Phillips/Eastwood Interest?....Footballer as Journalist Visits Loftus Road....Rowlands and Delaney Have Ireland Practice...Kenny Sansom's Nightmare

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Repeating what was in the midlands paper over the weekend: "QPR want to sign West Brom striker Kevin Phillips and Wolves forward Freddy Eastwood. (Daily Mirror)" BBC Gossip Mirror story - "QPR Keen to Land Phillips "Moneybags [NB: hate that characterization] Queens Park Rangers are chasing West Brom's former England striker Kevin Phillips and transfer-listed Wolves' forward Freddy Eastwood. Phillips (above), 34, is out of contract and he wants a new two-year deal at the Hawthorns. But Albion are offering only one." Mirror


Fulham's German player, Moritz Volz tries out as a journalist by visiting Loftus Road:
Moritz Volz/The Times - Monitoring the reporters
I should have known better. I wrote a column about football and the media a couple of months ago and I inadvertently did the one thing I was warning players not to do. I opened my gob in public. And where did it get me? In hot water . . . well, lukewarm anyway. It seems that those nice people at Sky Sports were tickled by my general panning of their trade so they offered me the opportunity to experience it from their side by covering a game for them.

Always one for new experiences, I took them up on the offer - especially when Arsenal v AC Milan was mentioned. Imagine my surprise when the driver dropped me at Loftus Road to cover QPR v West Brom on the last day of the Championship season . . .

As a player I’m used to going straight to the dressing-room but as a roving reporter I headed for the press box to mingle with the journos and pundits. It’s common knowledge that press rooms live or die by the reputation of the food on offer; so how did Loftus Road fare? Let’s just say it’s on a par with Gerry Francis’s barnet.

Once sat in my seat I immediately realised how lacking I was in the tools of the trade. Packet of sweets? No. Pen? No. Pad? Er . . . no. All I had was a team-sheet, but given that the game was nothing more than an end-of-season jolly-up, there wasn’t a whole lot to write down.

Just as well really. I now know that at least half of the reporters in press boxes spend the whole game craning their necks to watch Sky Sports’ goal-flashes on the TV monitors instead of focusing on what’s going on in front of them.

Then when they miss something significant they all start asking each other what happened, relying on the version of events from the one fella who did see it. It’s no wonder some match reports read like the writer wasn’t even at the game.

On the final whistle it was down to the pitch while the players did their lap of honour. I assumed a press officer would bring players over to us for interviews. No such luck. You want a player, you grab him. And by the time I’d figured this out, most of them were back in the dressing-room.

But I had to get a player or I’d have failed in my job, so with no explanation of what I was doing on the dark side, I grabbed Jonathan Greening as he walked past. I thought I’d try to set myself apart from the rest by avoiding obvious questions about the game. So I brought up the subject of the dodgy vest thing his gaffer was wearing that day. But true to form in the world of postmatch interviews, the answer bore absolutely no relation to the question.

He just heard the word “gaffer” and as soon as a footballer hears that it’s autopilot time – “great manager, crackin’ job, love the training, great spirit, blah blah blah . . .” Maybe it was to do with my German pronunciation. He probably wondered what I was on about when I mentioned the gaffer’s “west”.

We still needed a QPR player, so I went for the easy option and grabbed Gareth Ainsworth, who I used to play with at Wimbledon.

He had his two young kids with him, and lovely kids they were, too. But note for future reference. Don’t pick the player with the little ’uns. They think the fluffy mike is a cuddly toy. I didn’t bother asking him about the match either and went down the route of QPR’s ambitions and whether the present squad is good enough to reach the Premier League.

As much as it was a perfectly relevant question from my side of the mike, I knew from a player’s perspective that he’d never be able to give me a genuine answer.

Don’t get me wrong, Gareth is as honest a bloke as you’ll get but he played it safe as houses – just as I would have done in his position.

But as I sat on the bus on the way home, patting myself on the back having got through my day deep behind enemy lines, it slowly dawned on me that in my role as a reporter I’d contradicted myself again yet again. Having spent a column preaching to journos that they should stick to asking us players about the game, I’d been trying to get answers about the situation at QPR and Tony Mow-bray’s vest.

Oh well, if you can’t beat them, join them . . . and the way my career’s going I might have to soon. The Times


Rowlands and Delaney for Ireland

Independent/Ireland/By Daniel McDonnell - Overnight miracle not evident for Trap debut - Portimonense 1 Ireland 1

Monday May 19 2008

THE religious amongst you -- or even those others who are not -- will be familiar with the repetitive hymn 'He Is Lord', which got an airing yesterday with the Italian taking the role of Jesus, rising from the dead amid a plethora of bowed knees and confessing tongues to save us all.

As the man himself took the opportunity to say earlier on in the week -- Trapattoni that is, not God -- he is no saint and won't be performing miracles overnight. This Irish team will not suddenly become a terrifying force; the road to progress will be gradual and requires further endeavour on the training ground.

Still, this friendly game with Portuguese Second Division side Portimonense gave the 69-year-old an early opportunity to see if some of the points he has been trying to get across in the past four days have hit home.

