Following harsh criticism of chairman Tony Fernandes from journalist Paul Smith at the weekend, and the chairman’s recent appearance on London Call In, Neil Dejyothin gives his opinion on QPR’s Malaysian owner.

Tony Fernandes’ recent statements haven given a lot of food for thought and pointers, so I wanted to share some of my thoughts about his comments on London Call-In last week.

I want stability more than anything

I wanted it with Neil Warnock and Mark Hughes so it is third time lucky with Harry and I think he is the man.

I really hoped this was true, but actions speak louder than words, especially when you’ve publicly backed Neil Warnock and Mark Hughes to the hilt and then fired them long before the finish line.

I am worried he thinks Harry Redknapp is the man too, though I suppose he has to say that at this point. Redknapp can only ever be a short term solution for QPR because of both his age and his pedigree.

Redknapp to date has only had eyes for the first team. He is not even interested in the plans for a new training ground and that’s because he probably knows that whenever that arrives, he’s not going to be around. There’s nothing wrong with that either, but that’s why everything points to his time here being short term, whether he is successful or not.

I think Redknapp and his back room staff are excellent, but personally I would have no problem if he decided he wanted to leave at the end of the season, simply because it gives us a chance to rebuild properly and address the bigger picture. The club need to start working towards the medium to long term future and ensure there is a club wide vision for football matters that focus on the footballing culture and philosophy.

We understand each other well and he knows how committed the shareholders are. He has a great coaching staff and philosophy – he’s a fantastic man and I would love to keep him as long as he wants to stay.

This statement concerns me because we have a typical situation where both parties are playing mind games and being noncommittal. On one hand, you have Redknapp saying it’s up to the board what they want to do, as he’s stated both at the fans forum back in February and more recently in the press, and on the other hand, you have the chairman saying he’d love to keep Redknapp as long as he wants to stay.

This is jostling for public perception with the press and fans, so if it turns sour and Redknapp does go, each man can point to their story to create an illusion of being pushed, shoved or abandoned. It’s also about money too – if Redknapp walks on his own accord, he likely won’t be entitled to a pay off, but if he’s let go, then he likely will be, and we all know that money talks in football.

We will have to sit down with Harry and discuss who we want to keep and who would go

The above statements are followed by this one, which illustrates so many things to me. The use of the word “will” means this can only happen if Redknapp stays, which we already know is not clear either way, and it sounds like the club themselves are not ready or prepared for the future, and do not have a contingency plan in place for what they’re going to do with the squad, which they should already have regardless of what division they’re in. It’s all very short term.

Obviously there will be players that will go regardless of if we stay up or go down. We want players who can give a lot to the club for a long time. I do see players going, but I think we do have the nucleus of a good squad now which we have had to rebuild.

This is the closest we’ve got to an admission of really making a mess with the transfer strategy employed by the club since Fernandes arrived, but I would like to see the football matters being discussed by football men.

I do agree that the squad needs some surgery though, with or without relegation. It has been criminal that we’ve had so many players on the books to the point that there has been nearly seven or eight players unregistered at certain points in time, because of the 25 man squad rule. It’s staggering that we’ve been in this situation for the best part of two seasons and I’m not sure I’ve seen any other Club in such a predicament since the incarnation of those squad rules.

When you combine that with the fact that we’ve not developed any Under 21 players to fill in the gaps, when plenty of sides in the division have two, three, four or five that can make their respective teams’ first elevens…well, need I say more?

Every single player who has left QPR has not stayed in the Premier League and I think that shows how much rebuilding we had to do. There will be players going but I don’t think there will be a mass exodus as we try to keep a nucleus together and build on that.

This is the one statement that I really dislike and find so disrespectful to those players who served the club and is not clever because you should never talk about players in this way, especially when they were your own. This nonsense is something Fernandes picked up from Mark Hughes and Mark Bowen, who both made similar claims in interviews when things were tough for them.

Come on, let’s face it, at this rate nobody staying at QPR will be playing in the Premier League next season either, and if we are relegated, we’ll be taking so many down to a level they’ve never experienced in their careers before. I hope not, but you still shouldn’t say things like that.

It’s also worth remembering that during Warnock’s time in the Premier League with us, we were playing some of the best football in the division outside of the top four or five teams, and at one point we were in eighth place in the table. But like I said, it would be better to let the football men do the football talking.

We need every player to play to his best. Obviously key players have made key mistakes at key times and that has let us down over the last two losses. We just need all eleven players on the pitch to put in their best.

