As Mark Hughes moves out of Loftus Road, Harry Redknapp seems set to move straight in. Are QPR simply repeating the same mistakes all over again?

I don’t think I’ve ever disliked an article of mine as much as the assessment of Mark Hughes that I posted earlier tonight.

That’s not because anything in it was untrue or unfair – it’s a real challenge to find anything positive about an 11 month, 30 league match reign that contained just six victories – but because it was just the kind of wise-after-the-event Richard Littlejohn-type nonsense that I’ve always hated.

Littlejohn once infamously described his job as “sitting at the back and throwing bottles.” And isn’t that just so easy to do? People at the front try hard, come up with ideas and live with their successes and failures while people like Littlejohn sit at the back doing nothing except throwing things at them. I’m reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s line that ‘those that can, do; those that can’t, teach.’ These days it’s ‘those who can, do; those that can’t, write for the Daily Mail.’

I’m proud of LoftforWords because it proves just about everybody I’ve ever encountered in my own journalism career completely wrong. “People have short attention spans, people don’t want to read 3,000 word articles any more, people want things summing up quickly, people are on the move all the time these days, people aren’t going to sit and read five pages of in depth analysis on Akos Buzsaky on their mobile phone,” said one sub editor after another as they imposed 300 word limits on me. Well, I’ve taken very great pleasure in ignoring them on my own time, and making a success of a website that does the exact opposite of all the present-day rules and now brings in 95,000 page impressions on a good day, and holds up around the 60,000 mark on a quiet one.

Whenever I work on pieces for LFW – mine or guest submissions – I think ‘would I like to read this myself?’ which brings me back to my Mark Hughes article, which I loathe.

You see it’s all very well me sitting here now, after Hughes has made a monumental mess of managing Queens Park Rangers, and saying he was arrogant for walking out on Fulham, he was an idiot for spending massive money on the likes of Wayne Bridge at Manchester City, he was foolish to get rid of so many players who felt something for QPR and replace them with big names and so on. But when he was appointed I glossed over these things and talked up his achievements at Blackburn; the signings of people like Chris Samba, Vincent Kompany and Mousa Dembele; the eighth placed finish at Fulham. When Hughes was appointed I framed him as the man who performed wonders for two clubs of similar size to QPR and signed players who proved key to Manchester City winning the title last season, now he’s gone I’m saying he’s the idiot who is too involved with Kia Joorabchian and blew millions for no trophy return at Eastlands.

I hate the lack of accountability in sports journalism. Shaun Custis can say QPR are about to be deducted 15 points and splash it all over the back page of his paper, then when it turns out to be rubbish nothing happens to him – just onto the next story that might be true but probably isn’t. Likewise Patrick Barclay can write a piece in the Evening Standard haranguing Chelsea for the way they’ve dealt with the John Terry affair after the FA threw the book at him, when just a month beforehand he’d written a column for the same paper suggesting QPR would owe Terry an apology if they refused to shake his hand before a match and he was subsequently found not guilty. When you raise this with him on Twitter you’re either ignored, or he denies all knowledge of the first column. And it’s best I don’t start (again) on Sky Sports News and their ‘throw enough shit at the wall’ approach to transfer deadline day.

I’m not wrong in what I’ve written about Hughes, but I wish I’d been right earlier.

This is the difficulty in writing about a club that I love so completely. I may make myself abide by the Richie Benaud mantra of never, ever saying “we” when referring to Rangers, and I may try as hard as I can to approach every article objectively, but deep down I’m still that eight-year-old boy running around Bushy Park in his Brooks QPR home shirt with a Les Ferdinand poster on his bedroom wall.

My dad used to hate Mark Dennis with a passion. When Dennis was charging around in a Southampton shirt cutting Wayne Fereday in two my father could be found hanging over advertising hoardings to abuse him. As soon as Dennis pulled on the blue and white hoops he was alright: “Well done Mark Dennis” my dad’s booming voice would yell from the P Block as the full back sliced some poor unsuspecting winger in half.

Partly through the blind loyalty that all football fans have to their clubs, and partly through the new modern day fear of being branded “a closet Chelsea fan” on Twitter, I always find myself looking for positives in new signings and managers. “Yeh he’s been dog shit before, and he did lose a leg to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and he is into his forties now, and an alcoholic, and a former Chelsea player, and that botched sex change operation hasn’t done much for him, and he was never the quickest anyway, but maybe he can do a job for us at right wing,” I’ll say as the latest crock moves in.

