In part two of our look back at the 2008/09 season with QPR we look at the reign and messy departure of Paulo Sousa and a second spell in caretaker charge for Gareth Ainsworth.
The Kaiser arrives
Paulo Sousa was a classy defensive midfielder in his playing days and won trophies at the very top of the sport in Portugal, Italy and Germany. He won the European Cup twice in consecutive seasons with first Juventus and then Borussia Dortmund. He was the kind of personality QPR could only have dreamed of attracting to the club before the takeover and, more importantly, seemed to be much more of a Flavio Briatore appointment than Iain Dowie had been.
Owner and new manager stood side by side in front of the players on his first day with the club – his abrupt, aggressive and some said rude introduction left the squad in no doubt about what was to be expected. It would be his way or the high way, they had to buy in to what he wanted to do or it would not work.
The new man chose to take a watching brief for his first match, at Watford, and that was probably a good idea as QPR turned in one of those displays that only they can. A 3-0 defeat, interspersed with chants about not being a “project” from the away end, was nothing more than QPR deserved for a thoroughly abysmal display.
One positive that did come from that afternoon though was the late sending off of Fitz Hall. Since arriving at Rangers Hall, one of the club’s top earners, has been either injured or well below par. His latest enforced absence gave a second chance to Kaspars Gorkss, written off by those short of patience back in August, and he seized it with both hands and made the place his own – eventually running Damion Stewart close in the player of the year vote.
Sousa got to work, the almost immediate return of Briatore's flagship signing Daniel Parejo to Real Madrid after a thoroughly disinterested and at times embarrassing performance in a goalless draw at Crystal Palace seemed to signify a new regime at Loftus Road with the owner taking a back seat and the manager getting greater control. Emmanuel Ledesma followed shortly after Christmas, his incredible start to life at Loftus Road quickly subsiding into lightweight, ineffective performances although he had certainly shown enough to suggest he may have a role to play. At the same time however the team was strengthened, presumably not by Sousa, with the additions of Heider Helguson and Gary Borrowdale. The former I felt, if fit, would be a good addition, the latter had not been in the Coventry team since Chris Coleman took over as manager there, had been a favoured target of Sporting Director Gianni Paladini since his Crystal Palace days and appeared overpriced. We never got to find out about Borrowdale who awaits his QPR debut today in one of the biggest farces to befall us this year.
The signing of Helguson isn’t very far behind it mind. The signing was announced by the official website before the Watford match but come 3pm at Vicarage Road there was no sign of him – rumours of a failed medical and return to Bolton circulated, other stories suggested Helguson had not wanted to sign a loan deal until the end of January and be tied up for the whole transfer window in case QPR decided they didn’t want him. Helguson was then linked with a move to Charlton who QPR were playing on the Tuesday night. Luckily for the club, who remained completely silent on the whole thing, that didn’t go through and Rangers won 2-1. Helguson then did eventually sign that Thursday before the match with Palace and rather than admit that it had all gone a bit tits up QPR chose instead to just run an interview with him on the official website as if he’d been there the whole time. Farce. Again. Shortly afterwards club secretary Sheila Marson, a thirty year veteran of Loftus Road, was removed without so much as a word of thanks from the club. Whether the two situations were linked only the club can say.
Helguson introduced himself to the fans by missing an open goal at Selhurst Park and, sadly for him, the sitters kept coming and going over the following matches.
Rangers beat Wolves in Sousa’s second home game, an excellent high tempo and physical performance too much for the new league leaders to cope with. The match was settled with a thunderbolt from Martin Rowlands midway through the second half that was a clear and obvious goal of the season winner. However a missed penalty from the same player and another sitter spurned by Helguson meant a 1-0 defeat at Sheff Wed that Tuesday and took QPR’s run of games without a goal away from home to eleven under three different bosses. That duck, and Helguson’s, went at Plymouth in a 1-1 draw the following weekend.
Sousa seemed to be settling in reasonably well. He employed a diamond midfield formation that seemed to suit Hogan Ephraim more than most – a player completely discarded by Iain Dowie really came into his own in the second half of the campaign. The system also seemed ideally set up for the eventual returns of Vine and Buzsaky although in the meantime without them QPR were still having trouble scoring goals. A thrilling 3-2 win against Preston when Heider Helguson scored twice just before Christmas hinted that the problems may be solved and indeed when Helguson was fit and played QPR did look more threatening but he spent too much time injured in the second half of the season and from the start of Paulo Sousa’s reign to the end the problem remained the same – not enough quality strikers fit and available.