The verdict? It's probably going to take a little bit longer to fully implement what he wants. That was the resounding tone of the comments of both the manager and his players who spoke in the aftermath of a 1-1 draw where either side could have won it -- substitute Andy Keogh was on target to equalise for the Irish after they went in one goal behind at the interval.

He was one member of the bench who consistently got a tutorial from an irate Trapattoni in the first-half, responding to everything he was unhappy with by turning around to his youthful subs with his arms expressively explaining his observations.

It wasn't clear if he was looking for a response, or if anyone was brave enough to offer it. By all accounts, his actions are speaking louder than his words at this juncture in the 'getting to know you' process.

"Football is one language and you get the gist of what he's saying in terms of what he wants us to do," said Stephen Hunt. "But it will take time for us to get used to it too. Obviously Liam (Brady) is there to help him if needs be."

Much of the interest surrounding this game, and indeed the Trapattoni regime as a whole, is speculation over the various formations that he might deploy. From the outset though, it was a relatively rigid 4-4-2 here, although he later said that wasn't the plan. Frontmen Kevin Doyle and Daryl Murphy were not operating as flexibly as he would have preferred.

Details

Only five defenders have made this journey, with Kevin Foley sitting out this game as Stephen Kelly at right-full, Damien Delaney on the opposite flank and Alex Bruce and Paul McShane in the centre played all 90 minutes, with the latter pair failing to convince as a partnership.

In midfield, Liam Miller and Martin Rowlands started in the engine room, with Hunt on the left and Damien Duff on the right. Alas, the Newcastle man hasn't had much luck with black and white stripes, the chosen strip of yesterday's opposition.

He was withdrawn at the interval, not feeling 100pc fit according to Trapattoni. In fact, it was the least heralded of that quartet, QPR man Rowlands, who shone, although he did concede the needless foul which led to Portimonense's Gonzalo drilling an early free-kick through the wall and past the returning 37-year-old Dean Kiely. Such concessions are clearly the little details to which the new gaffer keeps referring. Afterwards, in a cramped room above the dressing rooms in the compact stadium, he delved into an early analysis of his charges. It's not their mentality that needs changing, he explained, it's their habits.

"I don't want to change their mentality," he said. "I like their mentality. But it's important to correct the younger players on basic mistakes, there is room for improvement in this respect. There are 7,000 square metres on the pitch and we need to use the space.

"There are some old habits which may need twitching", he continued, before expanding on this area with the use of water bottles to emphasise his point. "We need to be able to change the direction of attack, to find the player in space rather than running straight at the defence.

"A few times today we had the possibility to pass the ball but we tended to go one on one. Sometimes, the strikers are in too straight a line. They can go 4-4-1-1 rather than 4-4-2."

So is that why he appeared so wound up during the game? He smiles before answering.

"I clarify things for the players, I play with them. I have to help them. Go! Now! Quickly!" he says, raising his voice slightly, to bemused stares.

"For example a player is looking down at the ground from a throw in. I shout 'Turn and look at the ball'. There isn't money on the pitch. Keep your eyes on the ball. You can improve your position immediately if you keep your eye on the ball. What is there to look at on the pitch? Grass?"

Training

They will be the fundamental lessons to be learned in training this morning, ahead of another useful match tonight against Lagos at 8pm. It'll be another day spent with his players who now accept that this is a very different environment compared to what they're used to.

"He's trying to change the mentality in terms of the way we play, bits and pieces," said Hunt, when asked about the behind-closed-doors training sessions. "We're all learning and it will be a different way of playing, that's for sure, we'll be hard to beat.

"I don't want to say too much as I'll get myself in trouble. You'll figure it out for yourselves. And it will take time, a new manager and a new style and a new regime, it's fresh."

Alex Bruce was a little bit more straightforward in his analysis: "He's just big on the organisation of the team and making sure that everyone knows our jobs, you don't win what he has won in the game if you don't know what you are about."

Goalscorer Keogh was singing from a similar hymnsheet, acknowledging that the wide players, a position he often fills for Ireland and Wolves, will have to shoulder significant responsibility in a typical Trap system.

"He wants the wingers coming in and helping the forward, but he wants us to track back to try and get the ball when opposition wingers have it," stressed the Wolves star, whose equalising goal was a close-range volley in the 49th minute.

"It's really a case of getting used to his strategies and formations. He wants us to press and play a high intensity game and also to let the ball do the work, one touch, two touch. But it's still early days."

Early days indeed, and both the new boss and the squad know that there's still plenty of work left to do.

Ireland: Kiely (Murphy 62); Kelly, McShane, Bruce, Delaney, Duff (Keogh 45), Miller (Whelan 71), Rowlands (Potter 73), Hunt (Hoolahan 71); Doyle (Scannell 75), Murphy (Long 57).

- Daniel McDonnell - Independent (Ireland)


And a sad tale from former QPR player, Kenny Sansom re his time as an Arsenal player as part of the "Drinking Culture":
"Kenny Sansom: I lost my wife, drank away my money and almost died like my old pal George Best" - Daily Mail