Chris Ramsey has today been appointed the permanent head coach of QPR on a three year contract. LFW weighs up the pros and cons of Les Ferdinand’s faith in the 53-year-old.

It seems a little rich of Liverpool to be complaining about the greed, lack of loyalty and poor motivations of Raheem Sterling as he courts a move to one of Europe's Champions League regulars, with all the riches and vagina that would provide him with.

After all it was Liverpool who shouldered Fulham and Man City out of the way and took Sterling from QPR's academy five years ago. Sterling, a Jamaican immigrant, had behavioural problems and had spent time in a special school when QPR got hold of him, provided structure in his life, professionally coached his supreme natural ability and offered to make him the youngest first team player in the club's history. But Liverpool could offer big promises, bigger money and even bigger watches and so off he went. That's how football in this country works.

That Liverpool are complaining that somebody else is offering even bigger promises, money and watches and they're potentially going to lose him shows a staggering lack of self awareness. But then football people can be a bit one-eyed and partisan at times, it kind of comes with the territory.

Take the QPR fans who, rightly, criticised Harry Redknapp for steadfastly refusing to countenance even a substitute appearance for any of the club's younger players during two years of reckless spending at Loftus Road. Redknapp would rather pick right back Luke Young at centre half for his first senior appearance in two years than give the place to the youth team centre back. Rather sign Oguchi Onyewu, a US international of 70 caps standing, to sit on the bench instead of Max Ehmer. It's the reason QPR managed to spend £108m during their last 12 months in the Championship and he was rightly pilloried for it.

When Chris Ramsey came in he immediately made it clear that youth players would be considered if they were good enough, if they trained well enough and if their attitude was right. Sure enough, when injuries struck at right back, Darnell Furlong was selected at Hull and performed admirably. But when Furlong was subsequently given a tough time by first Alexis Sanchez and then Yannick Bolasie — two finer wingers you'd struggle to find in the Premier League — Ramsey was criticised for it. "Well I wouldn't have picked him in that game" the argument went, as people suggested Karl Henry could have played there instead. Imagine the grief Redknapp would have been given for selecting Karl Henry at right back ahead of younger players who are actually naturals in that position.

You can't have your cake and eat it. It makes you look like Richard Littlejohn, who freely admits his job is to "sit at the back and throw bottles."

So it's difficult to be too critical of today's news that Chris Ramsey, as expected, has been made the permanent head coach at QPR on a three year contract. After all, it's clearly part of a plan, and isn't that what we've been begging the club to have for sometime? A plan? Haven't we banged on about the lack of a football person on the board? The lack of any QPR people, who know and understand the club, working at a high level at Loftus Road? Ramsey is Les Ferdinand's man, and this is Les Ferdinand's plan.

Five pros

What QPR haven't done is improve players. Quite the opposite in fact — Stephen Caulker, Jordon Mutch, Junior Hoilett and others all come here and get considerably worse than they ever were before. The reaction to this is usually to give up and try to sign somebody to replace them.

Matt Phillips was nearly a prime example of this, and stands as a beacon in Ramsey's corner. Phillips was signed, at considerable expense, not even two years ago from Blackpool and spent the first 18 months here struggling with fitness, being bumped around the first team and reserves, playing in a variety of positions including as centre forward at Spurs back in August and generally impressing nobody. In January Harry Redknapp wanted to sell him, at a loss, to Wigan in order to tempt them to let him have Callum McManaman.

Through selecting him regularly, in his correct position, and working with him on aspects of his game, Chris Ramsey has turned Phillips around inside six months. Now he's a sought after Premier League winger, with more assists in the second half of the season than anybody else in Europe. QPR have needed somebody who's willing to, and capable of, improving what they have for sometime, not somebody tossing money around looking for quick fixes like some Fantasy Football manager. Given the potential financial constraints and transfer embargoes that may be inflicted on Rangers for next season, Ramsey's coaching ability has already shone through and could be invaluable.