It is a tough old game. You can do everything right but then there are eleven players, sometimes the referee; all kinds of things come into play. I’m an old fashioned guy and if you keep doing the right things a good will turn right and the smiles will come back.

I sound like I’m repeating myself, but you know what I’m going to say – let the football men do the football talking. It is never smart to talk about needing every player to give their best and mistakes in the same breath, you are not going to endear yourselves to them in this way and it’s the wrong message to convey, especially as it’s just another short term message based over two matches. This isn’t about those two games, it’s about the entire 18 months and how the club has been run, and the consistently poor performances or results in that period of time. If you’re going to do that, do it privately.

Over the years, Newcastle have been down there, Manchester United have been down there and West Ham have been down there. Many clubs have gone down – it’s not the end of the world.

We will come back stronger, it’s not obviously what we wanted but a lot of good work has been done over in these last two-years and that good work will continue for a long time into the future of this club.

This really isn’t the point, the point is the club have demonstrated a lack of a strategy and plan, or if we have, it’s been a bloody poor one. It should have always included the possibility and risk of relegation, and the sackings of Warnock and Hughes proved that the club dismissed the idea of relegation as an acceptable outcome, when in actual fact the reality of the situation is that it should have been expected as a serious possibility at this stage in our lifecycle and with mitigating plans in place in the event it happened.

A contingency plan would include everything from financial planning to squad development and we’ve done pretty poorly on both counts. Then there is the history of the club and to say that it isn’t the end of the world, when just 12 years ago QPR went into administration because of similar problems to the above, is a smack in the face to supporters and those desperate for Rangers to learn from their mistakes. It’s just so disappointing that when we’ve had the chance to spend money and invest wisely to improve the long term health and future of the club – we’ve not done it. It’s been all about the glitz, glamour and image at the expense of doing things properly and doing things right.

There have been so many examples that we could have learned from: West Bromwich Albion were a yoyo club until they stabilised; Stoke City and Fulham have built themselves up slowly over the years, to the newcomers, Swansea City and Norwich City who have both survived and evolved. All of them have a philosophy and vision in place, and their player and staff recruitment policy matches with their model, and they have a contingency in place so when players or staff leave right the way from the youth teams to the seniors they already know their next targets and why they’re after them. And just look at Southampton and how they’ve flown through the divisions based on their vision. Where is ours? What is ours?

If Reading are relegated, they are already in a solid position to return. They’ve a settled team that know one another, haven’t spent huge sums of money and will not have as many players in a huff and wanting to leave for a higher standard of football. Nor will they have any problems shifting players, as they haven’t gone crazy and saddled themselves with players earning vast sums of money. Aston Villa, if they go down, have lots of young and hungry players, plenty of whom will have gained an awful lot of experience from this season and who have knowledge of what the Championship is all about. With one of two additions, they are in a decent position to kick on, regardless of what division they are in.

When it comes to football matters, we are being trounced by all of these football clubs and none of them have the resources we have at our disposal.

But there is so much to be upbeat about at QPR. We have a new training ground on the way and we have come a long, long way from two-years ago.

Actions speak louder than words and we’re already a year late on the initial plan. Rather than powder puff statements – can Fernandes and the board tell us exactly where we’re at with planning consent for the new training ground and what’s the actual status? When will the first spade be put into the ground and work begin on the site?

The future is bright. I know that might sound rather weird sitting one place from the bottom of the Premier League. I still think we have enough to get over the line but if we don’t then trust us. We have kept our word so far in the past one-and-a-half years and we will continue to do our best for QPR.

I really hope so Tony, but remember, actions do speak louder than words and there has been a lot of contradiction between those two things in the past 18 months, but so long as we learn from our mistakes and show we’re doing something about it, that’s all that matters. I remain worried and concerned, but good luck and all the best.

