As Jamie Mackie heads to Championship rivals Nottingham Forest, LFW wonders how the keenness to sell the former Plymouth man can possibly sit alongside QPR’s stated aim of bringing “the right sort” to the club.

The abiding memory of Jamie Mackie’s time at QPR is clear.

He’s wearing the superb red and white halved away kit of the 2011/12 season and he’s playing wide on the right for a QPR team facing up to the prospect of 30 minutes of vitally important football with only ten men. Rangers are in a tight spot: it’s the final game of the season and having not won an away game all calendar year they’re faced with the prospect of beating the billion pound Manchester City team on their own patch, denying them the league title in the process, or relying on Bolton not beating a poor Stoke side with nothing to play for. If it goes wrong, Rangers are relegated.

City are known for bottling such occasions and have allowed their visitors to equalise through Djibril Cisse immediately after half time thanks to a mistake by defender Joleon Lescott. But QPR are equally prone to acts of self-immolation and having done all the hard work — silencing the crowd, levelling the game, demoralising the Bolton players down at Stoke — they have done their absolute damndest to turn the situation back against them by having a man sent off. Joey Barton’s behaviour that day, given the circumstances of the game, should not be allowed to dull in the memory lest we ever invite him to let us all down so badly again.

With Barton splashing around in the early bath water it looks like a case of hanging on as best as Rangers can for the remaining time — kill the game, take the point, hope it’s enough.

But there’s a twist to come in the script. Armand Traore accelerates away down the left wing and, although he seems to be doing so more to keep possession of the ball as far away from the QPR goal as possible than set up a chance of a score at the other end, he does have form for producing fine crosses from such situations — earlier in the season Heidar Helguson had torn the net off the back of the posts at Stoke with a fearsome header from one such delivery. The Senegalese full back crosses again, but it’s deep to the far post and striker Bobby Zamora has gambled on the near stick so, with only ten men on the field, it’s reasonable to assume that it’s going to drift away into Man City’s left back spot and the onslaught on the QPR goal will recommence.

From the upper tier of Manchester City’s well positioned away end my eyes, and the eyes of everybody around me, pan across the field from right to left as the ball travels through the air, and as we do so a second figure enters the field of vision from our left. As the first chords of Mariah Carey’s Hero strike up we watch, open mouthed, as Jamie Mackie hoves into view. He looks like a Labrador puppy pursuing a stick into a stretch of fast moving water — naïve, enthusiastic and totally unaware of what he’s about to do. And somehow, gloriously, in slow motion, it’s all opening up for him. The ball hangs in the air as if suspended there, airborne for the perfect amount of time to intersect Mackie’s run to the heart of the penalty area at precisely the right moment. Panting, Mackie closes his eyes, puts his arms down by his side, and launches his body into the air in a horizontal position. The ball falls plum onto his forehead, gathering power and direction as it does so and landing at just the right point inside the six yard box to bounce up and over goalkeeper Joe Hart, and several desperate attempts from defenders to get back on the line, and into the roof of the net.

Mackie, scarcely able to believe it himself, races round to the away end and collapses in front of the delirious masses. He’s crying. What follows has gone down in Premier League folklore, and rather lost in that is the fact that QPR survived.

The dog days

Some like to take the easy route and be quite sniffy about Jamie Mackie. Football supporters respond well to work rate and effort but when it starts to appear as though that’s all a player has to offer the armchair experts start to crawl out from their basement computer rooms and talk about things they have little comprehension of but have read about in books and old copies of FourFourTwo — technique, passing percentage, end product, assists, ratios, statistics. The idea that Mackie is literally a footballing dog, capable of nothing more than running around a lot, has grown and gained support. He’s not Premier League quality, his touch is lacking, his end product is poor, only in England would a player like this make it at the top level and so it goes on. In true QPR style we apparently need somebody else, somebody new, somebody different, another new signing - more blood. When he does score it’s written off as a dog having its day — “even Devon White scored every now and again” the Monday morning quarterbacks quaff — and when he doesn’t score it’s added to this prosecution file that he’s not actually any good at all.

