McClaren confirmed as manager

Les and Tony have finally  flipped and appointed the Wally with the Brolley. I give him until Christmas and he will almost certainly get replaced by Pardew. Crazy times!

Hardly inspiring but I only hope we are all made to eat our words next May if we are toasting promotion!

Let's see how it goes but as so many of us have said we need investment to improve, not just a new manager.


He is an ex-England manager though after all.

You forgot to mention he also does a brillant impersonation of Gene Kelly!

At a guess Bircham will not be assistant. I wonder if Bircham will find himself out the door or offered a role with younger player or just downgraded to a coach?

Chris Powell was his assistant at Derby but he is now managing at Southend.

Since 2010, Steve McClaren has either resigned or been sacked from no fewer than EIGHT jobs and his latest stint in football was a short-lived one in Israel, with him lasting just 4 months as a ‘coaching consultant’ with Maccabi Tel Aviv.

He’s been out of work ever since and for reasons only known by TF and Les he has now been handed the job at QPR, promising to bring ‘attractive and attacking’ football to Loftus Road. You know, the sort of style that helped Derby bottle their play off hopes and get Newcastle relegated.

It’s a baffling one and another reminder that the same old names keep getting jobs, but don't worry he will have a West London accent within the month!

Well I tend to be accurate in predicting the level of success in about 1 in 20 of our managerial appointments, so for what it's worth...


If we actually employ him as a Head Coach and let Ferdinand and Penrice look after their respective areas I think this could work.  I think he could help to develop the younger players through the quality of his coaching.


What I am unsure about is his ability to turn things around/change things up if we get into a bad patch.  Not saying he can't, just expressing it as a question mark.


He has a mixed record - good at 'boro and Twente, good and not so good at Derby and some disappointments elsewhere.  I don't want to jump to judgement about some of the disappointments as Newcastle and Forest have proven difficult for a whole stream of managers.  And let's remember that Rowlett struggled to get Derby into the play-offs, whereas McClaren got to the final and outplayed us for 89 minutes (until Zamoooorrrrraaaa).


He will get my full support, despite my sadness for Ollie.


We still seem to be in mysterious territory in FFP terms.  I wish I knew where we were?  The team we have has definitely been weakened by the loss of Nedum and Jack (who I assume will be going), so we need two good recruits to be standing still.  And to state the obvious, we sorely need a striker that can regularly put them in the onion bag!  Better coaching alone will not be enough, so I hope Mr Penrice has some great prospects lined up this summer.

And just to add there clearly won't be money thrown at the squad. Just on SkySportsNews...

McClaren said "it is a coaching job as there isn't a big budget"

Ferdinand said "he is very aware we haven't got a lot of money to spend, we may need to get rid of a few to get some money in so he can replenish how he wants"

I know any player is for sale at the right price but I think we can definitely expect Smithies and/or Luongo to leave. I know we'd all prefer Washington and Sylla to go but the demand for them will be less.

If we can't trade how they hope I think they really are hoping for miracles if he is stuck with the same squad.