Mark Hughes isn’t getting you out of this mess, Tony Fernandes – it’s time to do something.
Harry Redknapp is pretty canny at creating leverage for himself, and he’s done exactly that by entertaining the international job offer from the Ukraine. Redknapp doesn’t want to be going to Eastern Europe at this stage of his career, he’d much rather stay in England. Even so, he’s the outstanding candidate to get QPR out of trouble and back up the table, and Fernandes is running out of time to take up that option.
Look at the fixture list: Manchester United away, Sunderland away – at very best, Rangers will get one point from those games. That’s fine, those are not games that are going to decide their Premier League future. Conversely, Aston Villa at Loftus Road on the 1st December is an absolute must-win – Villa are dreadful, and will be one of the sides in the bottom six come the end of the season. If Southampton was a six-pointer, then so is this game.
With all due respect to Mark Hughes, he’s a busted flush in West London – his signings aren’t settling, there are murmurs being reported from the dressing-room, and his side are incrementally getting worse every week. It’s time he went.
When you make a managerial change, it’s important to get that timing right – and now, with this ten-day period before that Villa game, Fernandes has the chance to install someone new and revive some optimism at his club.
What does Harry Redknapp do? He gets a team playing. As his time at Tottenham showed, he clearly has some limitations, but give him a set of talented players – which Rangers have – and he’ll get them playing at an acceptable standard. It’s an obvious appointment, but that’s only because it makes so much sense.
If this situation is left to fester, then the Rangers job will become less-and-less attractive and the calibre of alternative manager Fernandes is able to appoint will drop accordingly.
You can’t dally over this decision – QPR are five points adrift at the moment, and it’s not going to get any better without a change of direction. The loyalty shown to Hughes so far, while admirable, is actually damaging the chances of avoiding relegation. Be ruthless.
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I said for a while now that if we did not positive results against reading and Southampton then he surely has to go. Really wanted Mark to do well nut the players are not playing for him. Is it his man management skills or lack of, I don’t know. Some very poor decisions this season too. If he had another 4 or5 PTS on board he would Mayne have some breathing space as we did have a tough fixture list until reading game but we still cannot win so it’s got to be now, harry or whoever comes I’m needs these next two games to get used to the players and bed in their style. Waiting for days before villa game is too late. If sparky is still here for utd game and gets a positive result we well could have no option but to stick with him AMD pray for a change in fortune
The most clearly written article in a while. I do appreciate that loyalty and stability are important factors when considering the future of a club and its manager etc, but surely the top brass at QPR are dilligent enough to know when to hold and, subsequently, fold? While it pains me to admit it, Mr. Abramovic didn’t dally, did he? Is it worth hanging on for inevitable zero points over the next two games or should we act now to try and save us from what is fast becoming a certain relegation candidate? Tony, make the call to Harry ASAP please, or I think the fans will start voting with their feet………