Quite prolific this little dog though isn’t he? And not many consolation strikes in 4-1 defeats on his slate either. Few players at QPR in recent times have had such a knack of scoring such important goals quite as often as Jamie Mackie. He’s done it too often for it to be coincidence or fluke — he’s actually not a bad player at all.

You could, for instance, quite easily start a summary of his time at QPR with another memorable moment. In injury time of a home match with Liverpool that Rangers had trailed by two goals with little over ten minutes remaining but somehow clawed their way back level he was at it again. Mark Hughes, ever the positive optimist, stood on the touchline ordering his relegation haunted team to sit back and defend the point they’d won but Paddy Kenny, rightly, ignored his manager and launched a long ball upfield. Although it was cleared initially it was headed straight back into the danger area by Luke Young and when Jose Enrique missed the ball completely it was all up for grabs and it was down to Mackie again. He confidently strode through and slipped the ball beneath goalkeeper Pepe Reina and into the net for a last second winner. Mackie stood by the corner flag, delirium all around, and shrugged his shoulders. Nothing to it.

And not a one off either. Shortly after arriving at the club for a couple of hundred thousand from relegated Plymouth in the summer 2010, and buoyed by a goal on his debut in 4-0 win against Barnsley and another in a subsequent 3-0 win at Sheffield United, he wasn’t in the mood to give up the ghost on another two goal deficit in a late August game at Derby County. Patrick Agyemang, you sense more by accident than design, had rolled in a goal a minute into stoppage time to halve the gap but nobody would ever have believed there was time to not only restart the game, but also level it through a fine turn and finish from Mackie. But Mackie believed.

Perhaps he was shrugging his shoulders after that Liverpool goal because he was asking “what exactly have I got to do to convince you all?” If you want to be critical and write three absolutely crucial, dramatic goals in key games off as coincidence then you’d really have to go some to continue doing so as you look down Jamie Mackie’s QPR record as a whole. After the goals against Derby, and Sheffield United, and Barnsley he scored two more in a 3-0 win at Ipswich when the R’s were first and the Tractor Boys third. A couple of days later he scored twice again to seal a win from a difficult trip to Leicester. Different kinds of goals as well — powerful headers, long range strikes, neat finishes at the end of mazy runs.

This is a limited player, capable of only the basics, with limited ball control is it? A work horse and nothing more. Do me a favour.

Mackie broke his leg that winter in an FA Cup game at Blackburn — a game manager Neil Warnock had wanted to rest him for but he had insisted on playing. Remember that, in the context of the season just passed at Loftus Road where players were queuing up to report strains and muscle pulls that meant they couldn’t go up to Newcastle to play an important game three days before Christmas. He came back well, settling into a team playing a division higher and scoring good, important goals. In a shambolic defeat at relegation rivals Blackburn Rovers, Rangers somehow nearly escaped with a point from a three goal deficit because Mackie climbed up off the bench and scored twice in the closing stages — the second an absolute peach. Despite being sidelined at the start of the season, despite playing at the highest level he’d ever been at in his career, and despite playing in a poor, relegation haunted, side Mackie scored seven goals that year from a wide right position. QPR’s leading scorer in the whole of 2012/13 got six.

The right sort

The sale of Jamie Mackie has exposed QPR’s chosen PR line of the summer for exactly what it is — empty spin. Harry Redknapp and Tony Fernandes both talk about getting the right sort into the club and you wonder what on earth they mean if they’re not referring to people like Jamie Mackie.

They want young, hungry players with a point to prove who want to play for QPR. Mackie was, and is, all of those things. He’d served his apprenticeship in the lower reaches of the game with Exeter, gained his Championship experience with Plymouth, and saw QPR as a big move. He hit the ground running and performed consistently well either side of a bad leg break for the best part of two years. They want experienced heads who know the game — Mackie has now clocked up well over 300 appearances in the top five divisions of English football.

