FM2005: Loftus Road to host Premiership football again

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by KevinNU7

Looks like a close race for Top 6! Coming right down to the wire. Who are you last two games against, and who is Tottenham and Charlton have to play still?

It's indeed a close race

We still have to play #10 Blackburn on the road and we finish with a dandy of a game against Charlton at Loftus Road, a game that could very well decide just about everything between our three teams...

Charlton will play #15 Birmingham at home before coming to Loftus Road and Tottenham have a tough home game against #3 Arsenal before finishing with an apparently easy road game against #20 Leicester.

FM

[Kokoshin]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

I still won't spoil it. I see kokoshin's been reading for almost the last hour or so, got a lot of catchin' up to do

Well, I usually don't post here, but read the forums everyday. Your dynasty made me dust off my old FM2005 copy and started yesterday a career with Spanish 2nd Division Cordoba in an effort to save them from relegation and then move in to the showdown.

I must say I'm impressed with your posts. I'm learning a lot in the process.

Keep it up, you're almost in Europe

K.

[KevinNU7]

What's going on in the CL in your dynasty?

[finketr]

Originally Posted by KevinNU7

What's going on in the CL in your dynasty?

I think teams are playing and some are winning and some are losing.

[FrogMan]

May 1st, 2007
The team board is still delighted with my work as manager. They have good reasons to be, as I came in 3rd for Manager of the Month in the EPL. GO ME!!!

May 3, 2007
Ahh, those two headlines again...

"Tomasson rejects Milan offer"
"Tomasson accepts Q.P.R. offer"



As I said before, I believe he could step right into our starting eleven with maybe a little period of adaptation. He at least already speaks English, which gives him a headstart over my three Italian signees of a year ago. He will join us on August 1st and you can see his profile below...


Well, talk about an ambitious kid. Steve Singh has revealed that not being part of the first team at Loftus Road is beginning to unsettle him. The 18yo defender is unhappy that he continually finds himself an onlooker when the first team play and has said that he will be looking to leave the club if he doesn't break into the first team soon.

I've never thought of Singh as a steady first-teamer although I must say that his skills have improved since playing that one league game with the senior squad. I may look into playing him every once in a while next season, but only next season. Now is not the time to try and make a youngster happy...

Oh, look at that...

"Sánchez rejects Salamanca offer"
"Sánchez accepts Q.P.R. offer"



As I said before, I think he will provide solid depth at the striker position. This signing also means that Paul Dickov won't be offered a new contract. Sánchez will also join us on August 1st and you can see his profile below.



I find it kind of nice that they both decided to reject offers from their current club in order to sign with us, as had happened almost with all the signees so far this season. It at least means I'm not signing players that nobody cared about, not even their current club...

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Kokoshin

Well, I usually don't post here, but read the forums everyday. Your dynasty made me dust off my old FM2005 copy and started yesterday a career with Spanish 2nd Division Cordoba in an effort to save them from relegation and then move in to the showdown.

I must say I'm impressed with your posts. I'm learning a lot in the process.

Keep it up, you're almost in Europe

K.

Good, I'm happy I made somebody play the game, even if it's dusting off their old version of it

Thanks for the compliments too, very appreciated. I find it kinda cool that you can learn something from what I'm doing. Remember, FM2005 is the first iteration of CM/FM that I've played with any kind of seriousness. I'd brushed off with CM4, but FM2005 is really the version that took over my life What I mean is this: I'm probably making tons of mistake still, but I'm havbing fun

Keep reading.

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by finketr

I think teams are playing and some are winning and some are losing.

LOL! very funny mister, although by only reading this dynasty, one could think the Champions League doesn't even exist in my football world. Thing is, I'm a bit of an egocentric in FM2005, in a sense that I pay a lot of attention to my own team, its players, who we play against, what we can or cannot achieve, but I don't always pay attention to outside competitions (i.e. World Cup, Euro Cup, CL, other national series). I read all of the media announcements with variable degree of interest, but I save my note taking (and therefore my reporting) to what concerns my team and players.

I'll see what's going on in the CL tonight when I fire up the game...

