Queens Park Rangers tonight parted company with manager Neil Warnock after a run of nine matches without a victory. For owner Tony Fernandes it is a decision that will define his reign, and shape our club for years to come.
It’s a needlessly petty touch in an otherwise well designed new stadium that the visiting teams at MK Dons get standard fold down seats on their bench while the home substitutes recline on the now fashionable padded arm chairs. Neil Warnock, nursing 20 stitches in his mouth after a midweek bone graft, chose the seat at the end of the row to watch his final game as QPR manager and spent much of it cutting a frustrated figure.
At one point in the second half he actually started to rock backwards and forwards, hands thrust into his pockets, blood pressure no doubt through the roof. Occasionally the Warnock the country has grown to know and, mostly, loathe over the past 30 years would reappear again. After the last in a series of horribly misplaced passes from Shaun Derry prompted chants from the travelling thousands of QPR fans mocking their own team’s Premier League status he exploded, accelerating to the edge of his technical area with a volley of abuse and then wheeling around to demand Akos Buzsaky change and prepare himself for action. That substitution, like most of Warnock’s decisions in recent weeks, made no discernable change for the better.
The rocking wasn’t just frustration with his team’s under-performance, it was the realisation that he didn’t know what to do about it. A sad end, in a desolate place, to a fantastic 22 month reign at Loftus Road.
Warnock used his column in The Independent on Saturday morning to heap praise on the FA Cup and talk about how much he values it. Strange, because a year ago at Blackburn he’d jokingly threatened centre half Kaspars Gorkss with a fine had he equalised to force an unwanted replay with the Premiership side. That day, and in every cup tie he’s played since he arrived at the club, he fielded a reserve team. Suddenly yesterday he wanted to win, and spoke about going all the way to the final, but the need for victory was more about self preservation and a desperate need to kick start the QPR season rather than any genuine Wembley ambition. A stronger team selection brought a performance every bit as abject as the surrender to Rochdale in the League Cup back in August. The players, disinterested and ambling about almost to a man for the majority of yesterday’s farce, simply weren’t playing for him any more.
In many ways Warnock was a victim of his own success at QPR. He arrived as the club’s fourth manager in a traumatic 2009/10 season when expectations for the team were at rock bottom and League One looked more likely than the Premiership. He found a side half made up of mediocre loan players and kept it up with something to spare. He stated openly that he wanted to win promotion to the Premiership in his first full season in charge and, despite being widely criticised for the quality of his signings in the summer of 2010, was as good as his word. QPR didn’t lose a single one of their first 19 matches of the campaign and were promoted as champions.
The target for the top flight was simple; anything from seventeenth upwards would suffice. Warnock leaves with QPR in seventeenth position despite a disastrous summer where Flavio Briatore retook control from Amit Bhatia, and then spent the months following promotion refusing to strengthen the team safe in the knowledge that he was about to sell the club. The takeover went through with ten days of transfer window left, and important games against Bolton and Wigan already lost, and Warnock scrambled together a side that at the point he was sacked was achieving its target of remaining outside the relegation zone in its first top flight season for 15 years.
In those ten days Warnock attracted high profile players to the club – Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joey Barton and Anton Ferdinand all came through the doors and initial performances against Newcastle, Wolves, Stoke and Manchester City were exceptional. QPR climbed as high as ninth in November, the best performance of the three promoted clubs and well in excess of everybody’s expectations.
But when the performances fell away, expectations remained high. People had seen how the team could perform and wondered why it was no longer doing so. A tough run of fixtures that featured games against six of the top eight teams as well as a trip to unhappy hunting ground Carrow Road brought a creditable seven points but performances declined and the Christmas results were far inferior to those we’d seen earlier in the season.
Warnock said earlier this season he’d waited his whole life for a team like the one he had at his disposal at Loftus Road but in recent weeks that mantra changed to the point where he effectively seemed to be writing off chunks of fixtures and large swathes of his playing staff that he believed would need to be replaced in the notoriously volatile January transfer market. His praise of opponents and “just happy to be here” attitude to Premiership life began to grate as belief drained from his team.
He may well have kept QPR up had he been given the chance to add the further four or five players he believed we are missing this month. But in the meantime, while he waited for the window to creak open, worrying signs started to appear. Compare Shaun Wright-Phillips performance in the home games with Newcastle and Chelsea to his more recent showings, compare Joey Barton v Wolves to Joey Barton v Swansea, Anton Ferdinand’s first two months with the club with his last two and so on.