Redknapp, rightly perturbed by the cliques that have formed in the QPR dressing room based prominently along English and French lines, has spoken this weekend about targeting good, hardworking, English and Irish pros, to start building a spirit and dressing room again. Jamie Mackie, from Dorking, is as hard working as any player Rangers have had since Gareth Ainsworth, is too mentally simple to be anything other than honest, and was part of the Orr-Kenny-Derry-Hill axis that underpinned the club’s promotion push in 2010/11.

The decision to sell him makes no sense, and therefore has had to be carefully managed. The club’s PR line of choice is Mackie “wanted to leave” — they even put out an unprecedented, and classless, announcement on the official website that the player had requested a transfer to reinforce it. Why did he request the transfer? Because he’d spent the second half of last season strapped to the bench while far less effective players, caring far less about the club, and trying nowhere near as hard as he would have done, were remorselessly picked instead. Stephane Mbia, Jose Bosingwa, Junior Hoilett, Bobby Zamora and others were all picked regardless of fitness, form or attitude. Mackie, admittedly in very poor form after Christmas, was benched for a loan player — Andros Townsend — who might come to QPR permanently this summer as long as he doesn’t get a better offer from a Premier League team. Is that really forward thinking? Does that tally with this “right sort” rhetoric? Preferring a loan player to a whole-hearted, committed, talented player who has a permanent contract and history with the club? And then selling Mackie while we wait and see if Townsend gets a better offer?

In the meantime Rangers persist with another player on vastly more money than Mackie for a grossly inferior return - Shaun Wright-Phillips.

Redknapp, and Mackie’s detractors, can say that he played very poorly in the second half of last season and they’d be absolutely right. His overall game was lousy and he missed several gilt edged chances. You could say he wasn’t alone in that, and was punished disproportionately for it when compared to several others, but even if everybody else had been brilliant and his dropping entirely justified it’s once again a prime example of QPR’s “more blood” attitude to squad building. Mackie lost form after two years of consistently good performances at a time when he was surrounded by people who had done nothing, compared to him, to get QPR in the Premier League and were now doing nothing to keep them there. Form comes back. QPR’s reaction to a loss of form from a player is to treat him as a permanently spent force, to be dumped in reserve games and loan spells and offloaded at the first possible opportunity and replaced by another cash purchase. QPR’s longest serving players are Adel Taarabt, Hogan Ephraim and Ale Faurlin and the club is trying to get rid of all three of them as well. Little wonder that spirit, commitment and effort levels are a problem when QPR is little more than truck stop with a dodgy cash point spewing out free money on most players’ career paths.

Mackie’s not playing so well, let’s go and sign the latest flavour of the month instead — sell him, spend some more money on somebody else. Always another player, always another signing, always throwing money at every problem that presents itself, even if it’s actually not a problem at all.

The frustrating thing is if this transfer was the other way around, and Jamie Mackie was coming QPR’s way for £1m from Nottingham Forest, it would be almost universally hailed as a shrewd piece of business. Exactly the kind of dangerous, committed, wholehearted player QPR need and at a great age and price as well.

And no Mackie isn’t going to be pulling any difficult balls out of the sky on his instep, or rolling his foot over the ball and shimmying past a bamboozled full back. But compare his touch at the end of his spell with the club to the start and it’s clear that not only is he a player with excellent commitment, work rate and goal record for a wide player but he’s also somebody who worked on his game and improved at QPR when the vast majority of players passing through the club remain exactly the same or, more often, regress. Not as naturally talented as Adel Taarabt, not as good as Wayne Routledge, not as good as a lot of players, but the sort of player every team needs to run hard yards at both end of the pitch and provide a platform for the showmen to perform on.

And even that is probably mildly insulting to a player who was very effective for almost his entire time with the club bar the second half of last season. Twice at the end of 2011/12, after the Liverpool goal, teams chasing the Champions League places — Arsenal and Spurs — came to Loftus Road and had to substitute international left backs who had been unable to cope with Jamie Mackie.

Benoit Assou-Ekoto was one of those unable to deal with Mackie’s direct style, and Harry Redknapp was the manager who substituted him. Short memory clearly.