Visit Neil’s blog www.qprtoday.net

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SomersetHoops added 20:47 - Apr 9 Neil I agree with much of what you say, but it has been rare recently to have a chairman who is interested in the club's performance as well as how it does as a business. Its unfortunate that TF's strategy has failed on both counts. We can only hope he either has learnt himself, or appoints someone who has more knowledge and experience of football. I think Mr Fernandes is pulled in too many directions to spend enough time at LR to know properly what is going on, resulting in bad judgement calls such as delaying too long in kicking Mark Hughes, Mike Rigg and their entourage of incompetants out of our club. What exacerbates this situation is that we have a CEO in Phil Beard who also has insufficient football management experience to be doing that job in those circumstances. As a management group they have been guilty of looking at the far horizon imagining a utopian future whilst not dealing adequately with the here and now. They seem to have lost sight of the need to make our fans feel the best so others want to swell their ranks to have any hope of meeting the numbers required to satisfy their future ambitions. I can cite the imposed family area as one example of their lack of consultation and consideration of people who are also part of families who have been coming to QPR for generations. Lets face it both seasons in the Premiership have been characterised by dire performances on the pitch. Worse than that is the lack of feeling we as fans are in it together with the team, some of whom clearly are just at QPR for the money and don't really care or have any commitment to our club. It seems that our management for some time have valued players by their past glories and price tag rather than their skill and character and most importantly their abilty to improve in value during their time at the club. I agree Harry will not be around long enough to oversee some of the club's future ambitions, but is the right man for the here and now and will attract up and coming players to QPR during the summer when we need to refresh the team. I think HR might be a good man to retain in a position to be a co-operative moderating influence on the younger manager we will need fairly soon. I just hope these things can be sorted out so we can return to the days when we could be proud to say we are QPR fans, because until that happens however many dream-world ambitions our current owners have they will not be realised.

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simmo added 20:55 - Apr 9 Great little piece, Neil. Agree with so much of that, and while I do believe he has the best of intentions for us, I think some blame has to fall at his door due to his naivety. It surprises me a man with such business acumen to make the fortune he has doesn't place quality advisors and executives at the decision making level with a clear track record of experience that doesn't include a conflict of interest, like placing your agent mates clients in top positions!

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DWQPR added 23:01 - Apr 9 Or, TF might actually say what he means without anybody trying to psychologically dismember ever single thing he says. I will say I am getting extremely bored with people trying to dissect every single word spoken by TF or HR. Maybe, just maybe what they say is exactly that and no more.
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jo_qpr63 added 23:13 - Apr 9 Interesting read, cheers Neil. I would like to hear more from the Mittals, as they still have a fair share of QPR. listening to Fernandes views is starting to grate ,as he keeps talking about long term but seems to be investing in players,managers short term. It doesn't add up.
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jo_qpr63 added 23:29 - Apr 9 DWQPR, i sort of agree, but we've been hearing the same thing from TF for 18 months but with no further development . All we have is words. Okay he has put his money where his mouth is when it comes to buying players,but as i said before they are players that contradict what his so called long term plans are.
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DesertBoot added 07:01 - Apr 10 TF wants Queens Park Allstars. His dismissal of firmer players alarmed me. Such players might have us several notches up the table. We've waited a bloody long time to be in the top-flight and for me relegation is a disaster.
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RonisRs added 09:12 - Apr 10 Not so long ago Briatore & co were "heading" the shop with litle interest in QPR, and more about the supposed Boutique they wished to create on a shoestring. At least TF has come in, and has been involved in the club as a full blooded supporter. Granted, he has made some bad decisions, including being surounded by people like MH, and co. Man City became successful post MH, so why cant QPR. Business people make mistakes, but it is the perserverance that is imporant, and the goals at the end of the day, that make success. Something I firmly believe is that TF has every good intentions. dissecting every word TF says is a waste of time; if he said nothing, people would say, oh he never says anything and so it goes on. As for HR, I sincerely hope he stays, and as somone suggested, that he stays for longer and becomes involved in mentoring the next younger manager.

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probbo added 09:27 - Apr 10 For me a whole set of circumstances have contrived to make our latest premier league experience a nightmare. Biratore would not give Warnock the funds he wanted to buy the players he wanted in the summer of 2011 and players would not commit to QPR as they didn't known whether Warnock would be around (under the old regime). When TF came in funds were available but Warnock was then sacked. Hughes (lets face it, an unmitigated disaster) must have convinced TF that buying sucess was the way to go and that strategy (replacing an entire team with a new one) has failed miserably. So some fresh thinking is required. When QPR got promoted to Div 1 in 82/83 the Club was on a reasonable financial footing and the core of the squad was retained in Div 1, with only one or two new additions (Mick Fillery being one who ironically was not as good as the players we already had in my view!). I appreciate that times have changed and more money needs to be spent these days but I think the 'failure' has been a) the owner mistakenly thinking QPR could compete with top 5 teams in the first place and b) breaking up the nucleus of the old team. If we do go down (which I think is likely) we need to flush this squad out and start again with a focus on our youth policy. How long has it been since we read about a player being 'a product of Ranger's youth policy'? I'd much rather look to a future with young hungry players who genuinely want to play for the Club and die for the cause and integrate them with the likes of Hill, Mackie and Derry etc. Far better than relying on prima donnas who have no affinity with the Club.

