LFW’s annual big sit with the QPR manager finds Gareth Ainsworth reflecting on repairing the damaged club he found here last season, signings made and signings to come, budget constraints and the Championship season ahead.
LFW has been conducting written interviews with figures from QPR’s past and present for 19 years and publishing them free-to-view. Now, to help support both this website and the iconic AKUTRs fanzine, we’re also making the audio from these interviews available to all three tiers of our Patreon subscribers as podcasts as a thank you for your support. Listen to the full interview via our Patreon by clicking here or read for free below…
I remember reading in Michael Calvin’s book about you and Richard Dobson having to put the nets up yourselves before training at Wycombe, and pretending to be Arsene Wenger and Steve Bould while you were doing it, this new training ground’s a bit different to those days.
Yeh we used to do that back in the day, we had to buy them on eBay first before we put them up. Everything’s done here. I’m still not adverse to picking up the odd bit of kit or doing the odd job that needs doing, I think that’s in me forever, but it’s a fantastic facility. Thank you to everybody involved in that because it gives us a real advantage in bringing in players, getting them over the line to sign, and the facilities for the boys to use gives them the chance to be the best version of themselves. It’s a set up for the Premier League and one day hopefully this club will be back there.
The culture, and the dressing room, at Wycombe I know you were very proud of and spent a long time building. ‘Culture’ is a big, woolly word. Can you quantify what that meant, how it manifested day-to-day, why it was important, because you seem to believe it was the big driver in getting Wycombe to heights they shouldn’t have been able to reach?
There’s no way we would have reached the Championship without people and culture. They can be throw-away comments like you say but let’s delve into it: no egos, no dickheads, nobody who will upset the dressing room. That’s the way I go. Some people will say you need these mavericks, these crazy people in the dressing room, I don’t believe you do I believe you can control these people. No egos, no selfishness, no arrogance. There’s no having a go at each other for the sake of having a go at each other – accountability, demanding of each other, but no blame culture. We took years to get that. We got to a point that the boys were in an hour before they needed to be there and were staying an hour or two longer than they needed to. That was a culture you could see.
When I picked the team on a Friday the boys who were in the team would go and pick up the boys who weren’t. The boys out of the team would get together and pick each other up. There were still knocks on the door from people asking why they weren’t in the team of course, but I could be totally honest with them and I had the strength to be honest because everybody was honest around them. The boys would say to each other ‘perhaps you could be a bit better at this…’. Now, at a lot of clubs I’ve been at, and I was guilty of this myself, the manager picks the team on the Friday and one of the lads who’s in the team will go up to one of the lads out of the team and say ‘you should be playing’. Now, why’s he doing that? So that he feels better, being a good mate to his buddy. But also doing a lot of harm because he’s putting in his mate’s head ‘the gaffer is wrong’, driving a rift between the manager and the player, not being helpful telling him what he should work on. It’s not constructive, he makes his mate feel better for ten seconds before he then feels worse, he makes himself feel better and feel like he’s liked in the dressing room. We want nothing like that, we need a real, honest culture where everybody is valued and has their place.
That’s what we had at Wycombe. Now, it’s really tough, because with better players and more talent you get egos. We’ve got some super talented players here but I think you can be an even better talent and a better person if you can rein that in a bit sometimes. I’m not saying I’m the best person in the world believe me, I’ve made some big, big mistakes in my life, but you learn from those and the values I’ve kept are humility and work ethic. I do a big presentation to the boys each season, we’ve just done ours in Austria, about what I’m looking to see in the boys personality wise, forget football. I want them coming in happy, I don’t want cliques, I don’t want egos, I don’t want five lads over 30 sitting in the stand on Saturday slagging the team off, slagging the manager off, not engaging with the fans. I’m going to really cultivate this place to what I believe gets success. I believe it 100%.
I know it takes time but we did it at Wycombe. I’m a builder, I had to be a turn-around manager last season but I’m not a turn-around manager I like to build and the building process has started this pre-season which hopefully you will see on the pitch and around the place. After the second Austrian game I made the players go and mingle with the fans, a minute from you is a lifetime for them and you don’t realise what ambassadors you are for this club. When you do these things you become stronger inside. This is what I want to work on: lots of things away from ‘can you play in a 4-4-2’. I believe it’s gone out of the game, I’m really passionate about it, I want a team QPR team people can feel proud of and it strengthens you as a team – don’t tell me that Japanese team in the World Cup didn’t draw strength from what they had within, the press they got and how they were perceived. I want that style with my boys here. Don’t be embarrassed doing it. Engage. Love doing it.