FM

[FrogMan]

May 5, 2007

Pkd	Inf	Name	Position	Morale	Form	Con	Apps	Gls	Av Rat
GK		Chris Day	GK	Superb	7-8-9-7-8	100%	28 (4)	-	7.28
DR		Steve Finnan	D/DM R	Superb	7-8-7-8-7	100%	16 (4)	-	7.15
DL		Michael Ball	D/DM L	Superb	7-8-7-7-7	100%	34 (1)	-	7.14
DC		Pascal Cygan	D C	Superb	8-7-7-7-7	100%	32	-	7.28
DC		Abubakari Yakubu	D/DM RC	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	34 (2)	1	7.31
DMC		Freddy Guarín	DM RC	Superb	7-8-7-7-7	100%	30 (5)	5	7.11
MR	Yel	Damiano Zenoni	DM RC	Superb	8-7-8-7-7	99%	28 (6)	2	7.21
ML		Peter Løvenkrands	F LC	Superb	8-7-7-8-7	100%	19 (16)	4	7.23
AMC	Yel	Tomas Locatelli	AM LC	Poor	7-8-7-8-5	100%	17 (10)	2	7.26
FC		Güiza	S C	Okay	7-8-7-9-6	99%	33 (4)	16	7.14
FC		Cristiano Lucarelli	S C	Okay	7-7-7-7-6	99%	25 (9)	14	6.94
S1	Unh	Generoso Rossi	GK	Okay	7-7-8-6-6	100%	13 (1)	-	6.93
S2	Yel	Fábio Rochemback	DM C	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	13 (12)	-	6.96
S3		Fabrice Fernandes	AM RL	Superb	7-7-7-8-6	100%	23 (13)	3	7.36
S4		Martin Rowlands	AM RC	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	98%	12 (19)	3	7.03
S5		Cedric van der Gun	AM/F C	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	21 (5)	4	7.23
-	Sus	Danny Shittu	D C	Very Poor	7-8-8-8-5	100%	35	1	7.31
-	Inj	Grzegorz Rasiak	S C	Superb	8-7-7-7-7	61%	14 (1)	5	7.13
-	Wnt	Paul Dickov	S C	Superb	8-7-7-7-7	100%	4 (4)	3	7.13

League Match #37: we play Blackburn on their pitch. They're currently in 10th place and are 6-4 favourites to win this game.

One other game is of interest to us today and that's #7 Charlton hosting #15 Birmingham. They're tied with us in points, but we hold a big advantage in goald differential, the first tiebreaker.

Abubakari Yakubu is in for the banned Danny Shittu, just as he was right after the sending off.

We take a 1-0 lead in teh 11th minute, when Cristiano Lucarelli scores his 15th goal of the season. Güiza's incredible vision created that goal when he launched a delicious 55 yard pass ahead of Lucarelli. Lucarelli simply had the keeper to beat at that point. Up 1-0!

They tie the game in the 25th minute, when they get the ball behind our line of defenders with two very quick passes, which they finish with a precise top corner strike. Tied 1-1.

But we get right back at them, not even 2 minutes later when Güiza squirms himself between their two centrebacks only to fire once and then get his own rebound to bury it and give us back the lead. Up 2-1!

They tie it again before the half, in the 38th minute to be exact, when a throw-in played short is centered, then tipped in behind Chris Day. Tied 2-2.

Chris Day was showing a rating of 6 even before the goal and I pull him out, replacing him with Generoso Rossi.

We almost went down one before the half is over but Rossi saved an almost certain goal in the 44th minute.

2-2 is the halftime score and we're outshooting them 8(4) to 6(3). Possession is pretty even too.

Peter Lovenkrands takes the ball to the byline in the 48th minute where he centers the ball to Lucarelli. He tries a shot from close range but it's deflected and a scramble ensues. Güiza is the last to get to the loose, last before it goes behind the keeper. Up 3-2!!!

Final Score: Q.P.R. 3, Blackburn 2

We outshot them 15(8) 13(5) on the game, a great win on the road!!!

