A tough week off the field for Birmingham City and Queens Park Rangers ends with the two financially beleaguered outfits meeting at St Andrew’s on Saturday.
Old First Division, Old Old Second Division >>> Saturday March 8, 2014 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> St Andrew's, Birmingham
The cost of putting together the 2012/13 QPR team that not only turned out to be one of the worst in living memory, but also easily the most dislikeable, was £65m - £16.25m per Premier League win. The club's debt has now soared beyond the £177m mark.
The figures released in the QPR accounts for last season have been described as "startling" by some — it is, after all, the biggest single season loss recorded by a British football club apart from Man City and Chelsea and it went on creating a team that only won four matches in the entire campaign.
But the word "startling" merely serves to show how big-club-focused the mainstream media in this country really is. You need only look at the goalkeeping situation at QPR last season to see exactly what the accounts were going to look like at the end of it all — during the summer of 2012 Rangers went from paying two goalkeepers £20,000 a week to paying three of them £150,000 with no discernible improvement in the quality of goalkeeping.
And you could tell a similar story about every position on the field. At centre half they added Anton Ferdinand, Ryan Nelsen, Chris Samba, Nedum Onuoha, Tal Ben Haim and Danny Gabbidon — Clint Hill won the Player of the Year award two seasons running. In the centre of midfield Rangers bought Joey Barton, Esetban Granero, Samba Diakite, Jermaine Jenas and Ji Sung Park — never once did the team look as good as it had done when Shaun Derry partnered Ale Faurlin. Up front Bobby Zamora, Djibril Cisse, Andy Johnson and DJ Campbell all arrived — none of whom got anywhere close to Heidar Helguson.
The wage bill ballooned to £68m and the team got worse. It was there for all to see. There is nothing startling about this week's revelation that the club has lost a tonne of money as a result, and there will be nothing surprising whatsoever when, a year from now, the results are every bit as bad, and probably worse, all over again. Rangers shifted high-earning players on well last summer, but it was mostly done on loan and QPR will be paying a portion of those wages still. They've also allowed themselves to fall back into the trap of trying to solve every small problem with another signing to the point where they have eight loan players in a league where you can only select five in your matchday squad. Loan signings are not free, and without the Premier League television money this season I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a similar amount lost in 2013/14 — a season that started with Tony Fernandes saying the board had "learnt lessons".
So while the national media suddenly shines a light on QPR, like mawkish motorists passing a motorway pile up and gawping at the wreckage before driving on, immediately forgetting the incident, back to their daily routine of what Jose Mourinho has said in a press conference or what some no-mark pillock has said on Twitter, the rest of us of QPR persuasion live with the consequences.
And what might those be?
Well, according to "Uncle Tony" (I'm quoting him, believe it or not) we've no need to worry, because apart from a £15m loan from Barclays (which, incidentally, is debt enough for a club of QPR's size) the money is entirely owed "to the shareholders, by the shareholders." And potentially he's absolutely right about that. After all, it's safer for a football club to owe £100m to its owner than £10m for an external bank or hedge fund — because if the external mob call it in you're straight into admin, whereas a club owner risks writing off the majority of his "investment" by doing the same thing.
But QPR fans don't need particularly long memories to know that having money "loaned" into the club by an apparently generous benefactor — say, Chris Wright — isn't as wonderful and safe as Fernandes would like us to believe. If they decide they've had enough of shovelling money into a black hole and not only call it a day but also call the debt in the club is immediately destitute.
The accounts this week merely go to highlight what anybody with half a brain in their head already knew: QPR, one of the country's worst run football clubs, have very serious short, medium and long term issues.
Short term the club seems stuck between a rock and a hard place — stay out of the Premier League television money much longer and the owners will either have to swallow more incredible expenditure. But get promoted and the fine levied under the Financial Fair Play rules would be astronomical. From a PR point of view Rangers, Leicester, Forest and others can brief about being confident of legally challenging such regulations. Moral debates for another day.