The players at Wycombe policed that for you, the ‘culture guardians’. So, how did that compare with the dressing room you inherited here?
The dressing room I inherited here lacked leaders, and lacked characters. The dressing room I inherited here was all over the place, but it wasn’t their fault.
There was nobody leading it from within. There were people trying to lead it from outside but unless you get in there and infiltrate that group, get your leaders in there who believe in what you’re trying to do on the pitch and off it, you’re going to struggle. They had plenty of people on the outside saying ‘this is what we’re doing’ football wise, but person-wise I thought there was a real lack of that. When the chips are down you really find out about people, they were down last season because they won one of 18 games or whatever it was and that’s when you find out about people. When everything’s going well it can paper over a lot of cracks. It’s so important to have these leaders and characters within the group. It wasn’t the boys’ fault it was just how the circumstances transpired – it was a group that could have done with some real leadership and the leaders you did have were swamped by people doing their own thing. It felt like that from the moment I walked in, we tried to get it together, and right at the end we saw a few nice signs. There’s a different vibe around the place now.
The fans who go every week were of the opinion that some players checked out here last season, some of them gave up, some were looking after themselves and protecting themselves for moves elsewhere in the summer, that some of the injured players either weren’t injured at all or weren’t as serious as they made out… were we right about that?
I understand the fans saying that.
Let’s do the injuries first. I don’t think anybody feigned anything. I think… it was a tough environment, and you feel things a little bit more when the chips are down and things are hard. I wouldn’t say they feigned injury, but they perhaps felt a little bit more sorry for themselves than you usually would with a little knock or something. Some of them were desperate to get back. There was a lot going on, we had a lot of injury recurrences which is something we looked into at the end of the season and we’ve addressed that big time with Ben Williams coming in as director of performance. I want that put to bed because injuries cost us big time last season and we’ve addressed that. It’s something tangible we can sort out.
I do believe that playing for the club, and what they were actually fighting for, got away from a few players. I would again go back to the culture, it wasn’t the boys’ fault, it wasn’t their fault. They had so many managers in, so many different styles, different rules from different managers, and they weren’t really together. Consistency is really important and a consistent message from one person that flows throughout the club is really important.
I’m not saying anything here that I haven’t said to them, but they weren’t mates. They weren’t fighting for each other. There wasn’t that mentality of ‘this is my best mate, I know all about him’. We’ve tried to instil that in them while we’ve been away, we’ve been telling each other about ourselves and had quizzes on different players. We’re trying to teach them. I don’t think they were genuinely fighting for each other. It’s tough, when things go bad and there are no characters and leaders around you it can be a lonely place.
I don’t blame the players, it wasn’t their fault. I’ve come in, I don’t want to linger on last season because whatever happened with Mick Beale, Neil Critchley, Paul Hall and then myself, we kept QPR in the Championship, all four of us together, and that was a success because this could have gone really bad last year, it really could have. Ok, they were top of the leage at one stage, but I think everybody knew deep down that they nicked a few results there. I obviously didn’t watch the games at the time because I was at Wycombe but when I came in I thought ‘you know what, I’m going to have a look at some of these early games’ and I thought 'wow, they got away with some results there', a worldie goal out of nowhere, battered in games. I’m not saying they didn’t deserve it, the table doesn’t often lie, but there were a few fragilities there and once they started losing it was tough to turn around. But I want to celebrate what Mick Beale, Neil Critchley, Paul Hall and myself did, nobody is better than anybody else in that group, and we kept QPR in the Championship which should be celebrated because it was a tough season. Back in the day here under John Gregory and Gary Waddock we had some real tough times here.
It was a lesson, we have to learn from that, I’m making changes here now. I don’t think anybody ever goes out not to care, not to give his best, I don’t believe that. But subconsciously, unconsciously, you can… rely on somebody else, or see somebody else not putting a tackle in so you might not put a tackle in. It’s not something I’d ever come across. It was a young squad with no leaders – it wasn’t their fault, it was higher up’s fault, me included, and thankfully we survived. I want leaders and characters in here so it doesn’t happen again.
Neil Critchley said publicly the mentality at QPR was weak, they didn’t respond well to adversity, and that when he was at Blackpool the rest of the Championship knew QPR were a team that could be got at. Was he right?