2 - Ramsey has already spoken about his desire to play an attractive style of football, on the front foot, and trying to win games. A blessed relief from the ultra-defensive, painfully slow teams Harry Redknapp put together here where a draw away from home was always a miracle and unless Charlie Austin scored a goal, nobody did.

There has been little evidence of this from Ramsey so far, save for one glorious Easter weekend in Birmingham, but he inherited that team Redknapp left behind — one with no options at full back thanks to the previous manager's foolish summer spent planning to play a back three, no options at all at left wing and only one fully fit centre forward.

Nevertheless, Ramsey got QPR scoring from sources other than Austin — Joey Barton, Clint Hill, Phillips, Leroy Fer, Eduardo Vargas, Sandro all notched during his tenure.

And while QPR were relegated because they weren't good enough, it would have been interesting to see how much more of a fight they would have made of it had Leroy Fer stayed fit. The role he played at Sunderland was the first time QPR had used him correctly, and resulted in a win, a goal and a man of the match performance. Had Fer improved in the same manner as Phillips, with Austin ahead of him, would QPR have been capable of doing a Leicester? All optimistic hypotheticals of course, but Ramsey certainly showed more attacking inclination than Redknapp ever did here.

3 - Ramsey and Ferdinand have spoken repeatedly about a "culture of excellence" at QPR. Players who have not kept themselves fit (Adel Taarabt), have not behaved properly (Armand Traore, Mauro Zarate) and have not trained properly (Eduardo Vargas) have not been considered for selection. While this, particularly the omission of Vargas, has weakened the team and at times, with the selection of Shaun Wright-Phillips, alienated the supporters, it has set much-needed standards in place that QPR have lacked for years and will benefit from in the long term.

In interviews with Reece Grego-Cox and Darnell Furlong to be published on this site next week, they speak about the difference it has made in training sessions right through the club to know that good behaviour, hard work and decent showings in training will result in first team chances regardless of your age, name, agent or resemblance to Niko Kranjcar.

For too long there have been factions in the QPR dressing room, the only difference between this season and 2012/13 is that Harry Redknapp couldn't help himself but leak things about Jose Bosingwa and others during the campaign, whereas this year it's been dealt with quietly and in house until the outcome of the season was known. Another tick in Ramsey's box. He and Ferdinand already know the problems here and seem keen to fix them, a new manager may have taken a further six months to figure it all out.

4 - Few of the alternatives mentioned excited too much, nor offered any guarantees. There isn't a queue round the block of wonderful managers waiting to come into QPR. Mark Warburton has performed excellently at Brentford, but Brentford are a very soundly run club with a lot of stability — Uwe Rosler did well at Brentford and then got found out at Wigan. Would Warburton do as well when plunged into the QPR circus? Would he have worked with Ferdinand or would we have had to tear it all up again?

Likewise Paul Clement, who has a wonderful coaching CV but has been used to working with the best players in the world at some of the biggest clubs in the world with all the money, facilities and options that brings. A long slog in the Championship, at a club with no infrastructure, with a team that needs rebuilding, in a division he has no experience of, would have been a hell of a gamble. And while his background and surname make him an exciting idea, as local journo Dave McIntyre says it's a bit like giving long-serving Man Utd assistant manager Mike Phelan the job, and there wouldn't be nearly as much clamour for that were it suggested.

5 - Ramsey may not have had a top managerial position in England before, but his CV is extensive and eclectic. He's coached England at Under 20 level and won leagues in America. He'll have a knowledge, through his work with England and the academy at Spurs, of the best young talent available and QPR are going into a league where the ability to pick up somebody like Patrick Bamford (as an example from this season) can be the difference between midtable and playoffs, playoffs and automatic promotion. He strikes me as a guy who wants to scout players and coach them, rather than collect whatever tumbles out the back of Willie Mackay's Range Rover at the end of transfer deadline day.