Medium term, all the problems that have caused this situation remain. The most senior person at the club with any football knowledge whatsoever remains the football manager. Tony Fernandes, his board of directors and chief executive Philip Beard cannot hold a candle to either Mark Hughes or Harry Redknapp when it comes to football experience and knowledge, so they have consistently bowed to the football manager on football decisions. Any football manager is going to recommend making another signing and at a club like QPR, where four straight defeats usually means the sack or very close to it, those signings are rarely going to be made looking any further forward than the next month. So Bobby Zamora is crocked, and Andy Johnson has bad knees, and Charlie Austin failed his Hull medical and Ji-Sung Park is in decline and so on and so forth — but they might be ok for the next four games, so let's get them in. It's the same reason Michael Harriman or Max Ehmer never get a chance despite being plenty good enough — safer to loan in Aaron Hughes.
Until the club appoints a manager with a specific long term remit to lower the average age of the squad, reduce the wage bill, promote youth team players, and is given targets measured in years rather than months — or, preferably, a really top notch director of football is brought in to oversee such a strategy — the losses on and off the pitch are going to continue. Every season a new manager, every transfer window a clutch of new players, every year at this time another slab of debt. Even if you’re of the opinion that the debt being owed to the shareholders means it’s not really a debt at all, you must surely be concerned at the way the same mistakes are being made over and over again in trying to build something like a football team or club.
Fernandes' statement today that QPR now have assets to sell is absolutely laughable. Loic Remy apart, who or what can he possibly mean? "We have assets to trade" sounds like the final forlorn cry of a fired Apprentice candidate who made £23 from a day on a market stall but had 750 poorly made woollen hats to take back to the boardroom.
Long term QPR is a club which desperately needs a new training ground, and is told it needs a new stadium. The former will be built at Warren Farm, we're told, although we're yet to see a spade go into the ground there and Shaun Hallett, the project leader you may remember enthusing about the development on QPR Player a year ago, left the club quietly before Christmas. Who is leading that project now? When will it start construction? Will it still go ahead if QPR do not get back to the Premier League soon?
The new stadium is the reason the board is here — the original appointment of former O2 Arena executive Beard as CEO despite zero previous football experience told us that right from the start — but given that the vast majority of football decision made by this board so far — however well intentioned - have been not only wrong, but also expensive, what chances them getting a new home for Rangers for the next 100 years or more right?
Something that is actually, genuinely startling is Fernandes' unwavering popularity among QPR fans. Imagine if Richard Thompson, Chris Wright, Nick Blackburn or Flavio Briatore had run up £170m worth of debt building a club this dislikeable. They'd have been lighting torches and wielding pitch forks on the South Africa Road long ago. The power of The Twitter, and occasional appearances in The Springbok, is incredible. Fernandes undoubtedly seems like a decent guy who has tried his best and got stung like many before him by the horrible world of modern football — but you don’t need any football knowledge, or indeed that much business brain, to know that spending more than 100% of your turnover on wages alone is a recipe for disaster. Again, it’s not a financial problem as long as the shareholders are willing to swallow the costs of their own mistakes, but even discounting the debt it’s disheartening to see such basic mistakes being made, and repeated by people we're trusting to sort our club out two new bases that they'll get one shot at getting right in the next century.
On the field Rangers may well have covered the situation had Charlie Austin and Matt Phillips stayed fit — the Sky and BT money available in the Premier League next year is colossal. But it says a lot that for all this expenditure and player turnover — QPR paid out more in wages last season than Borussia Dortmund — the whole team can be completely crippled by two injuries to players who only arrived eight months ago. Without them this season is starting to feel like a drift towards a play-off defeat or worse.
