Queens Park Rangers: Building a team destined for failure? To say QPR avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth on the final day of the season, would be putting it lightly. At one stage in their last game, they were losing away to a title bound Manchester City, while the other side attempting to avoid relegation, Bolton Wanderers were winning away at Stoke City. If things stayed the same way, QPR would have been relegated, but to the astonishment of every football fan in England, Mark Hughesâ side at point in the game took a 2-1 lead, only for City â with the title on the line â to score two last-minute goals. It didnât matter however, as Stoke City had pegged Owen Coyleâs Bolton back, and sent the Trotters tumbling into the nPower Championship. Staying in the Premier League helped the London side â owner by airline tycoon Tony Fernandes â avoid financial disaster. If it had been Queens Park Rangers relegated rather than Bolton, the scary fact is that none of their âstarâ players would have been forced to take wage cuts. The financial implications can only be left to the imagination. Now, as Mark Hughes looks to build for the future, he has already secured an array of players that he hopes will fire QPR to a respectable finish in the Premier League this forthcoming season. Andy Johnson, Ryan Nelsen, Rob Green, Samba Diakite, Junior Hoilett, and Park Ji-Sung have all signed the dotted line at Loftus Road in the last month with Hoilett, the most notable of arrivals. The likes of Park, Nelsen, Johnson and Green are all well into their thirties and their best footballing days are well and truly behind them at this stage. Johnson is injury prone and likely to spend some period of the upcoming season on the sidelines, while Nelsen and Park havenât played prolonged first team football in quite a while. It really doesnât make for good reading for QPR fans, at least, in my opinion. As a Newcastle United fan, I know what itâs like to sign overaged, and overpaid players â it just doesnât work and ever since we incorporated a new transfer policy at St.Jamesâ Park where only players aged 26 and younger could be signed; the club has enjoyed a remarkable two years. With QPR, what Mark Hughes is building, is a side that will be fighting relegation at the end of the season. They already have the likes of Bobby Zamora, and Joey Barton who take home some ridiculous wages each week, for very average footballers. The signing of Junior Hoilett is impressive, but heâs reported to be earning £70,000 a week. Seventy thousand a week for a guy that was part of a Blackburn side that had a miserable Premier League campaign last season, and suffered relegation? Daftness. It doesnât make a whole lot of sense. QPR are going down a road that from my experience, only ends in one thing: failure. The implications of failure at Loftus Road are as scary as things can get. For fans of the age-old club I hope that they can avoid relegation again this season, however, those signings wouldnât fill me with an awful lot of confidence. A team destined for failure? Perhaps. What do you think? Disagree or agree, feel free to comment. Author Info: Kevin Doocey Football Digest sole founder & creator.* General football writer with a particular passion for Newcastle United. Fond of a good bet now and again too. You can follow me on Twitter @KevinDoocey - if you're that cool.. Other posts by Kevin Doocey
Its not sustainable and Id like to see big changes in our transfer policy. I do like the not signing anyone over 26 thing but Id make an exception for someone like Park, not for Zamora, Johnson, Nelson etc. Hign a 26yo and you can sell him on and make a profit, sign a 30yo and hes workthless. However Hoillett had an impressive season and the fact that he did it with that joke of a club makes it even better. I also think we do have relegation clauses in our contracts.
the comments are the best bit. http://www.footballdigest.org/2012/08/05/queens-park-rangers-building-a-team-destined-for-failure/
People can write/say what they want but there are at least 7-8 teams that are/will be worse than us this coming season. It will not be us in a relegation fight and i am really looking forward to be safe and watching all the others fight to stay up. Sadly some football fans really don't have a clue about football and teams.
We wont be, hes had an idea that its not good to do (which I agree with) but somehow thats turned into us going to be fighting relegation. We are paying money short term to get us through to the new stadium and academy and then we can become self sufficient. Out other option is not to spend and get relegated.
Year after year, ACTUAL professionals who are paid to comment on football get everything completely wrong and they're supposed to be experts. I wouldn't take seriously comments made by this bloke. Football is unpredictable, which is why we all watch it and have hope for our team. I mean, who expected our Championship winning season?
