QPR still paying the price for Mark Hughes era as Stoke manager returns to Loftus Roa

QPR still paying the price for Mark Hughes era as Stoke manager returns to Loftus Road

In less than 12 months at Queens Park Ranger Mark Hughes shattered his reputation and helped spark a financial crisis - but who was really to blame?

There is one man whom many Queens Park Rangers supporters hold accountable more than anyone else for the financial problems that cloud the club’s future. It is not Harry Redknapp, who led them to the Premier League via a Wembley play-off final last season. It is not Tony Fernandes, the multi-millionaire owner, who talks of lessons learnt and continues to promise a new stadium and training ground improvements. It is not chief executive Philip Beard, nor any of the other board members. It is Mark Hughes, arguably the only man less welcome at Loftus Road than John Terry.

This is the theory: Hughes, fresh from ditching Fulham in his quest for world domination, swanned into QPR and blew wads of Fernandes’ cash on sub-standard players who milked their employers for all they could get while not being particularly bothered with the business of winning football matches. Arrogant, standoffish and tactically inept, the blundering manager took QPR to their knees before he was finally put out of his misery and sacked by Fernandes. Redknapp – t’riffic lad – rode to the rescue, and has spent the last two years trying to clear up Hughes's mess, putting a team together on a limited budget as Fernandes desperately tries to balance his finances.

A fair assessment? Not entirely. When QPR removed Hughes in November 2012, just 10 months after appointing him as successor to Neil Warnock, he left Rangers bottom of the Premier League with four points from their first 12 games of the season. It was his dreadful business in the 2012 transfer markets that led to his downfall - he will grimace at the memory of Park Ji-Sung, Esteban Granero and Samba Diakite (there were many others) who were brought in on ludicrously high wages but were either past their best or just not very good. Under Hughes’s tenure, the QPR dressing room quickly became split. In one camp were the players who had won promotion under Warnock in 2011. In the other were the new arrivals. Hughes lacked the forceful personality and man management skills to pull the divided side together. It was simply never going to work.

That is the context to Hughes’s return to Shepherd’s Bush on Saturday. It will be the first time he has set foot on the Loftus Road turf since he was dismissed by Fernandes, and he might want to bring along some body armour, for the wounds in W12 are still raw.

The mood is unlikely to be lifted by the fact that Hughes has done rather well since he left, somewhat lampooning the buffoon image favoured by many QPR fans. He led Stoke City - admittedly a side already in good shape thanks to the previous manager, Tony Pulis - to a ninth-place finish last season and has put together a decent, attack-minded side for the new campaign. Meanwhile, the legacy of his time at QPR was an eye-watering loss of £65.4 million for the 2012-13 season. The losses for QPR’s promotion season - under Redknapp - are likely to be similar, leading to a severe fine from the Football League. Fernandes says he will fight that fine, raising the prospect of QPR being denied re-entry to the Football League should they suffer relegation again this season.

As usual when a team struggles, the fans looked for a villain. Hughes, whose signings undeniably fell short, fitted the bill. But there is more to it than that. Fernandes was the man who oversaw the wage structure and transfer policy. When Park signed from Manchester United in July 2012, he was presented to the media high up in London’s Millbank Tower on the banks of the Thames, at what was more a champagne reception than a press conference. QPR’s heads, and Fernandes’ in particular, were in the clouds. The signings of Park and the goalkeeper Julio Cesar were primarily commercially-driven, designed to broaden the club’s global appeal. Even after Hughes’s departure, by which time Financial Fair Play was on the horizon and should have set alarm bells ringing in the boardroom, Fernandes allowed allow his successor, Redknapp, to sign Christopher Samba for £15 million and Loic Remy for £8 million.

Samba was a gross misjudgement, earning a reported £100,000 a week but failing to help his side survive in the Premier League and being sold back to Anzhi Makhachkala just six months after he arrived. QPR arrogantly believed that relegation would be avoided by signing high-profile players. They were wrong. It has taken Fernandes and Beard too long to work out that football is not like any other business. You cannot always throw money at the problem to make it go away.

To the board’s credit, business in this summer’s transfer window suggested a change in strategy, albeit a belated one. Steven Caulker and Jordan Mutch, both 22, are promising signings for the future. Fernandes also thought long and hard about signing Rio Ferdinand, now 35, afraid of adding yet another player in the final years of his career. Yet questions remain. At Stoke, Hughes has suggested he learnt a lot from his mistakes at QPR, namely the need ‘not to make wholesale changes’ and ‘upset the dynamic’. At QPR the changes continue apace – 10 more new arrivals this summer, with a remarkable 20 players departing. The result has been three points from a possible 12 so far, indicative that there is much work to be done before the club achieves the stability that has been missing for so long. They will be desperate to avoid another season fighting the drop.

QPR may think admirably of Saturday’s opponents, now in their seventh consecutive season of Premier League football and, despite last weekend’s surprise 1-0 defeat at home to Leicester City, well set for another top-half finish. Admiration for Stoke - but certainly not for Hughes. In less than a year at QPR he helped to shatter his own reputation and spark a financial situation which is still snowballing. Hughes was only one figure in the madness, and the buck ultimately stops with Fernandes. But QPR fans know who they blame, and they will let Hughes know it on Saturday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...-as-Stoke-manager-returns-to-Loftus-Road.html

 

Well I don't agree

 

"QPR arrogantly believed that relegation would be avoided by signing high-profile players."