When Jose Bosingwa signed I queried whether he’d have the fight and motivation to play for a struggling team after an entire career spent winning matches every week – but I resolved that somebody with his international caps and medal collection couldn’t be a bad signing. Likewise with Park, despite evidence at the end of last season that his legs had gone, I resolved that this was a great deal for the club. In the summer Hughes turned down the chance to sign Taye Taiwo, who played well at the end of last season and seemed to really like it here, in order to sign Fabio Da Silva on loan instead. I queried whether that was sound long term thinking, but then went running back to his Brazilian youth caps and 60 appearances for Manchester United.

In truth, I was as delighted as everybody else about the big name players coming into QPR in the summer, and I think I said something about Hughes being the only sensible option for the managerial job last January. So it’s a bit rich of me to sit here now talking about what an unbelievably awful job he’s done.

Of the QPR fans I speak to or read only three have said consistently, from the start, that both Mark Hughes and the club’s transfer policy were recipes for disaster: message board regular Dai Hoop, who is Welsh and hated Hughes before he even took the Blackburn job; mainstay of the LFW Travelling Crew Neil Dejyothin who gave me a detailed 30 minute run down of exactly why this season was going to be an unmitigated disaster on the way to the Swansea game in August and all I could say to him at the time was “stop being so harsh”; and journalist David McIntyre, whose words look so wise now but were met at the time via social networks with abuse along the lines of “not a proper QPR fan” and “never say anything positive.” Congratulations gents, such a shame we’ve found out you were right all along in such lousy circumstances.

This is why having supporters on the board of directors at a club can be problematic. Supporters are emotional and it clouds their judgement. Even now, after everything that’s happened, supporters across message boards and Twitter want more signings, more new players, more blood. Get Harry Redknapp in here, get rid of this lot, get in a new lot, right now.

The QPR board of directors may not be QPR fans, but they are football fans. Headhunting goes on in all forms of business, but to come out and say that Mark Hughes interviewed them for the QPR job, as much as the other way around, shows the problem with this. For whatever reason, Tony Fernandes and the board decided Mark Hughes was the ideal manager to lead their revolution and did everything bar suck him off to get him to agree. They let him buy whatever players he wanted, appoint whatever staff he wanted, mould the club however he wanted, and they gave him a contract so extortionate with a pay-off so great that they had to beg him to resign from it before eventually biting the bullet and sacking him.

They have no football experience and it has showed. I remember reading a piece from Chris Wright, who was a QPR fan, talking about just how illogical football makes reasonable businessmen. Would Philip Beard ever have got himself into a situation when he was the manager of the O2 Arena where he only considered a single candidate for a senior position, and then when that candidate arrived the questions were directed more at Beard than the other way around? Would Tony Fernandes appoint somebody to run his airline or hotels in that manner? So why did they allow it to happen with Hughes? Because somebody turning up to work for Air Asia would be just another executive, whereas Mark Hughes played for Manchester United.

Again, it’s easy to say all this now, because Hughes was a disaster and has gone. I didn’t raise many of these concerns back in January so I’m back in Littlejohn mode again. What is absolutely crucial now is that QPR do not make the same mistake again. There should be a managerial appointment, not a coronation.

Sadly it seems that Harry Redknapp is going to march straight into Loftus Road as the only candidate given serious consideration. If he does, and is welcomed with open arms, then QPR’s board and their fans have learnt zilch. The last 11 months of complete and utter dreadfulness on the pitch will have achieved nothing.

Ultra short term, Redknapp would be an improvement. He’s a motivator, and boy does this QPR team need motivating; he plays attractive, positive football, and my oh my do the QPR fans deserve some of that; and although he took over Southampton in a similar situation to the one we’re in now and got them relegated, he did later return to Portsmouth and rescue them from an almost certain demotion. Plus, let’s face it, unless he fails to win any of the next 13 matches he can’t do any worse can he? Short term, with the Premier League money skyrocketing next year, you could make a good case for this being reason enough to appoint him. In truth, I’m excited by the prospect of him taking over.