This tool should keep his ill-informed opinions to himself. First point to highlight is that it isn't true that none of our 'star' players would have had a wage cut if we went down. He is clearly juat another fan who is envious of our speed of development and threatened that we could overtake 'bigger' clubs if we keep it up and is looking to find as many negatives as possible. Park and Johnson are both 31. Green is 32 (2 years younger than Kenny). Hardly well into their 30's. Park is great for us on and off the pitch. Nelsen, Johnson and Green are shrewd free signings and an imporvement on what we have. Diakite, Hoilett, Adel are three of the most promising young players in the prem. In Hughes and his backroom team we are going to come on leaps and bounds in all aspects and articles like this plonkers will make it even sweeter as we continue to prove them wrong
It would be so easy to write a similar piece about Newcastle .... Having finished 5th in 2012 the club should be looking to move on and invest in players to achieve Champions league football. However, there seems to be a lack of intent on behalf of the Newcastle board who obviously realise that they over achived last season and need to secure a mid-table spot this season. Total bollocks ...... or is it!
Nothing wrong with someone putting the case for the prosecution. Flyer's been doing that for weeks - and not without reason. What happens if all these names fail to gel, or the oldies' fitness becomes an issue and our quest for points backfires? Doubt if it'll come to that but could happen. What then? Worth adding into the equation and leaving it on the back-burner. Bet Hughes and Beard have contingencies in place. Thing about creditable youth purchases is that such prospects look to join teams with successful track records. Ambitious wannabes like us remain an unnecessary gamble for talented youth - unless like Hoilett, they've worked with management before and have the necessary belief. Having said that, I going to stay with the rose tints for the time being. So much fun riding the crest of the most positive wave we've had in decades.
These players QPR now have a wealth of experience and i think its wrong to think they are just here for the money ... each one of them has stated they believe in the vision and want a pop and a final success. I think the bit was a bit obvious really and I can already see the depth of the new team even in these first few games ... the pressure cooker goes up 500 fold in the league can you see these players failing us ... I can't Buying a player because of age and then putting a age cap on future signings that is totally ridiculous and clearly shows the naivety of such a comment. I would sign Paul Scholes tomorrow
Doocey writes: "QPR are going down a road that from my experience, only ends in one thing: failure." and: "A team destined for failure? Perhaps." One minute it "only ends in one thing" and the next only a "perhaps". Well come on Doocey, either tell us which one it is or hadaway and ****e, pet.
Im going reserve judgment until the transfer window closes. I think what MH and TF are doing is bring in players with premiership experience in order to keep us up for another season and I think its going to work out and weâll have decent season (14th upwards) I really hope if we doing make another 2 or 3 signing they are going to be Berbatov, Bellamy or defoe who are going to have no re-sell value what so ever. We donât want to become the next Portsmouth. While its great to see the Râs spending some money for the first time in my life I want the club to be around for my kids to support. I think its important to have experience but we also need to young hungry players.
Nothing like a bit of negativity BEFORE the season has started huh ? Personally i think we are getting a good mix of youngsters (Faurlin, Diakite, Adel, Hoilett) and seasoned professionals (Cisse, Green, Park, Nelson, Zamora). I know we've all got an opinion but ffs let's give it a couple of months before we start getting too worried. The transfer season is nowhere near over yet and i fully expect there will be more class (both young and old) signings to come. I've never been more positive in my 30 odd years of following the R's and i for one am gonna bloody enjoy it 'cos i've seen too much c*** supporting this team and I'm not gonna let some armchair pundit from up north get me down
Why is a Newcastle fan making comments on QPR Simple, we are a threat to them I think we can finish ahead of them next season if we get it together as we have a stronger midfield than them
Think he's mainly right, apart from Hoillet, at best we've brought in more solid experienced back up players this summer, and I don't share any great sense of enthusiasm for our prospects this season. I really think we need to improve the squad defensively, CB's and CDM in particular, and now with Heidar gone we need another target man. But there is still 3 weeks before the window closes so I'm not too concerned yet.
The question you must ask yourself is this..........Why did this Docey chap decide to write an article about little ole us?
