Well, I thoroughly enjoyed last night – a well-marshalled defence in which Christoph Zimmermann was outstanding, the artistry of Wessi and James Maddison, a fantastic save by Angus Gunn from the irritant that is Jamie Mackie…
…and the best atmosphere I can remember at The Carra in a long time.
There was a superb pass from Mario Vrancic to Nelson Oliveira for a cool, composed finish, followed by a late wonderstrike from my personal man-of-the-match Harrison Reed which did indeed make QPR collapse like Ian Holloway’s deflating “bouncy castle”.
Ian Holloway. Now there’s an enigma. With thanks to www.westlondonsport.com whose quotes I am shamelessly robbing, this is what he unbelievably said after the game:
He said he was unable to establish the nature of the injury to Pawel Wszolek. The Pole went off during the first half and Holloway revealed the language barrier meant he was in the dark over what the problem was:
“It’s the weirdest thing. I don’t know, I’ve got to be honest.
“We were trying to get it out of him (what the injury was). We even asked his Polish friend (Ariel Borysiuk) and I don’t think he wanted to come off.
“In the end, someone walked past him in our box so I had to take him off.
“He was saying he wanted to stay on but it’s not about him wanting to stay on, it’s about him being injured.
“He was apparently shouting in Polish that he was alright. But if you’re injured you can’t stay on.
“God knows what it is. I’m struggling to get it out of him. I’ll probably find out more on the coach home.”
Now I’ve heard some things in my time, but that is not something that should ever, ever happen.
City, along with most Premiership and Championship Clubs, have a truly international brigade.
Several Germans (of course), a Swiss, a Norwegian-Ghanaian, a brace of Portugeezers, a Croatian-Serb, a Northern Irishman, a southern Irishman, a Welshman, a couple of Scots, an under-23 squad from all destinations and a few Englishmen – even one from Downham Market (there were once two, as we all know).
But would any language barrier be a problem over an injury? The heck it would.
When Dani Ayala signed for us, one of the first things he did was to go into a local school and help to teach children the rudiments of basic Spanish. This also helped Dani improve his already good English. An NCFC win-win situation. Back in the day, Cedric Anselin was very happy to adopt the same approach with French.
I cannot believe a professional football club would ever put itself in the position of not being able to communicate with one of its own players. It’s not as if there aren’t any Polish folks around who would happily oblige with interpretation. My City next door neighbour Zoltan is Hungarian and apparently speaks excellent Polish (how would I know?), and might be open to earning a few bob, Mr Holloway.
Plain bloody daft.
I slightly disagree with Gary’s article in that I don’t think Rangers were quite as dangerous as he reckoned. However, the scrapping for loose balls and the new-found resilience at the back has encouraged me no end. The way we mixed it up at times (with no rollockings from Daniel Farke for doing so) was excellent.
And the Parklife chant has evolved into something exquisite.
Everybody watched that match with a great big smile on their face from beginning to end.
Except Ian Holloway and his staff who were effectively impersonating Manuel in Fawlty Towers. Que?
A great read and I agree with you QPR must have an interpreter, I have neighbours here in Blackpool that moved here from Poland all speak very good English and when asked how they say that it is 1 of 3 languages compulsory in school and as a footballer surely you would endeavour to speak reasonable well a foreign language incase you got transferred to 1 of these countries.
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Thanks, Martin. It was a fun evening, nicely captured in your piece.
We’re still clearly a work in progress. I sit a few rows behind Daniel Farke, and he was frustrated/exasperated/angry more often last night than on Sunday. Of course he’ll have been happy with the spirit and the way we won, but I suspect there’s a stat that explains most of his frustration: 46% possession.
He wants more than that. Arguably, the priority yesterday was to rectify the faults of Sunday: that our defenders were stronger and our passing more purposeful and creative than against Sunderland. But we went from very high (and ineffective) to rather meagre (but effective) possession. There must be a ‘best of both worlds’ in there somewhere.
One thing’s for sure (as someone might say). Last season we bemoaned the manager’s inability to change things. I don’t think we’ll have that complaint this time.
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Stewart – Your last sentence sums it all up for me and we are VERY much a ‘work in progress’, but at least I was much more happy with last night;s starting 11 than the one on Sunday. I’m hoping (and I know I’m not alone!!) that Martin’s time on the pitch will be quite limited for this and his last 2 seasons at CR; just s long as Pinto remains fit and doesn’t get sent off.
It would be nice if DF gave a few of the fringe players some game time against Charlton, but I’m also aware that he wants us to progress in the competition.
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We can obviously see Daniel Farke from the UB but not hear him. I didn’t realise he was getting quite that agitated – you must have a great vantage point!
I’d bet it was interesting to have been in your seat during the last few months of the Alex Neil reign…
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Great match, great result and a togetherness not witnessed at Carrow Road in a while. One other highlight apart from the game was Christoph Zimmerman parading around the pitch sides posing for selfies with excited youngsters. He looked absolutely thrilled and will quickly cement cult status with the crowd if he continues to enjoy the successes with the supporters.
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Thanks for adding the Christoph Zimmermann selfie bit Andy – I really should have included it myself in the article.
He did, indeed, look absolutely thrilled and he had every right to as he had a great game.
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