I think so, yeh. I’d caveat that with if we know that then let’s come in and try and make it strong, it’s our job as coaches and the people at the top to make it strong. No blame on the players, no blame. We’ve got to do our job at the top, if they are mentally weak then let’s sign players who are mentally strong. Add people to the squad who are stronger. We brought some fantastic players in here last year, really good talent, but it’s that old thing about people who can play the piano needing people who can carry the piano into the hall. We didn’t have enough piano carriers here.
Chris Martin you liked, made captain, said after Coventry at home the players weren’t dedicated enough off the field. Was he right?
Chris is old school. He’s just about from the era that I played in where it was about hard work and dedication. With the social media age we’ve got, the Premier League at the level it is, people can get carried away with what football is about. You have to have the graft and dedication off the pitch to make it on the pitch. People can get influenced by that. Chris was fighting against a tide here last season, it was tough for him but he had some great moments for us and I’m a big fan. Cracking guy, cracking player, he was a leader which is why we made him captain, he had qualities I want to see in a few others, but it was hard on his own and joining halfway through the season as well. He played a massive part in keeping us up and his goal at Burnley will be one of my favourite goals in football management believe me.
You’ve said in this interview already, seven times, ‘not the players’ fault’. You go out to bat for your players a lot. This team has lost 35 of its last 67 games over 18 months, and I think it’s only won 16-17 of the others. I’ve been to every one of those, and I’m not saying that to dickswing because there’s a few of us and… we’re pissed off with it. I wonder whether you’re worried about burning off the credit you have with fans like us by coming out after every game and saying ‘the boys gave me everything, love the boys, not the boys fault’ when we’re there at places like Blackpool watching them and we can see that’s not the case. It’s not true.
It's my job to make their everything more than it was. If that was their everything, and honestly I do believe the boys did give me everything… we had some young boys coming into the team late on…
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I just think some of the mentalities… their ‘everything’ is different to our ‘everything’. Giving everything to them might be I’m this fantastic attacking player, I’m this flair-y full-back, and my ‘everything’ is megging people, entertaining. And it’s not. It’s not. There is more you have to do to be the complete footballer. That’s where I think perhaps their vision was a little bit clouded. It’s my job, and the job of my staff, to make sure the boys know exactly what ‘everything’ means. I’m certain you’ll see a difference this season in what ‘everything’ means.
It was… it was lost here. It wasn’t the QPR I had here 20 years ago with Furlong, Gallen, Shittu, Rowlands. That team, that team gave everything. You gave everything in that team. When I played I did not have the talent of any of my players here, I’d be the least talented player in this squad, but I gave everything and you knew what everything was with me. I want that. They perhaps don’t have to go to that extreme, I needed to do that because I wasn’t as talented, but they’ve got to dig in and do some of the stuff that isn’t glamourous.
The fans are crying out for that here. There is that frustration in the fans that no matter how brilliant they are at times, that tackle, or that header, wasn’t competed for in the right way. Or he’s pulled out of that, he’s not tracking back. I think the fans see that as much as the manager and the staff do, and I don’t think that was important enough to the players last season. I had to change my style in the last couple of away games because I thought to myself ‘I can’t put these boys out and play the way I played at Wycombe, they can’t do it, they’re not ready for it, they’re not the same group of players’. I had to play this ridiculous Catenaccio, soak it up, 20% game. Thankfully it worked but I was really worried. We found a way, and that was really important, but this season it will be different and I want you to see that as fans. I want you to see them give everything this year, and if they don’t then I will be calling them out, I will be taking them off and replacing them with players who will. I intend to sign one or two who will drive that.
It must be difficult as somebody who tried to run off a broken leg for QPR to stand on the touchline and watch what we watched at Blackpool. But you come out and protect them regardless, when we come back to the ‘culture’ aspect is that part of building the dressing room, keeping it all in house, you fronting up all the criticism for them?
I’m the manager. It’s down to me. It’s all down to me. It is. If you’re a manager anywhere in this country you have to know that the results come down to you. Could I have done something different at Blackpool away, to stop it, or to make it 5-1, or 4-1? Probably. I’ve let the fans down as much as the players. I’m the top man, I want to be responsible for the players. Have a go at me if it’s not going right. I believe having a go at the players is tough, especially in this day and age when people are vulnerable and not as mentally tough as they used to be. When the players go out and feel pressured and stressed they can choke, and stiffen up in their games. I’ve told them I won’t hang one of you out, ever, so you go out and enjoy your football and be the best you possibly can and I’ll take it for you. It’s my way, not to be righteous and take all the flak, but because it’s what I believe will get the best out of the players.
