With Mark Hughes gone, and Harry Redknapp still to arrive, what on earth will the players with blood on their hands do with a Saturday trip to Old Trafford?
Premier League >>> Saturday November 24, 2012 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Old Trafford, Manchester
Amongst the wreckage of last week's home disaster against Southampton you'd have been forgiven for missing, or forgetting, that Al Pacino is back. There he was, ten minutes before kick off, striding up and down on the big screen asking his beleaguered troops in Any Given Sunday to "fight and die for that inch", to look at the guy next to them and see a guy who will "go that inch with you", to "fight and claw with your finger nails" for that inch.
Sadly, fantastic as that montage the club has put together is, it's becoming something or a harbinger of doom. When Big Al is up on the big screen, you know QPR are in dire straits. Down in the dressing room, far from a group of men willing to "go that inch" with each other, Mark Hughes was attempting, and failing, to motivate a group of players who at the moment give the impression they wouldn't even piss on each other if a fire broke out.
Perhaps this week the Alec Baldwin speech from Glengarry Glen Ross would be more appropriate: "You call yourself a Premier League manager you son of a bitch? You can't motivate the players you brought here yourself, you can't motivate shit, you are shit, hit the bricks pal."
Even Baldwin gave his hopeless salesmen one week to regain their jobs, and for a while it looked as though Mark Hughes would get the forthcoming away trips to Man Utd and Sunderland to at least give some sort of impression that he knew what the problems were with his team and was on his way to sorting them out. The Southampton performance added to the evidence that he had no idea why Rangers are playing as they are, or what he was going to do about it, and although the Friday afternoon timing of the announcement seems a little strange it made his departure inevitable.
Everybody knows the score at QPR. The club is now on an eleventh permanent manager in six years, and as Mark Hughes didn't manage to even see out 12 months in charge I suspect we'll be treated to Chris Kamara and friends lounging around on their Sky sofas talking about what a tragic shame it is, how nobody has any patience any more, how Mark should have been given more time, how he could have turned it around. If Hughes harbours hopes of another Premier League job – given his ego he probably still thinks he should have been considered by Chelsea to replace Roberto Di Matteo – expect a PR offensive from him along those lines.
And to be honest I'd usually agree. My fingers are bloodied and sore from all the articles I've written slating QPR's short term approach, trigger happy attitude to managers, lack of patience and so on. But let's be perfectly frank here, Hughes' position had become untenable. He’d had more than enough backing in the transfer market, more than enough support from the board and more than enough time considering the 12 game winless run Rangers are on this season.
The players are clearly to blame. You only have to compare the performances of Ryan Nelsen, Jamie Mackie and Adel Taarabt against Southampton to the rest to know that ability is not the problem at Loftus Road, it's attitude and application. Unforgiveable things for a footballer paid millions a year to lack, but all too common in the modern game. Had Hughes been left with these mercenaries by the previous management then this could rightly be seen as a harsh, knee-jerk move by Tony Fernandes. However, apart from the troublesome pair of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joey Barton, Mark Hughes was actually left quite the opposite.
The QPR team that Neil Warnock promoted may have lacked Premier League ability, but it had Champions League heart. When the going is tough – as it was always likely to be for Rangers in their first top flight campaign for 15 years – it's people like Mackie, Shaun Derry and Heidar Helguson who dig you out of it. Even at MK Dons in the FA Cup - the absolute low point of Warnock's reign – Rangers recovered from a truly horrendous performance, season ending injury to Ale Faurlin and being reduced to ten men to scrape home a last minute equaliser. If Hughes had anything about him at all he'd have done exactly what Michael Laudrup has done at Swansea: take the core of a successful, tight-knit, spirited team and add selected quality players to it. What he did instead was break up a dressing room of players willing to walk over hot coals for each other, and introduce a bunch of ageing multi-millionaires who see QPR merely as a contribution to their final salary pension scheme.
