All posts tagged QPR

Undisclosed Fees are Warping Football

Yesterday, Queen’s Park Rangers brought Matt Phillips to London. In the past twelve months, the 22 year old winger has been eclipsed somewhat by the arrival on the scene of teammate Tom Ince, while injury hampered his progress in 2012-13.

Even allowing for the stuttering nature of the player’s career, also highlighted by an earlier, slightly bemusing loan spell at Sheffield United in 2011, he remains hot property given …

Have Football’s Boo Boys Gone Too Far?

It may have taken half an hour of the hors d’oeuvre clash between Porto and Napoli, but the largely partisan home crowd at Arsenal’s showpiece season opening ‘Emirates Cup’ have finally found a reason to become animated. Often noted for their quiet approach to both triumph and despair, the patrons of Ashburton Grove have laid to one side their sang froid and sputtered into a chorus of boos.

The …

Book Review: The Nowhere Men

The Nowhere Men by Michael Calvin
Published by Century
2013, £14.99

They are a mythical breed, not to say a forgotten one in these days where youtube videos are said to inspire signings, but, in an increasingly hybrid and varied form, soccer scouts continue to ply their trade – and yet it’s an aspect of the game that we as punters understand so little of.

Hence, Michael Calvin’s new …

TTU Go Predicting: Teams to Watch

After a 25-year absence, Newport County returned to the Football League in May with an extraordinary play-off final win over Wrexham. For a club who were wound up, reformed and exiled to Gloucestershire in the intervening years, it is a phenomenal and heart-warming achievement. What’s more, they actually look half-decent, and we certainly wouldn’t bet against them to carry last season’s winning form into League 2 and trouble the …

TTU Go Predicting: Trouble Ahead

Financially speaking – and the majority of us did interpret ‘trouble ahead’ through a fiscal lens when discussing potential candidates – this could be a tough year for Football League clubs. With a stifling economic outlook, more pressure will be on income streams and it may very well be that a greater number of clubs risk the wrath of the tax man and the authorities still in 2013-14. Indeed, …