Chris Ramsey’s calm demeanor and training ground influence have brought an away win and a dramatic upturn in mood at QPR. Can it continue at Hull on Saturday?
They don’t call it a managerial merry-go-round for nothing. The same old faces clamber on and off, and go round and round.
Two months ago if a Premier League manager was sacked you could absolutely guarantee that Tim Sherwood and Tony Pulis would be joint favourites to succeed him. Betting markets would be opened with those two at the top, and newspapers would fight to find out which of the two it would be. Pulis because he’s had a steady career topped off with a fine season at Palace last year, Sherwood because his agent and PR people have successfully watered and cultivated what is still potentially an absolute myth that he’s some managerial genius in waiting with only half a season at Spurs, where he lost 10 and drew four of his 28 matches, as fertilizer.
If both were ruled out, a scramble would begin to find somebody else people have heard of. Michael Laudrup, for instance, despite saying he will not break his current contract in Qatar. After that, questions like "well who else is there?” would fill the Sunday Supplement air.
This is how it is and always has been. Firstly, despite the successes of Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger and Brendan Rodgers in this country, there is a lingering perception that you need to have played football at a high level to understand football at a high level. You could call it the Steve Claridge, or Robbie Savage, logic if you like — because when either is employed on license payers’ money to squawk down the phone on the evening Five Live phone ins, the rare callers who make good points and catch them out are honked down with the cover-all answer of "I’ve played the game and you aint so I know and you don’t.”
Robbie Savage’s continued employment, absolutely everywhere, as anything other than a means to warn ships of impending doom in thick fog remains a total mystery, incidentally. Turns out there are still television executives completely oblivious to the success Sky are having on Monday nights with careful, considered, intelligent analysis who still believe what the football watching public at large really desire after a long day at work is to be poked repeatedly by a gobshite whose opinions are forced upon you like a cheese grater to the side of your face.
Sorry where was I? Ah yes, secondly. Secondly, one success can take you a long way. Alan Curbishley did a wonderful job for a prolonged period of time at Charlton but he left there nine years ago and has only one failure, spending a hell of a lot of money, at West Ham to his credit since. In his regular Sky appearances he comes across about as motivated, and motivational, as one of Harry Redknapp’s beer shits and yet Curbs Curbishley is still always, always, always short in the betting odds for available posts. Good posts too, not poison chalices. We’ve only just managed to prise Peter Reidy Reid and Bryan Robson off those lists after decades of failure and advancing years — although you’ll still find Richard Keys on the Twitter mentioning his mate Reidy for every job that comes up, when he’s not "hanging out the back” of Andy Gray that is.
And thirdly, any club that dares to stray from this path is a bunch of idiots who haven’t got the first idea what they’re doing. Looking abroad, for instance, brings jingoistic allegations that the only reason they didn’t consider Sam Allardyce and his winning personality and wondrous football is because he isn’t called Sammy Allardici. "Reidy shouldn’t have to go to Thailand for a job,” said Allardici on Goals on Sunday, when Reidy had indeed done one too many appalling jobs at an English club for anybody in this country to consider employing him again and had to go to the Far East for employment. Get somebody foreign and you’re getting ideas above your station, get somebody young and you’re taking a risk with a lack of experience, get somebody from the lower leagues and he’ll almost certainly be out of his depth. It’s this shallow mindedness that returns the same old tired faces to work for the same old tired outcomes, making millionaires out of mediocrity.
QPR have played this game more than willingly since the money arrived at Loftus Road. Luigi De Canio apart they’ve always gone for a name, always somebody you’ve heard of. QPR is a club that found itself bossed by technically the richest club owners in the entire sport anywhere in the world and yet appointed Iain Dowie, Jim Magilton and Paul Hart as permanent managers. Tony Fernandes selected Mark Hughes and Harry Redknapp from shortlists of one, and may well have done so again with Tim Sherwood had Tactical Tim’s over-active imagination not sent demands so unreasonable across the negotiating table even QPR balked at them.
What they’ve done this time, with Chris Ramsey, is plump for somebody from outside the fairground. Ramsey has never managed in the Premier League and is therefore prefixed as a novice, and a risk. An appointment on the cheap perhaps, but certainly confirmation that QPR will be relegated.