Peter Lovenkrands got selected as Man of the Match with a rating of 8, but seven other players also rated at 8: Ball, Cygan, Zenoni, Guarín, Locatelli, Güiza, Lucarelli, and Rossi! Wow, in the stats of the game, I see that Güiza went for 17 headers but won only 4 of them. He must have been jumping up and down all game long...

Charlton drew 0-0 with Birmingham, meaning we're now all alone in 5th place!!!

Pos	Inf	Team		Pld	Won	Drn	Lst	For	Ag	G.D.	Pts
1st	C	Chelsea		37	28	5	4	89	37	+52	89
2nd		Man Utd		36	23	6	7	63	33	+30	75
3rd		Liverpool		37	21	7	9	47	26	+21	70
4th		Arsenal		36	21	6	9	82	36	+46	69
5th		Q.P.R.		37	17	9	11	60	43	+17	60
6th		Charlton		37	16	9	12	53	48	+5	57
7th		Tottenham		36	15	11	10	51	40	+11	56
8th		Newcastle		36	14	12	10	44	37	+7	54
9th		Aston Villa		37	13	12	12	49	42	+7	51
10th		Blackburn		37	12	13	12	40	39	+1	49
11th		Fulham		36	13	9	14	54	51	+3	48
12th		Man City		37	11	13	13	41	46	-5	46
13th		Southampton		37	9	17	11	44	51	-7	44
14th		Middlesbrough		37	9	15	13	45	53	-8	42
15th		Birmingham		37	9	15	13	34	42	-8	42
16th		Wolves		36	8	11	17	35	56	-21	35
17th		Nottm Forest		37	8	10	19	23	54	-31	34
18th	R	Sunderland		37	6	11	20	29	62	-33	29
19th	R	Bolton		37	6	10	21	27	67	-40	28
20th	R	Leicester		37	3	9	25	26	73	-47	18

Even better, with a three points lead over them and our big advantage in goal differential over them (+17 to +5), they would have to beat us by more than 12 goals to pass us. Now remains to be seen what Tottenham will do in their game against Arsenal tomorrow. One thing is now for sure, we have clinched 6th place at the worst, that's the EURO Vase at the worst. Rangers have qualified for Europe BABY!!!

In other news, Sunderland and Bolton have both been relegated from the EPL today.

I'm also told that Güiza's 18 goals in competitive matches in the season are a new Q.P.R. record, sweet!


FM

[FrogMan]

May 6, 2007
I don't often comment on other managers either in the EPL or around the world, but this news is big in my opinion. Rafa Benitez has decided to leave Liverpool to go manage Valencia. Liverpool will be looking for a new manager.

Also, it looks like the Arsenal board appear to be losing patience with manager Arsène Wenger. They were just passed by Liverpool in 3rd place but they have a game on hand. It is rumoured in the press that a bad result in their next league match would seal his fate.

And that next match is played today. In a good break for us, Arsenal beat #7 Tottenham, 3-2 and Wenger's job is safe, for the moment at least...

Pos	Inf	Team		Pld	Won	Drn	Lst	For	Ag	G.D.	Pts
1st	C	Chelsea		37	28	5	4	89	37	+52	89
2nd		Man Utd		37	23	7	7	64	34	+30	76
3rd		Arsenal		37	22	6	9	85	38	+47	72
4th		Liverpool		37	21	7	9	47	26	+21	70
5th		Q.P.R.		37	17	9	11	60	43	+17	60
6th		Charlton		37	16	9	12	53	48	+5	57
7th		Tottenham		37	15	11	11	53	43	+10	56
8th		Newcastle		36	14	12	10	44	37	+7	54
9th		Aston Villa		37	13	12	12	49	42	+7	51
10th		Fulham		37	13	10	14	55	52	+3	49
11th		Blackburn		37	12	13	12	40	39	+1	49
12th		Man City		37	11	13	13	41	46	-5	46
13th		Southampton		37	9	17	11	44	51	-7	44
14th		Middlesbrough		37	9	15	13	45	53	-8	42
15th		Birmingham		37	9	15	13	34	42	-8	42
16th		Wolves		36	8	11	17	35	56	-21	35
17th		Nottm Forest		37	8	10	19	23	54	-31	34
18th	R	Sunderland		37	6	11	20	29	62	-33	29
19th	R	Bolton		37	6	10	21	27	67	-40	28
20th	R	Leicester		37	3	9	25	26	73	-47	18

This means that Tottenham now can't get get to us and with our goal differential versus Charlton's, it also means that we just clinched 5th and we qualify for the EURO CUP in 2007/08!!! WEEHEEEE!!!!!

