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I think we all thought that yesterday, after losing a 'must win' game, that we would all be breathing a collective sigh of relief at the news that Hughes had been given the boot.
But, like a bad smell or annoying stain, he remains.
I would like to know exactly how. Just how on earth has he sat in a meeting and managed to justify remaining at the club. What pearls of wisdom did he offer? After 12 games of utter, utter dross (and let's not forget his entire tenure last season which was saved by a handful of home games where several players and the crowd single handedly won 15 points or so) what could he possibly have come up with as a positive, as a reason for remaining in charge? What could he possibly have used to show as hope for the future, as a reason that he has improved things?
Now, we sacked Warnock last year who had performed better than Hughes, much better. Now, with all of Hughe's experience and bravado, surely the first question in yesterdays meeting should have been,
'look mark, you've come in and spent a lot of money, you've had time and support. we brought you in because under neil, we were looking in trouble. Yet, after 12 months and a lot of money, the team is performing worse and you have not improved our league position by one place, even for a week, in the time you have been here. So, why should we continue to support you?'
Just how would he have got out of that, that's what i want to know.
I personally think our club has been ruined over the last 12 months, the seeds were sewn back in the day when Briatore et al came in and tried to boutique the club, we changed the badge and we thought we lost our identity. In essence, how wrong we were. Im not saying for a moment that Fernandez is worse than those two fools, of course not, but the same poisonous atmosphere remains. He is not a football man and relies on advice and perhaps is a bit naive. But that is the problem and people know it. There are still countless hangers-on at the club whispering in ears after nothing but their own benefit. TF has been taken advantage of from every corner. He reminds me of a lottery winner who goes public and before long all sorts of old friends come out the woodwork and countless car dealers and investment opportunities come knocking on the door. None of them care, they just want his business and his money.
It seems the same at Loftus Road these days, and all the more so since Hughes and his baggage appeared.
Just look at the squad. That's not a QPR squad, i dont know what it is. I cant remember the last time i cared less about a bunch of players. Apart from Taarabt, Mackie, Hill, Derry and Nelson, the rest of them may as well just play for a nameless club, I genuinely believe that none of them care whatsoever and have been lined up, and therefore have become part of, the Loftus Road whispering brigade, all here for a piece of TF's much advertised wealth, all in cahoots with agents and insiders at the club, and no doubt told to just 'stick it out, they'll make us both rich!'.
Now I was quite excited when Hughes arrived. His Fulham and Blackburn teams were well built and mixed with young prospects with a few solid players thrown in among one or two more fair-type players. He was supposed to be experienced, but he panicked. Now I dont know if it was desperation or that he too has been taken for a ride by agents. But for whatever reason he decided that the squad we had (which had beaten Everton, Wolves and Stoke away before he arrived) was not good enough and began to tear it apart replacing players who, while workmanlike, at least had an identity with the club, not with young and hungry prospects who could work together with the older players, but with supposed 'big names' that would bring an instant success to the team.
Now you might argue that it worked, we didn't go down, but we also didnt improve on our position at all. The likes of Cisse and Zamora failed ultimately over a season to outshine Helgusson and Mackie. So, lesson learned, we did it, we scraped through. So now we can build, grow, perhaps look at a young player such as Michu, who anyone with Sky could see had just hit 15 goals in La Liga and was available for 3m, or maybe Charlie Austin or Adam Llalana. Players from the championship who had shined for Swansea and Norwich showed that a model based on team spirit, hunger and passion worked far better than our mass acquisition of big names the previous year.
But no, Mark Hughes went out and did exactly what he had done the previous year which had such dissatisfactory results, only he did it on a much bigger and much more expensive scale. And the results have been equally as disappointing.
I dont see how anyone can defend our justify Hughe's performance over the time he has been at the club. The players all seem to hate him, no one wants to play for him, he comes across as totally aloof and difficult to work with, his tactics and team selection are baffling and we constantly get the impression that he does not know his best eleven. He has made huge mistakes in the transfer window, only to get lucky and survive, only to make exactly the same mistakes a second time when given even more money to spend, his teams lack basic ability to both attack and defend the most basic of set pieces, by all accounts he has lost the dressing room and I have never even got the slightest impression that the man himself really cares about the club.
This is a man we have hinged our future on not once, but now twice, despite all of these failings and it is totally beyond me.
I care about QPR almost more than ever right now, but I am outraged that I and the rest of the fans have been put in a position where we have to care about Hughes and at least six or seven of the worst collection of misfits I have ever seen on a football pitch. That to me is almost sadder than the inevitable relegation they will lead us toward.