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JAPRANGERS added 23:34 - Jul 29 Damn shame he's gone. Popular with all. A player who did give a damn. Clive when's the LFW update due?? Tuesday UK time??
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Northernr added 23:34 - Jul 29 Tomorrow morning all being well. Bracing for the usual "I don't like change" anger.
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N12Hoop added 23:46 - Jul 29 Evra also in our first season in the Prem couldn't handle Mackie if I recall. I think it's a real shame he's gone when the Championship is certainly a division he will thrive in, but I think one of Jamie's biggest problems is that, despite the comments about giving fullbacks a torrid time, he is not a winger and he is not an out and out striker and Harry likes traditional wingers (not that we seem to have any!). As a sub coming off the bench he is exceptionally effective with his energy and passion, but I guess he thinks he should be in the starting 11 and Harry doesn't. Will be interesting to see whether Forest start him but I wish him luck because he is without doubt the 'right sort'.

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zicoshoops added 23:52 - Jul 29 Spot on article. Managers may not 'Fancy' certain players and sideline them, for whatever reason. Clubs spin, and try and mug the supporters, all well and good, but....... You can't kid the supporters. So like Caspers Gorks, when Jamie Mackie scores against us at H/Q I hope he gets a standing ovation.........and rightly so. He cried when he thought we'd survived..........the other lowlife C**t laughed when he knew we were relegated. It's a funny old game.

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bolty310 added 23:56 - Jul 29 Feel obliged to make my first comment here as I feel the club have made a huge mistake letting Mackie go. As you rightly mention, his commitment seems to have been labelled as a negative by some quarters in that it highlights his technical inadequacies. Give me a break. Jamie Mackie should be 'the right sort' that the club seem to desire yet he is also a part of the 'wrong sort' (previously at large with MH) that HR is trying to rid us of. The messages here are purely spin and it annoys me massively that they are conveyed as being in the best interests of the club when in actuality they are in the best interests of HR. I'm all for getting behind HR and supporting our team through thick and thin (after all, what choice do we have!) but don't treat the fans as fools. That's my biggest gripe. Camembert - I can't resist a warmed cheese...

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dsqpr added 00:16 - Jul 30 Absolutely brilliant piece Clive, thanks! My sentiments exactly about Jamie Mackie. How would he not have been great for us in the Championship, as he was the last time we were there? Great addition for Forest, Jamie will score against us this season for certain. Your comments about our transfer policy in general were also "nail on the head".
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Neil_SI added 00:25 - Jul 30 He was and is a terrific player with a great attitude. He's the kind of teammate everybody appreciates and respects, and that everybody knows when he's in the side and doing well, it's because he bloody well worked hard and earned it. There are many players that I have fond memories of from my childhood, and Mackie reminds me of some of those and sits in that bracket. He proved on many occasions that there is a place for him in the Premier League, it's a shame that he's not been picked up by another club up there, but he's a heck of a chance of going back with Nottingham Forest and I hope he does. The only question mark he has was whether he could sustain form. He's not the sort of player that you put in and out of the side, or play him here and there for ten or fifteen minutes. He's very much a player who relies on traction and momentum, and when he builds that up and finds his rhythm he'll cause problems for a lot of players because of his style and also his fitness. A big time player, and a scorer of big and important goals. He also scored against Manchester United at Old Trafford, and there were even moments against other big teams that he nearly put the ball in the net (that mazy run against Arsenal, for example) and with that, is one of his best traits. He just comes back for me, whether he misses or scores, whether he wins the ball or not, he'll put himself right in the mix again and again and again. I certainly felt he improved a fair amount in his time with us and the flaws in his game that needed changing could have been changed, if he had the right coaching and education around him. There were times he had the ball in the corner of the pitch and forgot to look up, but, at the same time, there were so many times he had the ball and you thought he couldn't get past someone, but he did. I really enjoyed watching him, especially when he had good form. Some of his strikes, the ones against Derby, Liverpool and Manchester City in particular, were some of the best goals I've seen scored by any Rangers player over the past decade or more. And that doesn't give enough credit to some of the fine strikes against Ipswich and Leicester City either, which were fabulous efforts in their own right. I'm going to miss him, and most certainly will give him a warm welcome on his return. There will always be a bit of Rangers in that guy as well, he loved it here, and it's such a shame how he was treated towards the end. Disproportionate is probably the best description you can apply to his situation versus other players. Much admiration and respect, and much thanks for the way he represented the club as well – in the way that we all really want to see.

