Encouraging words from Joey... http://www.qpr.co.uk/news/article/310514-joey-barton-good-work-musnt-stop-here-1591726.aspx?
Very important that the team spirit that was so obviously cultivated isn't jeopardised by making too many changes. We have to be very careful with the players we bring in.
Dead right. We must keep the spine of the team, and limit incomings to a few very good players - about 5 max or we will risk another long settling in period, and have a team full of strangers again.
Looks like Steve Black is having a big influence on impressionable Joey. What spine players would you keep Jock? I've got Green/Cesar, Simpson (though he will offer little going forward in the Prem, he's a solid enough defender), Onuoha (though he desperately needs a ball playing CB next to him), Yun (untried, and I don't think Redknapp will pick him), Faurlin (if mobile), Granero (if mobile/up for it), Barton (though he's not a Prem level player), Philips (untried), Austin (untried) Hoilett (variable). Central defence, central midfield, and options everywhere else needed. It'll be more than 5, perhaps 3 or 4 as starters.
JB needs a premier class player in the middle with him. We haven't found our creative player yet. There is a missing link in our 'spine'. Where will it come from? I haven't heard of anyone for that spot yet.
I agree with your list but I'd add Clint, Dunne and BZ for another year even though they shouldn't be fixtures in the start 11, plus Traore and Henry maybe . Then there are M'bia, Adel, Remy, Krancjar and Ravel if they wanted to stay, who would add quality but probably will not be with us. I think we need a RB, a ball playing quick CB, a left wide midfield player as I see Yun and Traore as LB's, a striker, and a creative midfield player all very dependent on if the ones we have stay.
“It’s important that the right characters come to this football club now. This can’t be a place where good footballers come to die anymore,” TF understands this now. Let's hope he keeps Redknapp in check with his signings .
Strolls, you're a top bloke but given your recent record of predicting how we'd flop, I'd keep schtum for a while if I was you. Barton talks about the incredible team spirit they have now, yet instead of praising Redknapp for what frankly has been an unbelievable turnaround from the no-hopers and toxic dressing room we had last season, you give him Jip and hope he won't be allowed bring in any more of his kind of players? Incredible. Thank Christ "The QPR way" is way way in the past and never to return
I knew we would have to have this out at some point Swords. My prediction at the start of the season was that we would be promoted via the play-offs with Redknapp still in charge and I was right. It was around the time of the home defeat to Reading that I was saying that I coudn't see us getting promoted under Redknapp, because he seemed to have lost the plot. I was proved wrong of course, but I think that we were promoted despite Redknapp rather than because of him. I don't believe that the new-found team spirit was engendered by Redknapp, rather that it came from the senior players motivated by Steve Black, the sports psychologist. If Redknapp brought Black in then he deserves some credit for that, I suppose. Barton correctly makes the point that it would be wrong to go back to signing players at the end of their careers and this is what I think Redknapp would do if not kept in check by TF.