GO RANGERS!!!



May 7, 2007
Pascal Cygan has been selected to the EPL Team of the Week.


Even though it is meaningless, #8 Newcastle lost again 2-3, to #16 Wolves this time.
May 12, 2007
I the "department of useless but nice" information, I learn that our U18 squad has won the Title of England U18 group 5. Cool! Here is their group table:

Pos	Inf	Team		Pld	Won	Drn	Lst	For	Ag	G.D.	Pts
1st	C	Q.P.R.		24	16	6	2	47	18	+29	54
2nd		Charlton		24	16	4	4	38	16	+22	52
3rd		Arsenal		24	15	4	5	32	16	+16	49
4th		Fulham		24	11	6	7	31	30	+1	39
5th		Reading		24	10	5	9	27	28	-1	35
6th		Crystal Palace		24	7	10	7	26	26	0	31
7th		West Ham		24	8	7	9	26	32	-6	31
8th		Chelsea		24	8	6	10	23	29	-6	30
9th		Swansea		24	7	5	12	19	31	-12	26
10th		Millwall		24	6	7	11	23	28	-5	25
11th		Cardiff		24	4	10	10	21	26	-5	22
12th		Gillingham		24	4	7	13	24	36	-12	19
13th		Bristol C		24	4	3	17	15	36	-21	15

FM

[KevinNU7]

5th! Congrats!!!!

[gi]

Nice to see a Frog in Europe!

[Kokoshin]

Congrats for getting into UEFA Cup. I guess the bosses will have to open the bank account for you to be competitive in a demanding year.

One funny thing I noticed (I mean funny as strange) is that you pull your GK as soon as you see him in trouble or having a bad day. I mean strange because in almost 30 years I'm watching football (and I watch a lot, I'm currently watching Real Madrid CL game...) I don't recall having a keeper pulled for a bad outing more than a couple of times... you seem to take a "hockey" approach here. Hope you don't need to bench your new signing a lot

As an additional request, could you post the most impact transfers in your league? Just 4 or 5 to see how much money is involved and what players are...

Good job, coach, keep it up

K.

[SirFozzie]

I called it!

[finketr]

i thought for sure i voted for europe...

i suck

kokoshin, i could post mine but i overpay for players since i have the mad russian bankrolling me.

[Kokoshin]

Originally Posted by finketr

kokoshin, i could post mine but i overpay for players since i have the mad russian bankrolling me.

Sure. Joaquin, Adriano, Casillas, Reyes.... even the mad russian could go broke with these signings

btw, you have 3 Adrianos in your roster. I guess it should lower the cost of printing the shirts, huh?

K.

(edited: I included and then deleted Kezman who, at the start of FM 2005 is in fact playing for Chelsea)

[daedalus]

Observations:

What a tank job by Newcastle. SI is JUST that damn good!

Ironic for Benitez to leave Liverpool to go back to Valencia. That's just funny.

Tomasson is a really nice player in real life. He also always seem to kick my arse in CM/FM.

And, obviously, CONGRATS on getting into European play!

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by KevinNU7

5th! Congrats!!!!

Thanks, now you see why I wasn't so concerned with my magic number for avoiding the drop

Although I'd never dreamed we'd finish 5th

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by gi

Nice to see a Frog in Europe!

thank you to a longtime reader!

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Kokoshin

Congrats for getting into UEFA Cup. I guess the bosses will have to open the bank account for you to be competitive in a demanding year.

Thanks! I'm not so sure I'll be incline to spend much, I've not been raised like that. I mean I got used to get by with free transfers and such and look at how well it played out for us this season. The core of our starting eleven is coming back next season, so I may be tempted to see if we can upgrade on a couple of spots, but otherwise I may wait and see until the January transfer window comes...