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lifer added 00:31 - Jul 30 I can only echo the above sentiments. A great loss to the club, and Forest's gain. Mackie, to my mind, was exactly the kind of player we could do with this coming season. Committed, wholehearted, and generally popular with the crowd. I actually think his footballing ability is far better than he was usually given credit for. I cannot for the life of me see how Mackie is surplus to requirements, and Karl Henry is apparently just what the R's need. Anyway, I'd like to thank Mackie for his efforts at QPR, and wish him the best for the future.

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Nov77 added 00:52 - Jul 30 This piece is so far removed from reality. It's all very well saying "The decision to sell him makes no sense" but Mackie handed in a transfer request to force a move to forest, the 'right sort' didnt want to stay and battle for his place.
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timcocking added 01:05 - Jul 30 For me, i'm just not sure where i'd actually play him. We all love Mackie, but i don't think he's the best out and out winger, nor the best striker imho. I'd certainly have wanted him in the squad though, i'm sure we all would. Sad to see him go, but if he wants to play every game, good on him for leaving for football reasons. A refreshing change and just what i'd expect of him. Best of luck Jamie.

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timcocking added 01:16 - Jul 30 The City goal, in particular, is a moment which will stay with me until my dying day. I wish it had beaten City.
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isawqpratwcity added 02:19 - Jul 30 Thanks for the article, Clive. I am definitely in the 'sorry to see him go' camp. While Harry has performed significantly better than the egregious Hughes, he shares the same lazy managerial arrogance that says 'if I don't like you, you will be sidelined and then p*ssed off'. Worse still, he shares Hughes' inability to recognise the qualities in a player worth cultivating. Put me down as being 'cautiously pessimistic'?

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themodfather added 02:23 - Jul 30 we'll miss his work rate, passion for the game and club, effortand some moaned at lack of sublime skills, well what was adel and co for, to make tea?? who'd we rather have...mackie or a bosingwa type? thanks for the memories jamie....oh yeah we have swp to find solace with....
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padstow added 02:36 - Jul 30 Of course it also shouldn't be forgotten that during his time with us his form lead him to both appear and score at international level.
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SomersetHoops added 09:57 - Jul 30 Harry has decided that his ego demands that any player who is any good and who was introduced before his tenure cannot stay at the club, unless they are so old and worn out they will be highlighted as inadequate. Expect all players like Mackie, Faurlin etc to go. I'm beginning to think HR is more concerned with his reputation than he is about the success of QPR. The Mackie situation also calls HR's 'so called brilliant man management' into question as he has made it clear he doesn't rate Mackie and wants him out which has undermined his performances. In that situation its best for Mackie to leave to go where his commitment will once again be appreciated. When HR and TF say they only want 'the right sort', these actions just prove they are talking b*llocks. How are we expected to believe another word they say?

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toboboly added 10:07 - Jul 30 Mackie is going to go down as one of QPR's heroes imo. In the vein of Ainsworth and Bircham. So many great memories of him, that game up at Leicester I thought we were invincible, that game v Derby I saw the goal and his reaction. The goals in the PL. Great guy and great player. Anyone that thinks he wasn't good enough for us is clearly an idiot with little grasp of football. He was good enough for us, we weren't good enough for him.