But in many respects Redknapp would be a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” – from The Who’s rather aptly named song Won’t Get Fooled Again. Redknapp is going to name his terms and negotiate a big fat contract, then this January he’s going to go out and buy five or six players and so the whole cycle begins again. Expect Willie McKay, like Kia Joorabchian with Hughes, to start furnishing us with big name players on big name contracts who will no more muck in when the going gets tough than come round my house and cut my lawn for me. And, judging by the “come and save us Harry” banners at Loftus Road, everybody is all in favour of this. Well, sorry, this time I am sticking a warning flag in the sand nice and early.

QPR need to look at what is working for football clubs at the moment. Ignore the Manchester City, Chelsea, Paris SG, Barcelona, Real Madrid stories of throwing money at it until it works. The real success stories are coming at clubs that are focused on a long term plan, on youth development and on a strategy. West Brom, Norwich and Swansea in this country, Ajax in Holland, Dortmund in Germany etc etc. They often make managerial appointments that seem a little left field but are made after an exhaustive process aimed at finding not the best candidate on paper, but the best fit for the club. They don’t get them wrong often as a result, and even when they do it’s not the end of the world because it’s the system and the strategy that’s running the club, rather than the manager as Hughes did at QPR.

When QPR were last in the Premier League having a chairman as wealthy as Tony Fernandes, and as happy to spend money on the team as he is, would probably have seen us win the whole competition outright – Blackburn Rovers did just that by spending a similar amount to that which Fernandes has shelled out. But these days every club has a rich owner and it’s only when you get somebody like Roman Abramovic or Sheikh Mansour that it’s enough to propel you beyond the rest. For everybody else, success these days is to be found in sound, strategic planning. It’s why QPR were foolish to simply crown Hughes and hand him the keys to the safe, and medium to long term they’d be just as daft to do the same with Harry Redknapp.

QPR need to be bringing in hungry, young players with plenty to prove who will provide excellent sell on value further down the line. Look down the divisions and wide across Europe and concentrate hard on developing your own. While Rangers were handing Jose Bosingwa a stupid contract this summer, 200 miles up the M1 there’s a fabulous young attacking right back playing for Huddersfield called Jack Hunt who would relish coming here and having a crack at the Premier League. By all means supplement these players with the odd big name, or “marquee signing” as the modern parlance has it, but not more than two or three.

There’s no guarantee of success – for every Leon Britton at Swansea there’s a Tom Soares at Stoke – but QPR are finding to their cost now that there’s no guarantee buying proven, big names either and when things do go wrong with that strategy they’re much harder to shift, much more expensive to keep and much more damaging to the team and the club.

What I want to see from QPR now is a widespread, thorough search for a new manager; a detailed, prolonged interview process of a dozen candidates or more from all over Europe; and finally an appointment of somebody who talks about ethos and targets three to five years away more than he mentions who he’d like to sign this January. Ask Harry Redknapp where he sees himself in five years time and I should imagine playing golf would figure quite prominently in his answer.

If the club learns from the mistakes of the Hughes coronation and does this, I’m pretty confident we’d end up with a similar European appointment to the one that Swansea City made in the summer, or with somebody similar to my two personal choices for the job Malky Mackay at Cardiff or Gus Poyet at Brighton.

And we’d (sorry) be all the better for it.

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Northernr added 23:18 - Nov 23 If anybody seriously believes he would ever have gone to the Ukraine they're daft. Wouldn't go to Newcastle because it was too far from Sandbanks. Blatant ruse to get us to hurry up.
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SomersetHoops added 23:30 - Nov 23 Clive I was also in favour of Hughes, but was disappointed by his performance last season and he lost my vote after we stayed up because of other teams results. Unlike you I am for Harry, because we haven't got time to mess about going through weeks of interviews. After United we have a number of winnable games and Harry for me is the man to get the best results from them. I hope he really wants the job and can accept a reasonable contract with the necessary checks and balances missing from that given to Hughes. The fact that its taking time to thrash out gives me hope that our board have learnt how to negotiate with football managers and get the best deal for the club. The thing is I don't think he can do worse than Hughes did and even if we are relegated Harry would not take the whole blame which means he is in a no lose situation and the board should use that to get a good deal. He will need to get players in, but if they are going to cost money they need to have the potential for added value rather than be aged washed-up injury prone unwanted ex-stars that Hughes tended to favour. I understand your pain about Hughes as you supported him longer than I did and I argued that you were wrong about that, but lets face it we were both wrong at the outset. I just hope I am right about Harry if he gets it, which I think he should simply because every minute wasted now is a minute closer to relegation and I think he has the best chance of keeping us up and with a now wiser board they should limit any excesses of expenditure. I also think Harry and his team will get better performances out of some of the really good players we already have. Lets be fully behind our new manager and risk being wrong - this time we may not be.

