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1. Football will never lose significant popularity as a sport (unlike the referenced cricket and chariot racing in the article) because it is the perfect "poor man's sport" which can be played everywhere from a golf green pitch at Wembley to the favellas with a ball of rags. It is played the world over by every class of people, and that becomes self-perpetuating popularity. Unless another, better poor man's sport is conceived, it is never going to shift from the #1 sport. However much the NFL want to grow, for instance, no-one in Angola, Brazil or Bangladesh is going to be spending thousands of dollars on equipment.
2. That being said, top level football feels like it is at an absolute breaking point, between eye-watering losses, eye watering ticket prices, the open and covert pushes towards a Euro Super League, civil war in the PL, devalued cups with loss of romance, and overworked players, among other issues. Football on a commercial level has lost much of it's joy for fans who remember a better era.
Wycombe fan here. I very much doubt GA bad mouthed QPR. I have listened to him on a few podcasts since he was sacked, and he has always been positive about QPR, saying he has no regrets as he loves the club and could not turn the opportunity down. He has consistently acknowledged he simply did not get the results and needs to work on hitting the ground quicker at his next club.
He also said he wants nothing but success for QPR and has no hard feelings. I doubt he would then randomly trash the club to an unknown fan.
He has also said to one of our fans that he turned down a few L1 jobs last year (I am assuming Burton, Port Vale, Cambridge, Shrewsbury). There may be a bit of "burnishing" in there (I doubt he was outright offered all four jobs) but I do think there will be a lower league market for him. It just may not be this summer as he wants, as an abnormally low number of clubs sacked their managers.
Goals against per game: Ainsworth: 1.85 Marti: 0.66
This is unfair on Marti, as he had to take over from a standing start, but it is not hard to see (statistically) where the massive improvement has taken place, and what area continues to hold the team back!
The ideal ending here for everyone is that the new manager keeps you up, and you can look back on GA as a decent guy who (technically) kept you up last season and though it did not work out, no lasting harm was done to either party.
For anyone who does not want to listen, a little run down.
1. He starts off by saying he still wishes QPR the very best and wants the club to succeed. He understands why he was sacked. Last Saturday was his first out of the game since the late 1980s! He spent it with friends watching....QPR (on TV).
2. A lot of the interview is simply him narrating his career from youth footballer all the way to managing QPR.
3. Spends a decent amount of time on Wycombe (which I liked as a Wycombe fan) and some time on QPR, though obviously a smaller sample size. No bad words for QPR at all in the interview, apart from very mild "the club was struggling a little" comments.
4. At the end he gets asked about his future. A couple of clubs tentatively reached out already (my guess would be Bristol Rovers, Lincoln or Grimsby) but he is not ready yet. He wants to learn guitar and possibly spend a holiday season at home. Long term he is open to anything, including L2 and abroad.
Wycombe fan here - we were fan owned for seven years or so, and while it was an immensely proud feeling to be technically part owner of the club as a Trust member, and while the club was run by fans volunteering their time and expertise, we were still in dire straits by the time we were bought by the Couhigs in early 2020 (though they put money in as early as summer 2019).
Ultimately, in the EFL (and PL) I think it only works long term if some kind of law was brought in where all clubs have to do it, and player wages were adjusted accordingly. Currently the whole system in England is rotten, where the PL dictates everything, and though they do make some solidarity payments, the parachutes to relegated clubs for three years and the ridiculously inflataed wages means the likes of QPR feel like they have to overspend just to keep up, and this then trickles in to each lower division, putting everyone in debt.
There a lots of different types of fan ownership models. We were 100% trust owned, and money was always excessively tight - and that was with getting a good sell-on fee for Ibe. Exeter are still making it work with an excellent academy which includes the likes of Ollie Watkins as graduates, but if they ever hit a lean period with that, it would bring a lot of pressure.