And that broken leg was only two or three minutes if I’m honest. I felt it clicking, Adam Bolder told me I’d gone white and should go off. We got the result though and I was there at full time, beat Luton 3-2. Great days.
The Haka. Was that about finding out who would go with you, who’s buying in and who’s not? And do you wish you’d perhaps kept that in house rather than filming it and sticking it out there to go viral?
I want to know why people thought it was stupid, first of all. I’d love people to write into you and tell you why they thought that was a bad idea.
I did it to find out who wasn’t buying in to my way. I wasn’t looking at the ones at the front who were loving it and buying in, I was looking at the lads at the back giggling and laughing. They’re the ones that needed work.
I just wondered about putting it out publicly. You did win the next game to be fair, against Watford, but then after Blackpool it went viral.
The guy who did it with us is proud of his Haka. He wants to show it to the world. People don’t understand what it’s about. Don’t regret it. Would do it again. It’s a fantastic story.
Ironically I think a team has just got itself in trouble for mocking the Haka recently ahead of the World Cup. Don’t mock the Haka if you don’t know what it’s about.
Obviously a limited budget, what needs to change here this season? Sport science and medical seems to be an area of focus.
Huge. At the end of the season we sat down, Les as well, and looked at what had caused us issues. Review the season, rip it apart, what cost us? Injuries cost us without a shadow of a doubt. I also don’t think the boys were fit enough and there was an issue right at the start of the season with a couple of staff changes at crucial times. No fault, people are headhunted and taken to different places, but it was a bit chaotic here at the start of last season. This year we’ve planned it, we’ve got everybody in, we’ve done it in the right way. One of my big things this summer was getting somebody in to head up the whole of the performance department, not just medical and sport science, head the whole lot up. I want availability from my players. I want them fit, and I want them robust. Ben Williams has come in and taken that on. It’s a big thing we wanted to do and we’ve invested in that perhaps at the expense of a player somewhere but it’s infrastructure we needed.
That’s changed, the new training ground has changed, and I hope you’ll see this attitude change with the players and the whole place. We’ve had some really good feedback already that we’ll keep personal, but walking into a whirlwind last year there’s no way we could have put in place what we’ve done here this summer. Not me, me, me, it’s what the club has put in place, I couldn’t have done it without the support of Lee Hoos and the board. I’m not just saying it because they’re my bosses, they love QPR and they just want the best for the club. They’re really trying.
Did you think when you came in the mood would lift, Gareth Ainsworth coming back to QPR, you’re a motivator and a positive guy, you’d get the three or four results off that bounce and start planning for next season? Were you surprised things kept tanking as much as they did?
Yeh. You’ll always get total honesty from me and yes I was well surprised. I thought, looking at the fixtures, I’d get the results within four or five games, six maximum with the fixtures we had at Wigan, Blackpool (no disrespect). I was shocked. I was shocked at the state of the place. The energy will come with me, it always comes with me you always know I’m there, but I was frazzled at the end of the year. The most frazzled I’ve been in management. Even Flavio didn’t frazzle me this much. It was tough, lessons were learned, but being honest with you I thought we’d be done within five or six games, we’ll stay up easy here this is great I’m going back to the club I love and it looks like a pretty straightforward job to get the 50 points and build for next season. Not in a million years did I think it would have to come down to winning at Burnley and Stoke away to keep us in the league.
Not the five fixtures you would pick to survive, I thought you were done. What did you change, how did you get the results you needed?
The West Brom game the culture started to kick in. Watford was a freak result. That performance epitomises what I want from the team, it was totally different to what you’d seen for the previous dozen games – people snapping down, people locking on, fights erupting, square ups. That will win you football games. Horrible, horrible game for Watford. That’s what I wanted. But they couldn’t keep it up game after game. They weren’t fit enough, weren’t energetic enough, didn’t believe what I was saying – who’s this, from League One, Wycombe, he’s not some super coach. The culture started to drip in at West Brom, the comeback was unbelievable, a great goal from Lyndon and then closing down from him and Chris Martin. Norwich at home things we’d started to work on came through. The one that did hit me was Coventry at home. We got beat 3-0. I thought ‘shit, I really thought we were getting somewhere after West Brom, and now, wow, we look like the team we did when I walked in again’. We couldn’t hurt anyone. There wasn’t much in the game, a couple of mistakes, and I just started to worry it was coming too late with Burnley away, Stoke away to come. How the hell we did it. I’m so proud of the boys, the staff and the fans for doing it.
Three new signings. What do you like about them, why have you brought them here?
