As a dreadful 2012/13 season draws to a close the players responsible for QPR’s failure are starting to cast glances towards the exit door, possibly led by midfielder Stephane Mbia.
The 1-0 defeat to Arsenal on Saturday – a fourth consecutive game without scoring for QPR – sunk Rangers back to the bottom of the Premier League with two games remaining. The Gunners scored their winning goal after just ten seconds but Harry Redknapp was keen to praise the spirit and application of his team against an in form Arsenal side in the wake of strong criticism of the players from chairman Tony Fernandes in the lead up to the game.
Redknapp was particularly fulsome in his praise of man of the match Andros Townsend who was desperately unlucky to finish on the losing side after an all-action display. Redknapp said: “Townsend was a constant threat to them. I thought he ran their left back ragged at times. He’ll play in the Premier League again next year I would think. He’ll either play for Tottenham or he will go and play somewhere else in the Premier League if they want to loan him out. He has been fantastic, he really has. He has been a great loan signing, on a couple of thousand pounds a week. He’s a kid with a great attitude and he works hard. He has been excellent.”
Townsend won’t be the only one through the Loftus Road exit door this summer, although the loanee can at least leave with his head held high. Whether the same can be said for Mbia is questionable. The Cameroonian has endured a curious first season in English football with wildly inconsistent performances on the field mixed with occasionally odd behaviour off it.
Early on Bank Holiday Monday a Tweet appeared on his official account asking Joey Barton, currently on loan from Rangers to Mbia’s former club Marseille, asking if he wanted to “rechange your seat with me”. This led to an angry reaction from QPR fans after which Mbia claimed he had only been joking. But later another message appeared from Mbia saying he wasn’t joking, he had been pressured into deleting his original message, and QPR were not responding to his request for talks. He then repeated his request to Barton.
A statement from QPR read: “The club is aware of tweets from the official twitter account of #QPR midfielder Stephane Mbia today. Stephane Mbia has informed the club he is not responsible for these tweets. The club will continue to investigate and deal with the issue internally.”
Later Mbia added: “I did not write the tweets, and I have made people at the club aware of that. I saw the messages this morning and spoke with the club about them, but now I see there are more appearing in my name.”
Some are adopting more conventional methods of mapping out their future – by talking to the press. Jay Bothroyd has told the Fulham Chronicle that he would like to stay at Loftus Road and help the club regain its Premier League status.
Bothroyd said: “I wasn’t here for the first part of the season. Mark Hughes didn’t want me, and I was bitterly disappointed with that. Since I returned I scored a few goals in the cup and the Southampton game, but when you’re getting beaten most weeks your confidence is bound to dip. You have to remain positive, and I want to stay. Rangers were my first club as a kid. They’ve got great fans, and there’s a great bunch of lads here and we need to bounce back.”
Junior Hoilett though was less committed when talking to the same paper about his own future. He said: “I know what it sounds like, but I don’t want talk about it or anything to do with it. Of course I want to stay in the top flight – every player does, but that’s for the future after the last few games. It’s been a tough time – there’s no doubt. But all I can do is learn from the situation and come back stronger. Yeah, I would agree my form has dipped, but that’s not entirely surprising given the circumstances - but you can’t look back.”
Given their respective form for QPR since arriving at the club, I doubt there will be a queue around the block to sign either player on their current salaries.
The most obvious area for attention is in goal where Rangers have four senior keepers including the highly paid Julio Cesar and Robert Green. Redknapp has restored Green to his starting line up for the closing games and admitted at the weekend that’s because he sees the former West Ham stopper staying while Cesar is likely to move on.
Redknapp told West London Sport: “It’s a difficult situation because I want to play Rob Green as I don’t see Julio being here next year. I think Julio is a player for top Italian, Spanish and Premier League teams. He’s good enough to play anywhere. Rob’s come in and done well and he’s the goalkeeper I’m looking to play here next season. Julio I think will look to move on. He’s in the Brazil team and is not a player for the Championship. With the World Cup coming up he’s going to want to play in the Premier League or a big club abroad.”
Chris Samba has also been ruled out of late, but the club insist that is down to a knee injury and the big defender will stay for the Championship campaign ahead.
There were far too many interviews from chairman Tony Fernandes last week to possibly quote in the diary but there were several key recurring points.