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JB007007 added 23:35 - Nov 23 A couple of brilliant articles Clive. So much is worringly true. Hughes made some right cock ups in the transfer market no question, but like you say the club seems to have let itself be turned over somewhat. This agent/advisor of his, Kia Joorabchian appears to have done some damage in the process. Let alone the poor signings, this week will cost the club millions in compensation for someone who's failed in their job. Add that to what Mr Redknapp will be demanding, plus a January transfer kitty and we could be ruined completely if we go down. I keep going back to why we needed to recruit as many as we did and even then we are desperately short of players in key areas, it beggars belief. Unfortuanately, we are narrowed down to one manager right now that we need. Someone who can have an immediate impact and turn some results around. I also think Harry is needed with his experience to sort this current group out. However, I too would like to see us appoint a young, up and coming manager with some long term vision and structure, but we dont have time to do that this season.

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CiderwithRsie added 23:43 - Nov 23 As you say, Ukraine was a blatant ruse. It would be nice to think Fernandes hadn't fallen for it, but the signs aren't hopeful. If we hadn't maybe we'd be reading about QPR conducting that widespread thorough search for a manager instead of reading that Redknapp is going to be the man. The press all thought Redknapp was nailed on for England, and I daresay he would have done a decent job, but in the end the FA surprised everybody by choosing a lower profile but bloody good coach. Things are bad when the FA start to look more competent than you. None of this means I don't wish for the very best for Redknapp if he is our manager. Doh! Did the: "our' thing, which I've also always loathed

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Northernr added 23:47 - Nov 23 Somerset - I'm not against Harry. I'm excited about the short term impact he's going to have. But if he keeps us up - and I think he will - then what? I'd like to think we know what direction we're going in after that, but I suspect we'll continue to look no further than the next transfer window when we'll target another five players on big contracts, pushing a previous five signings on big contracts deeper into the over inflated squad.

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Neil_SI added 23:54 - Nov 23 Really what they need to do is have someone as an understudy and Redknapp moving into a Director of Football type of role at a later point. That way they can have Redknapp concentrate on sorting out the short term mess (this season and next season) and then move towards a medium to long term plan that everybody is comfortable with.
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isawqpratwcity added 23:56 - Nov 23 "If he keeps us up..." Absolutely critical: we can sort out a lot afterwards if he manages that.
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Northernr added 00:06 - Nov 24 I agree - except we said that when Hughes was appointed. "Just keep us up, then we'll sort everything." And basically "sort everything" meant "destroy the team spirit completely and saddle us with a load of mercenaries." However desperate the situation is short term, you have to be looking medium and long term as well. QPR never do. They panic, they see a problem, the try and cover it up with three new signings, and they keep doing that and wonder why problems keep happening.

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rrrspricey added 00:27 - Nov 24 Clive, excellent article but with the current squad i don't think Mackay or Poyet (or any other young manager) would be a wise choice . The current squad needs a figurehead, someone they respect & HR fits that profile. However, moving forward, I'd love to see a young, hungry manager given the opportunity to take us (sorry!!!) forward whilst installing a sense of real stability . Cheers for the Soton ticket btw, nice to meet you & the LFW crew.

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carrotcrunch_R added 00:31 - Nov 24 I still think we are 3 very decent players (2defenders and striker) .+ spirit short of being a mid table or above team . Harry is the man for the job at least he knows how to organise and put men on the pitch that will fight or kick them out if they don't I actuAlly hope we can get Barton back in January. In saying Harry will only be here as a short term fix is crazy because I think he will have learnt his lesson from going for the England job and not getting it will make him more loyal to the cause . This guy has ambition and imagination he will try different things if all isn't going too plan . We cant deny that Hughes had ambition but most certainly didn't have the imagination too change things around when everything went wrong .

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BklynRanger added 01:29 - Nov 24 Clive I agree with most of your pieces but this one doesn't really make sense to me. Actually wait a minute it does: You've decided to be excited about Redknapp taking over, sad that we couldn't bring someone n to build slowly and instill passion, but you want to place on record your concerns about it all stumbling outside and falling on its tits? Mate, that kind of mad blanket uncertainty is what we, the lunatic pissed up masses, are here for...