Paul Smyth. You can’t fail to notice he’s in a room or on the pitch. I’m hoping that little cameo in Austria will have enthused people – he gets the ball, he gets at players, he gets behind players, he gets crosses in, all what I was about and what I want to bring to this team. The basics, sometimes, were missing last year. We tried to be too intricate, playing through teams, like we were Arsenal of the early 2000s. The goals we got at West Brom, a good cross to Lyndon Dykes, I want that more. We’ll still have the magical moments. But I want the majority to be basic football moves, getting it wide, getting to the byline, getting a cross in, recycling it, going wide again, getting the ball in the box again. Recycling attack after attack after attack, Paul is good for that, he puts defences on the back foot and he stretches back fours and back fives. Lyndon does that too and that will create pockets for players like Ilias Chair and Chris Willock to work in.
Ziyad Larkeche, how nobody else has picked him up I don’t know. We’ve got a real gem here. Twenty years old, played for France U20, PSG background, wand of a left foot, fantastic crosser. We’re going to get him fitter than he’s ever been and that will help him. When I walked in here there was Ken Paal at left back and then I had to go down to the U14s to find the next left back in the whole squad. There was Nico Hamalainen, the enigma that he is. I don’t know, every manager has said they come in, he shines, and then nobody wants him. I said he’s not even coming in for me, let’s just cut ties with Nico and get a left back in. No disrespect to him, I hope he goes on to fantastic things, but QPR was not going to work for him. Ziyad has come in and wants to challenge Ken Paal, he wants the left back slot. That will make Ken better, and it will also free him up to go and play in midfield which he did in Holland. Multi-positional players will be huge for me this season with a limited budget.
Asmir Begovic. Champions League winning squad, Premier League winner at Chelsea. Stoke and Everton Premier League games. Bournemouth Championship promotion. Walks in the building, commands a respect that he doesn’t demand. He doesn’t expect you to respect him, he comes in humble, and that makes him even better. He’s an incredible guy. We’ve had a couple of training sessions with him already and he has not stopped talking. He’s going to lead us from the back. He’s going to be one of the best keepers in the Championship – I hope he’s not tested too much to prove that, but he’ll be one of the best in the league. It’s amazing we’ve attracted somebody like Asmir. He walked around the new training ground, he bought into the project. He was offered more money to go to a Premier League team, whether he was guaranteed a start there he is here and he’s got a project he really believes in and buys into. Cannot wait to see him playing. He’s a fantastic character. I didn’t believe we could get anywhere near him but I cannot thank Gavin Ward and Lee Hoos enough for making that happen.
You said it was "a big signing for me personally”, what did you mean by that?
It’s a big one for me personally because I’ve managed in League Two, League One and one season in the Championship. For me to attract a player like Asmir Begovic, wow. I’ve got so much humility, I wake up every morning and look at this place and consider myself so lucky to come here and work every day. Look what you’re in charge of. And then somebody like Asmir Begovic who’s won the Premier League, played for his country so many times, calls me gaffer, believes in the project, great energy, it really means a lot. As a manager you never get a well done, it’s always you giving out the praise. I get my ‘well dones’ from somebody like Asmir Begovic wanting to play for QPR with me in charge. I’m pleased for the club we can attract players like that. Delighted he’s buying into what I believe in.
Obviously a good keeper, but you mention a lack of leaders last year and one of the things the fans see about this team is perhaps a lack of voice, quite a quiet team, quite a nice team. He’s he coming here to be that guy as much as he is the keeper?
Yeh. At Wycombe we were at the other extreme – people talked about ‘the dark arts’, this is what they do, horrible to play against. I don’t want to go to that extreme and having that reputation again. Having Akinfenwa in the team adds to stuff, we tightened the pitch because he couldn’t run, we used to rest when the ball went out of play because Bayo was knackered and so on. It was horrible to play against but I took it as a massive compliment. We were too naïve last year, we really were. Naïve about little things that matter in football. I’m not saying we’re going to cheat, but you’ve got to have some street smarts about the game sometimes. If you’re honest you get punished. The best team in the world, Argentina won the World Cup, were they the most honest and clean team? They slow the game down, they use the little tricks you get away with, like cricketers who pick at the ball. We will try and use every game we can. If Asmir can come in and lend his experience to the boys, maybe don’t throw it out if it’s not on, calm things down and go long with this one, or taking his time after a catch to let the boys rest and reset, the calmness of his voice…
You’re right, we don’t talk enough. Not just QPR, modern footballers in general. I hope we can add this to our game and make QPR a difficult place to come to. I’d love people to say "I hate going to QPR”. I’m sick of people saying "love going to QPR, we get three points, great pitch, old fashioned stadium, brilliant day”. No, I want you to hate coming here. I want teams to know it’s going to be a tough game. Loftus Road needs to be a tough place to come where the fans get right behind the team, we don’t get on with the away team, the team is solid – all these things are great compliments to me. Adding Asmir brings such great experience to the group without having to say or do anything else.