Fernandes told the club’s official website: “There are certain elements of a football club that you have got to plan out, and we can’t stay at Harlington forever. We have the youth side located at The Concorde Club, and the first team at Harlington. It’s not right. The current training ground is one of the things we inherited. We were trying to do things as quickly as we could. We never, never bargained on being relegated. But that doesn’t stop us from continuing on the roadmap, and hopefully developing players that can come through the various age groups. Warren Farm is a massive statement of intent and something we’re all very excited about.
“Much can be said about the buying process, but no one could argue that we should have kept the squad as it was when we took over. The game before I took over, we lost 4-0 to Bolton. The manager came to me afterwards and said he thought we should buy this player and that player. There’s no doubt – and hindsight is a wonderful thing – that some of our buys haven’t worked out, but at the time we went with what the management believed in and if you believe in the management, you listen to what they are saying.” “If you want things in life, you get them. I’m no footballing expert, but when you see players walking back or appealing for something when the ball is still in play, as a 12 year-old I wouldn’t have done that. It’s difficult to comprehend when you see that. I went to many games and having spoken to Ruben, Din and Amit, we always felt we could get out of it if the players wanted it enough.Relegation wasn’t solely down to those players who didn’t care as much as me and the other owners and the fans. I think if we had more heart though, we would have fought harder. I don’t think the heart was there from all the players.”
The chairman also confirmed to the Fulham Chronicle that a previously mentioned tour of South Korea will now not go ahead in advance of the Championship campaign.
He said: “The tour is not going to happen. There’s been enough brand building and marketing which we’ve done well – but we’ve failed miserably on the pitch and I think we should stay in Europe. Tours distract, and we want players and management to stay in this time zone and focus entirely on rebuilding the squad.”
Mixed news for the youth and reserve sides. Despite Mo Shariff giving Marc Bircham’s second string side the lead against Reading last week a side including Yun Suk-Young, Samba Diakite and Tal Ben Haim were eventually beaten 3-1.
QPR: Cerny, Harriman, Trialist (Sendles-White 60), Ben Haim (Ehmer 60), Yun, Diakite, Trialist (Champion 77), Sutherland, Andrade, Shariff, Hitchcock.
Steve Gallen’s Under 18 side have however won through to the Professional Development League 2 Play Off final against Huddersfield at Loftus Road following a 1-0 win at Northern Section winners Leeds United. Prolific striker Peter Skapetis scored in injury time up in Yorkshire to beat Leeds 1-0 and set up the tie with the Terriers to be played in W12 on a date to be confirmed. QPR will fancy their chances having already beaten the favourites while boasting the best defensive record in the entire competition.
QPR: Lumley, Furlong, Monthe, Hunt-Laurent, Wise, Kpekawa, Young, Mitchell, Skapetis (c), Carreiro (Fitzpatrick 68), Petrasso.
Joey Barton has received a suspended two match suspension from the French Football Federation, but insists he wants to stay with Marseille next season when his loan deal expires. Barton was censored for branding Paris SG defender an “overweight ladyboy” on Twitter but will only have to serve the ban if he uses offensive language again on the social network site.
It leaves Barton free to play in Marseille’ last three games of the season following his first start in six games in the 2-1 win against Bastia at the weekend and he hopes to prolong that stay into next season. Barton said: “I want to stay in Marseille, I said it the minute I arrived here. I talked with the chiefs of Marseille but I have a contract with QPR who pays me a high salary. Money is not the most important thing, I do not care about that. I made the choice to play for Marseille, I hope we can find a compromise with QPR. There are other clubs interested, I spoke with three or four other clubs. But I’m not interested I’m happy here. When you have a pretty woman at home, there is no reason to look elsewhere.”
Elsewhere Ale Faurlin played the last ten minutes of Palermo’s 1-0 defeat to league champions Juventus in Serie A – a result that leaves Palermo back in the relegation zone. Anton Ferdinand recovered from his ankle injury to play a full 90 minutes for fourth placed Bursaspor in their 4-2 win at Orduspor in Turkey. Al Gharafa’s defence of the Qatari Prince Cup came to an end with a 5-3 penalty shoot out defeat to Al Kharitiyath at the weekend despite Djibril Cisse starting in attack.
Angelo Balanta came on as a second half sub in the first leg of Yeovil’s League One play off semi-final with Sheffield United – the Glovers eventually prevailed 2-1 on aggregate after a 2-0 home win at Huish Park on Monday.
Michael Doughty came on for the final moments of St Johnstone’s 1-0 home win against Dundee United.