Five cons

This appointing managers from a shortlist of one technique has so far lumbered us with Mark Hughes, who Fernandes says interviewed him rather than the other way around, and Harry Redknapp, who Fernandes says he was "star struck" by. The result was them both being allowed to dictate their terms to the club, which in Redknapp's case was always another signing, usually an old, expensive one, and in Hughes' was the appointment of Mike Rigg and his associated hangers on into the backroom and youth set up which set the club back years.

The value of an interview process can be seen in the recovery job Ian Holloway did here, restoring pride in the club and building a team full of passion and ability that everybody in W12 loved to watch. Holloway was well behind Dave Bassett and Steve Bruce in the betting and pecking order when Gerry Francis first left, but interviewed well.

If Chris Ramsey is the best man for the job, he'd have nothing to fear from such a process because he'd get the job. By not having one, it could increase the perception that he's simply got the job because he's Les Ferdinand's mate, and whether that's true or not you can bet it will be a stick used to beat him with next season if things don't go well. Given how tough next season is shaping up to be, the last thing Ramsey needs is more sticks for critics to arm themselves with. If anything, yet another coronation rather than an appointment at Loftus Road has made his job more difficult than a bit of competition and due process would have done.

2 - The honeymoon period is already over. There are those willing to accept a poor second half to the season, point to the mess Ramsey inherited from Redknapp, recognise the injuries to key players such as Fer and Vargas, and give Ramsey a clean slate and the benefit of the doubt with his own players. And there are certainly those who aren't. The opinion on today's announcement has split the support base right down the middle, almost 50/50. A new manager would have enjoyed a period of grace next season which would have given him time to bed in a new set up likely to have a dozen fresh faces in the first matchday squad on August 8. Ramsey is unlikely to be given this — if results are poor in August, don't expect many to be buying into "long term plans", the blood lust will return with a vengeance.

This isn't an exciting appointment either. QPR fans have been bored for a long time now, by the monotonous football on the pitch and the lousy behaviour off it. Paul Clement, for all the faults earlier, would have been an exciting appointment with a nod to the club's history.

3 - For all Chris Ramsey's talk of attacking football and playing on the front foot, often his team selections have been anything but. He's regularly selected centre halves at full back, and not ball-playing centre backs either — ignoring the importance of full backs in the modern game where teams use them to attack as much as defend. That, in turn, has seen the team go direct to Bobby Zamora more often than not which has been dull to watch and ineffective for much of the time. The caution shown to the West Ham game, which Rangers desperately needed to win, seemed odd.

I'm quite willing to accept at the moment Ramsey is working with what he has. Redknapp's ludicrous back-three idea last summer, abandoned after two matches, meant full back was never our strongest suit because he stupidly sold Danny Simpson and brought in Mauricio Isla who is a wing back. The Leroy Fer injury further hampered Ramsey.

But there's a nagging doubt that Ramsey might be one of those managers who wants his team to get rid first and foremost, and only start to play off a big centre forward once he's pulled it out of the air. A season of watching QPR punt it long to a Bobby Zamora equivalent — Kenwynne Jones for example — against Rotherham and Swindon at home appeals as much as virulent dose of venereal disease or a Coronation Street omnibus.

Is the attacking football stuff all fan-appeasing talk? Is the discipline stuff all talk? After all, given his television interview last weekend, and conduct on Twitter on Friday, should Joey Barton not have been sent to the naughty step and deprived the chance to play against his beloved Newcastle on Saturday?

4 - Neither Chris Ramsey nor Les Ferdinand have experience of managing teams, recruiting players or running clubs in the Championship. They're both novices in that respect. They've both been in the game a long time, know QPR and have strong ideas about where they want the club to go, but the rebuilding job required almost immediately on a QPR team where more than a dozen players are about to leave is one even the most seasoned manager would struggle with — as we saw with Harry Redknapp.