More to come? Lewis Wing and Chris Forino are all over social media, have been for weeks. Anything you can tell us about that, or more to come?
Big fan of both those lads. Chris is definitely a centre half who could play Championship, and higher. Lewis Wing has played Championship and scored goals at this level. Big fan of both.
There will definitely be two more, possibly three more, before the first game. Then there are still three weeks of the window to go after that. Premier League teams will pick their squads, people fall out of favour and that loan window is open.
We’re not flush with cash. We’re going to have to do some deals that are a little bit left field. Not your popular and most available ones, but I’ve got a good knowledge of the players in the league below. There are some good loan players around but everybody will know as a manager I’m not massively keen on loan players: when it’s going well it’s great, when it gets tough – not saying this is the case for every loan player – I think they do start looking over their shoulder and thinking about going back to the parent club. We’ve got to be very careful what we bring in here. That’s my belief in general, look at what I did at Wycombe.
Two or three before the first game of the season. They will be names that make a difference for me. That’s as much as I want to say.
Do the finances here mean you will have to cover some positions with loans when ideally you wouldn’t want to?
Not necessarily. And loans aren’t as cheap as everybody thinks. You go to a big club and they’ll charge you a loan fee and then deduct every time they don’t play, or a massive contribution to wages which in some cases are £30,000/£40,000 a week for a player who hasn’t played a game yet. It can be a real stretch for Championship teams. I’m really sorry to keep saying it but we have to cut our cloth accordingly. We have to adhere to FFP. Our profit and sustainability must be adhered to this season otherwise we will get a points deduction, a fine, and this club cannot get involved in that – look at Reading last year, look at Reading this year, look at Wigan and clubs like that. I’m proud of the board, they’re multi-millionaires and fantastically successful people but they will not put this club in jeopardy like some owners have elsewhere. They’re in it for the right reasons.
You mentioned FFP in every interview in Austria, as best you can what is our FFP/P&S situation currently as you understand it?
FFP means we cannot spend more than we’re bringing in. This club should not expect the owners to just keep writing off millions and millions of pounds. It has been done here. We’ve got to be thankful for the people we have in charge for running the club in the right way. Clubs are growing in the Championship at a rate and while Loftus Road is one of the best stadiums I’ve ever played in, and I never want to leave, I love the place it’s part of my DNA, but it holds under 20,000 and that’s tough. When you’re trying to attract players to West London, the most expensive part of the country, and players are demanding massive wages to come down here and live, they think it’s QPR, a London club, former Premier League… it’s not sustainable. FFP and P&S is watched over by the EFL and the FA, and we cannot put ourselves in trouble. If big, wealthy owners just shovel millions in every year you’re asking for trouble. Doing it this way, with a little bit of an underdog mentality as well which I like – we used to have that when I was here, just out of admin under Ian Holloway, a really successful period – I think we’re ok. I will work with these constraints. We have some good players in the building without a shadow of a doubt. There are some unviables in football that you can work with, and I’m going to make those huge in this club. If I don’t then I won’t be here, but I really want to give this a go and build what I built at Wycombe. Getting that club to the Championship was the finest thing I’ve done in management, keeping QPR up was right up there with it, I can eclipse that here if given time and I really hope I get that. I know what I can build.
You’ve sold Rob Dickie and Seny Dieng already, do we have to sell more before we can buy? Do we have to accept any half decent offer the situation we’re in?
We won’t be accepting stupid money for any player. We know the value of our players, we won’t be giving them away no chance.
There will possibly be more outs before the start of the season. Out or outs. I’ve always known this. The ins will be exciting as well. I won’t give a definite yes, but there’s a possibility there will be an out or outs. We’ll do what’s best for the club, but there’s no chance the club will be giving players away for cheap. I know the owners upstairs will make it work if clubs start trying to take the mickey out of QPR with low offers. If we have to sell it’ll be at the right time.
Having done it this way at Wycombe is it disappointing to get your chance in the Championship and be faced with the same situation? Do you know what you would do if you did have money?