The first time I genuinely disagreed with a decision made by the manager was at Charlton on Boxing Day. Despite the Preston win Sousa made wholesale changes to his starting eleven, including leaving out Helguson, despite his two goal haul against PNE, and player of the year elect Damion Stewart. Charlton were bottom, struggling and awful on the day but took a point from the below strength QPR team. It could all have been so different had Emmanuel Ledesma’s injury time winner not been disallowed – it was, and Ledesma was on his bike a short time later.
That decision to change the team and subsequent result seemed to knock the momentum gathered under Sousa somewhat and dire draws with Watford, Burnley in the FA Cup and Coventry at Loftus Road followed. Rangers only scored one goal in those matches, Blackstock got it – his twelfth and last goal of the season in Rangers’ colours. The Burnley draw set up a heartbreaking replay at a frozen Turf Moor the following Tuesday where Rangers contrived to lose a game they had bossed in the final second of extra time after a mistake by Damion Stewart.
QPR dipped into the transfer market again in January, buying Wayne Routledge from Premiership side Aston Villa. Routledge had been on loan at our Championship rivals Cardiff over Christmas and the Welsh outfit had expected to make that signing permanent. Chairman Peter Ridsdale promised City fans that the Routledge signing was close, and then behaved like a spoilt child when the player chose QPR instead, mouthing off in the Welsh press about how awful it is that QPR are throwing money around and that nasty ickle Wayne didn't even stop to say goodbye. Routledge’s addition to the team played a key role in our two best away performances of the season that came back to back in mid January at Derby and Blackpool.
He scored the first and Leigertwood the second at Pride Park, a ground on which Rangers are yet to lose, and then played a key role in the first of Heider Helguson’s brace at Blackpool in the pouring rain that Tuesday. Hogan Ephraim added a third in front of sporting director Gianni Paladini who joined the tiny travelling faithful in the uncovered side stand to watch the match. A draw with title chasing Reading at Loftus Road and a 2-2 deadlock at Nottingham Forest followed to leave QPR on the cusp of the play offs and seemingly starting to settle nicely into Paulo Sousa’s way of thinking and playing.
The manager consistently stated that everything he was doing was with one eye on next season but while the play offs were still in sight they would have to be the aim. The team though, as shown at Forest, was still a little short in a number of areas. As at the start of the season a team lacking attacking options without Buzsaky, Vine and, by this point Rowlands and Agyemang, with long term injuries was only ever going to go so far. For this responsibility must lie firstly with the people that put the squad together and secondly with bad luck. Seven matches later though it was Sousa left to carry the can.
Sousa’s sword fall leaves worrying legacy
On February 21 QPR, on the cusp of the play offs and nine matches unbeaten, played Ipswich Town at Loftus Road live on Sky Sports. Flavio Briatore was in attendance with guests. Alarm bells should have been ringing in Sousa's head from the moment he woke up that morning – for all the progress, long unbeaten run and improved performances embarrassing Flavio in front of his guests and a live television audience would be professional suicide..
I was invited before the match to view a presentation by Andy Evans and the excellent Football in the Community team in one of our newly refurbished boxes. They are certainly a lot more plush than when I was last down there several years ago, although I cannot say I cared much for the pictures of Naomi sodding Campbell on the walls. One of the highlights of the season for me has been the emergence of the trust as a real force in the W12 area and the sight of the Downs Syndrome Tiger Cubs on the pitch at half time taking shots on goal was absolutely terrific – football can be such a powerful tool in a community like ours and the children really seemed to get a lot out of the event, chasing off on an enthusiastic lap of the pitch afterwards.
The pre-match meal was dominated by gasps and cries as scores came in from the earlier games – “ooh look Sheff Utd are winning, that’s bad news” and so on. I couldn’t really get into that to be honest because as well as I thought we were playing at this stage I didn’t feel we were ready or actually capable of making the play offs but, as Sousa said repeatedly, while they are there you have to try and at this stage Rangers had as good a chance as any – contrary to popular belief and statement, this is not a particularly good league.
