QPR Story: 5th season: Half way stage

Hello everyone. Now in my last post, we were 4th in the league, with a game in hand on the top 3. Our form has dipped ever so slightly, but we are thankfully still in a great position in the league. But first, our results:

Out of 15 games (12 in the league) we have achieved 7 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses. Particularly pleasing results came at home to Manchester United, at home to Newcastle, away to Dinamo Bucharest and of course the 5-0 home demolition of Blackburn Rovers. Disappointing results were Aston Villa, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea and Reading. Now let's see where this puts us in the league and UEFA Cup tables:

So we are 6th in the league, 2 points away from 3rd. This is massively encouraging as this is not just the early stages now, this is more than half way through the season! If we can keep this run going then who knows what hights we can reach! As for the UEFA Cup group, we qualified from it with relative ease, the only 2 defeats being 2-1 at the hands of Atletico Madrid. We have been drawn against Shakhtar of Ukraine for the 1st knockout round, and if we get past them we will play either Rangers or Club Brugge. I firmly believe we can get past Shakhtar, and I think we have a better squad than both Rangers and Club Brugge. If we do get past both rounds, we shall be in the Quarter-Finals, which will be very hard to progress from, but I am hopeful of going all the way to the Semi's.

Anyway, onto current January transfers. I will not post a screenshot, because there are too few names to warrant the use of one. I got in 2 players in January: Sebastian Dupont from Reading for £10.25m and Kieran Roberts from Aston Villa for £2m. Dupont is a 21 year old regen right back from Reading, and he is much better than current right back Antonio Barragan. My coaches tell me that he will become a leading Premier League right back in the future. At £10.25m though, he is a bit of a gamble, but one which I was willing to take, and as he scored in his debut game, I am confident he will do well for us. Kieran Roberts is a wonderkid AMR, who at just 18 years of age will become a star in my team in the future. I tried to loan him out to Championship side and affliated club Plymouth, but he refused to go unfortunately.

The only player I sold was back up right back Peter Ramage for £3.5m. As I had brought in Dupont, and Barragan was already better than him, I felt that he would not get a game here, so I sold him to Fulham. This is a significant transfer because he was the last link to the previous manager of QPR, the only player in my team that I had not bought. Now it is totally my team, and I can have no excuses from past managers faults now. Also, this sums up the need to give real managers time to build their own squad, as it takes up to 4 or 5 years to get a team that they really want! Of course some FM players can do it in less, but the whole, sell all the team, buy 18 players just doesn't work in real life.

Finally some player ratings, and here is a screenshot of peoples performances over the course of the season:

Some very interesting statistics there, including the fantastic form of Marius Niculae! 18 goals in 26 appearances is absolutely fantastic, and he is the second top scorer in the Premier League, with 15. Ashley Young is top assister with 14, and he has 10 goals as well to make him surely one of our key players. Antonio Barragan has been very good this season, contributing 5 goals to the cause, but he just doesn't have enough quality for me, so that's why Dupont had to be brought in. Barragan will obviously still get his fair share of games, but it's unlikely that he will start most of them.

Anyway, that's it for this post, next one coming up soon. Take care!