Originally Posted by Kokoshin

One funny thing I noticed (I mean funny as strange) is that you pull your GK as soon as you see him in trouble or having a bad day. I mean strange because in almost 30 years I'm watching football (and I watch a lot, I'm currently watching Real Madrid CL game...) I don't recall having a keeper pulled for a bad outing more than a couple of times... you seem to take a "hockey" approach here. Hope you don't need to bench your new signing a lot

hehehe, hockey approach, never thought of that, maybe I do. Honestly, I went more with how I felt the guys were responding. I knew that Day was good at coming back to his feet following one bad performance, so I didn't hesitate to start him in back to back games even though he'd just had a shaky one. Rossi on the other hand, when in a funk, was able to line a few bad ones in a row. And then, when I replaced one out of sheer frustration and saw that his backup had a good finish to the game, I figured the game was just like that and I went with it. With only three subs to use in a game, it always costs me to use one on my keeper, but I'm fairly certain it gave us a couple wins/draws we'd never seen without that manoeuver...[/quote]

Originally Posted by Kokoshin

As an additional request, could you post the most impact transfers in your league? Just 4 or 5 to see how much money is involved and what players are...

I forgot to look that up last night. I'll try to think about it as I plow through this coming offseason and will post about the most important moves...

FM

[FrogMan]

Regarding this:

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

I called it!

and this:

Originally Posted by finketr

i thought for sure i voted for europe...

Nobody actually voted for Europe. Five voted for "Close to Europe (7th to 9th finish)" and they were: finkenst, mrkilla22, SirFozzie, tanglewood, and terpkristin.

BUT... to his credit, SirFozzie did say this in the poll thread:

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

I think The R's can get to Europe, but I think they'll finish just outside.

So yeah, he kinda, sorta called it. Good show Foz!

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by daedalus

What a tank job by Newcastle. SI is JUST that damn good!

I'm gonna show my lack of EPL knowledge (which will hopefully change now that we're getting FSW among our TV channels and I see shows like "The EPL Review Show", weehee!!!), but do they do that on a regular basis? I'm almost thinking SI have coded some sort of "team culture" into the game. Don't ask me how, don't ask me why, but I've always felt that this Q.P.R. club has a knack to win big games but sometimes drop the easy one. This feeling goes back to when we won the F.A. Cup in my previous career.

Originally Posted by daedalus

Ironic for Benitez to leave Liverpool to go back to Valencia. That's just funny.

Didn't know that Benitez was at Valencia before. I'll check, he must have them still has one of his preferred club and that could explain the move...

Originally Posted by daedalus

Tomasson is a really nice player in real life. He also always seem to kick my arse in CM/FM.

Good to know, I really do love his skill set.

Originally Posted by daedalus

And, obviously, CONGRATS on getting into European play!

Thanks, appreciate it

FM

[FrogMan]

May 12, 2007

Pkd	Inf	Name	Position	Morale	Form	Con	Apps	Gls	Av Rat
GK		Chris Day	GK	Okay	8-9-7-8-6	100%	29 (4)	-	7.24
DR		Abubakari Yakubu	D/DM RC	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	35 (2)	1	7.30
DL		Michael Ball	D/DM L	Superb	8-7-7-7-8	100%	35 (1)	-	7.17
DC		Pascal Cygan	D C	Superb	7-7-7-7-8	100%	33	-	7.30
DC	Yel	Danny Shittu	D C	Very Poor	7-8-8-8-5	100%	35	1	7.31
DMC	Yel	Fábio Rochemback	DM C	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	13 (12)	-	6.96
MR		Damiano Zenoni	DM RC	Superb	7-8-7-7-8	99%	29 (6)	2	7.23
ML		Peter Løvenkrands	F LC	Superb	7-7-8-7-8	99%	20 (16)	4	7.25
AMC	Yel	Tomas Locatelli	AM LC	Superb	8-7-8-5-8	99%	18 (10)	2	7.29
FC		Güiza	S C	Superb	8-7-9-6-8	99%	34 (4)	18	7.16
FC		Cristiano Lucarelli	S C	Superb	7-7-7-6-8	99%	26 (9)	15	6.97
S1	Unh	Generoso Rossi	GK	Superb	7-8-6-6-8	100%	13 (1)	-	6.93
S2		Steve Finnan	D/DM R	Superb	8-7-8-7-7	100%	17 (4)	-	7.14
S3		Fabrice Fernandes	AM RL	Superb	7-7-8-6-7	97%	23 (14)	3	7.35
S4		Freddy Guarín	DM RC	Superb	8-7-7-7-7	98%	31 (5)	5	7.11
S5		Cedric van der Gun	AM/F C	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	21 (6)	4	7.22
-	Unh	Paul Dickov	S C	Superb	8-7-7-7-7	100%	4 (4)	3	7.13
-	Inj	Grzegorz Rasiak	S C	Superb	8-7-7-7-7	77%	14 (1)	5	7.13
-		Martin Rowlands	AM RC	Superb	7-7-7-7-7	100%	12 (19)	3	7.03