This is modern day football at its worst, where players hold every single card in every single aspect of the game. That QPR team at the moment is playing well within itself. Whatever the reasons, however many mistakes Neil Warnock has made, there are several players who he brought to the club who have not pulled their weight for him and today’s news is the result of that.
But Warnock has made mistakes. In the summer he cited Blackpool and their free spirited attacking ethos as an inspiration for his side and Man City, Wolves and Stoke all found his QPR team difficult to live with. Compare those performances to the limp surrender at Liverpool and last half an hour against Swansea where even a modicum of attacking ambition would have yielded greater rewards. Three defensive midfielders started in home games against Blackburn and Sunderland – where was this gung ho approach he’d promised and initially enjoyed success with?
When taking the QPR job he cited his disappointment with how things had turned out at Sheffield Unted, where he worked like a dog for years to get them promoted but then found himself unable to keep them in the Premier Division. The Blades looked the least likely side to go down that year of all the relegation candidates but Warnock approached the final games of the season in ultra cautious mode, playing the hapless Christian Nade up front on his own even in the penultimate match against a poor Aston Villa side with nothing to play for, a game they lost 3-0. Sadly in recent weeks some of these traits were starting to shine through again.
Warnock had either lost his way, lost his dressing room, or both. The starting 11 changed haphazardly, the team lined up in a 4-4-2, 4-4-1-1, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 and more besides. How could we be sure his January signings would make a difference when he didn’t seem to know what system he wanted to use? Jay Bothroyd played as a centre forward, then not at all, then as a support man, then not at all, then as a wide attacker, and then not at all again on Saturday.
DJ Campbell was signed to great fanfare in the summer and then never used; Warnock pursued Andy Johnson last week without ever having given Campbell, a similar player, a run of games. Campbell’s performance on Sunday at MK Dons justifies that decision but when demanding faith and money for a transfer window Warnock must surely acknowledge that buying a player to replace one he bought just six months ago and has never used was going to raise concern. Likewise his assertion that the club should not take advantage of the break clause in Kieron Dyer’s contract this January despite one of football’s biggest mercenaries being ruled out for the rest of the campaign after just four pathetic minutes of action. In the summer he allowed Kaspars Gorkss to leave, signed Bruno Perone who’d looked out of his depth even against our meagre pre-season opposition, and has spent the last few weeks saying we need to sign another centre back. Remember whose money this is.
Compare his backing of Dyer, who has done absolutely nothing positive for the first team to warrant any loyalty or support, with his lambasting of Armand Traore for his sending off against Aston Villa. Compare his criticism of Adel Taarabt’s outspoken interviews with his silence after Joey Barton went very public with harsh criticism of the Moroccan. Even when Warnock was doing well at Loftus Road it was very much a case of being with him or packing your bags – Martin Rowlands and Pascal Chimbonda were both ostracised and ignored for failing to toe the party line sufficiently.
He was playing with fire by filling his dressing room with such strong characters and it appears to me, as nothing more than a week-in-week-out supporter, that it backfired on him. Harry Redknapp spoke of a tremendous argument heard during the half time break at White Hart Lane followed by two substitutions and a second half rally from Rangers. But there was none of that fire on show yesterday at Stadium:MK where QPR players could repeatedly by found ambling back at a walking pace as the home side launched vibrant counter attacks.
All of this would have been forgiven in the past, with Warnock’s efforts last year entitling him to at least one full season in the top flight regardless of how it went. But there’s no loyalty in football anymore, and no money in loyalty. This is the sport we follow now.
He came to the Premiership to prove everybody wrong, but in what will surely be now his long talked about retirement he’ll have to face up to the fact that he will forever be remembered as a lower division promotion specialist who struggled to make the step up to the top flight.
With a heavy heart, I’m finding it hard to argue against the decision that’s been made, but every day I find myself disliking football a little bit more.
This all left chairman Tony Fernandes with a choice because time has been against QPR all season. They were forced to play catch up on the rest of the division in the summer when a late takeover left just ten days for squad building while the other more established sides had been at work for three months. Then the structure of their fixture list meant a bad run of results was put down to playing so many outstanding teams all at once and a sacking in advance of the transfer window therefore rightly ruled out. Now with plenty of corrections required to the squad and only 30 days of transfer window to do it in a change had to be made immediately or not at all or risk the summer situation being repeated again - with the last ten games of the season looking like the stuff of nightmares it would have been pointless to allow Warnock to strengthen, then decide later to sack him, and leave a new man with somebody else’s players and eight of the top ten to play in the final ten fixtures.
Fernandes either had to back Warnock today, allow him to bring in his own players and then leave him to do it until the end of the season, or he had to sack him. He’s sacked him, and immediately been set upon by online supporters with talk of tearing up season tickets and losing all faith in the new owner.