I turned down the box in favour of my usual seat for the match and things started well with Sam Di Carmine, a player with whom I was growing increasingly frustrated, volleyed in an excellent Routledge cross from close range inside two minutes. Loftus Road was buzzing at that stage but QPR didn’t play particularly well after the goal and conceded a soft equaliser to Jon Stead before half time. During the second half things turned very, very sour indeed. Ipswich scored twice more, including one from a terrible piece of possession concession by Gavin Mahon who endured his worst game of the season by some distance, and won the game with something to spare. After Mahon’s error and the two Ipswich goals Sousa made two substitutions, neither of them saw Mahon leave the field, and at that point it was toy throwing time in the home stands once again – Mahon’s every touch was booed, supporters fell out with other supporters, then we had the farcical situation where our worst player’s every touch was applauded and Sousa was told in no uncertain terms by the QPR fans that he didn’t know what he was doing.
In my opinion, if he was in sole charge of the club and didn’t have a board of directors beneath him and if his manager didn’t have a long and lucrative contract that required paying, Briatore, embarrassed on national television by the shambolic display, might even have fired Sousa that night.
From that point onwards the Portuguese always seemed to be onto a losing thing. QPR’s form dipped alarmingly, the players’ confidence seemed dented by the defeat and the lingering bad feeling over Gavin Mahon’s treatment at the hands of his own fans hung over the club like a bad smell for the remaining matches. QPR secured an excellent 0-0 draw at promotion chasing Cardiff that Tuesday but Sousa was criticised by supporters for not throwing an extra striker on to chase a win, then when he did play two up front at Barnsley at the weekend QPR were absolutely abysmal in defeat.
This obsession among certain vocal sections of the QPR support with playing two up front has dominated the season. QPR have many midfielders of reasonable quality and few strikers worth a place in a team at this level – 4-5-1 makes sense a lot of the time, and some of our worst and most insipid displays this season have come when we have gone away from it. Only when Helguson is fit do we look half decent with two up front and even then, as at Barnsley, we don’t look particularly comfortable or secure with it. What most football supporters know about football tactics, and I include myself and Flavio Briatore in this, can be written on the back of a postage stamp in a thick pen and yet plenty feel able to hence forth with absolute bollocks masquerading as advice for people like Paulo Sousa and Iain Dowie who have actually achieved things in the game.
Lowly relegation strugglers Norwich won 1-0 at Loftus Road in a torrential downpour that Tuesday – a goal of such defensive calamity I could hardly believe what I was watching – and a dire but creditable 0-0 draw against Sheffield United followed. By now the dreaded “source close to QPR” was starting to pop up in the London papers tipping Sousa for the sack, and a campaign for his sacking was gathering pace on certain websites.
In my opinion Sousa was not doing himself many favours by this stage. The team was being changed constantly, I think QPR only kept the same starting eleven for consecutive matches on a couple of occasions all season, and at times Sousa had changed the side despite a good performance and victory the week before. Not only was personnel changing but systems were too – from a diamond to a 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2 and back again. However ultimately QPR were a top half, slightly above halfway squad at the start of the season and having lost Buzsaky, Vine, Rowlands and Agyemang for most of it and by this point Heider Helguson as well we did well to finish there. To be giving Sousa the stick he got, despite his mistakes, at this stage when he had inherited a squad midway through the season and was only allowed to add Spaniard Jordi Lopez of his own choices was ludicrous in my opinion. I still believe that. Sousa deserved 18 months in charge of this club before being judged.
QPR were shambolic in defeat at Doncaster, again playing 4-4-2, and then drew 0-0 at relegation threatened Southampton. The beleaguered Sousa had added/been presented with Spurs’ Adel Taarabt on loan at this stage and perhaps another mistake he made was not giving him more than ten minutes of that utterly, utterly boring spectacle. Taarabt nearly won the game for us in the ten minutes he did get and played a starring role as Rangers got back to winning ways with a nervy 1-0 against Swansea and a much more accomplished and classy performance against Bristol City. Jordi Lopez scored a wonderful free kick against City with Taarabt bagging the second in a 2-1 win.
The poor run of nine games was at an end, the addition of Taarabt seemed to have turned things around, but the campaigns and stories about Paulo Sousa continued to circulate. After consistently sticking to the line that Sousa had been brought in to build for a promotion push in year three of the plan Flavio Briatore was now quoted as saying the end of the season would be an appropriate time to review his position. In the end he didn’t make it that far.