League Match #38: we play Charlton at Loftus Road. They are currenlty in 6th place and can only fight to retain that 6th spot. To use, it's technically a meaningless game, as they'd have to beat us by a margin of more than 12 goals to pass us on goal differential. We are 6-4 favourites to win this game.

Given that this is the last game of the season, I wanted to give the start to one of my young kids in the left fullback spot, but Steve Singh is injured and Jonathan Burton is very tired. Lee Porter is still not ready to play with the Senior squad so I go with Michael Ball.

GRRRR, Chris Day's sloppy pass to Abubakari Yakubu is intercepted in the 8th minute and they score an easy goal. Quite the goofup that means we're down 0-1 early on.

We find our way back and in the 25th minute, Tomas Locatelli finds Damiano Zenoni to his right. Zenoni tries a shot from short range and a defender deflects it to the side of the keeper. Tie 1-1.

In the 34th minute, we are so kicking their asses that you can hear the always funny: "Can Charltong weather the storm?" Well, always funny when you hear it about your opponent At that point, we were outshooting them 6(2) to 3(2), but were winning possession with an impressive 68%.

Halftime score is 1-1 and we're outshooting them 8(4) to 3(2). We're still winning possession impressively.

Their keeper is an absolute wall in the second half and we can't convert anothe one, despite addi 4 more shots on target.

Final Score: Q.P.R. 1, Charlton 1

We outshot them 12(8) to 9(2) on the game.

Their keeper deservedly got the Man of the Match selection with a rating of 9 and numerous key saves throughout the game.

This draw, combined with Tottenham's 3-1 win over Leicester drops Charlton to 7th place, but they've already secured a place in the EUFA Cup when they won the League Cup earlier in the season, so they will only lose on some final position money.

Pos	Inf	Team		Pld	Won	Drn	Lst	For	Ag	G.D.	Pts
1st	C	Chelsea		38	28	6	4	90	38	+52	90
2nd		Man Utd		38	24	7	7	66	35	+31	79
3rd		Arsenal		38	22	7	9	85	38	+47	73
4th		Liverpool		38	22	7	9	51	26	+25	73
5th		Q.P.R.		38	17	10	11	61	44	+17	61
6th		Tottenham		38	16	11	11	56	44	+12	59
7th		Charlton		38	16	10	12	54	49	+5	58
8th		Newcastle		38	15	12	11	48	41	+7	57
9th		Aston Villa		38	13	13	12	50	43	+7	52
10th		Fulham		38	13	11	14	56	53	+3	50
11th		Blackburn		38	12	14	12	40	39	+1	50
12th		Man City		38	11	14	13	41	46	-5	47
13th		Southampton		38	9	18	11	45	52	-7	45
14th		Middlesbrough		38	9	16	13	46	54	-8	43
15th		Birmingham		38	9	16	13	35	43	-8	43
16th		Wolves		38	9	11	18	39	60	-21	38
17th		Nottm Forest		38	8	11	19	23	54	-31	35
18th	R	Sunderland		38	6	11	21	29	66	-37	29
19th	R	Bolton		38	6	10	22	28	69	-41	28
20th	R	Leicester		38	3	9	26	27	76	-49	18

We did finish with the 4th best offense, that's not too shabby...