In doing so he changed his task. From needing to quality to a spirited team he suddenly needed to add spirit to a quality team – and the problem is you can buy the former with money, but the latter is more difficult to quantify and attain. Apparently this week he was intending to return the likes of Derry and Mackie to his starting eleven, which suggests he finally, finally, finally realised what the problem was. That it took him so long makes a mockery of his "meticulous preparation" claims, and was merely the equivalent of noticing you're about to be hit by a train when it's five feet away and sounding the horn.
Hughes came to Loftus Road to win the Cadillac Eldorado. He left Fulham after taking them to eighth in the league because he claimed they lacked ambition. His "personal adviser", and omnipresent pain in the arse in the modern game, Kia Jooradchian said Hughes wanted to challenge for leagues and cups. It seemed he felt he was in with a shout of the Chelsea job, was a shoo in at Aston Villa if not, and ended up at newly promoted and struggling Queens Park Rangers.
In his first league game up at Newcastle in January QPR lost 1-0 in a match where only the cold and the allegiance to one of the teams kept the watching public awake. I suspect any neutral watching that particular game on Sky would have given up and changed channels, or fallen asleep in front of it, long before full time. We took the positives, as fans of a club with a new manager always do, and credited the newly organised QPR for their two banks of four and stubbornness. But QPR were dull that day, and have been dull ever since. Ultimately even the organisation in defence had gone, replaced last week by a back four that was three parts laziness to one part New Zealand beef.
As we managed to make it as far as Friday, Hughes must have thought he’d done enough to stay for at least the weekend. And who knows, maybe a win at Man Utd, maybe a turn around, maybe he was right all along and everything would come good. But, as it turns out, Rangers were simply waiting for their first choice replacement to agree terms and this afternoon Hughes, who looked a broken man last Saturday night, was put out of his misery.
Put the coffee down Mark. Coffee’s for closers.
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Team News: The Boy Mbia returns from his three match suspension and should replace The Boy Anton at the heart of the QPR defence. Problems have resurfaced in the full back positions with The Boy Jose not travelling with the rest of the team and The Boy Fabio forbidden from playing against United under the terms of his loan deal. The leaves The Boy Nedum and The Boy Traore likely starters on either side of the defence. The Boy Zamora and The Boy Johnson are now long term absentees leaving The Boy Cisse as the club’s only fit striker. Mark’s a triffic manager, but the decision not to include The Boy DJ in the 25 man squad and loan him to Ipswich instead wasn’t the smartest in hindsight. The Boy Park may return from his knee injury against the club he left in the summer.
United welcome back The Boy Rooney after a bout of tonsillitis kept him out of last week’s defeat at Norwich. The Boy Evans remains sidelined but The Boy Smalling has overcome a shoulder complaint and can play.
Elsewhere: The weekend’s most eye catching fixtures take place on Sunday through a combination of Sky choices and midweek European commitments. Clearly the stand out game is Chelsea, now under the management of Rafa Benitez, hosting table topping Manchester City in the 4pm game. Across London at the same time, high flying West Ham play a derby match at Tottenham whose form is on the wane. I wouldn’t put a positive result past the Hammers in that match, especially with Spurs selecting a strong team at Lazio on Thursday night, and if they do then expect pressure to start mounting on Andre Villas Boas. Earlier in the day Swansea welcome Brendan Rodgers back to the Liberty Stadium for the first time since his summer move to Liverpool. Southampton v Newcastle makes up the Sunday games.
The weekend gets underway on Saturday lunchtime with Sunderland, fresh from a much needed but sending off-aided win at Fulham, hosting West Brom whose success knows no bounds. The evening TV game is Aston Villa, winning friends with a youthful team but few points, against Arsenal who should win this comfortably but rarely do on such occasions.
The 3pm kick offs feature a six pointer between Wigan and Reading, a decent bet for a draw with Stoke hosting Fulham, and Everton at home to Norwich.
Referee: QPR, like many sides, can recall a series of dodgy refereeing decisions against them over the years at Old Trafford, not least last season’s game-ending abomination by Bolton Wanderers supporter Lee Mason. Whether the contest will be close enough this weekend for Lee Probert to have any influence over it is highly doubtful. Either way, it’s just nice to see him outside a QPR v Swansea context. His full QPR case file is available here.