And that might not be a bad thing. Talk in the press in the wake of the accounts says as many as 26 players could leave Loftus Road this summer and given that the squad remains horribly bloated with massive earners like Luke Young an Shaun Wright-Phillips still loitering around the place contributing nothing whatsoever that may well be very welcome. Hell, given the scattergun approach to transfer windows in recent times, you could even say a transfer embargo imposed in 2015 by the FFP rules, if they make it past the courts, would do QPR some good, forcing them to coach players and promote youngsters rather than signing players and discarding them at the rate they currently do.
What Rangers musn’t do is throw the baby out with the bath water. In Ale Faurlin and Clint Hill they have two long serving (it’s all relative) players who have grown to love the place and have both spoken this week about their desire to remain at Loftus Road, and move into coaching. It is imperative for this QPR, which is a shell of a football club really, keeps the few who have a genuine affinity and passion for the place around and use them as a bedrock to build from.
Coach Marc Bircham has left already this season and although that’s easily spun as him being offered a first team coaching job elsewhere when he was only working with the youth sides here, you have to ask why efforts weren’t made to promote him at Loftus Road. After all, the club happily gave Steve Cotterill employment for six months last season — could Bircham not have done the same job with a lot fewer faux-gold neck chains?
Hill and Faurlin are exactly the sort of people Rangers should be bending over backwards to keep around as they try and climb their way out of this ever increasing mess, and their presence grows in importance with each passing transfer window, each incoming clutch of newbies. Earlier this week Wigan renewed the contract of midfielder Ben Watson despite a double leg break saying he’d given the club good service and now it was time to repay the compliment — that’s how you inspire affinity, loyalty and effort in players and become a club that decent footballers want to join without having to be tempted by stupid wages.
Sadly, it’s hard to believe there aren’t a few more mistakes to come yet.
Links >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/34298/debt-and-dece Profile >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/34291/third-divisio >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/34286/scott-returns >>> Betting
Team News: Rangers have Joey Barton back after a two match ban but will take late fitness checks on Niko Kranjcar, Gary O'Neil, Benoit Assou-Ekotto and Armand Traore. I’ll repeat this here every week because it’s absolutely ludicrous that the club has allowed this to happen — league regulations mean only five loan signings can be selected in a matchday squad which means three out of Benoit Assou Ekotto, Kevin Doyle, Will Keane, Tom Carroll, Mobido Maiga, Niko Kranjcar, Fat Brazilian and Reformed Ravel Morrison must miss out altogether. Crucially Charlie Austin (shoulder), Danny Simpson (back), Ale Faurlin (knee) and Matt Phillips (ankle) are all long term absentees.
Birmingham miss left back Mitch Hancox who is out for six weeks with an ankle injury but Lee Novak and Albert Rusnak (hamstring and groin respectively) may feature if they pass late tests. Brian Howard is also missing with an ankle problem.
Elsewhere: Having spent the first three sixteenths of the season talking about how hard it is to play Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday all the time, Harry Redknapp has strangely dropped the stock excuse just as, for the first time in this crucial thirteenth and fourteenth parts of the Never Ending Story, Rangers are in fact playing Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday all the time. Birmingham today, Brighton 25 minutes after that, Yeovil a day later, then Sheffield Wednesday the day after, then up to Middlesbrough, then Wigan on the same day and so on.
So the Championship fixture lists are blending into one even more than they did already. Apart from Blackburn v Burnley, which has been moved to Sunday lunchtime to try and quell the desire to start unloading makeshift flamethrowers in each other’s direction, there’s little to get enthusiastic about on Saturday’s sheet.
At the bottom, four points separate the bottom five making Doncaster’s home game with Huddersfield, and Yeovil at home to Sheff Wed marginally more interesting. Bottom placed Barnsley won’t fancy their chances match against the Trees who are chasing the automatic promotion spots, nor Millwall at the other East Midlands high flyers Derby, but could both be saved by Blackpool’s ongoing crash through the division.