Ramsey is not a novice. He’s managed England at Under 20 level, coached England at other junior levels and scouted for the senior team. He’s managed, and won a league championship, in the US and spent ten years coaching and developing Tottenham’s oft-hailed academy. Harry Redknapp, during an appearance on TalkSport with Adrian Durham so sickeningly sycophantic it was like having warm diarrhea spooned into your ears, said he'd never seen Ramsey coach, despite working with him through his time at Tottenham and for the last few months at QPR. That's the attitude Ramsey and others like him face every day. Never heard of him, but my mate Reidy would do you a good job.
Ramsey's attitude to his first Premier League managerial job at QPR has been purposely upbeat and positive, involving players previously cast aside, deliberately bringing academy graduates into the senior fold to show them the days where the senior team manager admitted he’d never seen them play were over. He’s been polite with the press and hasn’t sought to make excuses. Away games are there to be won, not treated as bonuses. Injuries are merely opportunities for other players to shine. Premier League games are there to be attacked, not feared. QPR have talented players and will bow to nobody. If they are going down, they’re going down swinging.
Robbed of Redknapp’s tall tales, the press responded this week by playing Ask the Black Man with Ramsey at his weekly press conference, which was supposed to be previewing a crucial trip to Hull this Saturday. Racist behaviour by fans of a club that isn’t QPR, attending a match in a competition QPR do not compete in, in a different country from the one QPR play in, was pored over and over and over again purely because Ramsey is black himself. What does the black man think of all this racism? Much the same as the white men think as it turns out. And so the "QPR are going to appoint Sherwood, QPR are going to appoint Laudrup, QPR are going to appoint Sherwood, QPR are going to appoint Laudrup,” coverage has now been replaced by hyped up versions of "QPR’s black manager calmly denounces the behaviour of racists” for a few days.
Meanwhile Ramsey seems to be doing a very decent job as the QPR manager. Although the club continues to spin every tiny positive like a top, the mood is improved, the team seems motivated and happy, and tactics are no longer just the mints Bondy Bond keeps in his glove compartment.
This will all evaporate into "told you he wasn’t experienced enough” and "told you they were doing it on the cheap” with a couple of defeats. I pray they don’t come. Mainly because it’s our club and we want it to succeed and fear the financial implications of failure this season but also because it would be nice to see somebody who’s worked bloody hard on their coaching career and qualifications for three decades only to be overlooked in favour of ‘names’ succeed through such sorcery as coaching, motivating and organising football players.
Even if he doesn’t, it’s refreshing to have somebody in charge of the first team who seems to be speaking and acting in the best interests of the club, rather than making excuses and lies designed to protect his own reputation. It’s nice to see QPR being represented respectfully in public. Kick out another win at Hull on Saturday, and the public might actually start to return that respect in equal measure.
Links >>> Burning bridges — opposition profile >>> Difficult second album — interview >>> The start of the road to Wembley disaster — history >>> Another QPR game for Taylor — referee >>> Brady can profit from right side defensive problems — betting >>> Optimistic Presser with cake — press conference
Dexter Blackstock bundles home a controversial opening goal, which Hull didn’t believe had crossed the line, in a meeting between these sides at the KC Stadium in April 2008. Luigi De Canio’s QPR led from the fourteenth minute and looked good for an away win until Michael Turner equalised in injury time for the hosts.
Hull have struggled with injuries more than most this season and received another set back this week when former West Ham midfielder Mo Diame broke down in training ahead of his intended comeback this weekend. Robert Snodgrass hasn’t played since sustaining a knee injury at Loftus Road in the first meeting between these sides on the opening day of the season and he’s joined on the long-term injury list by James Chester, who scored in that game, and Liam Rosenior, whose father Leroy played for QPR in the 1980s and once scored in a 5-1 Rangers win in this fixture in the League Cup.
Elsewhere: Seven matches on Saturday, three on Sunday, and the highlight is probably New Liverpool welcoming Old Liverpool to St Mary’s in the final fixture of the weekend.
QPR will be relieved to see that Leicester and Burnley, both in the bottom three at the start of play, have tough away trips to Everton and Big Racist John and the Boys respectively. Aston Villa, however, must fancy their chances of a double over Meticulous Mark and the Taffia in Tactical Tim’s first game in full charge. Any potential new-manager bounce there, and Villa could hardly get any worse, applies pressure to QPR and Hull immediately above them.
Up ahead and trying to escape, Pards Pardew welcomes Arsenal to Selhurst Park while free-falling Sunderland host fellow strugglers West Brom.
