mins left and us needing a goal I think I'd rather have Defoe on the ptich than Weiman.

Bit early to be accusing anybody of lying, and even if no more players do come in its hardly enough to accuse the board of not backing the manager. A question I'm not expecting anybody outsiode of the club to have a definitive answer on is what does backing actually mean? Ask 100 Villa fans and you could potentially get 100 different figures,100 different lists of players etc. You may argue he hasn't been backed,I may argue he has.

Not sure how you're assessing the merits of our squad compared to others but even so it doesn't work that way, I would argue going into last season that Newcastle didn't look to have the 5th best squad in the league, Liverpool probably didn't have the 8th best squad in the league, we didn't have the 16th best squad in the league on paper etc etc. Did Norwich have the 12th best squad on paper? I would argue not so surely you have to proportion a lot of emphasis on the effect of the manager, the tactics, the confidence the squad has etc etc. Also you claim that we have the 13-14th best squad but then claim you're glad that a player that would improve that squad in Defoe is not coming, sure there's a phrase about having your cake and eating it.

I see the cause of your negativity to have to admit I'm not quite there yet myself. Signings, any old signings will not automatically improve the side, they need to be the right players, that fit in with what Lambo is trying to do here. I am sure he is doing everything he can to get those players but if nobody comes in I still believe we're in a much better position this year than we were last year. An effective team is much better than the sum of it's parts, as MoN proved time and time again. I liked the look of the team he selected against W Ham, a bit more of a natural LB and it's a good, not great, team. There is still plenty of quality around that team, Given can still produce the goods, Vlaar looks a decent player, Lowton has the potential to do well, KEA looked composed on the ball, Delph looked like the player we thought we signed. Ireland and N'zog as annoying as they are at times have bags of talent and can produce the spark needed to change a game if Lambo can get their heads right, Bent will score goals. On top of that we Gabby to come in, Albrighton can create chances, Bannan can use the ball well, the next batch of youngsters in Gardner, Carruthers (sp) and Graelish (sp) are knocking on the door, and Weiman looks handy if a little unpolished. I'm not denying we would benefit froma little more quality and experience throughout the squad but it's certainly far from the doom and gloom I'm reading from some on here. If Lambo can get that squad believing in themselves again then we'll be ok. The extra quality we know we need and we'll be back in a position to push back up to the right end of the league.

Think Lambert is looking at the squad in terms of potential more than past performances. Think N'Zog and Ireland will continue to get picked because of their potential to turn a game when the team is playing the right way, the way he seems to be movng us towards. Also when you think about the money we'd get for them both, the cost of replacements and wages couped with the potential to come in and be more effective from the start it makes more sense to keep them and do business in the areas we currently have no or little potential, LB being one, second striker being the other. Defoe would be big money in fee and wages but is a proven goalscorer in this league. we may stumble across the next Ba or Cisse but equally we could sign the next Balaban if we rely too heavily on unproven players. The overriding factor though is I'm confident in Lambert's ability to sign the bes players he can under the contraints he's facing, the constraints will mean it'll take longer to broker some deals than other so I think patience is required. Lets sit back and keep checking all the usual sources every 5 mins for the next week!!

We need to look past the money side of things though surely, it's about prestige. We claim to be a big club, a great club, but realistically are we any more? We won the euro cup 30 years ago, we won our last domestic trophy in the mid 90s, we qualified for europe a handful of times in the last 15 years. If we want Lambert and his team of scouts to sign young foreign talent we need to be raising the profile of the club on the continent and that is greatly asissted by playing in European competition. We want players we're approaching to know about our club, know about our players, know about our mentality without having to google us first (possibly a slight exageration as we're still a Premier league side) but the point remains. We all know we're not going to be paying stupid wages any more, and we're not London based so we need something to seperate ourselves from the other clubs hat will be sniffing around the same players.

Depends if UEFA have the balls to enforce their financial fairplay regs or not. City may have just snuck in at the right time as they can now show a huge increase in legitimate income, but I don't think QPR are going to able to blag selling the naming rights to their ground for £400m. And if they can't qualify for the CL (should they improve enough with all this cash) is the owner going to stick around?

Equally ignoring the wage bill is can be counter-productive. Whilst I too hope there is some flex in any figure agreed upon, we have to realise Lambert is working under a constrained mandate and in the long run that's for the best. Of course the squad is weaker than I want it to be but I'm a hell of a lot more optimistic looking at this years squad with Lambert in charge than I was looking at last years squad with McLeish in charge.

I'm not sure. Not convinced there's enough goals from Bent alone, equally the defence looks suspect even with Dunne. But that's why Lambo is paid the big bucks to make that decision. He'll have an idea on where Clark, Baker and Herd are, and also where The Fonz and Weiman are

So.... Lambert should walk away? Or he should be allowed to sign who he wants regardless of the club's finances? what's your point?

How are Ranger going to afford Hutton? Unless it's just a loan and we're paying some of his wages?

As we're running at a loss it might, should anything happen to Lerner and his cash. Depends who we would sign and on how much and if Warncok and Hutton are both sold next week or both pull a Habib Beye on us.

But they still released players in order to get new players in. If the wages of the 8 players they release or loaned out equate to the wages of Rodriguez then it can be argued there sold to buy. Also why would a player from Burnley's wages equate to the whole squads Championship and League 1 wages combined? Interesting theory.

Fair enough, so if it was Dunne or Defoe would you still pick Dunne?

Just one example I could be arsed to find, but counting more outgoing players than incoming........ Southampton Transfers – August 2012 17th August 2012 – Jonathan Forte – Southampton to Crawley – Loan 18th August 2012 – Lee Barnard - Southampton to Bournemouth – Loan Southampton Transfers – July 2012 6th July 2012 – Steven Davis – Rangers to Southampton - Free 19th July 2012 – Nathaniel Clyne - from Crystal Palace to Southampton – Undisclosed 20th July 2012 – Paulo Gazzaniga – Gillingham to Southampton - Undisclosed 20th July 2012 – Tommy Forecast – Southampton to Gillingham - Loan 28th July 2012 – Dan Harding – Southampton to Nottingham Forest - Undisclosed Southampton Transfers – June 2012 10th June 2012 – Jay Rodriguez – Burnley to Southampton – Undisclosed 15th June 2012 – Bartosz Bialkowski - Southampton to Notts County – FREE 20th June 2012 – Ryan Doble - Southampton to Shrewsbury - FREE Southampton Transfers – May 2012 21st May 2012 – Harlee Dean – Southampton to Brentford – FREE 29th May 2012 – Lee Holmes – Southampton to Preston North End - FREE

Don't completely disagree but even if the business could be done if you replace Ireland and N'Zog with 2 new players then taking Sat's line up into consideration you've basically got Given and Bent who are used to playing in that team in the position selected. Even if the 2 new players were a step up in quality I think it would be some time before we're creating shit loads of chances.

This as far as I can tell, from reading the Times today, is in the process of happening. In that Lambo has asked Faulkner for the go ahead to sign Defoe, I assume that is because Defoe would take him over the said agrred wage budget until other players are sold.