As another week of silly season comes and goes, we decided to reconvene with our QPR fans panel to discuss how the club can turn Loftus Road into a fortress.
GWL discussed the importance of making Loftus Road a fortress next season, what do you think the club, fans and players need to do to make this happen?
Ben
Simple answer is to win games. Winning breeds a positive atmosphere. More fans turn up too which also helps. Speaking from experience there is nothing worse then a defensively minded set up, something JFH religiously loved to do. At times it's needed, for sure, but not from the first minute. Fans get downbeat by this and atmosphere just disappears quickly. Hardworking attacking team that wins.......no problem Olly!
Jess
Patience, patience, patience. People need to reset their expectations. I believe that the club is now being run more sensibly but success will not come overnight.
Tim
There is no magic wand, but certainly it was most buzzing last season when we were playing fast, attacking football and scoring goals. JFH's ponderous brand of football sucked the life out of the place. Easier said than done though.
Paul
All about good start, both in terms of the season as a whole and in matches. Far too often we’ve only got going in the final 20 minutes when we’re chasing a game. A great believer that our fans will always respond in kind to effort and excitement on the pitch. Effort alone not enough though, thats why Birch’s comments re. type of player we’re after a little concerning.
The club announced behind closed doors friendlies with rivals Fulham and play-off finalists Reading, what are your opinions on having matches against divisional rivals?
Ben
No issue at all. Never understood why teams in same division don't play each other in friendlies anyway. The Premier League do these days. In fact, I think it will tell us more about where we are this pre season than playing a foreign or lower league team.
Jess
Pre-season matches against foreign clubs and teams from lower division are ok but they're not genuine warm-ups for the real thing, are they? Pitting ourselves against Championship rivals seems to me like good preparation.
Tim
Don't see any harm in it at all. If rival teams really wanted to know how we're going to set up they'd send scouts along to our pre-season games anyway. The more games we have under our belts at this stage the better.
Paul
Apart from the obvious sharpening of match fitness I never read too much into any friendlies, at any level, and cannot take them seriously. All I would say is far better to play at a decent level, even if the same level as us, than the over-seas pub teams we usually play (if they turn up)
