Five things from Santa

Queens Park Rangers 1 Millwall 1

Barnsley 2 Queens Park Rangers 3

Dear Santa,

It's been a while since I last wrote to you - just before Christmas 2013. I had just finished watching our home match against Leicester and sent you a framed photo of Niko Kranjcar and a mug with Charlie Austin's image on it for Mrs Claus's Christmas stocking. That match was like the turning point in our season - a sign that against the big clubs we weren't really going to do very well and those performances would spell the reason why we are not currently sitting in an automatic promotion spot.

Santa, do you remember when I first wrote to you in the middle of the 2012-2013 season? Things were so miserable then - I wasn't even asking for wins any more, I was asking for you to organise some entertaining football and to remove some miserable players from within our midst (Bosingwa in particular). In the end you gave us a 1-0 win over Chelsea which I was extremely grateful for. It was an evening at the Swamp I will never forget. I think you reminded us all about why believe in the magic of football and why, despite all the disappointment, anger, confusion and conspiracy theories most of us keep coming back for more.

We're in a different place right now. The season is now over.  And some would describe it as flat. There hasn't been much of an atmosphere at Loftus Road, we've won some games but lost others we shouldn't have. We rid ourselves of the players that had the most extreme cases of apathy towards QPR but still retained a large squad of Premier League failures and loanees who aren't that crazy about QPR. And we have a manager who looks as if he is queueing up expectantly for his P45. Nonetheless we are sitting in a play off position which I believe is the 2nd time we've been in the situation with a very exciting possibility of visiting Wembley if we can beat Wigan over two legs. For just a few weeks I think QPR fans are prepared to forget all their complaints and issues and live in a dream land, and I am very likely to be joining them.

Look, I know I am writing to you completely outside the Christmas season and you are busy with your feet up catching up on all the soaps and TV shows from around the world (I won't tell you what has happened to Lucy Beale btw), but the reason am writing to you is to see if you and your elves could pull a few strings for us that could make QPR fans really happy this May? In return, I promise that all QPR fans will leave extra food this coming Christmas, and that I will procure for Mrs Claus any item of clothing from Niko Kranjcar's dressing room (at risk of being arrested for stalking and burglary).

So, without further delay please could you arrange the following 5 things?

• Would you mind giving Harry some acting lessons? I think we all know that he's ready to retire and focus on his interest in horses v. football. However, perhaps a one day session at Sylvia Young's would help in chivvying up the team a little bit before the matches (a la Ollie, or Warnock style), and providing for the rest of the country or the opposing teams at the very least the veneer that we are absolutely 100% up for the fight. 
• Here's a really simple one- would it be possible to arrange it so that any of the players that are selected to play in the next two games (and possible 3rd game) actually want to play. I suspect there won't be many who wouldn't want to play in an exciting competition such as this but I've heard stories of one or two small cancers still about from the Hughes era. Let's leave those people at the door. Could they go wherever you sent Bosingwa last Christmas?
• I might not be speaking for all QPR fans here, but a personal request from me would be to play all the classic songs we used to play at Loftus Road pre-match in the 1990s - the last time we were a great Premiership/1st Division team. I used to enjoy Tina's 'Simply the Best' as we watched Les Ferdinand trotted on to the pitch...it did sometimes feel like we were the best. 
• If we do make it to Wembley perhaps you could arrange for the squad to do something that shows their loyalty and commitment to QPR. I know none are childhood supporters of the team, but blue hairspray is easily washable (I have some spares cannisters from last season's final match against Liverpool which I am happy to drop off at reception). At the very least, since many of them appear to be in to fashionable hair (of the head and facial type) perhaps all of them could be persuaded to have a proper shave in the morning and get rid of their awful beards so we can see their faces again?
• And lastly, being fickle is part and parcel of being a football fan. But what I can't understand is people criticising other QPR fans for not being loyal by setting their own parameters about what they think a fan should be like. Would you mind removing those people from your Christmas list? It doesn't seem fair to me that someone shouldn't be considered a loyal fan if they can't make games because they can't afford it, or they have to work, or don't even live in the UK! And to be honest, in the run up to the play-offs I find this type of attitude pervasively negative. 

As I completed my last request I realised again that I didn't ask for us to win any of the games. As always, it appears to be an innate capability of a QPR fan to hope for the best, and expect the worst. Or perhaps it's just that I don't want to jinx the whole thing. This time last year I couldn't imagine a play off place and was imagining Wolves-like scenarios. It hasn't taught me a thing.