I think that whatever size club you are, the issues would be the same - not having enough to keep up with overspenders in your division. One of the reasons GA is so highly regarded with us is that he somehow took us to L2 promotion with no money and a paper thin squad (he even had to come on as a sub in the EFL trophy to save some legs, a couple of times) and then somehow stay up in L1 too.
I think fan ownership is by far the best form of ownership if all things were equal - putting a club in the hands of the only people who will always have it's best interests at heart. But all things are not equal, especially in England with the PL-related financial issues that effect all EFL clubs. It will only work with a mass transition to the model.
Bloomfield is doing well with us, and was already a club legend as a player. We also gave him a contract extension this week, the timing of which might have been possibly designed to immediately shut down the idea of GA coming back and pulling the rug out from under Bloomfield.
We tend to be stable with managers - I believe we have had only 12 since 1989, and even with GA being ten years of that, it is still a pretty stable environment. Unless Blooms gets us relegated at some point, it is his job for the foreseeable.
Maybe years down the line we could see GA again, but I am a big believer in looking forward. GA remains an absolute Wycombe legend, despite how it went at QPR, and he will get applauded at Adams Park every time he visits for the rest of his life. I just don't think we need to go back to him as manager.
Wycombe fan here. I genuinely believe GA still won't have regrets at making the move and having tried, even after failing to accomplish his goals. The alternative was staying with Wycombe after taking us to a high watermark, and spending the rest of his life wondering if he could have made the grade with QPR. The answer may be "no", but at least he found out!
He is a very positive chap, and will bounce back. I personally think the only way he ever gets back to the Championship is to take a L1 club there. He should end up getting another shot at L1 or L2, but he needs to choose his next job carefully to rebuild his reputation. I actually think L2 would be less pressure, as there are only two relegation spots, and a lot less expectations over playing style. He has a few clubs he is a legend at, but I think Wimbledon would be the best fit personally, as they have the potential to get back in L1 and have GA build another Wycombe-type culture if he can.
However much managers earn, I do think it is unfair to expect any to resign and lose their payout, even if they are not doing well results wise. Managers put a lot of work in, and more hours than anyone else, and to say someone wholehearted like GA should lose the payoff for his family because it did not turn out well is not on. Yes, managers get paid well, but you are always one gig away from being on the scrapheap and having to make what you have last for years.
Everton are absolutely jammy. If they received this deduction in recent years, they get relegated easily. Instead, any deduction would be in a season where Luton, Sheffield United, Bournemouth and Burnley are all beyond abject, and Everton would probably still make it back.
Not only that, but it took a herculean underachievement by Leicester for Everton to barely stay up last year anyway!
Visits to Wembley, promotions, and winning more than you lose is entertaining in itself if you are the beneficiary! I am sure we would have felt differently if we were not successful with it all.
Good question! Right now I definitely would not have him back, as the new manager is bedded in and doing well. I'm not sure how many know this, but our manager (Matt Bloomfield) is a massive club legend too, most league appearances for the club (558) and captained us into the Championship under GA. He even holds the nickname 'Mr. Wycombe', which gives you some idea of his staus here! While keeping some aspects of GA's management (team spirit, tenacity, somewhat more direct play) he has developed his own style, cycled out a lot of the squad, and the guard has well and truly changed. We do play some really nice football under MB, and he has turned out to be a master recruiter so far too.
I would be open to GA in the future if MB left eventually, but I would still have two reservations. Firstly, GA built us over ten years, and his players would all be gone by the time he came back, so although he would have instant love from the fans, media team, etc., he would need to start all over again.
Secondly, I personally always feel the second time around is simply not the same anyway. I put it something like this when he left. "Wycombe and GA are like a couple in a long, faithful marriage, but Wycombe is a bit homely looking, and GA has always been honest that he has never quite gotten over a previous stunner (QPR) he dated years ago, and that he would probably leave Wycombe if his ex ever came calling. Well, the ex finally does, and GA leaves Wycombe. Wycombe does not fault GA for his honesty, but now that the break has happened, it would be very hard for GA to just walk back into Wycombe's open arms when he finds out he does not have the chemistry with his ex that he expected."
