Owner Tony Fernandes took to QPR Player this week to assure supporters he would not withdraw his investment if the club is relegated this season.
Fernandes said: "The QPR fans are just getting to know me. So no, I'm not going to run away. I started an airline with two planes, been through SARS, bird flu, a Tsunami, an earthquake, terrorism and airports closed for seven days. Relegation isn't going to scare me. It's a long-term project and Rome wasn't built in a day. Along the way there will be hiccups. But when you look back in 15 and 20 years' time, we will be proud of what we achieved.
“Mark Hughes has brought new energy to the club but we haven't had the best of luck," he said. But we have a good squad. We have a tough few weeks but if we come through that I'm really looking forward to the future.
"The main aim is to stay in the Premier League, but other plans have to go on. The training ground is looking good and the stadium is something I have been working on. Amazingly, it's easier buying 100 planes than building a stadium in the UK.”
Fernandes will again spend the pre-match build up to the Everton game touring the stands and surrounding pubs talking to fans about his plans for the club and allaying their concerns.
And there are certainly plenty of those around following the weekend defeat against Fulham that leaves Rangers out of the bottom three on goal difference only and facing a tough run of fixtures.
After the match Mark Hughes said: "We've lost another player to a sending off in the first half. It's very difficult to win Premier League games when that happens. Obviously we were already one nil down at that stage and so, to stay in the game, we had to keep our shape. We did that in the second half, created chances and could have got back on level terms. The events of the first half damaged us too much and we couldn't recover.
"I've got no complaints about the sending off. Samba was doing exactly what I asked him to do, be aggressive and get up to the ball. He's new to the Premier League and must understand how it's refereed. In fairness, I think the second booking was just a mistimed tackle. That hurt us and at that point - one down with ten men - it was difficult for us."
Of course with another home game to come this weekend the club has sent the players and management straight back on the charm offensive with the usual stream of media sludge about the importance of the forthcoming game and how we’re about to suddenly turn everything around. Quite what this accomplishes other than pissing people off who pay money to go every weekend only to find the performance as bad as ever I don’t know. Actions speak so much louder than words, a fact that doesn’t seem to be sinking in at QPR at all.
If you want to read Hughes droning on about how much quality we have in the team click here, or if Anton Ferdinand talking about how terribly hard everybody is working in training is more your scene try this.
Tommy Smith, currently out of the team, is slightly more honest and sincere about it all in his London24 interview today.
Smith says: “There have been so many changes, and with the new manager coming in, we’ve had to try to adapt as quickly as we can, and that has taken a little but longer than we would have liked. He has changed a lot with the way we train and our approach to games. He felt we needed that bit more organisation and we’ve been working a lot on that. But it’s about having the freedom to express yourself as well as doing your job defensively. We’re struggling to get that blend and that’s why we’re starting games a bit slowly. Neil Warnock let players express themselves a lot more, he didn’t drill into each player the positional side of play. Mark Hughes wants to make sure you know every situation in your head before you go out there. There’s a big difference.
“I certainly think we needed a bigger squad, maybe two or three players. But I’d like to think that the team that came up would have stayed up. Did we need that number of new players? I don’t think so. The new owner has obviously got his own idea of where the club is going, and that includes improving the first team.”
Hmmm, anyway Peter Ramage is heading out of the club for the second time this season having agreed a loan deal with Championship side Birmingham City until the end of the campaign. Ramage, who spent the first half of the season on loan at Crystal Palace in the second tier, now links up with Chris Hughton’s men who currently sit fifth in the league.
Ramage told the Birmingham official website: “I'm over the moon to be here. It's a move that I only heard about overnight but I'm delighted to be at a club like Birmingham City. I'm quite a traditionalist at heart and love clubs that have history and tradition. Blues - just like Newcastle and QPR - are exactly that kind of club in that they also have a stadium in St. Andrew's that is full of character and generates a great atmosphere. I'm raring to go and can't wait to be part of things. I want to go straight into being involved in the squad and want to help the club achieve its aim of going back up to the Premier League."
Ramage previously worked with Chris Hughton when the pair were together at Newcastle.
Ramage was in the audience at the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair on Tuesday night as the first team and board settled down for the UK premiere of The Four Year Plan, a film that focuses on the last four seasons at QPR as the club fought to win its place back in the Premiership. The programme, produced by Ad Hoc Films, will air on television for the first time this Sunday on BBC 2 after Match of the Day 2.
Amit Bhatia told the club’s official website: "I think it's a good movie. It's an accurate representation of what went on over the four years that ultimately led to our promotion. The good times, the bad times, the ups and the downs. The film shows the challenging situations that are posed for a football club. It was an extraordinarily difficult watch at times, but we got where we wanted to get and I'm sure all the supporters will enjoy watching it."
Loan winger Federico Macheda, currently well out of favour with Mark Hughes, has been hit with a misconduct charge by the FA after allegedly making a homophobic remark on his Twitter account. Newcastle’s Nile Ranger and Walsall’s Manny Smith have also been charged with similar offences and West Ham’s Ravel Morrison was recently fined £7,000 after being found guilty of the same thing.