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isawqpratwcity added 02:14 - Nov 24 I'm not saying that I think spending our way out of trouble is sustainable. I appauded most of Hughes' signings because I thought they were addressing identified needs. It is a criticism of Hughes' choices and management in so many areas that these acquisitions were unsuccessful. My point is entirely that it is only by retaining Premier money that the club will avoid administration, or worse, while we take time to sort out a wage bill that threatens to bleed the club to death. Relegation just isn't an option. That's why I've been so critical of Hughes' apparent inability to improve. I genuinely believe that the right man will achieve a sustained improvement using the current squad if managed well.

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Kaos_Agent added 02:28 - Nov 24 Clive, another great column. You're a fan, so of course you got excited with all the big names just like we did. How were we to know that it wasn't the Bionic Team that was being secretly assembled, but rather something that Dr. Frankenstein might be proud of? I just don't get how Premier League managers are hired. My daily job involves me and others making the case to take or not to take any given suggested action. We uses hard criteria to make these decisions. What alarms me is that all the discussion about potential new managers seems to lack any of this. The financial sums and business consequences are too big for it to be just about "names". Can anyone venture a guess as to how Harry will miraculously keep us up? Is he a better judge of transfer window talent? Does he have strong connections down into hidden gems of talent in lower leagues both here and abroad? Does he possess the other-worldly motivational skills and world-class sports psychology credentials needed to sort out the current squad? Is he more adept at knowing who his best side is and how to match up with this week's opposition? Can he prevent atrocious marking and fits of temporary tackling madness? Can he best emulate the longer-term thinking of the Norwich/Swansea/West Brom type? What hard criteria can the Board and Tony F use to rate Harry or any other potential skipper? And what makes them the best interview panel?

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Kiwi76 added 04:32 - Nov 24 Trouble we're in means long term planning has to wait. Kaos - to your point I 'll hope that Harry can give some undoubtedly talented players a lift and give us chance at staying up. I think his record does show motivational skills, gets stick for tactics but his sides play good football. Think improvements in morale & confidence will see performance improve - maybe even a win or two?! I really tried to give Hughes some credit but in the end it's a bloody shocking record and no clue as to fixing it. TF got royally mugged. Like the comments of potentially having Redknapp mentor a successor. If he gets us safe he can take whatever title he wants. Will have our new training set up and youth devpt but just have to be in Prem to maintain progress.

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QPRFish added 05:46 - Nov 24 Whats going on at Rangers at the moment has got me thinking of some parellels with another london premier league club around 1998-99......Crystal Palace. They were taken over by a excitable chairman by the name of Mark Goldberg in jan/feb 1998 who had a few quid to spend and was spouting nonsense like being in europe in five years etc etc..... Hmmmm. He also said that the only manager he wanted to manage his club was Terry Venables, who some would describe as a cockney wideboy who also had links with a club on the south coast called Portsmouth FC. They didn't interview anyone else......Hmmm. (I must say at this point, I'm penning this in bed, and i've put the pillows down the side of it just in case i fall out laughing at the similarities.) He then offered said manager/cockney wideboy an unbelievable contract, which, laughing down his sleeve at the owners naivety, he promptly accepted. A media frenzy ensued and there was much hope for the impending success. But that was as good as it got as i remember. At the end of that season Palace were relegated. In the following january Terry Venables, aka cockney wideboy, left the club amid much acrimony as palace went into administration and were lucky not to go out of buisness completely. Now i'm not saying any of that could happen down W12 way but food for thought indeed. Welcome 'arry, and good luck.

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BrianMcCarthy added 09:42 - Nov 24 Great writing again, Clive. What you're describing in terms of planning reminds me a lot of how Baseball is run, with a front office of executives who run the club from top to bottom except for coaching, line-ups, player management and game management which are all the manager's responsibility. It's how I'd like to see Rangers won, though a manager should also have some input into the type of players that are signed. After that managers come and go, but they're simply employees of a club that dictates its own policy on Academy, coaching, transfers and, to use your word, ethos. Appointing Redknapp, Hughes or whoever doesn't worry me, in fact I like Redknapp for the job. What worries me is whether Beard is going to assume the front office jobs on the club's behalf or continue to let the tail wag the dog.