Not since Felix Baumgartner jumped from his space balloon has anything fallen to earth quite so quickly and the Tangerines, without a win in 17 and with only four draws in that time, are showing no signs of slowing down yet. Perhaps they’ll make it whatever you’d call a six-some (an orgy?) down the bottom of the table if they don’t pick up some points soon — a midweek six pointer with Millwall will set pulses racing across the continent but it’s Bournemouth at home up first.
Brighton v Reading is a moderately interesting battle for the play off spots. Middlesbrough v Ipswich and Leeds v Champions Elect Bolton barely even interests the four teams involved.
Referee: For the second time in reasonably quick succession it’s Yorkshire Graham Scott in charge of the R’s this weekend. Scott was the man in the middle for the 2-1 home win against Doncaster Rovers on New Year’s Day and this is his fourth QPR career appointment. For his full case history and recent stats please click here.
QPR: No wins in five matches now for Harry Redknapp’s team, and one goal or fewer scored in each of the last four. The gap now to second placed Burnley is nine points and the R’s don’t look like closing that any time soon. If we look back to the draw at Millwall on October 19, Rangers have won eight, drawn seven and lost seven of their 22 games since then. Over the course of a season that sort of form will give you about 65 points, which last year would have been good enough for ninth place in the Championship - Hull, in second, got 79. Away from home Rangers have been the definition of bang average — five wins, five draws, five defeats, 13 scored, 13 conceded. That defensive record is the best in the league bar Brighton, and the goals scored total is bettered by everybody bar Brighton outside the bottom four. Rangers have won one and lost four of their last six away games in all competitions since winning at Blackpool before Christmas. Rangers have only ever won once here in the league, and Birmingham are unbeaten in the last eight meetings on this ground dating back to 1984. Although 26 goals against is the league’s joint best defensive record, along with Burnley, Rangers are without a clean sheet in ten league outings.
Betting: LFW’s resident pundit Andy Hillman tells us…
"I’m still ploughing money into this stupid notion that QPR will ever win a game again without Charlie Austin, or at least someone half decent up top. The stats making me back this ridiculous assumption this week are that Birmingham have only won a single solitary game at home in their last fifteen outings - against Bristol Rovers. This run stretches back until October. We haven’t won in five ourselves, but Birmingham are pretty rank and are there for the taking, if someone, you know, takes... Rangers are healthy odds against to do so.”
Bet of the day: Birmingham vs QPR - QPR to win @ 6/4
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Mase tells us…
"Rangers badly need a win to get themselves back on track and maintain a distance to seventh and below. I think we're going to be relying on an implosion from Burnley if we are to get into the auto spots; a nine point gap has seldom seemed wider than it does now, even with our game in hand. Our spluttering and short-of-confidence first team is doing its best to avoid having to be involved in the playoffs, but seemingly by falling out of the top six rather than breaking into the top two. Somehow bloody Wigan are in the reckoning, last time I looked at the table they were closer to League 1. Times change.
"I don't know whose chips Birmingham have pissed on but the prospect of Gianni Paladini waiting in the wings to take over from their previous Fit and Proper chairman (now convicted of a string of money-washing offences by the court in Hong Kong) is a dismal one. The uncertainty is at the very least an unpromising way to begin the run-in for our hosts. Rangers face challenges of their own as Clive and others have written about at length and with more elegance than I. The questions that need answering are, do we want it enough, and can we make it count? Those playing in the Championship who foster even moderate ambition, start the season with the aim of not being in the Championship the next season. I remember thinking at various stages the two seasons before we eventually went up, under our succession of rag-tag managers: "We should be beating this lot. What if we can go on a run, get up to sixth, who knows..?" But it is the same for many clubs, at least in the unsullied minds of some of their fans.
"As for Saturday, another cagey affair is likely. I am hoping we can return with the clean sheet intact, but not necessarily the three points we need. Confidence further sapped.”
Mase’s Prediction: Birmingham 0-0 QPR. No Scorer.
LFW Prediction: Birmingham 0-1 QPR. Scorer — Ravel Morrison
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