Perhaps as a final request, you could arrange some neuro linguistic programming classes for me and a few friends - we could do with being a bit more positive about stuff? I'll  even throw in a few Panini stickers of Niko for Mrs Claus's collection?

Lots of love,
Emily, Queen of the Park Rangers
encl. nos 3 X no. 61 (Panini World Cup stickers)

Putting your best foot forward

Leicester City 1 Queens Park Rangers 0

Queens Park Rangers 2 Watford 1

I was at a work conference a few weeks ago. We had some great speakers from various businesses. One that interested me the most was a tech company that specialises in helping start-up tech and media companies. The speaker, Jörg  Rheinboldt from Plug and Play Tech Centre, when asked what he perceived to be a winning formula, said that a 'brilliant team with a mediocre idea was better than a mediocre team with a brilliant idea'. This, as an avid QPR fan and someone who is fascinated by sports psychology and management, resonated with me. Why? Because we have spent most of the season complaining about the players in the QPR squad, largely due to their under-achievement despite their supposed pedigree. It has been somewhat obvious to us all that such pedigree does not guarantee quality football,  nor does it guarantee consistent winning and a place in an automatic promotion spot. What we have been hoping for all season is to watch a team that is just that, a great team in itself whether we are playing fallen stars like Niko Kranjcar and Benoit Assou-Ekotto,  youngsters like Max Ehmer, or up-and-coming Charlie Austin. We haven't really seen that. We've seen glimpses of it in some matches, but it hasn't been consistent enough. One might argue that the injuries that have plagued us has not allowed us to have such a level of consistency. I don't know if that's totally fair.

Companies are constantly trying to re-invent themselves to keep up with the changing world, especially media and technology companies. Innovation has been a buzz word for years, and it is ever-present in my industry. But often we hear that, in practice, you cannot force people to be innovative. It has to be organic, and sometimes (but very rarely) it's innate, or natural. It's the same with anything isn't it? You can't force a team to create a spirit. Look back on our team that promoted itself in 2004: we all look back on those players and the manager with some wistfulness. But we lived with a very different set of ingredients at the time. Perhaps we actually look back with rose-tinted spectacles given that at that point we were still under huge financial pressure as a club with a lot less options than we have now. There is nothing more powerful than a difficult battle that can unite people.

So what of our team now? Will they truly understand the magnitude of the task ahead in the play-offs? There is a job to be done - the task is simply to make it to the Premier League by winning. But for many fans, even if we do make it to the final, what we really want to see now is passion and not arrogance. There is a reason why these so-called 'Premier League quality' players are playing with us and not in the Premier League. But bearing that in mind, the fact that the play-offs is really a lottery and frankly it doesn't matter where you finish and that you must simply win the competition, means that - mediocre or not - the players must unite. And I believe our only hope is in the belief and passion that we can do it. And frankly that they, the players WANT to do it. It's all well and good Joey Barton doing some lovely stats piece on whether we can win but as he so rightly titled his piece - 'optimism' and 'belief' are actually where it's at.

The role that Harry plays in all of this is critical. The situation we are heading for will all be about preparing the team mentally more than anything else. I really hope that he is up to it as it's probably going to be his biggest task so far as a manager. We only have to look at how Mourinho's extremely sour (but very amusing) behaviour (post-Sunderland loss) probably impacts on a team like Chelsea which now leaves them 5 points behind Liverpool and unlikely to win the Premier League title. On the other hand, I can imagine Chelsea players responding to a manager like Mourinho who thrives on pointing out negative aspects of everything outside of his control in order to win his own side over. To me, it's cheap shots. But for some, it works.

One could argue that the fact that Harry has played a different team for every game hasn't helped us at all. I think all of us can understand why Redknapp played the '2nd team' he did on Saturday and the '1st team' today. But not all of us actually agree with it. Surely, at this stage in the season we should have players that are fit enough, good enough and game enough to play both matches so we put our best foot forward every time and take the consequences regardless?

That said, given today's winning result and the (let's be honest) expected loss on Saturday perhaps Harry was right to do what he did. You could say that attitude and spirit should not just be reserved for those that are picked on the day. They are things that exist on and off the pitch. But I sometimes wonder whether we truly have that? I cannot be absolutely sure.

All I can be sure of is that I'll be there, with many thousands of others, cheering the boys on and hoping, just hoping we might do it.