As the odds on Harry Redknapp becoming the next Brighton manager crash through the floor, Greg Sangwine wonders whether his departure could be a blessing.
Last time QPR were relegated, in 2000/01, very little of the blame fell upon Ian Holloway. The team was already obviously broken long before he arrived two thirds of the way through the season and with the administration that followed what was required was slow building after relegation with a long term focus. No short term fixes were expected and I don’t remember anyone calling for him to be sacked early on – despite him failing to save the club from relegation from the First Division, or spending most of the first season in the lower tier in lower mid-table. We all bought into a long term goal.
When Holloway left after the Queens Park Strangers incident up at Leeds in 2005 Rangers replaced him with Gary Waddock, who I think they believed was a long term solution. They then replaced him with John Gregory (who I loved), Luigi De Canio (who I also liked), Paulo Sousa (yawn….), Gareth Ainsworth (twice), Jim Magilton, Paul Hart and Mick Harford before we saw sense. I said to my long suffering dad at the time that long term plans appeared to have been abandoned. It wasn’t until I travelled to a QPR home game against Doncaster that I began to believe that we were thinking a little longer term. The fans had turned up to celebrate that we’d got our Rangers back and Flavio Briatore had stepped down from most of his involvement in the club. I delighted in seeing QPR’s first win in what felt like around 20 games but in reality was probably more like 12. Antonio German was brilliant and we won 2-1 and it felt like we won the league.
In stepped Neil Warnock the week after with a very honest short term goal - to get promoted. I think he was probably given two full seasons to achieve this which would have made him our longest serving manager since Holloway and he performed miracles with QPR winning the league. He got the best out of so many of our players that I won’t even bother to name them all. It was, however a short term game that Rangers were playing and the harsh sacking of Warnock underlined this short term plan further.
I believe Tony Fernandes tried to change this culture when he hired Mark Hughes and I’m now a little ashamed to say that, despite my love of Warnock, I was excited by the Hughes appointment. I saw him as someone who would build the club steadily like he’d done at Blackburn and build a decent team in the short term too. I was, like many others very surprised how badly Rangers did under him.
Now I admit to not travelling to QPR matches this season. I’ve lived in Zimbabwe since August but I’ve seen 34 of QPR’s 38 games live on TV out here, just missing the Swansea home game, both Southampton games and the most recent Liverpool match. It’s because of my TV watching agony that I don’t believe Harry Redknapp is the man to take us forward. I was aware we needed a fire-fighter in November and was pleased he was coming in. In fact despite an awful Christmas period up until half time of the Aston Villa game I completely believed we’d stay up under his management. But in my opinion now we’ve dropped to the Championship short term is not the way to go.
We need someone who will build a club, play some decent football and bring back a little bit of pride in our shirt. I already worry what’ll happen next season. I worry it’ll be a little like Magilton’s reign: sign a few decent players, win a few big games, score a few goals and look pretty decent, but then drop away to briefly flirt with relegation after an outlay on more over-paid players who care little for what QPR really stand for. We’d be back to square one. Let’s be honest if that happened we’d be back where we were when Ian Holloway left all those years before. I don’t know about anyone else, because I no longer walk in QPR circles, but I’d prefer to see so-called sub-standard players who really care about the club playing regularly next season. I’d happily not even sign one player. I wouldn’t expect them to win the league, achieve promotion or even to reach the play-offs but we’d be able to expect them to have pride in the shirt and not be short of effort or commitment.
What’s the solution? Give someone the job to establish a team, club, and strong fan base who’d bring Premier League football in the next two to four seasons. I’d choose a young manager who can build the club and who cares about QPR’s long term future.
There are two options for me. Firstly to keep the players that have only won four games all season and 14 in two seasons and add to that squad that apparently isn’t good enough to push for an immediate return with Harry in charge and hope they can play together to get us up before embarrassing us even further. Or secondly change the broken formula and build the club around players who do care and a try a proven QPR formula.
Originally Holloway built his team around Kevin Gallen. Then came Marc Bircham, Paul Furlong, Martin Rowlands, Lee Cook and Gareth Ainsworth - players who really cared and always did their best for the club. Warnock built his team around Paddy Kenny, Kaspars Gorkks, Clint Hill, Shaun Derry, Ale Faurlin, Jamie Mackie, Adel Taarabt and Heidar Helguson. They had a similar formula - talented players who actually cared. Both managers bought success and both managers were QPR favourites for it. We’ve failed recently because we’ve built teams around players who can only celebrate decent looking CV’s and past glories - not talent that has been shown at Rangers, and certainly not heart. What do Julio Cesar, Jose Bosingwa, Chris Samba, Anton Ferdinand, Stephane Mbia, Esteban Granero, Junior Hoilett, Ji-Sung Park and Bobby Zamora really say? Is it effort and commitment?
Do I trust Redknapp? No I don’t. I hope I’ll regret asking Clive to publish this and I hope to be reprimanded for it come next May but my main worry is that nothing good is likely to happen at Rangers with Redknapp in charge. If we’re doing well come November then he’ll leave to a struggling Premier League team who ‘need him more’ and if we’re not he’ll leave anyway.
I have no solution but the vibes of past Rangers successes do not correlate with Harry. If he’s going to do it for us, like we all hope he does he’ll create a new legacy that Rangers fans of my generation are yet to see.
Pictures – Action Images