5 - There's another nagging doubt that all of the things I like about Chris Ramsey — speaking well in interviews, rewarding players for hard work in training, imposing discipline, representing the club well, putting behaviour standards in place, coaching players, working on set pieces — only seem so wonderful because we've been stuck with Harry Redknapp for the last two years who didn't give a shit about any of that. Wouldn't any manager who can still actually be bothered to do his job offer this? Was Redknapp so bad, that he's made Chris Ramsey look better than he actually is?

Conclusions

Start praying it works.

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

N12Hoop added 22:58 - May 19 Such a difficult one to call and only time will tell. Would a Redknapp team have won at Sunderland and West Brom, no matter how crap they were on the day? No. Big ticks for that. Would Redknapp try out the youth? Nope. Could Redknapp bring the best out of Phillips? No But how do you explain the negativity against West Ham in a game they weren't up for and was critical for us? How do you explain the bringing on of SWP, a decision he must have known would bring such a venomous reaction. And what about selecting players clearly out of position and out of their depth? All poor decisions. So I won't be going into next season with the buzz of a new start which is a shame, but everyone starts somewhere and maybe he'll surprise everyone.

0

VancouverHoop added 23:30 - May 19 While the anti-SWP sentiments are understandable from us, that doesn't mean Ramsey has to listen to them — nor should he. He's a football coach, not a PR man. If a player has practiced well he deserves a shot, irrespective of how popular, or not, that makes management on the terraces.
3

GetMeRangers added 00:19 - May 20 Why is it so important to find the negatives when a first team coach is appointed for your team. Personally feel that some are weak, in comparison to ticking many of the boxes that many have been calling for. My hope is that we dont enter the next season as firm favourites to go up, as that wont help the rebuilding process which will come with inevitable pain. All in all this is as important an appointment for the change of direction of the club and, I hope, establishing a style, to which future managers/coaches/players can be recruited, much as it is at other clubs. Not only do I wish him luck, I actually have thought for a good while that this is the right appointment. I am excited to see the next chapter of the rolling saga of a team that I have followed for nye on forty years

0

062259 added 00:22 - May 20 All of the obvious reservations and risks have been covered, and the reality is there weren't enough (any?) viable candidates who would have taken the job under the twin clouds of potential financial oblivion and a transfer embargo. Ramsey is Johnny-on-the-spot, he's a decent punt (as we've seen above), he's probably quite cheap and he wants it. Exactly how many other candidates would fit that profile, interview process or not?

0

phegarty added 00:32 - May 20 Your No. 4 "con" is decisive for me. LF and CR are both unproven in their current roles. It's a massive leap of faith to appoint Ramsey. I wish we'd got an ambitious young guy who's already had some managerial success in the English game. I hope Ramsey proves me wrong.
1

timcocking added 06:01 - May 20 Good stuff. Clearly the pros outweigh the cons, really there was hardly any cons to speak of. Seemed to me you were trying to come up with a few cons bcause you're stuck in the unenviable position of navigating the minefield of trying not to upset too many people on this site, but that's a Herculean task as there are some who clearly know almost nothing about the reality of football and are never happy whatever happens. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief at that "Ramsey fcuk off right now" thread. Particularly classy thread that one. I'm glad we've gone with Ramsey, best of luck to him. let's just hope he's a good judge of player. If the internet has tought me one thing, it's how true the old saying of 'you can please most of the people most of the time, but there will always be plenty of w@nkers out there ho just love to bitch all the time.'

0

pedrosqpr added 07:53 - May 20 A fair assessment , whatever Chris Ramsey is an asset to the club in any capacity. I think this transfer and who we recruit will give us an idea of the type of football we will play. The summer is pivitol
1

PinnerPaul added 09:22 - May 20 Excellent piece - CR - its all been said now. Like Tim I'm staggered at the negativity and calls for a "fresh start" on the forum. Especially as 2 months ago everybody wanted "stability" - whatever that is btw! Back to Clive's piece - I was thinking exactly the same about Sterling and Liverpool's attitude today. Jamie Carragher's quote about it being an insult to Liverpool Football Club is ridiculous. Also why do ex LIverpool players always add "Football Club" when they are trying to make a point, its as if the rest of us are just playing at it, while they are the only "proper" club around - what a joke!