A date for your diary – the home match with Liverpool originally scheduled for Saturday March 17 but postponed because of their FA Cup commitments will now be played on Wednesday march 21 at 8pm at Loftus Road. The club has also confirmed that the home match with Stoke will now take place 24 hours later on Sunday may 6 at 2pm to avoid clashing with the FA Cup final.
Finally, as we like to finish on something light hearted and amusing, Patrick Agyemang scored twice for the reserves as they beat a young Crystal Palace side 4-2 on Tuesday. A trialist bagged the other two goals.
The reunion of Matt Connolly and Kaspars Gorkss at Reading continues to be a soar away success. The Royals have kept five consecutive clean sheets since Connolly arrived and climbed to third in the league.
Connolly told the Reading official website: “The whole team contributes. Hunty works incredibly hard, you don't see many strikers do that these days - and Jason Roberts is one hell of a signing. He takes a lot of pressure off, you clip it up to him and he'll hold it - he's big and strong and I think those two have been absolutely awesome. I've always watched Robbo and thought he must be an absolute handful to play against over the years, so it's difficult in training. Hunty is great in the air too - he's a lively character and a really funny lad. When I've played against Reading in the last couple of seasons I've always liked the way they played; with a really quick tempo and hard-working as a unit."
Ian Barraclough has been confirmed as the new manager of Sligo Rovers in Ireland, replacing Paul Cook who left earlier this month to take over at Accrington Stanley. Barraclough was sacked as Scunthorpe United manager midway through last season with the Iron heading for relegation from the Championship.
He told the BBC: “You look back at things and you wonder what could have been done differently, what could have helped you and a lot of soul searching goes into it. I knew the job at Scunthorpe was going to be a tough one. In the summer that Nigel Adkins went and left we lost our two main strikers, our main midfielder, another midfielder and a left-back that were the backbone of our team with 60 goals lost and we hadn't managed to replace that. It took us by surprise when we were sacked and you just want another chance to go and prove people wrong. "I'm joining a good club who have had two or three decent seasons.This is something I really wanted to have a crack at and I look forward to it."
Dexter Blackstock says his double strike against Birmingham at the weekend in a 2-1 win helped him put the memory of more than a year out with a knee injury behind him. Blackstock said: “It is massive for me personally. To come back from so long out and get the first goals since coming back is huge. I never doubted that I would be back and able to play at this level. I never doubted myself. I have been ready for a couple of months to play my part. It is a little bit of weight off my shoulders but it is only my third start of the season, so it wasn't like pressure was building. At most clubs I have been at, especially Nottingham Forest, I have had a good knack of scoring important goals and it was the same at QPR. I tend to pop up at the most important times."
Forest are now twentieth, three points outside the relegation zone.
TV2 in Norway reports that Petter Vaagan Moen is set to sign a three year contract with Lillestrøm following his release from QPR earlier this season. He made two starts and six substitute appearances for Rangers during 12 months at Loftus Road.
Neil Warnock has signed striker Danny Webber on a deal until the end of the season to bolster his Leeds United attacker. Warnock signed Webber at Sheffield United originally and had him on trial at QPR last summer before electing against taking up an option to sign him. He has been a free agent since his release from Portsmouth in 2011.
- New Wolves boss Terry Connor has been explaining his decision to drop big money signing Roger Johnson from his defence for the weekend draw at Newcastle. Connor said: “I didn't want to do it, but thought it was the right decision.I'm not blaming Roger for us losing to West Brom, but you couldn't keep the same team when you've lost 5-1."
- Newcastle striker Nile Ranger has denied charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assaulting two police officers following an incident in the city centre back in August. His trial has been fixed for June.
- Man Utd have appealed to UEFA to intervene over their ticket allocation for the forthcoming Europa League encounter with Athletic Bilbao. United have been allocated 2,000 tickets for the away leg priced at an extortionate £77.50 each.
- Blackburn fans say they are planning to stage the “biggest protest in the history of the club” prior to this Saturday’ home match with Aston Villa. Three separate groups of fans will march on Ewood Park prior to kick off demanding the resignation of the board and sacking of manager Steve Kean.
- Villa themselves meanwhile have reported a massive financial loss of £54m for the 2010/11 season. Although this is largely offset by the sale of Stuart Downing and Ashley Young last summer the results are still likely to cause concern for fans of the ailing giant, currently fifteenth in the Premiership.
The following tube and train closures are in operation this Saturday for the visit of Everton to Loftus Road:
- No Northern Line between Camden Town and High Barnet or Mill Hill East. Replacement bus services operate with vastly increased journey times.
- No Overground service between Willesden Junction and Euston – use the Bakerloo Line instead.
- No Metropolitan Line services between harrow-on-the-Hill and Aldgate. A replacement bus service will run.
- The Victoria Line is completely closed all weekend. Replacement buses operate.
- The Waterloo and City Line is closed, use alternative underground routes.
- The DLR is suspended between Canning Town and Woolwich Arsenal, and Custom House and Beckton.
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Pictures – Action Images