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rsonist added 11:22 - Apr 10 Everything in this article is true but I would say in TF's defence that it's not entirely fair to say there's been no thought put into a long term strategy. It's just that unfortunately that thought resulted in Mike Rigg. Kevin Gallen said himself on the podcast that he was told the club would be investing in value, future and so on - but was met with Kia's overpaid goons instead. Fernandes and the club got stung badly, it was a con job pure and simple. But if you hire someone to oversee strategy then was TF also supposed to hire someone to oversee the overseer? Where do you stop? Once the ball was rolling midseason it was impossible for TF to draw a line and restructure again - survival was everything, and Redknapp was the best man to work with the mess we had. Alas it was too late. My fear next season is that it will be another headless charge towards getting back up first go, probably led by Redknapp again. There needs to be a moment to stop and look at the bigger picture but there always seems to be an immediate fire to put out first. Would you restructure this summer and most likely upset Redknapp and jeopardise promotion? Too dangerous. Would you restructure once we come back up? too much to do, too many players to sign. and so on, and so on ...

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QPRCambs added 13:24 - Apr 10 Great stuff, Neil and a lot more measured than the rant that occupied 25 miles of the M4 on the way back from Swansea :-) It's interesting to speculate whether a rational analyst of the QPR situation at the start of the Fernandes reign might have advised a cautious approach to spending money in which the prospect (and greater probability) of relegation could be viewed in the context of having money in the bank and time to develop the necessary infrastructure. As a short-term approach it might not have been popular with fans but it might have made better business sense. As it is we seem likely to be heading for the same place having spent a vast amount of money pointlessly.

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isawqpratwcity added 09:46 - Apr 11 Sorry, Neil, but I have to defend TF. He has made some big mistakes, the biggest being hiring and then late firing of Hughes, but he is quite literally paying for his mistakes. Very few people in the club or in football generally had any idea how spectacularly bad Hughes proved to be. The transfer policy is a shambles, but that is the heritage of Tango and Cash, whose naked self-interest mocked every fan's love of the club. TF and Warnock then had to play mad catch-up, and Hughes didn't manage any better. As for a lack of decent training facilities, youth set-up and a bevy of promising under 21's, these are all things that we would only be getting the benefit of now if they had been initiated by T&C. It is a fair criticism to say that TF is inexperienced, but it was worse when Briatore picked the teams. Agreed that TF should let his accomplishments do the talking, and part of that should be twitter less and give us well-intentioned panegyrics for us to micro-dissect.

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delhisuperhoop added 22:46 - Apr 11 I think TF has been great for QPR. With Briatore/Ecclestone trying to flog the club for a profit like any old used car, we are very lucky that it was TF who stepped up. I think the only mistake he made was in sacking Warnock, he should have stayed to the end of the season. But I can understand their excitement in getting Hughes in. His record up that point had been amazing. And TF backed Hughes to the hilt, even buying the star players that Hughes wanted. How was he to know it was a disastrous folly. We all had very high hopes at the beginning of this season and no one could have forseen the car crash that came next. I remember watching the R's play Spurs and thinking we were better than them but somehow conspired to lose the game. TF has done what we all ask and got in the best Manager he could and then let him make the football decisions. I think he has been desperately unlucky

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qprmick added 08:49 - Apr 13 Every single player who has left QPR has not stayed in the Premier League and I think that shows how much rebuilding we had to do. There will be players going but I don’t think there will be a mass exodus as we try to keep a nucleus together and build on that. Agree with that, but some of them might be next season. Many have left who are not in the Premier League but next season it is possible that as many 6 could be playing in the highest tier. Helguson, Connolly, Shittu (at least he is enjoying a cup run], Blackstock[outside chance] Camp is playing for Norwich now. So they are not entirely rubbish and with Routledge we could have a pretty good team with that nucleus.

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Neil_SI added 00:19 - Apr 18 Apologies for my absence and replies – I’ve been away on holiday and also suffered a bout of illness that’s kept me out of action. SomersetHoops – The Club is just part of a wider global portfolio for Tony Fernandes. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s more about business than pleasure. I do like him as a person and he has the potential, but I think there’s worrying signs that he’s not going to fulfil that potential if he keeps making statements like these. The Club certainly lacks people who understand football or the culture and proud history of QPR and what we’re really all about. We’re seen as a money making opportunity – that’s all – but I believe that Fernandes and Beard can achieve everything they want to and in the right way too that pleased everybody. I also think Harry and his staff are excellent, but if he carries on here and is successful then it’s inevitable he’ll leave unless he’s also convinced to stay by money.