Man Utd: United may have lost their last two matches but that was preceded by 14 wins and a draw from 17 games. The Norwich setback last week was a third league defeat of the season and they’ve never won a league title with more than six losses. Rangers are unlikely to keep a clean sheet – United have scored in their last 54 home league games – but should not trail at half time if they can help it as Ferguson’s men have never lost a Premier League game at home having lead at half time – 207 matches, 194 wins. They should also not get too carried away if they take the lead as the Reds have taken 15 points from losing positions this year – they’ve trailed in 11 of 19 fixtures this season and gone on to win eight. They are the league’s leading scorers, but only have the 11th best defence.
QPR: Rangers’ start to the season continues to break records for all the wrong reasons. Four points at this stage is the league worst start since 1994/95 when Everton managed it –they survived by replacing Mike Walker at this stage of the season with Joey Royle. It’s not a calendar year and 19 matches since the R’s last won away – 3-2 at Stoke – and Mark Hughes could only manage two draws and 13 defeats from his 15 away games as manager. In fact Hughes only won six league games in total as boss, and all of them were last season.
Betting: Writing before the sacking of Hughes, professional odds compiler Owen Goulding said…
“QPR travel to Old Trafford in the worst possible shape. On the back of a sound beating from a very average Southampton side, without their top goal scorer (for what it’s worth) and ready to face a team with a front pairing of Rooney and Van Persie. The players clearly aren't playing for the manager, the manager doesn't know why performances are so bad yet continues to play formations and line-ups that leave the Blue and White faithful bemused. With Southampton creating chances at will last week, I truly can’t see how this week will be any different to what we've seen previous and I think even the most optimistic fan would struggle to argue otherwise.
“The worst part from a statistical point of view is that Man United lost to Norwich last week and Galatasary earlier this week. The last four times that United have lost a Premier League match, they have responded in the next league game by scoring three away at Newcastle, three at home to Fulham, two at home to Swansea, and four at home to Villa. So that's an average of 3.25 goals scored by United for the following match in response to a defeat. I cannot see anything different here. My bet of the weekend is Man United to score over 3.5 goals which is currently at 2/1 with Coral or Sportingbet.
“Also, with the expected return of Mr Rooney, it enables Van Persie to move further forward again - something that is needed after Rooney's omission upset the balance against Norwich. Despite not scoring against Villa, anyone who watched the game will tell you Van Persie could have had a hatrick. He certainly is much more prolific playing alongside Rooney and I will also be having an interest on Van Persie to score a hat trick at 12/1 with Coral/BetVictor/Betfred.
Recommended Bets - Bet Of Weekend- Man Utd to Score over 3.5 Goals @ 21/10 (Coral and Sportingbet)
Other Bets - Van Persie to Score a Hatrick @ 12/1 ((Coral / Betfred or Betvictor)
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Nathan McAllister says:
“I suppose this could go one of two ways: QPR deliver another performance totally lacking in spirit and cohesion and get totally and utterly humiliated; or they raise their game just because they’re playing at Old bloody Trafford with half the world watching, and get beaten by a narrow yet respectable scoreline. I’m not sure which scenario would make me more furious – probably the latter after Rangers’ gutless performances in the last three crucial games against teams around them at the bottom. It would certainly reflect the pattern of the season so far; Rangers better performances have all been against teams that finished in the top seven last season while they have performed woefully against everybody else.
“But it’s the former scenario I’m expecting this weekend. Tony Fernandes was left with little choice but to wield the axe following the Southampton debacle, but even with Hughes gone we are left with an expensive group of misfits that Fernandes and Hughes are jointly responsible for assembling. Redknapp, or whoever is appointed, will need to work a minor miracle to keep us up this season.
“Meanwhile Manchester United come into this game having been able to rest virtually their entire first team in their midweek Champions League tie. They will also be smarting after their defeat last weekend at Carrow Road and, as the old truism goes, the worst time to play United is when they are coming off the back of a defeat. This looks like nothing more than an embarrassing mismatch, and the Premier League’s deadliest attack must be rubbing their hands in gleeful anticipation of putting our sorry rabble to the sword.”
Prediction: Manchester United 5 QPR 0
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