And speaking of final position money, Q.P.R. have been given $17M for their final position in the league this season. That's some good money for us
Here's the nice graph showing how our league position moved as the season went by.


Looking at it, it seems we really took control of our destiny around games 29-30, when we won two big games and moved to 6th never to go back down...

Here are the player stats, sorted by average ratings:

Pkd	Inf	Name	Apps	Gls	Ast	MoM	Pas	Tck	Drb	Sh T	Av Rat
-	Unh	Gino Padula	2	1	-	-	75%	1.50	0.50	-	7.50
S3		Fabrice Fernandes	23 (15)	3	6	2	79%	2.44	6.54	37%	7.34
DR		Abubakari Yakubu	36 (2)	1	2	-	77%	2.27	0.81	-	7.32
DC		Danny Shittu	36	1	1	-	78%	2.59	0.09	42%	7.31
DC		Pascal Cygan	34	-	-	2	74%	2.59	0.09	54%	7.29
AMC		Tomas Locatelli	19 (10)	2	7	3	83%	1.16	1.80	39%	7.28
ML		Peter Løvenkrands	21 (16)	4	8	1	81%	2.58	4.56	66%	7.24
MR		Damiano Zenoni	30 (6)	3	6	-	80%	2.74	1.66	50%	7.22
S5		Cedric van der Gun	21 (7)	4	3	2	84%	1.27	0.96	48%	7.21
GK		Chris Day	30 (4)	-	-	3	52%	-	-	-	7.21
DL		Michael Ball	36 (1)	-	1	-	79%	2.26	0.53	-	7.16
FC		Güiza	35 (4)	18	5	1	87%	0.86	2.10	59%	7.15
S2		Steve Finnan	17 (4)	-	2	1	77%	3.26	0.65	-	7.14
-	Inj	Grzegorz Rasiak	14 (1)	5	3	-	82%	0.92	1.51	54%	7.13
-	Unh	Paul Dickov	4 (4)	3	3	-	81%	0.43	-	63%	7.13
S4		Freddy Guarín	31 (6)	5	3	2	81%	3.01	0.26	48%	7.11
-		Martin Rowlands	12 (19)	3	3	-	78%	1.78	1.51	60%	7.03
-	Inj	Steve Singh	1	-	-	-	-	4.35	-	-	7.00
-	Unh	Arthur Gnohéré	3 (1)	-	-	-	68%	3.32	-	-	7.00
-	Unh	Gianfranco Zola	1 (2)	-	-	-	77%	1.38	-	-	7.00
FC		Cristiano Lucarelli	27 (9)	15	5	-	86%	0.59	1.06	61%	6.97
DMC	Unh	Fábio Rochemback	14 (12)	-	1	-	84%	3.13	0.30	55%	6.96
S1	Unh	Generoso Rossi	12 (3)	-	-	3	50%	-	-	-	6.93

Güiza is our top scorer on the season with 18 goals, but to see that Cristiano Lucarelli also scored 15 is very nice. It's also kind of nice to see that they both were able to assist on 5 goals too. Kinda funny that Chris Day and Generoso Rossi are tied for the most Man of the Match selection on the team... They sure can be hot at times, while making me real nervous at other times...


FM

[FrogMan]

May 14, 2007
Abubakari Yakubu has been selected on the EPL Team of the Week. He was the only one on the team to get a rating above 7 in our last game of the season.

Looking at the finalists for the Manager of the Year award, I'm kind of saddened that they went with the managers of the teams that finished 1-2-3 instead of going with who did the best with what they had. I mean, do you think that Jozé Mourinho is better than me simply because he had a gazillion dollars to spend to buy his title???


May 17, 2007
Grzegorz Rasiak resumes full training. He'll be ready for next season, until another multi-month injury sends him to the OR...