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Patrick added 10:23 - Jul 30 I'm definitely in the plus column as far as Jamie is concerned. It really is inexplicable to unload him when we seem to have no fit strikers and cannot score goals. I couldn't understand why he was given no chance in the final games of 12/13 when we were desperate for any goal, even as a sub coming on to shake things up, and he seems spot on for the Championship. Maybe Arry never forgave him for making his Tottenham full back look stupid. I think we will be regretting this one on Boxing Day.

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HastingsRanger added 10:31 - Jul 30 Great tribute, Clive. Agree with it and most of the comments too. This is the sort of player who we should have worked on and continued to develop. His goal at Man City said it all and given the lousy service he got last season, a dip in form is hardly surprising. Not only did he score and create chances but his work rate also took pressure off the midfield, something you can never expect SWP to provide. He was a valuable member of the squad, one of NW's best signings, and would have been ideal for this season.

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londonscottish added 11:06 - Jul 30 Very very sad day :-(
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qprmick added 11:18 - Jul 30 Him and Dexter will probably kill this division, both of whom, I was sorry to see leave.
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BAWHoops added 11:21 - Jul 30 The move that epitomized him for me was home to Arsenal last season. When he ran at Vermaelen he did so with no tricks and flicks, just pure athleticism and desire. Eventually Vermaelen couldn't cope with it and he went to ground as Mackie cut into the box, most players would have left a trailing leg and won a penalty, which was sorely needed at 1-1, but Mackie stayed on his feet, looked up and picked out Diakite who smashed home the winner. The 2-1 v Arsenal was arguably our best performance of our recent stint in the Premier League. Mackie was often criticised for not going down under challenges and winning free kicks and penalties. it was so great to see his honesty rewarded in such a big way. Goals v Man U, Man City and Liverpool. An assist v Arsenal. As Neil said he was a big game player. Very sad to see him go. And a perfect example of the problems with our club. A manager who isn't 100% committed and looking for a quick fix coupled with a board that, for all the best will in the world, haven't got a clue how to run a football club

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whittocksRs added 12:20 - Jul 30 There's one common factor in successful modern football teams - common to United since 1992, Arsenal during their best PL years, Barcelona's Golden Generation and now Bayern Munich's European champions - they keep the personalities in the dressing room, regardless of form. As Clive rightly points out, it's quite a difficult task to build squad morale if the most-respected, hard working and loyal players are being shipped out faster than John Terry can work his magic on 17 year-old in a Fulham Wetherspoons. Maybe Mackie wasn't part of Redknapp's first team plans in the short term but that's no reason to get rid. A squad containing Mackie, Hill, Derry, Faurlin, (a happy) Taarabt, Dunne and Onuoha is starting to look like a squad that could create some camaraderie and the sort of siege mentality that Warnock instilled to get us promoted. For a man once so close to the England job, Redknapp is doing a good impression of someone who not only hasn't managed a professional football team before but hasn't actually even met, well, anyone before.

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RonisRs added 12:24 - Jul 30 Great article Clive. I remember during last season when HR was in his first few months, where he said he wishes he had 11 Mackie's playing......... its a shame to see him going, unfortunatley memories in football are very short. lets get behind the team for the weekend and beyond and hope the mood of the fans only gets better in the coming weeks.
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quickpassrotter added 12:50 - Jul 30 Absolutely certain that this transfer will come back to haunt us. Mackie gave it everything at QPR - and was far more effective than many realised or have made out. Good luck Jamie - I am sure that you will prosper in all sorts of ways at Forest - and will fast become a fans favourite up there.
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ShotKneesHoop added 12:58 - Jul 30 Jamie Mackie was the modern version of Mick Leach, another underrated player who gave everything, called "work horse" because he covered the pitch and tried 100% all the time, "didn't score enough goals" yet scored the key goals that changed games, a player deemed to be"not the right sort" yet always tried his best for the hoops. Thank you Jamie for being another Mick Leach type hero. Mackie probably scored the best goal of the season against Man City, but wasn't playing for a fashionable club to merit it. Mackie going is the last nail in the coffin of a club that used to be fun to watch and a joy to support, but is now Chav United, managed by a ss[iv, and owned by a "football genius" Yer couldn't make it up.

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