Fully agree!!

What i dont get is, the PL teams especially, bleeting on about having too many games. These men are proffesional athletes if they cant play 2 lots of 90 mins in a week without getting tired they should be fired on the spot.

If they made the financial incentives bigger I bet they would suddenly take a bigger interest.

It's in our interest to put our first team out for the extra money but for OPR & Norwich their priorty is staying in the premiership so warnock got a point really.

What difference does it make to PL survival? That to me is just an excuse for losing, nothing else.

Has there ever been evidence to show that a good cup run means they will get relegated?

I agree with you Gloss, 2 games a week should be possible for professional footballers. Provided the team is sensible with the training.

I can understand managers wanting to protect key players from injury because the league is more important to them, so maybe resting one or two. But to make 10 or 11 changes is something quite different!

If Warnock had come out like Holloway did last year and said "I put out a team that I thought could win, regardless of the changes I'd made" I'd have thought fair enough, that's your prerogative as a manager. But to come out and say "I'm not bothered" is unfair to the people who put the effort in to going along and supporting the team. Every game matters and every game counts and I would find that attitude unacceptable in a manager of a club I supported.

I know the league is more important and I know its not the FA cup but its a shame when professional managers like Colin come out and say that, not professional AT ALL!! If that is the attitude of Premiership clubs towards this or any competition then they should ban Premiership teams and just make the competiton available for Championship teams, L1 & L2 sides, then that way smaller teams would stand a better chance of getting to Wembley and a chance of success, cannot see it happening but its something that should happen imho, people like colin should be fined for comments like that, not proffessional at all.

Also why do they always play very weak teams? These people are fit as fiddles, paid handsome sums of money every week, so they arent fit enough to play twice a week then?? Fair play if teams play on a Sunday and then have a fixture on a tuesday in cup, like in our case v B'pool where we had another game two days later so we had to make changes.

But surely teams have to take EVERY competition seriously and suely managers and players alike would want to win EVERY competition, not feild weak teams and think "Sca-rew this, its only the League Cup" like Colin obviously thinks!

I don't see what the big issue is regarding the League Cup personally.

Yeah, we all know it's the lesser of the 3 main competitions but why should that make it a bad thing. It can still be competitive, it can still provide good entertainment & it gives players who don't play regularly an opportunity to play. Ticket prices are generally cheaper to reflect the lesser importance of the competition.

As long as everyone realises that it's not as big a draw as other comps & takes it for what it is then what's the problem. Most other countries only have one cup & treat that the same as our clubs treat the League Cup.

It also still rewards 2 teams with a trip to Wembley & one team with an European place.

I do agree that Warnock shouldn't have said what he said, he's basically making excuses for losing to Rochdale!

Yeah, Colin's got enough on his plate. Is there still a UEFA (or whatever) cup place for the winner?

As far as we're concerned, I wonder if we would care about the league cup as much if we didn't have the recent(ish) good memories of it? Are we holding it up as something worthwhile because it's the only thing we've won since 1935?

In the NHL they play around 82 games in a season. There are at a minimum 2 games every week, sometimes three. To play all these games the teams have to travel hundreds of miles week in week out across USA and Canada. After all that the Stanley Cup starts and each round is a best of 7 games round. With preseasons, league and cup games, each team could play nearly 100 matches a season.

They must feel sorry for football players having to play twice a week every now and again. poor buggers....lifes hard y'know

p.s - seen as this is the only article on the qpr board I wouldnt be expecting to many opinions from that side!

I hope we play a few of the fringe players, O'Donnell, Nyoni and the like, but I think we can put a good side out there. I enjoy the League Cup as when our family money was down it was the only game I could get to.

Poite, i thought that untill you click on it through teams and not the name on the top

At this stage of the season, players need games so playing your best team should help the team in the league.

Birmingham are in Europe this year thanks to the league cup win. Some would say maybe over-stretching themselves to win that competition was part of the reason they were relegated, but I don't think that argument holds much water if you look wider than that one case.

The league cup is the only 'major' trophy the club has won in my lifetime, but I'm not trying to put the competition on a pedestal. I realise it will always come third behind the league and the FA cup in terms of priorities and 4th behind a European competition for some clubs. The fact remains coming out of a game and saying I couldn't be bothered is unacceptable.

Thats what really really urks me about these players that are on hundreds of thousands o quid a week, liek I said they are as fit as fiddles and if I was paid as much as them id play every bloody day coz I love football and thats supposted to be the reason why they became footballers, to win tournaments and gain medals and also Managers like Colin that wont take it seriously, Id say only let Championship teams and L1 & L2 teams enter

"Id say only let Championship teams and L1 & L2 teams enter"

Doesn't that just devalue it even further though!?

I've absolutely no problem with the Prem teams playing 'reserve players'. Surely that just makes it more competitive & it gives lower league clubs further opportunity to play at big grounds (Hereford @ Villa Park last night for example).