I do know what I’d do, because we’ve already gone for a few players who’ve turned out to be out of our range, so I know I’d get those players in. I wouldn’t go mental, I’m telling you now I wouldn’t go mental. You would see a team to be proud of. Couple of flair lads. I know what I’d do if I had money.
I didn’t realise how much it would be like this. As a manager I always looked up to the Championship and thought ‘all money up there, you can get what you want’. You can’t. Now I’m thinking about the Premier League, maybe you can there. I’ll tell you when we get there. It is just the way it is. Maybe there was a tinge of this from the owners when they identified me as the next manager to come in here. I had worked with next to nothing, built it up from next to nothing to something. QPR is definitely not nothing, it’s something, and I want it to be a big club again. I’ll give my all. Everybody knows that. I’ll be able to look in the mirror and know I’ve done that.
Les Ferdinand has departed as director of football. It’s been reported that was because you and him were so far apart on transfer targets and style of play. Do you want to respond to that?
I would love to show you text messages from Les saying the reason he did that was for me to get success here. Said he was proud to have met me and the person that I am, but there was so much negativity surrounding him at the football club. What he was getting was so unjust, I felt. His last decision to move away and hopefully give us a better start without the negative stuff being aimed at him is the mark of the man. His last decision was for the success of QPR. To set the record straight Les and I have become really close, there was never a falling out about anything. People can believe what they want but I consider him a really close friend and I’ve spoken to him quite a few times since he left on advice on players. I’d like to know which players we’ve supposedly fallen out over but it’s absolute rubbish. Les and I were together in this. For him to step down to hopefully enhance our chances of success is the mark of a proper QPR man.
Do you get final say on who we sign? Was that final say a stipulation of you coming here?
So far, yes, final say on every transfer that’s come in. The board have been fantastic. Lee Hoos has been great, another man who gets quite a bit of stick but believe me he works his socks off for this place. I want to stop all this stick people are getting, if I can help stop that and tell the truth about this place it would be great because it’s a really tough club to run but I’ve had nothing but backing on every signing that’s come in so far. I’d love to say they were all my idea but some people have put names to me and I’ve said ‘brilliant name, let’s get him in’. Nobody has said ‘you have to sign this person, you can’t sign that person’. Where they’ve said no it’s because they’ve wanted too much money. I know my title is head coach but I consider myself managing the place on all things football. It wasn’t a stipulation of me coming here, I didn’t really talk about it, but the board have given me trust in making decisions.
Probably since Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce I’ve never known a manager get asked about his style of play as much as you do, why do you think that is?
Two reasons. I think people hated Wycombe Wanderers beating them. I really do. Clubs, fans, opposition managers wanted to find a reason why we beat them. Instead of talking about their own downfalls they would criticise what Wycombe did. Secondly, if you have Bayo Akinfenwa in your team and you don’t go into him with some balls then you may as well not play him. We had to get balls into him and he gave us unbelievable success. I would like people to get on YouTube and look at Wycombe’s goals over the last couple of years and how many long ball goals there were versus great passing goals. Better to be talked about than not talked about.
You said after Burnley, possibly in a state of euphoria, that "possession can do one”. Can possession ‘do one’ again this year?
No, that was that one game. If we draw Man City in the cup then possession might be able to ‘do one’ again – we win the game 1-0 with 18% possession again I reckon every QPR fan would take that. But against the Austrian second division team we just played we could have won 10-1 and probably had 75% possession. These comments get blown out of proportion, I should maybe stop saying them but that’s me and that was me on that day. Possession could definitely ‘do one’ against Burnley that day, and out of 23 teams who went to Turf Moor only QPR got the win and I’m very proud of that.
You said after we lost to Bristol City that you wanted to be a little bit more expansive and we got picked apart. You said afterwards we basically couldn’t play like that in the state that we’re in. Do you envisage us being able to do that better, more often this season? Or do the restrictions we’ve got mean it will be more like Burnley and Stoke?
I think there will definitely be room for Burnley and Stoke performances, particularly away from home. We’re going to have to go to some places and shut up because there are some great teams in this league – Leicester, Southampton, Leeds, fantastic footballing sides, we’re going to have to soak up pressure in those games. At The Loft I would like to entertain the fans. There will be a mixture. I play winning football. I play what I think will win a game. If we’re winning I don’t think it matters how we play people will be appreciative of that. I was really pleased I tried what I tried against Bristol City at home because we’d won two games, I knew why we’d won them, I knew what we did, and I wanted to say ‘right, is it just me, or can we play this way?’ And I was proved right. We weren’t ready for that. It was great learning for me for this season. I want to hit the ground running. It’ll be a hard season with the strongest Championship for sometime. There are 23 big teams in this league, but there are 24 with QPR because the history and soul of this place is phenomenal. I know we can compete at our best, it’s about me getting the players to their best every single game.
