Now that the dust has settled after his departure and we can see his team in the hands of a more than capable manager we can truyly assess Hughe's QPR legacy. Just look at the facts; No wins in the season. No away wins for almost a year. Two transfer windows to create his own team. Dismantled the Championship winning side and replaced them with poor quality, hugely expensive has beens or "we're just here for the money" players. Everybody knew we needed a strong defense and goal scorers, didn't do anything to strengthen these areas satisfactorily. Ended up with one fit striker after getting rid if Campbell and helguson who are scoring regularly in the Championship, they surely would have shown more fighht and commitment and goals than the players he preferred A divided dressing room showing no man management skills and created what has been called "a poisonous atmosphere". Complete support from the owners, money for transfers and wages. Harry has been able to still not get a win with the players he inherited, showing how poor the players were who he brought in. The players that are showing the most fight and belief; Hill, Mackie who he had earlier kicked into the long grass and Nelsen who was brought in as a squad player. It just goes on and on. Arrogant, poor tactics, poor buying, poor team selection, poor man management, I cannot think of any manager who has had such a pathetic record. Will he ever get another job at a club who will match his "ambition"? Surely not. Can anybody name a worse manager? Even Steve keane had a better record and that's saying something.
AVB And his record is poor but I can't agree with a lot of your viewpoints, generally he built the club up a considerable amount IMO off the field. The players are not to blame individually either but the team collectively was. A spiralling downward drain of confidence will ruin any side. I have seen enough to know there is a very good team in here somewhere. WE couldn't keep the ball prior to Hughes and that alone was a positive turnaround. The past has gone and I feel more against NW than i do MH ... only because of his hesitation and doubt about our core players. NW purchased Barton and I thought NW was fantastic getting us up but poor management after that was really poor
Don't think any assessment of Hughes managerial career can take place without considering his achievements with Blackburn Rovers; took them to fifth and sixth, I think. He was absolutely appalling for us, but I'm not sure this makes him the worst ever PL manager: Bryan Robson and Roy Keane also spring to mind, though I'm sure there must be others. Can't really understand DT3 having more anger at NW though, surely Colin has had very little, in fact nothing, to do with the team's poor performances this season?
Worst manager for some time. Did loads of good off the field, just a shame he couldnt do it where it mattered ! If anyone doubts the quality of M'Bai, Granero and Hoillet then I am watching a diffrent sport i think !
Of the ex-ManU crop, he has probably done best courtesy of previous engagements, not this one. What is it about former SAF underlings? They all seem to be destined for ignominy.
Up here, (Jockland) the press used to go on about how SAF spawned so many managers from his ex players as if they were all groomed for greatness. In hindsight, no one has really done that great out of them all.
Definitely the worst manager I have seen at LR. I said from day one that he would be no good. No charisma, no tactical nous, no passion, no idea, no plan A, no plan B, NO, NO, NO!!
I think Les Reed at Charlton would be up there for worst ever. The difference with Hughes, than a lot of the other usual suspects, is that his Reign of Terror was ongoing, rather than a short caretaker role or a clear mistake (Jaques Santini etc) He was there for a long time and never, not once showed the slightest hint of improvement. His net spend on wages and transfer fees was huge, and over the course of a year had managed to lower the league position of the team by three spaces despite this and leave the entire club shivering in the corner. I think the board have to take some stick for this though as we could all see what was happening. Hughes over spent on poor players and did not improve the position of the club at all during his first season in charge. Then, the board funded a summer of madness by giving Hughes even more money to do exactly the same things again, which of course have yielded the same resulting failures
Well said, Souza also in a way. I was disappointed with NW because regardless of the achievement of winning the Championship ... don't get me wrong ... fantastic. I never and have never thought he understood QPR football. When he hit the big time sorry but he changed and tried to mix it by misunderstanding that football is football and I just knew he would make mistakes and they were massive .. really dreadful in fact. He panicked and purchased some players that would never play into the QPR way. In short Barton was a cancer and I knew that we would have trouble. From my first post on here I have mentioned Team Spirit and sorry but he let that slip through his fingers ... The target was 17th that's all and the other two promoted side retained this team spirit and did very well in that first season. Hughes had to pick up the mess a non football club and rebuild. He purchased seasoned pros so he thought as well as some great transfers ... players that we couldn't even think about a few months earlier so to that I can't honestly slag him and he was building a new club from the ground up ... it didn't work ... it failed very very badly but I was certain he wanted it to work like all of us. I salute him but of course its a results based game and anyone in today's game will be sacked if results don't come. The three teams that go down this year will probably change their managers. The game is so different now and I think MH wanted a solid foundation for this season to build on and it went very pear shaped ... still onward and upward whats the point are dwelling too long .. we look to have another exciting season finish ... thats better than our usual boring grey days. We are on the map now and growing whatever happens
I'm no Hughes fan but before asking if he's the worst premiership manager EVER you should look at his record as a whole, not just his dismal showing with us. 2004-5 Kept a struggling Blackburn up, FA cup semi finalist 2005-6 Steered Blackburn to 6th, qualifying for Europe, League cup Semi finalists. 2006-7 Blackburn finish 10th, FA cup semi finalists 2007-8 Blackburn finish 7th. 2008-9 Man city finish 10th. UEFA Q/finalists. 2009-10 Man city sack him mid season laying 6th and in LC semi final. 2010-11 Fulham finish 8th, Qualify for Europe (through fair play) 2011-onwards QPR...say no more. A mixed bag there with I'd say relative success at Blackburn and Fulham, and failure at Man City and us. Funny he got Fulham into Europe through the fairplay league but when at Blackburn they finished bottom of the disciplinary table on all 4 years. That is all statistics and other factors like money spent, ability to get on with players, playing attractive football etc could all be factored into whether he can be seen as a success or failure. He certainly isn't the worst premiership manager ever though and I'd say there are a few below him that have worse records then he has. Names that I have come across that might be considered worse are Sammy Lee (Bolton), Les Reed (Charlton), Brian Kidd (Blackburn), Christian Gross (Spurs), Mike Walker (Everton), Egil Olsen (Wimbledon).
Wonderful factual post and how anyone can say Hughes is rubbish doesn't know too much about the game ... it's just fan's bile. I thought the treatment of him on here albeit understandable in a way was disgraceful. Hughes will bounce back no doubt and i can only think of a few games we were totally rubbish in. it's sad that people focus on results and If he had of stayed then i would of still backed him to come good
But still MH takes it over PH on his horrible personality alone. There's a job opportunity coming up for Hughes, they're building a replica of the Titanic and someone will be needed to rearrange the deckchairs...
Terrible manager for us but I wouldn't be surprised if he achieved success with another club. It just didn't work out, that happens in football. MH didn't dismantle the championship winning team. NW did when he signed 7 new players that summer. That's where the problems started and it just snowballed with more s*** signings.
There's no way he's worse than Ray Wilkins - that guy was a joke. Not really sure what happened with MH, and to be honest, I actually believed him when he said that we wouldn't be in the same position again this season. I was thinking mid- to lower-mid table, not rock bottom. When I think of other MH's teams, notably BR, they had players who were used to scrapping, like Robbie Savage, Nelsen, Samba and could absorb the type of pressure Hughes expected us to take - that was obviously his intention, to sit back and strike on the break. We were simply to fragile for that and his signings, or lack of them in key areas, didn't compensate for these failings. Bet he's gutted he quit Fulham now.
Agree. Hard to choose between Hughes and Hart for worst manger at LR. Seems to be a problem if your name starts with 'H'? Maybe that is why he is called 'Arry!!