I think the issue, as most have said, is completely disrespecting it as Warnock has done rather then clubs taking it less seriously than other comps.

And before someone says it, it's not just because it's Warnock. Up 'til before he 'retired' the first time I'd always thought if he wasn't a blade I'd love to have Warnock as our manager, because he's honest, passionate and sticks up for his team.

Not since he came back though and particularly not after last night. It made me wonder whether he was just milking the QPR cash cow until he inevitable sacking by an over-expectant unrealistic board (probably sometime in January.)

I agree top point with poite_the_owl footballer are soft as shoite but you can't compare it to ice hockey they 3 15min half with an extra overtime 15min period if they are drawing also they have 4 lines of 5 player who inter change throughout the game meaning one player (best player usually) will only play prob 15 - 20 mins per game.

Premiership pays more money that all the cups put together & football is more about money than owt else nowadays sad but true.

"Id say only let Championship teams and L1 & L2 teams enter"

Doesn't that just devalue it even further though!?

I've absolutely no problem with the Prem teams playing 'reserve players'. Surely that just makes it more competitive & it gives lower league clubs further opportunity to play at big grounds (Hereford @ Villa Park last night for example).
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Thats a fair point actually Monsty , didnt think of that coz playing at grounds like that and other big grounds are money spinners for lower division clubs like hereford and financially it see's them through for a good month or two (no expert but just a rough idea). But I still think Premiership clubs should play stronger teams, esp if they played on a Saturday but if they played on a Sunday then have to play on a Tues then, yeah rest one or two players but not an entire team, although we did that v B'pool but we had an excuse as we had a long round trip to make the day after and back again after the game

If anything I would say make the PL teams join in at the start! Gives smaller teams who will get knocked out earlier to earn a pay day too plus if they hate playing it so much it means they can be out sooner and stop moaning about it.

I would suggest that it's all gone a bit too far, now. Arsenal managed to get away with it cos their kids are good. QPR don't have the strength in depth to get away with it and effectively throw the tie away.

For me, sides like QPR could do with the confidence boost that winning gives, even if you make a few minor changes to give fringe (bench?) players some time on the park you should still be looking to win the game and losing to a side two divisions below you should still be a source of disappointment. The low attendences Warnock quotes don't necessarily reflect lack of interest (would they still only get 4000 if they played ManU in the QF?), but do reflect that most fans know they'll be watching a reserve team.
I hope we put out an almost full strength side tonight (although not risking players with niggles that they may carry into a league game) cos if we get a result it's kudos and cash for the club, and a boost in confidence for the players, while if our (almost) 1st team loses to Blackburn reserves so what - we've lost to a Premier league club. It's win-win.

Agree with you Rich, I think the low attendances come from the fact that fans know teams don't take the competitions seriously as much as anything else. That argument is a cyclical one that will end in the death of the competition, lower attendance so you put out a worse team which gets thrashed so next season the attendance gets even lower.

Winning is a habit and good form and confidence do make a difference. I hope, like you do, that we put out a good strength side and give it a real go against Blackburn tonight for the increase in confidence it would give the team.

Qudos to Kenny Dalgleish for the way he approached this competition.

Trotters Fan Here In Peace.

For clubs like ours the League Cup is the place to test out fringe players while generally playing the nucleus of our strongest squad.

Last night we gave Tuncay his debut and also played Adam Bogdan in goal. In total we had four debutants, the rest have all played for the first team before and six of the starting eleven played against Man City.

I personally would LOVE to win this trophy but with a squad as thin as ours and the stakes being so high in terms of lost revenue if you drop out of the prem Owen has to prioritise just as Megson did in his time with us.

QPR have an even thinner first team squad than we do so I can sympathise with Warnock playing kids etc. HOWEVER

His comments about not being motivated and not expecting his players to be either were disgraceful. There is no way he should be feeling that way about ANY competition let alone one with the long and frankly glorious history as this competition. In the past the likes of Liverpool under Bob Paisley won it and it's thrown up some of the most thrilling matches I've ever seen in my thirty six years as a Bolton fan.

I still remember the joy when we as a second tier club gave spurs a 6-1 kicking and the agony of losing 2-1 in the final to the scouse reds.

Warnock should hang his head in shame. His players, especially those who were getting a rare first team shot should be appalled both with him and themselves if they truly couldn't be bothered.

I suspect Warnock may have been saying it to cover his disappointment at losing so poorly and that he is in fact furious but even if that's true his comments were ill judged, did nothing to enhance his or his club's reputation and frankly served the whole game badly. I hope that the League comes down hard on him for those comments or that someone at QPR itself hauls him over the coals and makes him publicly apologise for his inexcusable comduct.

Hopefully this morning he's looked at what he said an will apologise himself. If not he should get his backside kicked hard.