Up at the top with the games that matter, Louis Van Gaal’s 60 minutes of rubbish with players out of position followed by 30 minutes of pelting the ball at Marouane Fellaini’s head masterclass visits Swansea City and Man City host Michael Ashley’s Shirt Selling Emporium. Don’t expect many civil words in the boardroom at Tottenham v Big Fat Sam’s Big Fat Brand of Entertaining Football at White Hart Lane following the Emmanuel Adebayor debacle on deadline day.
Referee: Anthony Taylor, who’s refereed more QPR games this season than anybody else, is in the middle again on Saturday as the R’s head to Hull. It’s little over a month since his last appointment with Rangers, when he sent off Wayne Routledge late on in a 1-1 draw with Swansea only for the decision to later be rescinded. Routledge was carded for reacting to a bad tackle from Karl Henry which was worthy of greater punishment itself, so it will be interesting to see if he has had his card marked. Full QPR case file for this official is available here.
QPR: Harry Redknapp managed just two Premier League away wins in 24 attempts during his time as QPR manager, and none from 11 this season. Chris Ramsey has played one won one on the road after snapping a run of 12 straight away defeats in all competitions with a 2-0 success at Sunderland last time out. That was also the first time the R’s have gone ahead in a road game this season. The overall away record, won one lost 11, scored eight conceded 27, remains abject but there were positive signs for the first time this season at the Stadium of Light. That victory was the first in eight home or away but was still enough to lift Chris Ramsey’s team out of the bottom three, a hint at the poor quality and tight nature of the relegation dog-fight this season. Rangers are being boosted in that fight by an ability to beat the teams around them — all six victories this year have come in the 11 matches against teams in the bottom half of the table, although Hull won 1-0 at Loftus Road on day one. The 43 goals conceded this season is the worst defensive record in the division along with Burnley. A yellow card at Sunderland for Joey Barton set a Premier League record for bookings in seven straight matches, but his overall total of eight is still short of the ten now required for a ban.
Betting Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding tells us…
Rangers’ well documented away form leaves a lot to be desired, but Hull's home results don’t look great on a statistical level either. That said, they have had a tough run of fixtures at home and when looked at closely - the majority of their home games have been against top half opposition.
The current prices of 11/10 Hull, 12/5 Draw and 3/1 QPR seem a little generous to QPR if I’m honest, especially considering the mini-injury crisis Ramsey will have to cope with. Leroy Fer had started to perform in recent weeks when placed in his usual central position - Amazing that Harry eh?? - and he will be a loss. The more concerning aspect is the right back position which could well see Shaun Wright-Phillips plying his 'trade' or the untried Darnell Furlong thrown into the mix. Alternatively, we could choose to match up against Hull with the dreaded 3-5-2 formation. Whichever way you look at it, it is a problem to be solved by Ramsey and he will earn his corn with his team selection and their consequent work levels.
I personally think this possible weakness could play into the hands of the ever more impressive Robbie Brady who is making the left side of the Hull attack a potent source for them. In recent weeks, he has been getting closer and closer to opening his account and this could be the day for him. It looks a close game on paper and I think both managers would probably take a draw if offered, so staying clear of the outright market. My recommended bet for this game is Robbie Brady to score at any time.
Recommended Bet: Hull v QPR - Robbie Brady to score anytime @5/1 (888Sport/Ladbrokes)
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion WestonSuperR tells us...
"So is Chris Ramsey the real deal and can he repeat an impressive performance up at Sunderland? There was lots to be positive about at The Stadium of Light, not least the effort and commitment from everyone involved. I can't say I agreed with the team selection before kick off but it worked and we got a vital win.
"If this work-rate can be replicated at Hull we have every chance. Hull have been generally poor at home this season with very few wins so the crowd are bound to be edgy for this 'six pointer', an early goal for us could make all the difference.
Leroy Fer was superb v Sunderland and will be a huge loss. I also worry that Charlie Austin appears to be hitting a bad spell and there must be a doubt as to whether he is match fit having spent time holidaying in Dubai recently. I would really fancy is to get a result of this was at Loftus Road but Hull looked good v Villa and I fear they will just shade a tight match by a single goal.”
John’s Prediction: Hull 1-0 QPR. No scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: Hull 0-1 QPR. Scorer — Charlie Austin
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