It wasn't arrogance, it was desperation you tit. And it was 12 for Samba, which had we stayed up by 1 point, would have looked like a good investment. Remy for 8…well that was, and still is, a bargain. Got our money back for both too.

"It has taken Fernandes and Beard too long to work out that football is not like any other business. You cannot always throw money at the problem to make it go away."

Piffle. Bags of other clubs chuck countless millions away every transfer window in desperate bids to climb the table. Totally normal.

"At QPR the changes continue apace – 10 more new arrivals this summer, with a remarkable 20 players departing."

Yes.. we were still trying to get rid of half the tools Hughes bought.

Oh…**** it… I could pick holes all night….

I'm in that kind of mood, the articles actually not that bad.

 

Pick away Chaz, you could drive a truck through a lot of the detail of that article, however the sentiment isn't far off.

 

Thanks Roller. Another deep sigh at what might have been.

 

no, the sentiment is actually spot on. bottom line is, over the past few years, for one reason or another, we've made a right balls of it!

 

"...who was really to blame?"

Boo Hughes till your face turns blue and miss the point by a country mile.

He wasn't the spark for any of this. 08/01/12. Global branding here we come.

Good article. It should have been called "QPR still paying the price for Teflon Tone's era as Stoke manager returns to Loftus Road".

 

The board were naive, Hughes took the piss and gambled with their money and failed.

 

The annoying thing was Hughes somehow produced five straight home wins against Liverpool, Arsenal, Swansea, Spurs and Stoke, all tough opponents, yet somehow he then f*cked the whole team up with the clowns he signed in the summer. The blame has to lie entirely at his door...

 

The board gambled. Hughes took the money. We failed.

 

Good point. What happened to the momentum after, "Cisse, CISSE"!!?

 

Not at all. Any spending was sanctioned - and IMO driven - by Teflon Tone in his quest for inter galactic domination or whatever. As an "accountant" and "businessman" he'd know the consequences when/if the gamble backfired. Surely he knew this? All he had to say was no. I think you yourself posted a good while back that our wage bill was "the economics of the madhouse"? Mark Hughes is not an economist. Or an accountant. Or a businessman.

Boo him till you're blue in the face and miss the point by a country mile.

 

Just one huge 'cluster#*%€'. Odd how the influence and manipulation of Kia Jorabchian isn't mentioned. The guy took us for a ride and pushed many players through Hughes to the club. And still his influence exists through his attachment to AT.

Lots of ownership to be shared - but still feel Hughes is ultimately responsible for the players he wanted and the squad/team he picked and was supposed to manage (which ultimately got us relegated). He failed big time!! That's why he will get what he deserves from the faithful today. I just hope that crowd atmosphere will drive the team on too.

The financial situation is down to TF and the Board - full stop. They allowed the wages and contracts to happen and I haven't seen them shirk their admission of naivity, inexperience and responsibility. And to be fair they have changed their approach now. But they do need to address the financial mess.

 

IMO if we were to bring in a new manager then I think more money would be required ... It's the nature of the game
I was excited by the Hughes squad
I was reassured by what Harold did by making a side that kept the ball more

I still can't see why Hughes was to blame as Harold took us down with a whimper when an escape was on

I think more and more are seeing that somehow today we are not fighting as say a Pulis side would of done faced with the drop?

Harold was on a no brainer and used the get of jail free card against Hughes and spun the fact that he didn't have enough time or players ... Well what's the story today?

Hughes has gone to stoke now and added to them IMO

I believe any team that try's to invent itself from nothing can fail

I hold Harold to task more than Hughes in a way

 

If TF was signing players over Hughes's head then Hughes is to blame, he's the manager and should take sole responsibility. Judging by the press conferences when Park and Cesar were signed Hughes was happy to sign them. he even slated Green within a couple of months of signing him on £40k+ a week...

 

Out of these 20 departures I think 9 of these were loanees!

 

You did say that our wage bill was "the economics of the madhouse"?

You were right. If the economics of the situation were unsustainable, as they've turned out to be, don't blame Hughes. Blame the person in ultimate control of buying/selling, wage limits i.e. Teflon Tone. Nobody else. All he had to say was no we can't afford this now or for the foreseeable future.

Boo Hughes till you're blue in the face and miss the point by a country mile.

 

Interesting side question on Pullis.

Would you have him to survive a season or three, even if his philosophy goes against the grain?

I would, though I'm not an economist, a businessman or accountant. Pragmatism has to rule while we stabilise the finances.

It's all moot though. Somebody posted a day or two back about a dream team of Pullis and Gerry Francis. Pullis has a face only a mother can love, Francis a mullet only Curtis Stigers can love. Neither of them have a profile that global branding can love. Never gonna happen on Teflon Tone's watch.

 

I believe it was his job as manager to identify and sign the players he did and it was him that picked the team and tactics, so is he to blame for the winless 12 matches? Absolutely, along with most of the players.

On my way to LR today and as much as I think Hughes is culpable I will not be booing him as he didn't go out to deliberately ruin our club. That whole episode tarnished his reputation and must have knocked his legendary ego too. Water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned and I only care about picking up 3 points against him today.

 

To **** something up as comprehensively as QPR has been ****ed up it takes a lot of people operating at the lowest end of their competence for a long time.

Right, off to the game now. You Rsss.