QPR are hunting for the fourth manager inside 12 months this Monday morning following the sacking of Iain Dowie. Here we look at the options to replace him, and whether he should have been given the boot at all.

John Gregory, Mick Harford, Luigi De Canio, a toasted sandwich maker, Iain Dowie, a cuddly toy…
As Iain Dowie stood on the touchline at the Liberty Stadium after last Tuesday’s match I watched and waited. I knew he wanted to do it, because after all a 0-0 draw was exactly what we went to South Wales to achieve, but still after an hour spent playing against a team with no goalkeeper during which time we didn’t manage one shot on the Swansea goal I thought his trademark fist salute to the away end would have been ill-advised.

“You can expect a lot of those,” a Coventry fan told me on the way out of the Ricoh Arena in September. “Plenty of fist salutes which leave you wondering just what he’s so happy about, plenty of talk about pro-zone and match statistics when anybody can see you were awful,” he continued. Dowie had every right to come away from that Coventry game feeling that QPR had done enough to win, but you couldn’t say the same about many of the matches since. Derby paralysed us, Blackpool made the most of a poor Dowie team selection, Swansea battered us, bottom of the table Forest could easily have left the Bush with a point. In the end two goals from long throws did for Colin Calderwood’s men making it eight league games since QPR scored a goal in open play against eleven men.

Dowie promised several things when he took over as manager. Firstly he said QPR would be organised, and after conceding so many goals in the last five minutes of matches last season that was certainly a good idea, and one he delivered on - the site of ten QPR players defending so calmly at Norwich for the entire second half was something to behold and be thoroughly proud of. Secondly Dowie promised QPR would play good football at a high tempo but although the season started promisingly in that regard in recent weeks Rangers’ game plan increasingly revolved around long aimless balls smacked into the channels behind opposing full backs, designed to turn teams around and win QPR throw ins and corners from which they could score. High tempo? No. Good to watch? No. Good football? No. Boring as hell? You bet your life.

Flavio Briatore has made no secret of the fact tat he wants to bring his rich friends to Loftus Road and be entertained. Dowie was playing with fire fielding a lone striker against Blackpool and asking him to chase one aimless punt down the field after another, especially with a plethora of London’s hottest celebs surrounding Flav in the C-Club. The owner broke off from his after match party, as covered by OK! magazine, to tell Dowie that he didn’t like his tactics and the one up front formation was not to be used again.

Dowie took heed, using two strikers against Birmingham but supplementing that with a central midfield paring of Mahon and Leigertwood. If it hadn’t been so cold I could easily have dropped off to sleep in the Railway End at St Andrews. Turgid just isn’t the word. The team selection and result was marginally better against Nottingham Forest but there were still negatives to go with the positives and then on Tuesday night at Swansea, well frankly, it was embarrassing.

Had Dowie been sacked for the poor football and declining results alone then maybe I could support the decision, but I think there’s a sinister third reason behind this latest chopping at Loftus Road and that’s one for all QPR fans to be very worried about. You see Dowie was not sacked directly after the Swansea debacle, Briatore waited until Friday to wield the axe.

There is no simple explanation for this, there was a meeting of board members at the club on Thursday when the decision could easily have been made, Flavio, Dowie, Bhatia, Paladini and everybody else were all in the country and available for a lynching should one be required. Between the Swansea and Reading games though, as has been widely reported in the press, the latest in a long list of bust ups between Briatore and his manager took place over the Reading team selection. Flavio wants Parejo and Di Carmine to play, among others, and doesn’t want one up front formations – in he end he got his way, but he had to remove Dowie to do it.

Dowie clearly wasn’t a Flavio Briatore appointment. The chairman, it seems, asked his advisers for a manager with a proven track record of promotion from the Championship and was presented with Dowie as a viable option. Even on the first day while Dowie was telling the press that they should not read anything into his title ‘first team coach’ because he would be making the signings and picking the team Flavio was telling the same reporters that he didn’t get rich letting other people spend his money and he wasn’t about to start allowing that now. It seemed a strange appointment when it was made and although I personally thought given time Dowie would have us in the top six the owners of the club rarely gave the impression that they thought the same and in hindsight this was the wrong appointment and destined to fail.

Dowie made little secret of his desire to sign Mark Hudson, Ben Watson and Clinton Morrison - the latter even turned down his contract renewal offer at Crystal Palace because he believed an offer was on the table at Loftus Road, in the end the poor sod ended up in Coventry. He was also keen to make a serious play for Leeds’ Jermaine Beckford. In the end he was presented with Parejo, Ledesma and Samuel Di Carmine.