1

probbo added 09:38 - May 20 Given the position the Club is currently in with uncertainty over a FFP fine and/or transfer embargo, I actually think its a reasonable appointment. A calculated risk perhaps but the guy needs his own mandate and squad. Maybe the Board see him as the best candidate to implement any new strategy for developing youth rather than buying success. Wasn't he part responsible for Harry Kane's development at Spurs? Provided the Clubs finances can take it, I'd also welcome a few seasons outside the Premier League. I hark back to the days of the late 70's and 80's when the Club blended home grown talent with some experience bought in from elsewhere. It would be nice to read about a lot more 'products of the Rangers youth policy' in the match day programmes.

1

THEBUSH added 10:06 - May 20 Chris Ramsey has made mistakes, who hasn't, he should be allowed to make a few more, before being vilified. Hopefully next season is one of stability at our club, with Ramsey and our DOF making us into a decent Championship team, personally that's all I wish for.
1

Mvpeter added 10:25 - May 20 'The honeymoon period is already over. There are those willing to accept a poor second half to the season, point to the mess Ramsey inherited from Redknapp, recognise the injuries to key players such as Fer and Vargas' Sure this is obvious. 'and give Ramsey a clean slate and the benefit of the doubt with his own players.' Do not understand why these two position have become conflated. Absolving of blame is not a positive reason for giving someone a second contract.

0

Mvpeter added 11:08 - May 20 'In interviews with Reece Grego-Cox and Darnell Furlong to be published on this site next week, they speak about the difference it has made in training sessions right through the club to know that good behaviour, hard work and decent showings in training will result in first team chances regardless of your age, name, agent or resemblance to Niko Kranjcar. ' Such a difference that they've gone from competing near the top of the tables to now getting absolutely raped across the age groups by scores of 12-0 13-0 and 14-0. The only positives this man has brought are hypotheticals.

0

BrisbaneR added 13:39 - May 20 "QPR make predictable and slightly dull managerial appointment shock" Well thank Christ for that. Just for a change we're going for the bloke who won't attract headlines but will actually coach players He's not and won't be perfect (who is?) but we know what we're going to get, or at least as much as we can under the (FFP) circumstances. We just don't need another messiah riding in to save the day, we need what Ramsey brings already - organisation, player development and a view that he actually owes the club not the other way around

-1

snanker added 10:14 - May 21 OK I can live with this appointment and suspect both Probbo and 062259 are on the money re the money as I reckon CR would perhaps work pro bono to stay at the helm. Lets see what he can do a Div. down, who he can persuade to stay what deals he can do and the blending of a decent younger, spirited and no doubt less "experienced" side. VancouverHoop I've been at it 41 years now and I can assure everyone it certainly feels much longer however !!

0

SomersetHoops added 10:32 - May 21 Well the SWP thing at Man City shows either Ramsey doesn't know about the fans low opinion of SWP or more likely he does and wanted to show he would do the right thing based on his values rather than what the fans think. In the longer run this might be a good thing. Perhaps if Ramsey had been the Head Coach all the time that several players degraded by their time at QPR, that degradation may not have happened and SWP could have been a hero rather than a villain. For me its clear that a good coach backed by good footballing people in management is what QPR have lacked and hopefully will now have. Its important to realise that the process we are now starting will take time to yield results and will require patience, support and understanding from the fans. Whatever the pros and cons of the particular appointments are, more importantly, the club now has a plan and are trying to install correct values in performance and behaviour. Even if the personnel fail (which I really hope they don't) its vital we retain the plan.

0

rayrsa added 20:02 - May 21 May i suggest that somebody explain to the players that the round thing is their friend and they must keep it or pass it only to players wearing the sme colours. From what ive seen this season most of the motley crew dont know this. We did finish top of the ineptitude league after all.
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Leicester City Polls