That seems premature, as does the praise from those who believe he’s done exactly the right thing. Slating him or singing his praises now is akin to standing next to the roulette wheel and hurling abuse at a gambler who’s put it all on red and is waiting for the wheel to stop spinning. He only knows if it was the right decision when the ball drops, and we’ll only know if Tony Fernandes has done the right thing here if we’re still a Premiership side next August. If you’ve taken the time out to abuse Tony Fernandes on Twitter tonight then I’m afraid I just don’t understand your mentality.
There are ambitious plans for QPR. A desperately needed purpose built training ground and youth academy is, according to CEO Philip Beard, just around the corner. A new stadium is a priority. All of Fernandes’ plans and ambitions are based on QPR as a Premiership side, earning Premiership money from Premiership television rights. QPR need to be a Premiership team for a lot of this to happen and it was clear from recent performances, and body language of many of the players yesterday at Milton Keynes, that this hard-won Premiership status was in serious, serious doubt. Fernandes has rolled the dice; let’s see where they land before hanging him for it. If the new manager keeps us up the foundations could very quickly be put in place for a QPR club that holds its own at the highest level for years to come. If he doesn’t, it may be 15 years before we’re back here again and things like owning our own purpose built training ground will remain a pipe dream. Everything hangs on the result of this massive decision today
This time last year an orderly queue of the great and the good formed to talk about what a disgrace West Brom’s sacking of Roberto Di Matteo after he’d won them promotion was – Roy Hodgson subsequently kept them up with something to spare.
Time will continue to punish QPR as they begin their search for Neil Warnock’s successor. There are 22 days of transfer window left and in that time the R’s also face Newcastle and an absolutely crucial home game against Wigan Athletic. In an ideal world what QPR should do now is to take a lot of time to consider carefully what sort of manager they want here, advertise the post and interview candidates from all corners of the globe, of all ages and of all footballing backgrounds. They need to make an appointment with an eye on the next five years or more.
But nothing highlights what a short termist view football has on everything at the moment more than Neil Warnock’s departure today. QPR need to be a Premiership club next season, and for that to happen they need to have a significant number of points on the board by the time they’ve concluded their game at fellow strugglers Bolton in March. After that ten games will remain including fixtures with Manchesters United and City, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, resurgent Sunderland and Stoke.
Sadly just when they really need to think carefully about a long term strategy, they’re probably going to have to make a very quick appointment for the short term.
Mark Hughes is an early favourite with the bookies, if not with the majority of QPR supporters. Hughes endured years of running battles with QPR legend Alan McDonald during his playing days at Manchester United and finished his career at Chelsea which is never going to position him favourably with the Loftus Road faithful. He also spent the best part of £200m with Manchester City and managed a tenth and sixth place finish only. And he walked out on Fulham last summer citing a lack of ambition with both parties seemingly quite happy to be parting company.
But at both Blackburn and Fulham, clubs of similar size to Rangers with similar budgets, he achieved comfortable midtable finishes and showed a deftness in the transfer market that QPR would love him to recreate at Loftus Road. Chris Samba found and bought for £400,000 is a particular triumph but Hughes also bought Roque Santa Cruz and Benni McCarthy on the cheap at Blackburn and had them playing the best football of their careers, and City still benefit from the likes of Vincent Kompany who he brought to the club. I’m not as adverse to this appointment as most seem to be.
Alan Curbishley has been mentioned but he doesn’t strike me as a particularly inspired or forward thinking appointment – he looked a tired and outdated coach in his latter days at West Ham. Another former Hammers boss Gianfranco Zola is said to figure highly in Fernandes’ thinking but, nice guy though he undoubtedly is, I thought he did an abysmal job at Upton Park and set them up for relegation last season which Avram Grant duly saw through. If Grant is so much as linked with QPR I could well have seen my final match.
Rafael Benitez is another name being tipped, and Tony Fernandes seemed to endorse the stories through his Twitter account on Sunday evening. Benitez has been out of work since a messy departure from Liverpool, where he won the European Cup in 2005, but is a known Anglophile and has remained a resident of Southport since he left Anfield rather than returning to his native Spain where he previously won two La Liga titles and a UEFA Cup with Valencia. Even in the good times at Anfield his transfer activity was wildly erratic, and although he built a squad capable of winning the league in 2008/09 they missed out because of his incessant team rotation that cost them vital points in winnable home games. I’d be surprised if he was remotely interested in a relegation dog fight with QPR but stranger things have happened.
Currently, Hughes looks the favourite.
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