NEIL WARNOCK ON HIS QPR SEASON, AXING & WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT Neil Warnock: The Independent A rollercoaster year, but I have plenty to celebrate â honestly! What I Learnt This Season It will seem strange today playing Leicester City, another club with big support, and neither of us having anything to play for. They invested heavily last summer but like ourselves never really got close to the play-offs. It just shows how competitive the Championship is. Today's match is the end of a rollercoaster season for me. It began with a 4-0 home defeat by Bolton Wanderers in QPR's first Premier League match for 15 years and ends with me managing Leeds United. It's a campaign in which I've had three chairmen, two jobs and moved house. As this is the last column of the regular season I thought I'd look back on the highs and lows (yes, there were some highs). 1 Good performances, bad goals and a happy ending We had three terrific away performances at QPR: we took a Championship team to Everton and won, played some wonderful football to win comfortably at Wolves, and secured a well-planned, perfectly executed victory at Stoke, which is never an easy place to win. I think it was QPR's last away win. The second goal at Stoke was the best, Heidar Helguson finishing off a superb team move. The worst scoreline was Leeds' 7-3 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest, though I still don't think we played that badly. The worst goal conceded was Wes Brown's header at home to Sunderland. QPR had got back to 2-2 from 2-0 down only to lose to a basic set-piece in the last minute. Mind you, there have been some poor goals conceded since I came to Leeds. The highlight has to be beating Chelsea at home. It was a big upset and one that QPR fans will remember for a long time. Looking to the future, it was grand to see 33,000 at Elland Road when we played West Ham: that showed me what this club is capable of. The worst moment is easy to pick. It was getting an early-morning text from Phil Beard, QPR's chief executive, asking if he could come and see me the Sunday after we drew in the FA Cup at Milton Keynes. I turned to Sharon and said: "I'm getting the sack." She didn't believe me. All along I'd been telling her the club and I had agreed we'd aim to get to January outside the bottom three, sign three or four good players in the window and we'd stay up. We were on course, but things change. I don't hold any grudges with anyone at the club; the odd agent didn't help me, but that's for another time. Looking back, there were a few pivotal moments, all in home games. That last-minute goal against Sunderland was one, then there was the West Brom match when we started so well, went one up, then Shaun Wright-Phillips scored a great goal. The linesman flagged it offside, wrongly. We'd have won that match. We were also on course to beat Norwich on the New Year's Day Bank Holiday, ahead and playing well, then Joey Barton was sent off and Norwich took the points. If I had one wish, one thing I could change, it would be for Tony Fernandes to have been able to complete his takeover earlier, straight after we had gone up. Then we could have brought in players like Danny Graham, Wayne Routledge, Kyle Naughton â all players I was close to signing â and started the season so much better. But now I am at a wonderful club with fabulous support, living round the corner from my eldest son and first grandson. I'm happy going into work and already looking forward to next season. Put all those things together and I've got a lot to celebrate...." Independent
totally agree there as after the rochdale game i had lost faith in what he was doing and the blame was all pushed onto others including adel taarabt
Nobody knows that, we were up when he left and are in about the same position now with a considerably improved playing staff from the January investment. I think we were more enjoyable to watch under Neil too, but if MH's over cautious approach especially in away games does end up keeping us up, I won't be complaining too much about that!
That cautious approach has earned us one point in all his away games, at Villa and hanging on. It's our last four home results and next week's that will define whether we survive, another away point would be helpful...
You go on about Hughes over caution, did you see us play away at Arsenal or Liverpool? Warnock had us set up to lose and was delighted we only lost by 1 goal. I wanted him gone in the summer. I knew he wasnt a PL manager and that proved to be the case, its just a shame it took so long.
Yeh, we were too cautious those games, but did you see us play at Stoke and Wolves? Under MH we have been over cautious away not only at the so called top clubs but also at the WBA's. Nothing got proved about Neil as a PL manager - he got sacked too early for that! We were on track under him, and arguably with the investment January and his continued management we could have been safe by now.
No doubt, you'll also be the first in line to stick the knife into Hughes at the end of the season if we fail to stay up and all the way to the end of the August if we're not top of the Championship. It's hardly surprising managers last three minutes these days when the fans are just as trigger happy as the owners. Forgive me if I am wrong about this but I don't recall you calling for his head after we had beaten Stoke and Chelsea. So who did you want last summer then? Please be realistic. You had Bernie and Flavio in charge at the time, and were not allowed to spend any money. Come on genius. Let's hear it. I
i like warnock for his passion, but he does like to blame others, even this season he was still blaming rafa for fielding a weakened team against ffc 5 years ago
SPOT ON! I bet if we go down NW will say "I would have kept QPR up". Total rubbish! If we go down NW would be part of the reason from earlier results. I have a lot of time for NW and grateful for all he did but for the millionth time.... We have moved on
The guy obviously still feels a sense of injustice but I think the lack of faith in his own promotion winning team says it all. All he can harp on about are new signings that would have made a difference but MH has Hill, Derry, Mackie and Tarbs playing some of their best football. The same players NW discarded or dumped to the bench. He really had no idea.
I would have got a new manger in the day TF took over. If he was in discussions they he should have had a new man lined up. Hughes wont get the blame, hes got a better record than Warnock but came in too late. Wed have been mid table if Hughes took over at the start of the season.
I cant believe the rubbish being thrown at Warnock here. Our aim was to finish 17th and with the squad we had the beginning of the season to be outside the drop at Jan was a great achievement. What has Hughes changed. Honestly. I mean. We're still in the ****. We're terrible away from home and that's after he was giving millions to spend. Dont get me wrong I back him all the way but for people to be writing Warnock as clueless is shameful after what he did for our club.
Agree, can't believe the Warnock bashers, lets not forget Hughes is on 3 million plus bonuses plus more expensive backroom staff, compared to Warnocks 750K so he should be getting us better results if comparing everything on an equal basis.
Warnock was banging on about how his NPC players werent good enough, he panicked and bought in average at best players on massive wages who were no better than what we had. Would anyone take Barton over Faurlin or SWP over Mackie? To top it off, Warnock was proved wrong. Hill Derry, Mackie, etc have all done well. The only one not good enough was Warnock who destroyed their self belief, its no wonder a bad Bolton side hammered us 4-0 at home on the opening day.
Agree with your whole post except for the last line because COLIN is a wan*er! But yes, Sparky has us up to our necks in sh*t. If we go down its entirely his fault.