That's not meant to be an analogy that is disrespectful to GA, as he certainly wasn't "unfaithful" to Wycombe, - he was very open about one day hoping to test himself at a higher level, and there being a couple of clubs who could lure him away. But it still alters the relationship, and it would not be the same instant chemistry if he came back a few years from now, to my mind. The world revolves, things change, we all move on.
That being said, GA will always be welcome back to thunderous applause whenever he wants to visit us. Ironically (given your circumstances) he is an absolute adored legend for us! But we are completely behind Bloomfield now. The king is dead - long live the king!
Very fair comment mate. The saddest thing from the GA point of view is that he absolutely adores QPR. He would only ever have left us for you or Blackburn, and was so proud to be QPR manager. He joined a charity walk from Wembley to Adams Park recently, organized by Jeff Stelling, and when he joined the walk he was decked out in his QPR gear, patting the badge and saying he had to represent the club.
None of that is to take away what you are going through as a fan base. You are the ones who will still be riding the rollercoaster after any manager or owner has come and gone. I am just very sad for all involved that it does not appear to be working out at all.
I will say QPR fans have been very fair to avoid conflating bad results with bad character, and everyone had generally acknowledged that GA remains a great bloke. It is just a shame he has not made it work for everyone involved.
As a Wycombe fan, weird as it is to say, I thought GA might struggle with his team building as soon as I saw the QPR haka, which was like an episode of The Office. But when he did the same thing at Wycombe, everyone threw themselves into it and had a great time. At that point everyone thought it was genius, and a great development day idea, but he had complete buy-in with a group of veterans and big characters like Bayo.
I remember at the time thinking what great fun it looked like. But when the same thing was attempted at QPR, it was a painful watch. I think the whole thing encapsulates the difference between GA having made a L1 club in his own image over a long period, compared to going in cold to a much bigger club a step up and trying to manufacture credibility.
Wycombe fan here., These posts about GA's record at Wycombe do ignore a lot of context, and the point of why he was so highly regarded coming out of here.
Wycombe were a non league club until the early 90s. They had only finished above 11th in League One once (under the legendary Martin O'Neill) until Ainsworth. GA took the club to their three highest finishes in their history, and also four of the top five. Even getting them promoted out of L2 to begin with and staying in L1 the first season up was miraculous, as the club did not have two pennies to rub together, being fan owned.
The covid season is also massively misrepresented. Wycombe were in the top four all season from the very beginning, mostly top two, and dropped out right before the season paused because their game against Bury (who had been expelled) would have been that weekend. They dropped into a group on 59 and 60 points with six teams all bunched together, the only difference being Wycombe had played a game less, so keeping them out of the playoffs would have simply penalized them for not playing that game.
Wycombe then went up to the Championship, where they had a budget of 4 million against a division average of 30 million. The two main players Wycombe bought to help out (a striker and central defender) were then injured for the whole first half of the season. Wycombe lost their first seven games and were cut severely adrift, but then went on a tear with top six form over the final ten games, barely missing out. It was an incredible effort by a financially overmatched club.
For anyone to say "it took several seasons for GA to get Wycombe promoted to the Championship" or "GA got Wycombe relegated to League One" it completely misses the point that this is the high watermark in the history of a very small club. It would be like saying in 2050 "it took manager X ten years to get QPR into the Champions League so he is obviously terrible", for comparison.
It's clearly not working out for GA at QPR, and it reminds me of Nathan Jones at Luton, who was incredible there in both spells but looked awful at Stoke and Southampton. But there is a reason GA was so highly regarded for his work at Wycombe. We are one of the two or three smallest, traditional non-league clubs (along with Yeovil and Burton) to ever see a season in the Championship. It just has not translated to a bigger club.
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