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Addinall added 09:43 - Nov 24 Two first class articles.If you already haven't you should send them to Tony,especially the second. Short term fix is the only way to go given the current situation.Regarding the board's naivety I am sure that they have learned a lot of lessons through this unfortunate saga. Financially everything surely depends on the commitment of the Mittal family.If they really are in this for the long term then the amounts at risk are more than affordable to them. To finish positively.Harry (or someone) works the required magic. Building continues from there putting all the learned lessons to good use. This time next year we are all in a much more relaxed state of mind. I rarely post but having followed this club since 1947 the ups and downs are so numerous that I wonder if any other sets of supporters have such a continuous saga to live with. Keep up the good work. C O Y R's!!!

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Roller added 10:06 - Nov 24 If Redknapp can keep us up this is clearly a good appointment. Ironically that means that Hughes was a good appointment last season. Same time, same place, next season?
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R_in_Sweden added 10:32 - Nov 24 Great articles, you've put in a big shift this week, meticulous as Mark would put it, although with a decent result at the end of it. It would be very comforting to know that Fernandes gets to read some of the stuff on this site. I was also blinded with optimism by the new signings prior to Swansea game. But apart from a few of positive blips (first half v Spurs, whole game v Chelsea etc), there was always a nagging doubt at the back of my mind about Hughes. This was usually strengthened by reading between the lines on this site up until the West Ham game. Then came the straw that broke the camel's back, Reading for many including me, Southampton for the rest. Redknapp is a knee jerk, newspaper headline appointment by the board who don't seem to have the football know how to have had the likes of Solskjaer and his ilk on their radar. I wonder was there ever a plan B? In any case it will be interesting to see Arthur Daley's reunion with Adel. In the circumstances (i.e. the board have eventually realised that Hughes isn't the messiah) I feel that this is the right appointment. Looking forward with guarded optimism to some nice football with an end result.

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nadera78 added 10:35 - Nov 24 Lots and lots of people have commented that they'd like to see Redknapp groom a successor. Can anyone provide an example of a time when he has actually done that? I can't think of one. For me, he's the ultimate short-termist. He's here for a nice pay day, regardless of results he can't lose. Should fit in perfectly at such a ridiculous club like ours.
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Lofthope added 11:24 - Nov 24 Just for the record, I was recently asked by an editor to do a 3,500 word article, think Patrick Barclay is a thick pillock, don't want Harry Redknap, was wrong about Hughes and contribute to the page imnpressions here because of the quality of the journalism. I refuse to be a mainstream media muppet, I never watch Match of the Day, think the BBC has dumbed down to the point of making the Daily Mail look reasoned and given that harry Redknapp had the world believing the England job was his am hoping that this is just another junk journalism PR hype by Redknapp. However, I am resigned to the fact that my (feint) hopes will be dashed. Thank God for Loft For Words, probably the best journalism in the world - can we have 4,000 words in future please? I have plenty of time to read your articles because I ignore the mass media......and their sheepish editors.

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BirminghamR added 13:51 - Nov 24 Rarely have I read such a thought through, incisive and genuine article. Thank you
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highlandbill added 14:02 - Nov 24 Rednap is much more like Warnock and that makes me a bit happier with this appointment. In a sense we are going back to a management with some affinity with the fans and a good track record. The priority is to keep us up and hopefully once that is done the owners will look around for a young whippersnapper to push things on. Cant wait for the Sunderland match to see who is on the team sheet.

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derbyhoop added 22:37 - Nov 24 So, what do we get. Redknappp on a two and half year deal on similar money and bonuses to Hughes. Already talking about what his backroom team will be, so payoffs to Bowen, Niedswecki and Hitchcock to be added to that paid out to Hughes. I don't suppose Harry would have taken the job if he knew the purse strings were not to be opened in January, so expect more comings and goings in January. OK, so he might keep us up. It's not impossible, just improbable. The need to address the problem very quickly has meant he was the only candidate considered and the candidate interviewing the owners was no doubt part of the discussions - again. Whatever happens during the rest of the season, we'll be no further forward in May 2013 than we were in May 2012. Tony F and the other investors will just be considerably poorer.

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QPunkR added 11:53 - Nov 26 Agree with everything concerning Rosie47 and Hughes, one small nit-pick though - I've been vocally opposed to Hughes and what he stands for since before we even brought him in! And the same (albeit to a lesser extent) with Rosie47
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