Kenny Jackett has today resigned as Millwall manager after six years in charge at The Den, and immediately been installed as favourite for the Wolves job after they sacked Dean Saunders following relegation to League One at the weekend. Jackett’s side narrowly avoided joining them and the former Swansea boss has now decided to step aside and seek a new challenge after a lengthy spell in South East London.
In an official statement Jackett said: "After almost six seasons I personally feel the time is right for a new challenge, and also for a new manager to come into Millwall with fresh ideas, to take the club forward towards its long term goal of reaching the Premier League. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Millwall. My family and I will always have a strong link and affinity with the club.”
Millwall chairman John Berylson added: "I want to express my thanks to Kenny for his fantastic service and achievements over the past five and a half years. He has played a major role in creating a stable environment at Millwall which hadn’t been the case prior to his arrival. Whilst respecting Kenny’s decision, I wish I could have persuaded him to change his mind. He was my first acquisition as chairman of the club and has proved himself to be one of the best. I am losing a great manager, but he will remain a good friend and hopefully, golf partner.”
Another well respected man standing aside is Heidar Helguson, who is returning to Icelandic football following an eight goal haul in Cardiff’s promotion campaign in the Championship. Helguson was the top scorer for QPR last season and repeated that feat at Cardiff despite his advancing years as the Welsh side won through to the Premier League for the first time.
Cardiff manager Malky Mackay, who also signed the striker on loan during his time at Watford, said: “He's probably played a lot more than he thought he was going to play. I think with Nicky Maynard being out injured, he's the man that really stepped up to the plate and was that battering ram for us. And his overall contribution, not just in goals scored, but it's about the contribution he makes to other people in goals and the front to the team that he is. He's absolutely the type of guy I'd fill a club with. I've got great admiration for him and what he's done in his career."
- It’s looking increasingly likely that Wigan will be the ones to drop into the Championship with QPR and Reading for next season. Despite leading twice against an out of form Swansea side at the DW Stadium tonight the Latics contrived to throw it away and lose a crucial game in hand 3-2. They are now three points adrift of Newcastle, Norwich and Sunderland with two games to go and travel to Arsenal next week following the FA Cup final with Man City on Saturday.
- Sunderland boss Paulo Di Canio has described this weekend’s game with Southampton as like a Champions League final as they target the 41 point safety mark. They had to settle for a draw at home to Stoke on Monday following Craig Gardner’s first half red card. Norwich boss Chris Hughton is also targeting a win this weekend against West Brom to ease their relegation fears with a daunting trip to Man City looming on the last day.
- Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez has defended David Luiz after the Brazilian was seen laughing while pretending to be injured on the floor in an incident which saw Man Utd defender Rafael Da Silva sent off in the Blues’ 1-0 win at Old Trafford at the weekend. The Spaniard says his defender was merely laughing at the taunts of the United fans around the incident by the corner flag. Benitez also hinted that Jose Mourinho will return to the club this summer saying: "The next year there will be another manager. I think everybody knows who will be here."
- Liverpool will be without Steven Gerrard for the final two league games of the season after he brought forward planned surgery on a long standing shoulder injury. The 32-year-old England international has started all 36 league games for the Reds this season.
The following tube and train closures are in place this Sunday with QPR at home to Newcastle:
- Engineering work at Farringdon closes the Metropolitan Line between Baker Street and Aldgate, the Hammersmith and City Line between Kings Cross and Barking, and the Circle Line between Kings Cross and Moorgate.
- No Central Line from Liverpool Street east as far as Hainault via Newbury Park. Replacement bus services operate.
- The Bakerloo Line is closed between Harrow and Wealdstone and Queen’s Park. No Overground service between Euston and Watford Junction for the same reason.
- The Northern Line is closed on the High Barnet branch north of Camden Town all weekend with replacement bus services operating.
- The DLR is closed between Poplar and Stratford.
- May as well not bother with our new shiny Overground service this weekend. It’s closed between Hughbury & Islington and Stratford until 12.00 on Sunday; New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon all day on Sunday; and on the brand new line between Surrey Quays and Clapham Junction.
- South West Trains services through Guildford are subject to diversion or replacement bus services due to work on the platforms at Guildford Station. Also no trains between Woking and Alton or between Ascot and Guildford due to engineering work at Ash Vale.
- Southern Trains between London Bridge and Croydon as well as South Croydon and Coulsden/Caterham are running to a revised timetable. The northbound Thameslink trains are also not stopping at London Bridge.
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Pictures – Action Images