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Neil_SI added 00:19 - Apr 18 simmo – They’ve been really naive at times with the football side of things and the way football “business” is conducted. It’s not like any normal business and it’s tripped them up once or twice and they’ve got to learn. To some degree I think there’s been a bit of arrogance, ignorance and ego involved. I’m sure they want to prove people wrong – but they don’t need to prove us wrong – they just need to do things correctly and if it goes wrong after that then there’s no complaints.

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Neil_SI added 00:20 - Apr 18 DWQPR – That’s fair enough – I’ve never actually commented on anything they’ve said before. But I am concerned by some of those statements as I had hoped to see signs of humility and learning from mistakes. But I didn’t get that feeling on this occasion. I want it to work for them as much as anybody.
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Neil_SI added 00:20 - Apr 18 RonisRs – That’s fair enough. I tend to look at things a little more raw, so for example...let’s assume that the owners did not have deep pockets and QPR’s performance was the difference between losing money, breaking even or making money. Stripped down of cash – it comes down to ability and experience. How confident would you be then? Would such a person or person(s) be given enough time to make the mistakes we have made on such a scale? Can that person or person(s) succeed without that cash behind them? Do they have what it takes? I don’t know the answer to that, but that’s how I look at it, and that’s what we’ve seen from some of our signings this season, because they’ve come here from some glamourous clubs where they had all the best facilities, coaches and players around them – but when they were put into a situation where they had to stand up and be counted – we quickly found out some of them were no where near as good as their reputation suggested, or that their past injuries was being carried by the previous environment they were in and therefore masked.

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Neil_SI added 00:20 - Apr 18 probbo – I agree that the youth system needs improvement. They’ve started that process and that’s a good sign, however they will need the new training ground to take them to the next achievable youth academy status and then they’ve got to run the academy well. I’ve said it all along – it’s one thing building all these new things and making them bigger and better, it’s another running them well. And we’ve not run our ship well at the small size we are at the moment.

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Neil_SI added 00:20 - Apr 18 rsonist – I just find it so strange that they were so naive with all of that...I don’t really know what else to say. A Chairman needs to be around more and get involved. I said a while back that I thought Fernandes was spending too much time away from QPR and a Club like QPR needs a lot of tender loving care on a day-to-day basis. Obviously that’s Fernandes’ style, as he has his fingers in so many other pies and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. I’m just not sure it’s the right thing for us.

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Neil_SI added 00:20 - Apr 18 isawqpratwcity – I’m not sure I agree with that. There were plenty of concerns aired about Mark Hughes. I was certainly one of them, because his profile just didn’t fit and match a community club like ours. I’m not trying to have a dig at Fernandes. I just think the situation is sad in terms of how much money he and the owners have unnecessarily lost, when it could have been so easily avoided. And this impacts our history and legacy as a Club. We’ve broken our record transfer twice this season – after years and years and years of it being Mike Sheron and John Spencer for £2.75m. Everywhere I look I’ve not seen a lot of value for money. The transfer policy has also done a lot of damage to the Club that’s probably not visible. What happened to Robert Green, and how many players who got the Club into the Premier League were treated and let go, will stick in the minds of players who we may want to attract and come here in the future. We may have had good intentions, but we have to be careful about doing serious deep damage to the reputation and the image of the Club and leaving us in the position where we can still only find players who are not the right fit or profile, but the only ones willing to come here and play.

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Neil_SI added 00:20 - Apr 18 delhisuperhoop – I agree and felt it was a mistake to sack Neil Warnock. That already sent a poor message out after publicly backing him and then the same happened (albeit deservedly) to Mark Hughes. Those statements, going from one extreme to the next, is hardly going to instil confidence in any future managers that may come here. As I said in the reply above, that infectious backing can be costly in other unintentional ways. You can’t argue that Fernandes has backed his managers to the hilt though. Fair play to him for that, although I’m pretty sure Warnock would have spent half of that money a lot better than Hughes did.

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Neil_SI added 00:21 - Apr 18 qprmick – Indeed and that was a statement that showed a lack of understanding about QPR and how we want the Club to be perceived and how to respect and treat its own. If we are relegated – it will be interesting to see how things shape up. There are many issues that need resolving and depending on whether they are (as some players will be difficult to shift based on price, salary or QPR’s willingness to subsidise) will dictate who really comes and goes, but if we play our cards right we can have a very powerful squad in the Championship that might stand a good chance of an immediate return.

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