May 22, 2007
Martin Rowlands has revealed that not being part of the first team at Loftus Road is starting to unsettle him. I don't have much good news for him though, as I don't see his playing time going much. Barring injuries, the 28yo attacking midfielder is still stuck behind Damiano Zenoni and newcomer Christian Wilhelmsson who I could see take over the right wing duties next season...

May 23, 2007
To answer KevinNU7's question regarding the Champions League, Manchester United just won the final 1-0 over Inter. Prior to that, they'd won over Roma, 3-0 on aggregate goals in the semi final. Inter had to beat Betis to get to the final, which they did 3-1 on aggregate.

Two other English squads had been ousted in the quarter finals prior to that and here are the aggregate scores of these quarter finals:
Betis 5-3 Chelsea
Inter 2-1 Liverpool
Man Utd 4-0 Barcelona
Roma 4-1 Deportivo

May 26, 2007
Southampton won 3-2 in penalties after playing to a 0-0 draw over Middlesbrough in the F.A. Cup final. This confirms the final spot for English teams in Europe Competitions next season. Here are the qualifiers:

Champions League
(top 4 in EPL/ 2 straight to group play, 2 in qualification)
#1: Chelsea
#2: Manchester United
#3: Arsenal
#4: Liverpool

EUFA Cup
(#5 EPL + FA Cup winner + League Cup winner)
#5: Q.P.R.
League Cup winner: Charlton (#7)
FA Cup winner: Southampton (#13)

Euro Vase
(next two highest in EPL that are not already qualified through other means)
#6: Tottenham
#8: Newcastle

June 1st, 2007
The board, and the fans, are still delighted with my work as manager of the club. The board also add that they are pleased that the team has managed to end the season in a European qualification place.

I suddenly remember that I will have to look into hiring a new assistant manager, since Willibert Kremer is set to retire on June 23. I want somebody with high reputation, in the hope that it helps bringing in players that would maybe not come. I also want somebody who's great in evaluating player's ability and potential and also good at motivating player. Because of these skills, and also because they often come cheaper than real assistant manager, I often tend to hire form scouts and promote them to the position of assistant, as I did in my previous life with Roma's Bruno Conti. It had to have been a good move, since Conti went on to go manage another EPL club (Bolton I think it was)...

Looking around, I see a couple scouts that look very interesting. Stuart Bailey, currently under contract as a scout for Chelsea and Terry Berry, another scout this time with Liverpool, have some great skills. Thing is they're both tagged with compensations to pay of around $600-650k. Depending on what the team board allows me for transfer budget, I may get tempted, but it will have to wait until the new budget is announced, since I got about $175k left right now...

I send everybody home, go rest, we'll need you next season!

May 12, 2007
Paul Dickov has anounced that he will retire at the end of the upcoming season, in July 2008. He said that he has struggle to break into the first team of late and feels that it is probably time he called it a day. He probably won't be with us anymore.


FM

[FrogMan]

And with that, I bring closure to this phase of my time at Q.P.R. Keep your eyes open for a new thread because... European Football is back at Loftus Road!!!



FM

[finketr]

Originally Posted by Kokoshin

Sure. Joaquin, Adriano, Casillas, Reyes.... even the mad russian could go broke with these signings

btw, you have 3 Adrianos in your roster. I guess it should lower the cost of printing the shirts, huh?

K.

(edited: I included and then deleted Kezman who, at the start of FM 2005 is in fact playing for Chelsea)

actually, we're making money nearly every month.. when the money's paid out for CL and FA cup and stuff, we're making a lot. in the times when there isn't that money, we are a bit in the red...

Reyes was a free or cheaper pickup as he was languishing on the R. Madrid bench.

Kezman is having a killer year for us after having a mostly down year last time... but to offset this, Adrian (SC) is not having as good a year as he had been having.

The third adriano (D/DM R) acquisition was smart-assedness on my part since I needed a new left back/fullback and got adriano (d/dm L), so i searched for "adriano" and got another one.

It was fun when all three ended up on the EPL team of the week.

[FrogMan]

The new thread has been started:
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/foru...ad.php?t=43780

See ya there!

GO RANGERS!!!

FM