But, like a bad smell or annoying stain, he remains.
I would like to know exactly how. Just how on earth has he sat in a meeting and managed to justify remaining at the club. What pearls of wisdom did he offer? After 12 games of utter, utter dross (and let's not forget his entire tenure last season which was saved by a handful of home games where several players and the crowd single handedly won 15 points or so) what could he possibly have come up with as a positive, as a reason for remaining in charge? What could he possibly have used to show as hope for the future, as a reason that he has improved things?
Now, we sacked Warnock last year who had performed better than Hughes, much better. Now, with all of Hughe's experience and bravado, surely the first question in yesterdays meeting should have been,
'look mark, you've come in and spent a lot of money, you've had time and support. we brought you in because under neil, we were looking in trouble. Yet, after 12 months and a lot of money, the team is performing worse and you have not improved our league position by one place, even for a week, in the time you have been here. So, why should we continue to support you?'
Just how would he have got out of that, that's what i want to know.
I personally think our club has been ruined over the last 12 months, the seeds were sewn back in the day when Briatore et al came in and tried to boutique the club, we changed the badge and we thought we lost our identity. In essence, how wrong we were. Im not saying for a moment that Fernandez is worse than those two fools, of course not, but the same poisonous atmosphere remains. He is not a football man and relies on advice and perhaps is a bit naive. But that is the problem and people know it. There are still countless hangers-on at the club whispering in ears after nothing but their own benefit. TF has been taken advantage of from every corner. He reminds me of a lottery winner who goes public and before long all sorts of old friends come out the woodwork and countless car dealers and investment opportunities come knocking on the door. None of them care, they just want his business and his money.
It seems the same at Loftus Road these days, and all the more so since Hughes and his baggage appeared.
Just look at the squad. That's not a QPR squad, i dont know what it is. I cant remember the last time i cared less about a bunch of players. Apart from Taarabt, Mackie, Hill, Derry and Nelson, the rest of them may as well just play for a nameless club, I genuinely believe that none of them care whatsoever and have been lined up, and therefore have become part of, the Loftus Road whispering brigade, all here for a piece of TF's much advertised wealth, all in cahoots with agents and insiders at the club, and no doubt told to just 'stick it out, they'll make us both rich!'.
Now I was quite excited when Hughes arrived. His Fulham and Blackburn teams were well built and mixed with young prospects with a few solid players thrown in among one or two more fair-type players. He was supposed to be experienced, but he panicked. Now I dont know if it was desperation or that he too has been taken for a ride by agents. But for whatever reason he decided that the squad we had (which had beaten Everton, Wolves and Stoke away before he arrived) was not good enough and began to tear it apart replacing players who, while workmanlike, at least had an identity with the club, not with young and hungry prospects who could work together with the older players, but with supposed 'big names' that would bring an instant success to the team.
Now you might argue that it worked, we didn't go down, but we also didnt improve on our position at all. The likes of Cisse and Zamora failed ultimately over a season to outshine Helgusson and Mackie. So, lesson learned, we did it, we scraped through. So now we can build, grow, perhaps look at a young player such as Michu, who anyone with Sky could see had just hit 15 goals in La Liga and was available for 3m, or maybe Charlie Austin or Adam Llalana. Players from the championship who had shined for Swansea and Norwich showed that a model based on team spirit, hunger and passion worked far better than our mass acquisition of big names the previous year.
But no, Mark Hughes went out and did exactly what he had done the previous year which had such dissatisfactory results, only he did it on a much bigger and much more expensive scale. And the results have been equally as disappointing.
I dont see how anyone can defend our justify Hughe's performance over the time he has been at the club. The players all seem to hate him, no one wants to play for him, he comes across as totally aloof and difficult to work with, his tactics and team selection are baffling and we constantly get the impression that he does not know his best eleven. He has made huge mistakes in the transfer window, only to get lucky and survive, only to make exactly the same mistakes a second time when given even more money to spend, his teams lack basic ability to both attack and defend the most basic of set pieces, by all accounts he has lost the dressing room and I have never even got the slightest impression that the man himself really cares about the club.
This is a man we have hinged our future on not once, but now twice, despite all of these failings and it is totally beyond me.
I care about QPR almost more than ever right now, but I am outraged that I and the rest of the fans have been put in a position where we have to care about Hughes and at least six or seven of the worst collection of misfits I have ever seen on a football pitch. That to me is almost sadder than the inevitable relegation they will lead us toward.
NPower Champions 2010/2011
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