All through this interview the theme has been togetherness, it’s going to be tough but we’ll do it together, how does that tally with taking Leon Balogun to Austria on tour, where we’re all together buying in and finding out about each other, and then the thing the fans said would happen all along does happen – he goes back to Rangers and rejoins Mick Beale.
I tried to sign Leon. I wanted to sign him. We just, again, with the constraints of the football club we weren’t the club for him. I genuinely don’t think Leon had ulterior motives. I’ll stand up for him. If I’m wrong, so be it. I’ve had some nice phone calls off Leon and people won’t know but just before he left he met with the boys and said some amazing things about not just the boys themselves but the staff that have come in. He’s probably a little bit misunderstood here. I wish him well.
You don’t feel he’s let you down going back there? Because you went out to bat for him, a lot…
No I don’t feel he let us down. I don’t feel he used QPR. I will stick up for Leon, still. I’m usually a great judge of people, I look into their eyes and I can work them out pretty well. Leon, for me, was a good guy. A little bit in the Chris Martin mould last season of being one of the leaders who just couldn’t get across what he wanted because the tide was so strong and it wasn’t easy for him. On top of that the injuries, the recurrences he had, we felt for him a bit. If you’re playing in the team you can have influence, if you’re not it’s tough. The rumours going around on socials must have really hurt him. I wish him the best in his career. As far as I’m concerned every meeting and talk I had with him he was genuine, and I don’t think I’ve got that wrong.
It doesn’t look great though does it, him going back there? I wasn’t in the meeting here but the fans did sit there and say ‘we think you’re looking to get back to Rangers with Mick’ and he told them ‘your perception is wrong’. And that’s exactly where he’s gone.
If that was his motive I never saw that. That’s all I can say. Whether it looks great or not, there are a lot of things that didn’t look great at QPR last season. Let’s focus on the future and the positive. I did rate him as a player and probably would have taken him again.
Give us some reasons for posivitiy then. I’ve read two season previews today, both of them have us bottom.
Great. For me that’s positive already. We’ve got some predictions we can shove where the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t deal in negativity. We give our best. It will be tough without a shadow of a doubt, for reasons other than football – the constraints we’re under, the teams that have come down, the teams that have come up, football in this country is getting stronger and stronger, clubs are getting bigger and bigger around us. My positivity is I know I have a group of players around me here who can beat anybody on their day. If we can keep having our day we’ll definitely put egg on a few faces of people who’ve said we’ll finish last. If we do [finish last], well done. But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion we won’t.
What is success this season? Wrestle the budget down, finish fourth bottom, get out of Dodge and we’ll look again next summer?
Successful season for me is less injuries than last year, less recurrences, every single player giving everything they possibly have on the pitch, giving their absolute best. I won’t put a position on it, that’s success for me. I know that will keep us out of trouble. I can’t say where we will finish. We almost went out of the league in 12/13 at Wycombe, a season later we made the play-off final. I don’t know how this game goes sometimes, you can have crazy purple patches, you can have ridiculous unbelievable luck. If I can get these players giving everything, and we can limit the injuries, I think we’ve got a right chance. I would love to improve on last season’s position as an aim.
A little bit of patience I would appeal for, particularly at home. Our home form was terrible last season. The fans can play a part that they don’t realise. It can be easy to criticise right from the start, somebody putting a bad ball out of play at 0-0 can get lambasted for it. I thought that really put a downer on things and made it even tougher. Make it easier for the players, make it easier for them to play well. You’re a brilliant bunch and when I played I would run down that wing past R Block and feel like I could take on Stuart Pearce never mind a League One full back. They would raise me to a level I couldn’t believe I was at. But they can also lower you to a level of despair. I’m hoping they see the positivity and the effort levels and respond to that.
If it goes bad I won’t be long enough in the job to start scrapping with everybody but I will scrap for this club, these boys and the fans who’ve been there for me all the time. I want us to all scrap together and be that QPR team that upset the odds, go into every game where people are saying we’ll lose, we’re not great, we’ve got Gareth Ainsworth as manager who’s only been in League One – let’s go and prove everybody wrong in the Championship, we can do this I really believe it. Players like Asmir Begovic signing for me and one or two other names who are coming is a real proud thing for us. Be proud of QPR.
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