Dowie and Briatore fell out before the season even started and he was lucky to keep his job then, in the end the only surprise was that it took so long to happen. The problem I have with this is not through any great love for Iain Dowie, I’ve been as bored as the rest of you at most games this season, it’s the idea that a board member wants to have a say on the team selection. I don’t personally see how a system where a director of football is charge of the signings can work so I sure as hell don’t think that a team selection made by committee, some members of which have a background in clothes and racing cars, is destined for any kind of success.

If Flavio has sacked Iain Dowie because his team selections were negative, his tactics miserable and the results increasingly poor then fine. If he tried to correct this by encouraging Dowie to play more attacking line ups then to some extent good on him. However if Dowie has been removed because he wouldn’t let Flavio pick the team and the next manager of QPR is going to simply be a nodding yes man who does what Flavio tells him then I’m afraid ninth in the Championship is about the best we can ever hope to achieve.

The next appointment is crucial. We need a good manager in here, a proven managerial talent with experience. Most importantly we need somebody that Briatore trusts with his players, somebody who will be allowed to pick the players he wants in the system he wants without fear of a knock on his office door from a board member. Walter Novellino and Frances Guidolin look ideal candidates to me, as does former Derby boss Billy Davies.

If Dowie was sacked because he endorsed miserable long ball football at Loftus Road then good. If he was sacked because Flavio Briatore believes he deserves, and knows enough about football to have, a say on the team selection then I’m afraid his experiment in W12 will end in tears. At the moment nobody can be sure which it is, but the next appointment as manager will give us all a big clue.

The candidates
One thing the money sloshing around in our boardroom at the moment should give us is options. We may have sacked three managers in 12 months and harshly cast aside a caretaker manager who was doing an excellent job, and there may be stories circulating about just who gets to pick the team and make the signings at Loftus Road, but that will all be irrelevant in the minds of many managers when their ego is massaged and pound signs start to roll around in their eyes.

Any doubts Iain Dowie had about taking the job were probably ignored when the size of the contract was revealed, his sacking last week has reportedly earned him £1m in compensation – softening the blow of a court order to pay the same amount of money to Simon Jordan.

As I say the next appointment at QPR is crucial. Not only does the club need stability after so much chopping and changing recently but the choice of new man will give us all a massive clue as to whether Flavio wants a manager he can trust to manage, or a nodding dog that will allow him to influence team selection. If it’s the latter then it’s almost impossible to call or predict who the new man will be, chances are it will be somebody we have never heard of or rather improbably Gareth Ainsworth himself. If it’s the former then there are a number of routes the club can do down.

The up and coming young manager:
One thing Briatore does like is discovering young talent. He consistently speaks highly of Angelo Balanta, comparing the youth team graduate to Fernando Alonso who emerged as a force on the F1 stage at Briatore’s Renault team. The transfer policy at QPR has been to buy hungry, young players for relatively small transfer fees on relatively big and long contracts – Matt Connolly and Hogan Ephraim are two prime examples. If that policy had extended to managers in the summer when the club appointed Iain Dowie then we may have made more of an effort to nail Paul Ince down to a contract before Blackburn Rovers took a chance on him.

With Ince now in the Premiership that option no longer exists but League One does boast another promising young gaffer with excellent pedigree – Peterborough United’s Darren Ferguson, son of. Ferguson has shown a terrific eye for a player at London Road, picking up England international keeper Joe Lewis from Norwich reserves and finding Aaron McLean, Craig Mackail Smith and the excellent George Boyd in the Conference. Be a little wary though, none of those four players came cheap and Ferguson has had more money to spend than most other managers in the bottom two divisions. Still, he looks like a good prospect.

Ferguson and Posh director Barry Fry have moved to dismiss the speculation this morning. Ferguson said: “No-one is going anywhere. We have a plan here, the first part of that plan was completed last season when we clinched promotion and I know we have a side capable of challenging for promotion this year. There is no reason for any of my players or myself to be leaving.” Fry reiterated that Ferguson would struggle to find similar backing from a chairman as he has done at Peterborough, although he did hint that the manager could leave if the compensation package was right in the Mail today.

A better option for me would be Roberto Martinez at Swansea who has guided his club into the Championship playing wonderful football, however the Spaniard says he’ll stay at the Liberty Stadium as long as they want him and would be difficult to prise away. Kenny Jackett has also been mentioned, but if it's entertaining passing football that Briatore wants he's certainly looking in the wrong place if that is his choice.