QPR returned from the final international break of the season with another goalless draw against a nasty, physical Crystal Palace side. In the lead up to the game top scorer Dexter Blackstock was loaned to relegation threatened Nottingham Forest leaving Rangers with only the ineffective Sam Di Carmine to pick from up front. Personally, as I said at the time, if Forest were/are offering money for Blackstock then the deal made sense as Rangers had nothing to play for. Blackstock has, in three full seasons in the Championship, never once got fifteen goals or more. We have nobody better than him at our club, and letting him go only makes sense if the money is put towards somebody better, but Dexter Blackstock has much to prove and is not a young kid any more. Serious doubts remain about his ability to be a 20 goal striker in this league, or a link man to somebody who can score consistently, and even if he can become both or either of those things he clearly wasn't happy or effective in the systems we were using. He featured in five of the six games before his departure during which time Rangers only won once and he never looked like scoring.
Nevertheless the transfer attracted criticism, and after the Crystal Palace match Paulo Sousa washed his hands of the deal in front of the media saying he had little knowledge of it and it hadn’t been his decision. What Sousa did next may yet end up in court however according to a message board poster who wrote first on the official site and then on We Are The Rangers Boys while signing autographs on South Africa Road he made allegations about the fitness of some players, the ability of others and the policy of the board. That post was not removed by the moderators and was eventually picked up by the club. Sousa had his contract terminated for disclosing confidential information days later. The media reported that his comments about Blackstock after the Palace match were responsible, but as Sousa denies the allegations it’s hard to see how that could be the case.
QPR received massive criticism for this, the second managerial departure of the season – the club was branded a joke and a laughing stock by the national press. Flavio Briatore may, by his own admission, not care very much what the ‘£20 punters’ think of the way he runs the club but he cares about image. What followed was almost as embarrassing as the departure itself – QPR insisted that Sousa had not been sacked but “had his contract terminated to protect the club’s interests”, then wheeled out Mick Harford and Luigi De Canio to say that they hadn’t been sacked either, Dexter Blackstock’s agent with a statement that was such wishy washy bollocks it neither proved nor disproved anything said before and then published an interview in absolutely flawless English from Briatore on the official website.
The whole thing from the Ipswich game onwards was a pathetic embarrassment. The football was awful, the rumours and campaigns about and against Sousa reflected very poorly on those producing them, the timing and method of his departure was a disgrace and the legacy it leaves with regards to actually finding a decent manager to come here and work could hold us back for many a long year.
Gareth Ainsworth Part Two
So it was left to Gareth Ainsworth to step forward once again for the final five matches of the season. In his first spell in caretaker charge Ainsworth had stood on the touchline throughout the majority of his matches, kicking every ball and encouraging the players. At Burnley the Saturday after Sousa's departure he sat motionless and expressionless in the dugout as QPR, who finished the game with six midfielders and no strikers on the field, succumbed to a one goal defeat. For those that blamed Sousa for the lack of goals and attacking play it should be noted that QPR scored only four times in the five games after he left, and three of those came against a woeful Sheffield Wednesday side on Easter Monday.
That was a strange game. The atmosphere at Loftus Road had gone from angry and passionate to just low and resigned. There were chants against Briatore as Wednesday, easily one of the worst sides to visit Rangers this season, went in to a two goal lead but I'm sure the owner felt vindicated ultimately as the R's roared back with goals from Rowan Vine, his first after returning from a one year absence with a broken leg, Gavin Mahon and then in the final minute Damion Stewart. That was a superbly entertaining game, all too much for one fan who appeared to be preparing to streak and stood completely naked in the Lower Loft as the winning goal went in.
Thereafter Rangers were the ideal cannon fodder for Wolves (1-0) and Preston (2-1) in their respective quests for promotion and the travelling faithful had to endure the galling sight of other fans celebrating on the pitch at the final whistle. The final home game of the season was a dire goalless draw, the eleventh of the season and twenty third time Rangers had failed to score in a game, with Plymouth that was just about the worst game played in the Bush in living memory. Afterwards fans and players decamped to Heathrow for the annual player of the year dinner from which the players left early en masse and attracted criticism from many sides for their conduct on the night. It was yet another example of how the relationship between club, fans and players has become fractured over the course of the last twelve months.
QPR are of course still without that successor to Paulo Sousa and with the names linked with the job declining in quality day by day it is clear that while progress has been made on the pitch this season – it's hard to argue we haven't finished this season with a better team than we ended last – several things off the field have gone backwards. With season ticket renewals low it remains to be seen whether a decent manager can be persuaded to come and work under these circumstances and whether the relationship between club, fans and players can be repaired next season.
In LFW's regular 'This Week' column tomorrow we look at where we go from here and how Flavio Briatore can still use his influence and name to rescue the current situation.