NEIL WARNOCK'S QPR REST HOME FOR WILD 'N' WEARY NEIL WARNOCK will return from a break in his Cornish hideaway this week â and open the doors of footballâs Last Chance Saloon. Thatâs what QPR are now being dubbed after Warnock threw lifelines to a string of accident-prone recruits, most of whom are getting what is almost certainly a final opportunity to crack the Premier League and restore their reputations. Warnock, now 62 and also having one last fling in the top flight before hanging up his boots, is taking a huge gamble on players with equally big points to prove for one reason or another. His biggest gamble is undoubtedly Joey Barton, who arrives at Loftus Road on a four-year deal despite baggage that includes an astonishing catalogue of clashes with authority â and colleagues â the latest being with the owner of his last club, Newcastle United. Bartonâs roll of shame includes a six-month jail sentence for assault and affray, a £100,000 fine for attacking team-mate Ousmane Dabo at Manchester City, a label branding him âthe dirtiest player in the Premiershipâ and an enforced course of anger management therapy. Neil Warnock threw lifelines to a string of accident-prone recruits But Warnock insists: âI donât worry about that. Joey wouldnât be signing for us if he didnât have some baggage.â Barton, however, who will make his QPR debut against Newcastle next Monday, is not alone. Also joining him in QPRâs Rogues Gallery is injury-jinxed Kieron Dyer from West Ham. Apart from a string of injuries that restricted him to just 30 appearances there in four years, Dyer was also involved in a notorious on-field brawl with Lee Bowyer when the volatile pair were both at Newcastle. Then there is Danny Gabbidon, another ex-Hammer who missed an entire two years at Upton Park through injury and also admitted improper conduct by abusing fans on Twitter. Striker Jay Bothroyd is another bad boy trying to finally turn over a new leaf at Loftus Road. He was booted out of Arsenal as a youngster for throwing his shirt at coach Don Howe and has been trying to kick-start his career ever since at Coventry, Perugia, Blackburn, Charlton, Wolves, Stoke and Cardiff. At 29 this really is his last chance. âIâve come full circle and have to turn my life around,â he admits. Also joining Warnock is Shaun Wright-Phillips, a less controversial former room-mate of Bartonâs at Manchester City, who is trying to get his career back on track in west London. Wright-Phillips even delivered a plea to QPR fans to help him, urging them: âGet behind me as best you can and Iâll give 110 per cent every time I go on to the pitch.â Ever since Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes released Warnock from the financial straitjacket provided by former owners Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone, the Yorkshireman has wasted no time recruiting what he hopes will be an army of reformed characters. They include Anton Ferdinand â a former partner of Gabbidonâs at West Ham â from Sunderland and defender Luke Young from Aston Villa. âSigning Joey showed everybody we mean business,â added Warnock. âIt took a lot of hard work to get him and the rest have just followed. âI canât remember how many Iâve brought in now, but it was work we had to do to give us a chance.â iReader
Who wrote that piece? Don't mind particularly anyway - by labelling the team as rogues and misfits it offers us the chance at siege mentality that Warnock uses, so well, to his advantage. ...and can they really STILL be going on about the Dyer-Bowyer incident? That one is so old that the footage is in black and white.
Good points here and a viewpoint I certainly share . If we lose our QPR soul over this I fir one will be furious We are now the Dirty Dozen 11 men lead into battle by a possible nutjob ... I should know about nutjobs by the way believe me
Don`t forget Puncheon from Southampton. A player we have been desparate to get rid of since he threw his toys from his pram after being replaced in the team by young Chamberlain ( he apparently thretened him as well). A talented but troubled person, alas you only have him on loan so I hope he does well, but your tit of a manager has offended our boss so a further deal is unlikely, so he may come back and play with our u16`s again
You get the feeling from the article that the author was desperate to find an angle on old news... He's right in a superficial kind of a way but skimmed over circumstance and almost made it sound like choices. What he missed in my view, is the spirit and commitment these 'tail-enders' tend to generate. One set missed a QPR league title by a whisker once; another was the always competitive 'Crazy Gang'... Same thing last year wasn't it? Bunch of clubbies, oldies / jobbers and a misfit. Won the title with that lot though didn't we! As for these rogues and misfits of ours, doubt they'll be going down without a fight.
he is a tit of a manager, that is why he got a wrap on his knuckles by the FA. You do not slag off or offend another teams operations manager because it normally comes back and bites you on the bum. Hope you do well this year, and I hope that Warnock has a plan and not just panick buying ( although if I feel if Barton had been born with a brain he could play for any premiership side and England, SWP is also a good buy.