The proven Championship manager:
Obviously the same formula that got Iain Dowie appointed in the summer but the idea of appointing somebody who has achieved success in this league before certainly is not a bad one. The two outstanding candidates for me in this category are Gary Johnson and Billy Davies. Like Martinez and Ferguson Johnson is currently happily employed, and to be honest I don’t think for a minute that he would leave his current post at Bristol City to take charge of us, however money does talk. I’d walk over hot coals if I thought it would bring him to Loftus Road. Johnson has done a superb job wherever he has been – taking Cambridge United to the brink of the Premiership as a coach, improving Latvian football beyond all recognition as national team manager, carrying Yeovil out of the non league and establishing them as a full time League One club, and dragging Bristol City from the bottom of League One to a Championship play off final. His teams play super football and he is a brilliant manager destined for the very top. If we’re really serious about appointing a manager to manage, rather than somebody who will just let Flavio pick the team, then I’d be getting a fax off to Ashton Gate first thing telling them to name their price.

Billy Davies would be an altogether easier target, currently unemployed and his reputation damaged by Derby’s disastrous season in the Premiership. Davies has a touch of the Dowies about him – both in style of play and attitude – but do not ignore his record that boasts consistent play off place finishes with a limited Preston side and a promotion at the first attempt with a pretty poor Derby team. He’s a funny little man, prone to arguments with players and board members, and he will demand his own players and coaches around him but he’s done it before at this level and will be a good appointment for somebody in the Championship sooner rather than later.

The big name:
There once was a time when teams looking for a boost and a big name turned to Ron Atkinson. Thankfully those days are gone, however one name being linked with every job that comes up at the moment including ours is Terry Venables. El Tel did a superb job at QPR in the early 1980s and enjoyed success with Barcelona, Palace, Spurs and England of course but more recently has endured some tough times. He was a disaster in his second spell at Selhurst Park, and at Leeds, and it has been said that his training methods that were once seen as revolutionary just don’t cut it in the modern game. He’d be a romantic risk if he were appointed manager at Loftus Road, but his stature within the game may mean Briatore trusts him with the team more than he did Dowie or would any of the other managers I’ve mentioned so far. Alan Curbishley has also been mentioned in the press, although he’s hardly known for his love of boardroom interference and is an unlikely option as it stands.

Another foreigner:
The football played under Luigi De Canio last season was excellent, although just how much influence Gareth Ainsworth and the senior players had over that is unclear. De Canio’s lack of English made his job difficult and was a big part of the reason he left in the summer, along with personal issues, so were we to go foreign again I would hope and assume that we would go for somebody who does at least speak the Queen’s. Roberto Mancini dined at Flavio’s restaurant last week and a number of newspapers have put two and two together on that front, I’d love to think that the former manager of Inter Milan was about to take over at QPR but I just can’t see it – Fulham seems a more likely destination for him. Mancini does have some experience of English football after a brief spell with Leicester as a player.

Far more likely, and more in the De Canio mould, are Walter Novellino and Francesco Guidolin. Novellino has an impressive record of promoting teams from Serie B to Serie A, achieving that feat with Venezia, Napoli. Piacenza and Sampdoria who he went on to finish fifth in the top flight with at the first attempt thereby qualifying for the UEFA Cup. He was sacked by Torino last year after four years at the helm and is said to speak decent English although I can’t verify that – if he does he looks like an ideal appointment with a far better CV than De Canio came to QPR with.

Guidolin was QPR’s first choice last time before they appointed De Canio. He is another Italian with a record of taking teams into the top flight and keeping them there. Guidolin took both Vicenza and Palermo from Serie B into the top flight, subsequently qualifying for Europe with both and winning the Italian Cup with the former. He has had four separate spells in charge of Palermo thanks to a fiery relationship with the club’s owners but has also managed Genoa, Bologna, Monaco and others and would be a terrific appointment.

There is of course Briatore’s friendship with Ramon Calderon at Real Madrid to consider, a connection that has already brought a player to Loftus Road and could well see the appointment of a Spanish manager, although no names have been mentioned yet.



In truth most of the names mentioned here would be sound appointments in my opinion. Personally I’d want Gary Johnson or Roberto Martinez but I feel that both are unlikely to leave their current jobs, failing that I’d take either Italian I have mentioned. It remains to be seen whether we make an appointment for football reasons, or one that will allow Briatore to have an influence over the team.

One thing is for certain
Gareth Ainsworth must be retained at all costs. Not only because he is a promising young coach ho showed a penchant for exciting and attacking football with his influence over the team last season but because he’s a rare constant at QPR at the moment – somebody who has been with the club for more than five years now as a wholehearted player and now coach. The first thing a new manager often does is clear out the coaching staff and bring in his own men and that is understandable, but any new man should be appointed on the understanding that Ainsworth is retained in some capacity. The man has an infectious presence and understands what it means to play for and represent QPR. He will do an excellent job as caretaker manager I’m sure and must be retained after that, we risk losing a promising young coach and possible future manager of the club if we cast him aside now.

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